smackenzie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smackenzie) wrote2011-11-18 12:13 am
smackenzie) wrote2011-11-18 12:13 am
Entry tags:
in which there is baseball
"If you lose it," she says, "you will have to replace it. Mrs Meara probably has a lot of work you can do for her to earn the money."
Sean promises that he will not lose it.
They find a field in the park and try to divde themselves into teams, but Aimee has to be bribed into playing and only three of them really know anything about baseball beyond "someone throws the ball and someone else hits it" – Sean, of course, Con, because team sports seem to hold a great appeal for him, and Luisa, much to the boys' surprise.
"Why are you so surprised?" she asks, laughing as James and Sean and William stare at her. "My nonna is a great fan of the Dodgers. She still cannot read a word of English, so my brother has to translate the sports articles in the newspaper for her."
There is some confusion as Sean, Con, and Luisa all try to explain the rules and then arrange the teams on the field, but eventually everyone seems to know enough of the proper procedures – namely that if you miss the ball for three pitches in a row, that counts as an out even if you didn't actually swing the bat – and is standing in more or less the right spot, so they can play.
The fact that Sean only has two mitts is more of a problem than the fact that there is only one ball ("A real baseball team has a whole bag of balls for each game," Luisa explains), because there are four people in the outfield, and trying to work out who is going to have to catch the ball results in several balls not being caught at all, because of the arguing. Aimee insists that she cannot catch the ball because she has little hands and it will hurt. William insists that he have a mitt because it is the rules. Con insists on having a mitt because he can actually catch the ball and will thus need one. Sean insists for the same reason. Liam says he needs a mitt because it will make his hand bigger and help him catch, as do James and Julia. On several occasions everyone in the field runs for the ball at once, no one catches it, and the person at bat manages a full circuit of the "bases" (actually the girls' hats and one of Sean's shoes) because there is no one to tag them out.
Luisa turns out to be a good pitcher but not that good with a bat, while Julia can hit the ball when she is at bat and catch it when she is in the outfield, but cannot throw with any accuracy. Aimee just stands there and lets the ball whizz past her. Liam can barely hold the bat, but he can run, and William learns early in the game that if he stands directly in someone's path, they are more likely to try and go around him – and so get tagged out – than they are likely to go through him, and perhaps land safely on the base. He becomes a small, determined roadblock. James bunts every single ball he manages to hit, but more from a lack of skill and arm strength than from any kind of strategy. Sean seems to know what he is doing, and every time his misses a swing at bat or a catch when he is in the outfield, he claims the sun was in his eyes.
Con is the only one of them with any experience, and even though he knew he would be playing with younger, smaller, and less skilled siblings and their friends, he loses his patience more than once. His brothers and sisters and Luisa are used to it, but Liam and Sean are both taken aback. Sean gets him back a bit by yelling "Catch the ball, you dappy maggot!" when Julia whacks the ball hard enough and far enough to make Con run for it.
"What did you call me?" Con demands, after Julia has made it to second base and William is waiting his turn at bat.
"Dappy maggot," Sean says, unconcerned. "Worked, didn't it?"
"At least he did not call you a cow," James offers.
"No, only Liam does that."
Liam grins.
"You are all terrible people," Con says, but he does not look too upset.
"That does not mean you can start calling people 'dappy maggots'," Luisa tells James and William and Aimee. James tries to look innocent, but from Luisa's expression he does not think he is succeeding that well.
They go for ice cream after the game winds down, and then back to the house where Luisa makes them change their clothes and Liam falls asleep on James' floor.
"Was the bed too far away?" Julia asks, when James reports this to her, in the hopes that she will wake Liam up and move him to her bed, because her bed is bigger than James' and more comfortable than the floor.
"I do not know," he says. "Luisa made me wash my face and when I came back he was asleep on my floor."
"Do not wake him up," Julia tells Sean, who looks as if he is about to. "You would not like it if he did that to you."
"He does it to me all the time," Sean says nonchalantly. "If he wakes up earlier in the morning, he kicks me until I wake up too."
"How rude, and how very like a little brother." She ruffles his hair, which makes him squeak with indignation. James giggles. He is pleased that his favorite sister is now treating his favorite person-who-isn't-family as if he were her brother too.
A few weeks later, in the middle of the week, James and William and Con receive a surprise from Matthew – tickets to see the Yankees play the Cleveland Indians at the Polo Grounds. James is just excited because the opposing team is called "Indians". The only thing better would be if they were pirates.
