Doug was, he believed, at that moment the most miserable person in the world. They were losing, losing the game they by all odds should be winning. And it was all his fault, or at least he accepted the blame. He, as captain of the team, had stood up for Goggles’ mechanical umpire. “And now look!” He gave Johnny an appealing glance.
Johnny didn’t want to look. Everyone else was looking; that is, everyone on the Hillcrest bleachers, and everyone was yelling: “Wide a mile!” or “Way below his knees!” “Take out that umpire! Wreck him!” “Strike! Strike! Strike!” They began chanting this as a refrain, and clapping their hands in a rhythmic accompaniment.
“Johnny, something’s gone terribly wrong!” Meggy Strawn screamed this into Johnny’s ear above the din.
“You’re telling us!” Doug shouted back. “Terribly wrong! I’d say! Bill’s out on strikes and all three were balls. Dave’s got two strikes now, and there—no—that tin umpire called it a ball!”
“There!” Meggy jumped up and down. “Dave swatted it. It’s a two bagger! Rah for Dave!”
Doug did not shout. He was glad Dave had made second. But he was sure he’d never see home.
“You can’t beat a crooked umpire,” he groaned. That the umpire was crooked he could not by this time doubt. Yet, how could it be? A mechanical umpire with an eye a thousand times faster than the human eye, set to call balls and strikes impartially, all the balls to be outside the plate, above the shoulder or below the knee, a mere thing of electrical tubes and cells, of wires and steel mechanisms, how could that kind of an umpire be crooked? Doug could find no answer. Nor could Johnny. He could only stand and stare.
“Johnny,” Meggy whispered, “why does that Fairfield sub always stand leaning against that post while our team is up to bat?”
The post she spoke of stood before the bench used by the visiting team. It held one end of the wire cable that kept the crowd off the field.
“Probably leans because he’s the leaning sort,” Johnny chuckled.