“You think the operators dont know that?” I wrote. “They love to see the miner fill his head with such foolishness. They love to see him fret about anything except who will control the mines.”

So when Isom wanted to get up a team, I was agin it. It was a typical Isom Justice idea, pure foolishness with nary a bit of use to it.

But I couldn’t help linger by as they built the ballfield at Annadel. It took up the whole bottom above the whorehouses. They filled in pools of black water, cleared a mess of chiggerweeds and planted the whole thing with a scrubby grass. The fan-shaped ballfield, bounded by its wood plank fence, fit perfectly where the creek runs in hard by the hillside near home plate and falls away to open up room for the outfield. Centerfield is higher than the rest of the field, for the mountain begins its rise there and the ground swells up like they is something ready to bust through. I watched them build and was took with a hankering to play that centerfield. But I didn’t say nothing about it for two year.

Annadel plays in the Independent League for teams that ain’t owned by coal operators. Jolo is in that league, and Justice, Stone, Logan, and War, Iaeger and Davy down in McDowell County. Annadel come in third the first two year in the league and won the championship every time after that. The first season we won it all was the year I joined up, and maybe that had something to do with it.

Isom had kept after me to play. “Big as you are, I bet you could hit a few homers.”

“Ifn I wanted to,” I replied. I thought baseball was beneath me. But I went to the home games anyway. I was elected mayor in 1915 and it was my duty to attend all such civic functions. That’s what I told myself. It was a long time before I admitted I loved baseball.

In 1916 I attended a Wednesday night batting practice. Afterward Isom let me use his glove and he hit grounders to me. The ball jumped offn his bat with a crack and slid past me. I chased it.

“Dont worry,” Isom hollered. “I got a bagful. Git in front of the next one, block it with your body ifn you have to.”

“Hell!” I protested. “That thing’s hard as a rock.”

“Most it will do is knock your front teeth out. Then you’ll look like a ball player. Come on. Keep your glove to the ground unless the ball hops at the last second. Then you got to foller it all the way.”

The ball skipped off my glove and struck me hard in the chest.

“Grab it quick! Throw it back!” Isom screamed.

Furious, I lunged at the ball and flung it. It sailed past Isom and rattled around the wooden bleachers.

“Damn!” Isom said. “That there is an outfielder’s arm. But let’s try a couple more grounders.”