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My Big Day---Paul Dean

HARRY RUMBERGER

IHAD played seventy games in Bush Stadium this year, but somehow
the stands, the playing field, and the rustic speaker had all changed.
The whole arena was like a pig-tailed tomgirl dressed up for Sunday
Church. In the breeze, banners flapped everywhere; the once shaggy
grass was now velvet; and the speaker had acquired the air of a base-
ball connoisseur. Here it was! The seventh game of the World Series.
All those seventy games couldn't help us now.

I stopped my rhythmic throwing to look around. Dots-nothing
but dots and specks. Green, gray, red, black-trimmings and decora-
tions for this giant tomb. "One of us is going to die," I thought.
"Either us or them and by God if I can help it, it ain't going to be us."

Some boisterious blob in a field box started shouting, "Let's get
this game on the road."

For a second I looked at him with my pleading face as if to say,
"What's your hurry? Jest sit back and relax. I'm the one who's
pitching this game. I'm the one who's going to be jumpy."

Then I turned to Gabby and resumed my warm up. "Boy, you
got it today. No trouble at all," he would say. But the words sounded
hollow. I had heard them too often before. Maybe I won't be able
to stop them. I tried to relax as I threw. "This has got to be it," I said.
"Relax, you can do it."

"Come on, Gabby. I'm warm," I shouted as I walked into the
dugout and over to the water cooler. Somehow, everything disgusted
me and gOl-on my nerves. The steel spikes on the cement. The same
old water cooler and the iron tasting water. I rinsed my mouth and
flopped myself on the end of the bench and leaned up against the cold
cement wall. I wanted to be alone; I wanted to think.

Down at the other end of the dugout Dizzy's mouthing off again,
but nobody's laughing. Everything seems hollow. Everyone's scared
I guess. They don't want to think about the game.

Frankie Frisch came back from the meeting with the umpires and
shouted something as he trotted down the steps to where I was sitting.
The starters crowded to the top of the dugout steps and when Frankie
nodded, sprinted out onto the field. There was a rumbling sort of
noise that became thundering and then died.

I rose slowly and started up the steps. Frisch stopped me. "You
can do it. We know you can do it," he said.

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