[legendsport]

Berkeley, CA: July 4, 1929:

"I thought the weather was supposedly pleasant here?" Bobby Barrell complained. The mercury had to be pushing triple-digits as he stood on the first base line with his team mates. He pulled the cap off his head and mopped the sweat off his brow.

Independence Day festivities were well underway at Berkeley Community Stadium, home of the Philadelphia Keystones' Class B affiliate Berkeley Bears.

"The only people I think have it worse than us are those high school kids," Bobby heard from his left. The speaker was Jim Webb, the 23-year-old first baseman who had clouted a C-O-W League record 59 homers the year before and was displaying prodigious power again... but for some reason seemed destined to never climb the ladder to the top. Sitting on top of the Keystones' pyramid of first basemen was, of course, Rankin Kellogg.

Bobby looked at the Berkeley High School Marching Band, and yeah, his heart went out to them. As someone who just a year before had been in high school himself, Bobby could relate to the sweating band members whose uniforms were certainly warmer than the wool baseball uniform he and his team mates were wearing. And to make matters worse, they had those, tall, feather-bedecked whatchamacallits on their heads.

"What are those hats called?" Bobby asked Webb.

"I think they're called 'shakos' or something. Looks like something Napoleon's army would have worn," Webb replied. Webb, though only 23, was one of the older players on the team and was also surprisingly intelligent for a ballplayer (Bobby had already run into some astonishingly dim players in his short career). Most guys knew - and cared - about three things: baseball, food, and girls - and not necessarily in that order.

The mayor led everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a large and sweat-drenched woman from the Chamber of Commerce belting out a slightly off-key rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" and then finally everyone was able to get off the field and Bobby and his team mates sought out the shade of the dugout while the club's ancient groundskeeper made a cursory sweep of the infield dirt which had been somewhat scarred by the marching band.

Bobby sighed and asked, "Just how hot is it, anyway?"

Webb and third baseman Fred Boyer looked at each other. They both shrugged, but Webb ventured a guess. "I'd say maybe a hundred."

"I'm from Georgia, and it gets hot there too. But this is like a blast oven," Bobby complained.

"Ah... you're young. Shut up, quit complaining and let's take it out on the Mounties. The sun's just as hot on those fellows as it is on us."

Bobby swallowed. This salvo had been fired from the lips of the team's manager, Howie Williams. Williams was a grumpy, cantakerous cuss who had been demoted from Class A Allentown and liked taking it out on his players.

Bobby nodded and then looked at Webb and rolled his eyes. Webb's mouth was set in a straight line - he didn't like Williams and the feeling was mutual. If it wasn't for a direct order out of the GM's office in Philly, Webb, despite his power, probably would be sitting on the bench most days. Howie Williams was a disciple of the "dead ball" style of play. His favorite saying was "Get 'em on, move 'em over. I learned that from Walter Love, and that man won over 2000 games in FABL."

After hearing this for the umpeenth time, Webb had whispered to Bobby, "Howie sure learned a lot from Love when he had a total of 19 at-bats in the FABL."

"Alright, quit yer lollygaggin' and get out there to warm up," Williams bellowed.

Webb to Bobby: "I'm pretty warm already... how about you, kid?"

Bobby fought down a guffaw, grabbed his glove and ran up the steps and out to centerfield.

Bobby had been enjoying a somewhat meteoric rise. The 'Stones had started him in Class C, which was the typical landing spot for an 18-year-old kid just out of high school. Bobby had lasted a little over a month in Beaumont. In 33 games and 133 at-bats, he'd hit .436 with 9 homers and 42 RBIs. So he'd been promoted to Berkeley, going from the heat & humidity of the Texas Gulf Coast to the supposedly temperate climate of the San Francisco Bay area. His average was nearly .400 here too, and he continued to hit the ball hard... and far.

Bobby was hitting third, with Boyer ahead of him and Webb behind him. The trio were precisely not the type of player Howie Williams wanted - they all could hit the ball in the air and over the fence. But they produced a lot of runs. The Bears were neck-and-neck with the Salem Warriors for the most runs scored in the league.

The Vancouver Mounties went down in order in the top of the first. Bobby watched the Mounties pitcher warmup and then studied him through the at-bats of both leadoff man Charlie Parker and then Fred Boyer. Parker reached on an error and stole second... which was exactly the kind of baseball Howie Williams wanted to be playing. Boyer, trying to go deep, struck out and Bobby could almost hear Williams' teeth grinding from his perch on the dugout steps behind Bobby.

Bobby stepped up to the plate. The pitcher was a first-round pick himself, drafted 13th overall by Toronto a year before Bobby had been drafted. His name was Bill Anderson and though he wasn't a big guy (5'9), he threw hard. Which wasn't necessarily a problem in Bobby's eyes: he loved a fastball with some giddyup on it. When you hit one of those good, it tended to land really far away. The bad news was that he threw eight different pitches - something Bobby hadn't ever really seen before. Not all of them worked all that well, though, so he figured that was to his benefit. Still, he hoped for a diet of fastballs.

Anderson scowled, rocked, and fired a sizzling fastball that caught the outside corner. Bobby kept the bat on his shoulder. "Nice pitch," he muttered to himself.

The next pitch was a curveball, outside again, and this time it missed to even the count.

Bobby took a deep breath and figured - hoped - Anderson would try to come middle-in with a fastball.

He did, and Bobby was ready for it. The pitch was a good one, it had a bit of a tailing action to it, so Bobby didn't connect as well as he would have liked. Still, he made a solid connection and drilled a rising liner towards right-center. It split the outfielders and Bobby busted it out of the box. He knew it wasn't going out, but it did hit the wall with an audible "thunk" sound. Parker steamed around third as Bobby made the turn at first. The right fielder, a guy named Ed Day, grabbed the ball and fired it towards second. Bobby came in hard, feet-first and spikes up. He wasn't trying to spike anyone, but Howie Williams had a rule: "you slide, your top foot better be up to keep the infielder honest" and Bobby had learned not to disobey the skipper. The throw sailed over the second baseman and came to the shortstop on a single hop. Bobby and the ball arrived at nearly the same time in a cloud of dust. He felt his foot connect with the glove and the ball was dislodged, rolling away. He heard the ump bellow "Safe!" and popped up, clapping his hands.

He saw Webb, walking to the plate, give him a small nod of appreciation. And best of all, Howie Williams was smiling at him from the top step of the dugout. Then he spat at his feet and the habitual scowl returned to his face.

From there the Berkeley Bears rolled to victory. Webb homered, Bobby went 3-for-4 and scored two runs to go along with his RBI in a 4-0 win that even put a smile on Howie Williams' face.

After the game, Webb said to Bobby, "Send me a telegram when you get to Allentown, ok kid?"

Bobby laughed and shook his head, but Webb turned out to be right. Two weeks later, Bobby was on the train, crossing the continent on his way to the Class A Allentown Cokers.

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