Next time at practice, I said, Gregor, were those your grandparents?
Like my grandparents.
And that girl, who was she?
No answer.
Like a cousin or something?
Yes.
Gregor, what about your parents? Where are they?
He just shrugged and started throwing me the ball.
I got the impression they lived in another branch of his co-op somewhere else, but I never found out for sure. A lot of what I saw on Mars I liked—the way they run their businesses together in co-ops takes a lot of pressure off them, and they live pretty relaxed lives compared to us on Earth. But some of their parenting systems—kids brought up by groups, or by one parent, or whatever—I wasn't so sure about those. It makes for problems if you ask me. Bunch of teenage boys ready to slug somebody. Maybe that happens no matter what you do.
Anyway we finally got to the end of the season, and I was going to go back to Earth after it. Our team's record was three and fifteen, and we came in in last place in the regular-season standings. But they held a final weekend tournament for all the teams in the Argyre Basin, a bunch of three-inning games, as there were a lot to get through. Immediately we lost the first game and were in the loser's bracket. Then we were losing the next one too, and all because of walks, mostly. Werner relieved Thomas for a time, then when that didn't work out Thomas went back to the mound to rerelieve Werner. When that happened I ran all the way in from center to join them on the mound. I said, Look you guys, let Gregor pitch.
Gregor! they both said. No way!
He'll be even worse than us, Werner said.
How could he be? I said. You guys just walked eleven batters in a row. Night will fall before Gregor could do that.
So they agreed to it. They were both discouraged at that point, as you might expect. So I went over to Gregor and said, Okay, Gregor, you give it a try now.
Oh no, no no no no no no. He was pretty set against it. He glanced up into the stands where we had a couple hundred spectators, mostly friends and family and some curious passersby, and I saw then that his like-grandparents and his girl something-or-other were up there watching. Gregor was getting more hangdog and sullen every second.
Come on, Gregor, I said, putting the ball in his glove. Tell you what, I'll catch you. It'll be just like warming up. Just keep throwing your curveball. And I dragged him over to the mound.
So Werner warmed him up while I went over and got on the catcher's gear, moving a box of blue-dot balls to the front of the ump's supply area while I was at it. I could see Gregor was nervous, and so was I. I had never caught before, and he had never pitched, and bases were loaded and no one was out. It was an unusual baseball moment.
Finally I was geared up and I clanked on out to him. Don't worry about throwing too hard, I said. Just put the curveball right in my glove. Ignore the batter. I'll give you the sign before every pitch; two fingers for curve, one for fastball.
Fastball? he says.
That's where you throw the ball fast. Don't worry about that. We're just going to throw curves anyway.
And you said you weren't to coach, he said bitterly.
I'm not coaching, I said, I'm catching.
So I went back and got set behind the plate. Be looking for curveballs, I said to the ump. Curveball? he said.
So we started up. Gregor stood crouched on the mound like a big praying mantis, red-faced and grim. He threw the first pitch right over our heads to the backstop. Two guys scored while I retrieved it, but I threw out the runner going from first to third. I went out to Gregor. Okay, I said, the bases are cleared and we got an out. Let's just throw now. Right into the glove. Just like last time, but lower.
So he did. He threw the ball at the batter, and the batter bailed, and the ball cut right down into my glove. The umpire was speechless. I turned around and showed him the ball in my glove. That was a strike, I told him.
Strike! he hollered. He grinned at me. That was a curveball, wasn't it.
Damn right it was.
Hey, the batter said. What was that?
We'll show you again, I said.
And after that Gregor began to mow them down. I kept putting down two fingers, and he kept throwing curveballs. By no means were they all strikes, but enough were to keep him from walking too many batters. All the balls were blue-dot. The ump began to get into it.
And between two batters I looked behind me and saw that the entire crowd of spectators, and all the teams not playing at that moment, had congregated behind the backstop to watch Gregor pitch. No one on Mars had ever seen a curveball before, and now they were crammed back there to get the best view of it, gasping and chattering at every hook. The batter would bail or take a weak swing and then look back at the crowd with a big grin, as if to say, Did you see that? That was a curveball!
So we came back and won that game, and we kept Gregor pitching, and we won the next three games as well. The third game he threw exactly twenty-seven pitches, striking out all nine batters with three pitches each. Walter Johnson once struck out all twenty-seven batters in a high-school game; it was like that.