If not for the skulls heads stacked in left center field and only one third of the scoreboard intact, this could’ve been Amazon Stadium on October 12, 2065.
Puppy burst into the clubhouse like one of Dale’s baseball demons were chasing him. The team fell silent as if their eyes were on a string between his padlocked locker and Ty’s closed office, which opened with a slow, theatrical squeak.
“Well look who’s honored us with his glorious presence,” Cobb snarled from his doorway.
Puppy squeezed the lock. “So sorry. I’ve been busy.”
“Well you are famous…”
“Damn straight. I’ve been killing myself promoting this game so all of you can play. Now open my locker.”
“Uniforms and equipment are for players who show up on time.”
“Open my fucking locker.” He whirled challengingly.
Cobb raged over with clenched fists. “Never talk to me that way again. I don’t fucking care how many cameras you suck off, you hear me?”
Mantle dragged the kicking, red-faced Ty into the office. Puppy glowered at Vernon.
“Warm me up.”
Puppy stomped along the foul lines, darkly waving past the barking fans and into the back of the bullpen. Even the skeletons were gone. An HG fighter jet whooshed overhead, singing the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction.
Jackson stared. “What’s with you and all that attitude?”
“Famous people can be assholes,” he said. “It used to be allowed all the time. Encouraged actually. I’m just tired. Sorry.”
“Ain’t me you gotta worry about.”
Puppy sighed knowingly and spun his cap backwards. “Know how to catch a knuckleball?”
Vernon didn’t like the sound of that. “What is it?”
“It’s a knuckleball which you don’t throw with your knuckles. I need a glove.”
“I don’t have one except mine.”
“If I take yours, then how will you catch?”
Vernon brightened at this little ray of sanity.
“Fine. I won’t use a glove which, since I don’t have a uniform, makes sense.”
The catcher encouraged this continuing logic with a vigorous nod and squatted, holding out his mitt. “How do you throw it?”
The first pitch fluttered over the bullpen fence. Jackson retrieved the ball, ducking under a car full of cackling dancing HG clowns.
“It does lots of crazy things, this pitch,” Puppy explained.
“Oh?” Vern rolled his eyes. “Can you control it?”
“I don’t know,” Puppy admitted.
“Then use your regular pitches.”
“I can’t,” he said between gritted teeth.
“Shoulder?”
Puppy nodded sadly.
“Can you even throw a change-up?”
“I can barely brush my teeth,” he said softly.
“Frecklie said there’s about thirty-five thousand people here,” Vern said helpfully.
Puppy winced.
“But they’re probably just here to see how the stadium looks, not to watch you.”
He fought back tears of pain, fear. “The stadium looks this way because of me, Vern. It’s a lot of pressure. Responsibility. What if I’m not up to it? Then what happens?”
A coquettish HG player in blonde curls and a long pink dress tapped her fingers over center field. “Hello everyone.”
The fans yelled back like an ill-tuned orchestra.
“Are you ready?”
More yells.
“I don’t hear you.” The player’s ears grew elephant-sized.
The fans turned it up.
“Then say a big Bronx welcome to Your. New. York. Yankees.”
The Yankee logo turned into a magic carpet which whisked the somersaulting HG into the scoreboard. The team raced onto the field. Vern gave Puppy a pleading look.
A pair of spikes landed on Puppy’s head. Then he was hit by a glove, uniform pants and a parachuting blouse, followed by socks and underwear landing daintily on his shoulders.
Mick scowled from the bleachers railing. “Ty may be a miserable piece of shit, but he’s still our miserable piece of shit manager, so never talk that way to him again.”
Puppy nodded, rubbing his head. “Should I apologize?”
“When he stops promising to kill you. Now get dressed.”
“He can’t throw anymore,” Vern offered.
“What do you mean?”
“His arm’s shot and he has to throw the knuckleball.”
“That true?” Mick demanded.
Puppy nodded, feeling relief in the truth.
“I hate knuckleballs. They make you look like shit.”
“He can’t control it, either,” Vern added.
“And he can’t catch it.” Puppy nearly stuck out his tongue.
“You both better learn,” Mantle threatened. “I was out late getting laid and I ain’t chasing line drives all day.”
• • • •
ZELDA DIDN’T BOTHER to pretend as if she’d just fallen out of her two-day sick bed. Glazed eyes, snotty tissue stuck in her pocket, epidemic coughs and hurricane-like sneezes. Nah. She bounced into the office with a cheery smile proclaiming to concerned colleagues that this was the greatest day in the history of humanity.
She busied herself in the office, making random notes on a marketing plan based on the battle-tested eenie meenie miney mo analytic school, joining along wih Mooshie’s new A Mound Over Hell album, blasting the music and her voice on the song Foul Balls.
“And keep on fouling ‘em off
Until you get me right.”
“Hi.” Katrina closed the door with grave concern.
“Katrina doll, how are you?” Zelda spun around in her chair.
Boar Face sighed. “This behavior is normal.”
“What, darling?” Zelda blinked slowly.
“This reaction,” she whispered. “The manic glee.”
“Did that happen to you, too, sweetie?” Zelda made a sad face, deeply worried about Katrina’s emotional scars.
Katrina nodded. “I felt like I was drunk.”
“Yes.” Zelda pounded her fist. “Or on some drug. Kind of how I felt when they took out my appendix and the anesthesiologist counted 100, 99, 98…I always wondered what 97 would’ve been like.”
Katrina frowned. “You can take more time off, Zelda. I’ll cover for you.”
“That is so nice. You’ve been so good to me, boss.”
“We’re friends.”
“But you went above and beyond. You didn’t just make a call. You went to the trouble of a whole plan.”
“I didn’t do much.”
“Come on.” Zelda put her elbows on the desk, eyes narrowing. “First there was the warm convo alluding to your previous, you know, condition. That lowered my guard just enough. Then when I was really vulnerable, the offer to help, the vows of friendship.”
Katrina reddened. “I meant all that.”
“Sure you did. Then offering a casual connection. A friend of a friend of a friend. But Dr. Watt’s a
