Sampson just stood there with the bat on his shoulder. Nobody except me knew what to expect from the big man, and even I couldn't always tell with him. The two of us had played a lot of ball together when we were kids. Sampson had been an all-city receiver as a junior in high school, but he didn't go out for the football team in his senior year. He was an even better baseball player, but he never played organized ball after Little League.

I stood on deck, trying to figure how he would play it.

Actually, there weren't any fences at the field, so he couldn't hit one out of the park if he wanted to. So what would he do?

The first pitch floated up to the plate, fat and juicy, but Sampson never took his bat off his shoulder. It was hard to imagine a more tempting pitch would come his way.

Warren Griffin was doing the pitching for their team. He was a decent-enough athlete, fielded his position well.

“Didn't like that one? ”he called to Sampson. “What's the matter with it?”

“No challenge.”

Griffin smiled. He signaled for Harris to come out to the mound. Brownley Harris was doing the catching, and he looked like a slightly shorter version of the old Red Sox great, Carlton Fisk. Pudge.

On the next pitch, Griffin wound up and delivered a windmill-style fastball toward home plate. He was real quick, what they call sneaky fast.

But so was Sampson.

He dropped his bat and sent a near-perfect drag bunt down the third-base line. They were so surprised, he could have walked to first base and made it easily. He was on, the bases full.

“Up to you, sugar,” Sampson called from first base. He was grinning at me, winking, pointing an imaginary six-gun my way.

I started to smile as I strolled to the plate. He'd put me on the spot, just like he'd planned it.

“You like a challenge, too?” Warren Griffin called from the pitcher's mound.

“You a hunter or a hitter?” Starkey taunted from his spot at shortstop.

The catcher, Brownley Harris, settled in behind me. “What's it going to be, hot-shot? How you want it?”

I looked back at him. “Surprise me,”I said.

Griffin set up for a windmill-style pitch so I figured he was coming with heat. What the hell? I thought. Just a friendly little game.

The fast pitch came in a little high, but it was close enough to my power wheel that I couldn't resist taking a whack. The bat cracked and the ball shot straight over the pitcher's head, still picking up speed and altitude. It flew over the center fielder's head, too. Our team of misfits was going crazy, screaming and cheering from the bench. Suddenly, there was some joy in Mudville.

I was on my horse, rounding the bases. Starkey gave me a look as I touched second and raced past him. It was as if he knew something. Did he?