"The Pirates are a Pittsburgh team," Matthew tells him in the car, as Mr Sewell drives them up to the Bronx. "They play in the National League. The Yankees and the Indians play in the American League. Every baseball team in the country belongs to one or the other league," he continues, because James must look confused. "American League teams only play other American League teams, except for the World Series, in which the best team from the American League plays the best team from the National League. Last year, that was the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs. This year, I think it will be the Yankees and St Louis."
Con snorts. "Cincinnati Reds," he says.
"You think so?" Matthew grins. "Shall we bet? A friendly gentlemen's wager."
"The Reds vs the Red Sox. That is what I think."
"And I say the Yankees and the Cardinals. James? William? What do you think?"
William shrugs. He knows nothing about baseball and does not want to pretend. James votes for Boston in honor of Luisa's boyfriend Antonio, and Pittsburgh because he likes the team's name.
Matthew has gotten them seats practically right on the field, in the very first row. They are between home plate and first base, and Con keeps up a running commentary next to James as they watch the teams warm up and then take the field.
It does not seem very complicated to James – one player throws the ball, and the player standing on home plate tries to hit it, and if he succeeds, he runs around as much of the field as he can before someone tags him out. Con and Matthew teach him and William the cheers, and Matthew buys them all hot dogs and bottles of ginger ale from the young men hawking them up and down the aisles between the seats.
James is a bit surprised that Con knows so much about baseball. But Matthew's interest does not surprise him, because he knows so little about Matthew that everything is a surprise, and so nothing is. Matthew is nearly twenty years older than he is, planning his own home and engaged to be married, whereas Con lives in the same house and James sees him and talks to him every day.
This is James' first experience with team sports on a large scale, and he finds it very exciting. He has his brothers to explain things when he is confused, and he has a hot dog, and the weather is good and he is out of the house and doing something he has never done before. He wishes Julia were here, because he is used to sharing all his adventures with her, but perhaps Matthew will bring her next time.
"Why did you not buy tickets for Aimee and Julia?" he asks in the car on the way home.
"I did not think they would be interested," Matthew admits.
"Aimee would not have liked it," William says. "I think she would have been bored."
"But Julia would not have been bored," James says. "She would have enjoyed it."
"I wanted a day out with just my brothers," Matthew says, "or at least as many as would come. I did ask Lucas, but he was not interested, and neither was Marcus. Working too hard, the both of them."
"Whereas you do not work at all," Con mutters.
It sounds to James as if he is baiting Matthew – and James is familiar enough with Con's speech patterns and tones of voice to guess with reasonable accuracy when he is being difficult – but Matthew is in too good a mood to take the bait. But James thought Con was in a good mood too.
"I work quite hard, in fact, which you will someday understand. But I am marrying a sweet-natured, intelligent, beautiful girl, I am buying a house, I am making money and contributing to the general good – why should not take a day off to watch baseball with my brothers?"
Con just shrugs.
"Thank you for taking us," William says, and suddenly James remembers his manners too and chimes in with his own "Thank you."
"It was my pleasure," Matthew says. "And do not tell me you did not enjoy yourself," he says to Con. 'You do not have to thank me. But if I win our bet, and the Yankees go against the Cardinals in the World Series, you will have to do something for me."
"What?" Con asks.
"I do not know yet."
"And if I win, and it is Boston and Cincinnati, you will owe me ten dollars."
"Is that it?" Matthew is grinning, clearly pleased. "What if what I ask you is worth more than that?"
"If I lose, I will pay up. It does not matter what the payment is worth."
"How very generous of you."
"It is a gentlemen's bet, no? I am a gentleman."
James stifles his sudden laughter, because he can hear Julia's voice in his head snorting "Gentleman? You?" in disbelief. James loves his brother, but he would not quite call Con a gentleman. Mr Godwin is a gentleman. Con is… sixteen.
Matthew does not seem convinced either, but he just chuckles and holds out his hand for Con to shake.
James repeats as much of this exchange as he can remember to Julia later on, and she does indeed snort in disbelief at the idea of Con seriously thinking of himself as a gentleman.
"Perhaps he was just playing around," she says. "He was being sarcastic."
"He sounded serious," James says.
"Well, we will see in the fall, will we not, when he loses and has to pay up."
"What would Matthew ask him to do?"
