Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Mordecai Brown
Page 142
The ball came out of his hand looking like a mistake; too high, too straight. The batter’s eyes widened. Then, at the last instant, it fell off the table, diving toward the dirt like it had been yanked by a string.
The batter swung over it by a foot.
Weeghman Park erupted.
Brown didn’t pump a fist or shout. He simply walked back to the mound, collected the return throw, and waited for the next man. Inside, though, he felt something he hadn’t felt in years; the quiet certainty that he still belonged.
He got the next batter on a grounder to short. Inning over.
As he walked off the field, Tinker met him at the steps.
“Thought you said the clock never stopped,” Tinker said.
Brown shrugged. “Maybe it slowed down a little.”
“Not today it didn’t.”
Brown sat on the bench, listening to the crowd still buzzing. For a moment; just a moment, he felt the old glory settle around him again, not as memory but as presence. The Federal League might not last, the Whales might not survive, but on that day, in that inning, he had pitched like the man he used to be.