The Brooklyn Nine: Third Inning–Fourth Inning

He was in the Eastern District with the vaudeville theaters.

He passed Hyde & Behman’s and the Empire Theater, stopping to read the placards outside announcing the nightly acts.

Kelly drew a polite smattering of applause and Arnold leaned forward in his seat.

"...I reach out as high as I can and I jump as high as I can,” Kelly said, pantomiming the catch as best he could with his beer in lieu of a glove, “and I come down with me hand raised high in the twilight, dashing the hopes of the Brooklyn faithful!”

"...I reach out as high as I can and I jump as high as I can,” Kelly said, pantomiming the catch as best he could with his beer in lieu of a glove, “and I come down with me hand raised high in the twilight, dashing the hopes of the Brooklyn faithful!”

“Yeah, and the bartenders got the rest!” someone heckled.

At the second-floor landing, Kelly roused for a moment and seemed almost lucid.

He struggled with his long coat, the removal of his arms giving him particular problems in his inebriated state.

He talks like he still does, just like he keeps me around, to make people think he’s still rich. But he squandered all his money, and now he...pays my meager salary with these vaudeville shows.

He talks like he still does, just like he keeps me around, to make people think he’s still rich. But he squandered all his money, and now he...pays my meager salary with these vaudeville shows.

“I lived in Boston for twenty-five years before this sot hired me to carry his bags for him.”

Hiroshi afforded his employer a disdainful look and went back to feeding the monkey.

I grew so tired of private eyes watching me every move that I decked one at the train station before I alighted.

“And just where is that two-thousand-dollar salary now? The three-thousand-dollar ‘bonus’ for the use of your likeness? The endorsement fees for the King Kelly bats, the ‘Slide, Kelly, Slide’ sled, the shoe polish with your name on the can?”

“And just where is that two-thousand-dollar salary now? The three-thousand-dollar ‘bonus’ for the use of your likeness? The endorsement fees for the King Kelly bats, the ‘Slide, Kelly, Slide’ sled, the shoe polish with your name on the can?”

After a time Kelly strolled out of the bathhouse looking positively regal.

“Freddy was a proponent of ‘inside baseball.’ Do ye know what that is? So-called ‘scientific baseball.’ He even wrote a book on it.”

It was heavy, like a great mitten with a leather- clad lump of stuffing forming a U along the base of the palm.

The ticket taker gave him a piercing look with his one good eye, then let him go.

The Grooms were already taking batting practice, and Arnold searched for King Kelly and Dave “Scissors” Foutz, Brooklyn’s left fielder and manager. He didn’t see Kelly, but Foutz stood near the dugout making out a lineup card.

Arnold walked back toward Kelly’s boardinghouse in the vain hope that he might see Kelly, or one of the other performers, or find some clue as to where he’d gone.

There was a small but enthusiastic crowd of hotel guests watching the game—gentlemen dressed in suits and hats, and ladies wearing extravagant summer dresses, all lounging on reclining beach chairs under umbrellas while colored waiters served them drinks and treats.

The runner on second base danced back and forth trying to rattle the pitcher, waving his arms and making silly sounds that made the hotel guests titter with laughter.

He gave the same appraising eye to Walter’s parents as he had to the boy.

“The concierge was kind enough to recommend the West Brighton Hotel,” Walter’s mother said.

Walter’s mother avoided the argument by unpacking their bags into the bureaus in the room.

The colored waiters were still at their game, and Walter found a discreet place to sit and watch.

There were more antics—coaches goading players into stealing bases, players speaking what sounded like Spanish, trick throws, hidden balls, primitive acrobatics.

There were more antics—coaches goading players into stealing bases, players speaking what sounded like Spanish, trick throws, hidden balls, primitive acrobatics.

What an addition this pitcher would make to the Brooklyn Superbas! Despite their superlative name the team was truly mediocre, finishing fifth in the National League the last two seasons.

Screams and laughter came from Steeplechase Park, where people rode mechanical horses around a great railed track, pings and dings rose from the arcade games, and everywhere barkers called out, trying to get people to drop a dime on their show, their ride, their attraction.

Competing with the barkers were the soul savers, railing against the sins and depravation across the street.

The Salvation Army, the American Temperance Society, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Templars of Honor and Temperance, the Anti-Saloon League. They camped out on the boardwalk in their sandwich boards and uniforms and hurled warnings and damnation at all who passed.

“Alcohol is an abomination, a plague on our cities and our communities and our families!”

He was disappointed to find that it wasn’t a real moving picture show, just one of those gimmicks where they set slides in front of a projection bulb and show them on a big screen.

He had a long drawl like Nap Rucker, the Superba pitcher from Georgia.

“All them white folks, they know we’re colored. But if the hotel tells them we’re Cuban they can pretend we’re Cuban so they don’t have to fess up to watching Negros play ball, see? That way they can all sit there and drink their mint juleps and enjoy a nice afternoon of baseball without having to get all riled up about it.”

Thousands of guests ate brunch, the noise from their chattering like the hubbub at a ballpark.

Donovan looked up at the team as if gauging them.

When he was little, he had thought there was treasure there, Spanish gold or pirate plunder.