“Yall better git a seat,” I said. “Them bleachers is fillin up fast.”

“Wont be much to see,” Talcott said. “Davidson will kick your ass.”

“Maybe.”

“Hey, I know. And I aint happy neither, cause I bet five dollars on you yesterday. Pricie like to clawed my eyes out over it. But Daddy here told me this morning they done brung in a ringer.”

“What?”

He smirked, pleased to be the first to give me the bad news.

“Look at number 21. Aint never seen him before, have you?”

“Mickey O’Malley,” Clabe said. “Sits the bench for the Philadelphy Athletics. Power hitter. Two homers this year as a pinch hitter.”

“They cant do that!”

“He’s a coal operator,” Talcott said. “He can do anything he damn well pleases.”

“Davidson claims that feller is on the payroll,” Clabe said. “Goin to dig coal first thing tomorry. Course he’ll likely come down with a sore back from this here ball game and quit the mines.”

“Me, I’m goin under the bleachers here with my buddies, drink a little moonshine, and kiss my five bucks goodbye.” Talcott patted my back sympathetically and went off with his daddy.

I told the boys. You aint never heard such cussing.

“We got to protest,” Doc said. “We got to leave the field if that ringer plays.”

“That’s what he want,” Sam Gore said. “Then he can say Annadel is scairt of Davidson. He can say niggers is scairt of white men.”

“But you cant pitch to no goddamn Philadelphy Athletic,” Isom moaned. “He’ll take you so far up the creek you wont never git back.”

“He’s just one man,” I said. “He gits four bats, maybe five. Ifn they aint nobody on base, we can walk him intentional. If they are men on base, well, we can score seven or eight on them, cant we?” I looked around, clapped my hands. “Well, cant we? We got eighteen offn Iaeger! We can get six offn Davidson.”

“Hell yes!” Isom cried. “Hell yes!”

They was nothing for it but to play them. The bleachers was packed behind home plate and in the outfield, and the fans was four deep along the fence down the baselines. The Justice Clarion had sent a sportswriter and a photographer. Our families was there, Ermel and Annadel, Violet with Gladys and Evelyn, Sam’s wife in the colored section in left field.

We come to bat first, and I knew we was shook. Isom and Sam struck out, and Antoine Jones, one of our town policemen, popped up to Mario Angelelli at shortstop. We was a gloomy bunch when we took the field in the bottom of the first.

Sam walked the first man, Carmello Angelelli, and the Davidson fans sensed a rout. Mario Angelelli bunted back to the mound and Sam throwed him out, but the runner advanced. Joe Tibbs, who usually batted cleanup for Davidson, swaggered to the plate and waggled his bat. But he smacked a line drive right to Doc at first, and Doc almost caught Angelelli off the bag at second. That brung up Mickey O’Malley.