"I do not know. Hold his tongue for half an hour?"
words: 1949
total words: 27,884
quickie research: baseball teams, the world series, the polo grounds
Sean promises that he will not lose it.
They find a field in the park and try to divde themselves into teams, but Aimee has to be bribed into playing and only three of them really know anything about baseball beyond "someone throws the ball and someone else hits it" – Sean, of course, Con, because team sports seem to hold a great appeal for him, and Luisa, much to the boys' surprise.
"Why are you so surprised?" she asks, laughing as James and Sean and William stare at her. "My nonna is a great fan of the Dodgers. She still cannot read a word of English, so my brother has to translate the sports articles in the newspaper for her."
There is some confusion as Sean, Con, and Luisa all try to explain the rules and then arrange the teams on the field, but eventually everyone seems to know enough of the proper procedures – namely that if you miss the ball for three pitches in a row, that counts as an out even if you didn't actually swing the bat – and is standing in more or less the right spot, so they can play.
The fact that Sean only has two mitts is more of a problem than the fact that there is only one ball ("A real baseball team has a whole bag of balls for each game," Luisa explains), because there are four people in the outfield, and trying to work out who is going to have to catch the ball results in several balls not being caught at all, because of the arguing. Aimee insists that she cannot catch the ball because she has little hands and it will hurt. William insists that he have a mitt because it is the rules. Con insists on having a mitt because he can actually catch the ball and will thus need one. Sean insists for the same reason. Liam says he needs a mitt because it will make his hand bigger and help him catch, as do James and Julia. On several occasions everyone in the field runs for the ball at once, no one catches it, and the person at bat manages a full circuit of the "bases" (actually the girls' hats and one of Sean's shoes) because there is no one to tag them out.
Luisa turns out to be a good pitcher but not that good with a bat, while Julia can hit the ball when she is at bat and catch it when she is in the outfield, but cannot throw with any accuracy. Aimee just stands there and lets the ball whizz past her. Liam can barely hold the bat, but he can run, and William learns early in the game that if he stands directly in someone's path, they are more likely to try and go around him – and so get tagged out – than they are likely to go through him, and perhaps land safely on the base. He becomes a small, determined roadblock. James bunts every single ball he manages to hit, but more from a lack of skill and arm strength than from any kind of strategy. Sean seems to know what he is doing, and every time his misses a swing at bat or a catch when he is in the outfield, he claims the sun was in his eyes.
Con is the only one of them with any experience, and even though he knew he would be playing with younger, smaller, and less skilled siblings and their friends, he loses his patience more than once. His brothers and sisters and Luisa are used to it, but Liam and Sean are both taken aback. Sean gets him back a bit by yelling "Catch the ball, you dappy maggot!" when Julia whacks the ball hard enough and far enough to make Con run for it.
"What did you call me?" Con demands, after Julia has made it to second base and William is waiting his turn at bat.
"Dappy maggot," Sean says, unconcerned. "Worked, didn't it?"
"At least he did not call you a cow," James offers.
"No, only Liam does that."
Liam grins.
"You are all terrible people," Con says, but he does not look too upset.
"That does not mean you can start calling people 'dappy maggots'," Luisa tells James and William and Aimee. James tries to look innocent, but from Luisa's expression he does not think he is succeeding that well.
They go for ice cream after the game winds down, and then back to the house where Luisa makes them change their clothes and Liam falls asleep on James' floor.
"Was the bed too far away?" Julia asks, when James reports this to her, in the hopes that she will wake Liam up and move him to her bed, because her bed is bigger than James' and more comfortable than the floor.
"I do not know," he says. "Luisa made me wash my face and when I came back he was asleep on my floor."
"Do not wake him up," Julia tells Sean, who looks as if he is about to. "You would not like it if he did that to you."
"He does it to me all the time," Sean says nonchalantly. "If he wakes up earlier in the morning, he kicks me until I wake up too."
"How rude, and how very like a little brother." She ruffles his hair, which makes him squeak with indignation. James giggles. He is pleased that his favorite sister is now treating his favorite person-who-isn't-family as if he were her brother too.
A few weeks later, in the middle of the week, James and William and Con receive a surprise from Matthew – tickets to see the Yankees play the Cleveland Indians at the Polo Grounds. James is just excited because the opposing team is called "Indians". The only thing better would be if they were pirates.
"The Pirates are a Pittsburgh team," Matthew tells him in the car, as Mr Sewell drives them up to the Bronx. "They play in the National League. The Yankees and the Indians play in the American League. Every baseball team in the country belongs to one or the other league," he continues, because James must look confused. "American League teams only play other American League teams, except for the World Series, in which the best team from the American League plays the best team from the National League. Last year, that was the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs. This year, I think it will be the Yankees and St Louis."
Con snorts. "Cincinnati Reds," he says.
"You think so?" Matthew grins. "Shall we bet? A friendly gentlemen's wager."
"The Reds vs the Red Sox. That is what I think."
"And I say the Yankees and the Cardinals. James? William? What do you think?"
William shrugs. He knows nothing about baseball and does not want to pretend. James votes for Boston in honor of Luisa's boyfriend Antonio, and Pittsburgh because he likes the team's name.
Matthew has gotten them seats practically right on the field, in the very first row. They are between home plate and first base, and Con keeps up a running commentary next to James as they watch the teams warm up and then take the field.
It does not seem very complicated to James – one player throws the ball, and the player standing on home plate tries to hit it, and if he succeeds, he runs around as much of the field as he can before someone tags him out. Con and Matthew teach him and William the cheers, and Matthew buys them all hot dogs and bottles of ginger ale from the young men hawking them up and down the aisles between the seats.
James is a bit surprised that Con knows so much about baseball. But Matthew's interest does not surprise him, because he knows so little about Matthew that everything is a surprise, and so nothing is. Matthew is nearly twenty years older than he is, planning his own home and engaged to be married, whereas Con lives in the same house and James sees him and talks to him every day.
This is James' first experience with team sports on a large scale, and he finds it very exciting. He has his brothers to explain things when he is confused, and he has a hot dog, and the weather is good and he is out of the house and doing something he has never done before. He wishes Julia were here, because he is used to sharing all his adventures with her, but perhaps Matthew will bring her next time.
"Why did you not buy tickets for Aimee and Julia?" he asks in the car on the way home.
"I did not think they would be interested," Matthew admits.
"Aimee would not have liked it," William says. "I think she would have been bored."
"But Julia would not have been bored," James says. "She would have enjoyed it."
"I wanted a day out with just my brothers," Matthew says, "or at least as many as would come. I did ask Lucas, but he was not interested, and neither was Marcus. Working too hard, the both of them."
"Whereas you do not work at all," Con mutters.
It sounds to James as if he is baiting Matthew – and James is familiar enough with Con's speech patterns and tones of voice to guess with reasonable accuracy when he is being difficult – but Matthew is in too good a mood to take the bait. But James thought Con was in a good mood too.
"I work quite hard, in fact, which you will someday understand. But I am marrying a sweet-natured, intelligent, beautiful girl, I am buying a house, I am making money and contributing to the general good – why should not take a day off to watch baseball with my brothers?"
Con just shrugs.
"Thank you for taking us," William says, and suddenly James remembers his manners too and chimes in with his own "Thank you."
"It was my pleasure," Matthew says. "And do not tell me you did not enjoy yourself," he says to Con. 'You do not have to thank me. But if I win our bet, and the Yankees go against the Cardinals in the World Series, you will have to do something for me."
"What?" Con asks.
"I do not know yet."
"And if I win, and it is Boston and Cincinnati, you will owe me ten dollars."
"Is that it?" Matthew is grinning, clearly pleased. "What if what I ask you is worth more than that?"
"If I lose, I will pay up. It does not matter what the payment is worth."
"How very generous of you."
"It is a gentlemen's bet, no? I am a gentleman."
James stifles his sudden laughter, because he can hear Julia's voice in his head snorting "Gentleman? You?" in disbelief. James loves his brother, but he would not quite call Con a gentleman. Mr Godwin is a gentleman. Con is… sixteen.
Matthew does not seem convinced either, but he just chuckles and holds out his hand for Con to shake.
James repeats as much of this exchange as he can remember to Julia later on, and she does indeed snort in disbelief at the idea of Con seriously thinking of himself as a gentleman.
"Perhaps he was just playing around," she says. "He was being sarcastic."
"He sounded serious," James says.
"Well, we will see in the fall, will we not, when he loses and has to pay up."
"What would Matthew ask him to do?"
"I do not know. Hold his tongue for half an hour?"
words: 1949
total words: 27,884
quickie research: baseball teams, the world series, the polo grounds