The Brooklyn Nine

Michael’s team, Fulton Street Pawn and Loan, have not scored yet either. When back at pitching, Carlos and Michael go back and forth about which pitch to throw. Carlos wants Michael to pitch his curveball, but Michael does not want to. He realizes, however, that if he does not ever use it, it will never improve. The pitch misses, and the batter fouls it back. The catcher and pitcher have a meeting on the mound to discuss which pitch to throw because Michael does not want to use the curveball again. They manage to get the batter out. As the innings go by without Michael allowing anyone on base, he wonders at the possibility and the unlikelihood of a perfect game. The other players stop talking to Michael on the bench. David tells him that all of the fans are talking about his thus far perfect game. Michael sends David to ask Grandma Kat what he should do about a particular batter, and in the seventh inning, Michael’s team scores one run. Michael takes the scorebook from their scorekeeper and looks at the stats for the other team, reconstructing the pitches he threw from memory. He realizes that none of the batters have even gotten a full count.

Michael pitches an imperfect pitch, and a batter hits it to the outfielders, but it is caught on the fly. Nobody will even sit near Michael on the bench. David comes back and tells him that Grandma Kat just wants him to continue with what he is doing. This advice angers Michael because his tired arm cannot keep up with what he has been doing. The pressure starts to mount as Michael worries that he will fail in front of all the people watching the game. He calls time out, but neither Carlos nor any of the infielders come to talk to him. It is the ninth inning, and Grandma Kat will not come talk to Michael because, as she tells David, you cannot talk to someone who is pitching a perfect game. She is walking in the bleachers touching wood. Her only words through David are, “There’s a time and place for everything” (256). Michael feels lonely because no one will go near him. The last batter is up with a full count, and Michael realizes that there is no way to be perfect. He realizes that if he stopped now, he would be as close to perfect as he ever could be. He looks around and sees what a perfect day it is, and he decides that it is baseball’s day. This is not the type of day that can be repeated. This kind of day comes “only when it wanted to” (262). He realizes the outcome is not up to him, and he pitches a curveball.

Snider Flint’s home is on fire. Trying to escape out the window, Snider falls. Snider stays with his Uncle Dave as he recovers from his leg injury, and his father tells him how much the house meant to him and Uncle Dave because it is where they grew up. Snider’s parents want to rebuild the house, which will take time. They could have had a new place built in half the time. Snider is unhappy that he will have to spend his first year of high school at another school while their house is rebuilt. He wants his mom to buy him Mets jerseys, and he checks his fantasy baseball team while his parents are at work. Uncle Dave tells Snider to go to his shop when he has showered. 

Uncle Dave talks to Snider about how he is being difficult to his parents and that he must pull himself together. He tells him to find something he is good at, and Snider tells Uncle Dave that he is only good at baseball and video games—although he cannot play baseball because of his broken leg. Uncle Dave gives him a box of baseball stuff and asks him to figure out how much it is all worth. Among other items are “a moldy old catcher’s mitt, a used scorebook, a silly-looking beauty guide for an all-girls baseball league” (273). There is also an old bat as well as a dark leather ball with odd stitches. He spends about half an hour looking online and gives his uncle a list of prices.

The next day Snider sees his uncle ask someone for $800 for a 1963 Jetsons lunch box. Uncle Dave tells Snider that he did not get enough information on the items in the box. For example, he never figured out why there are postage stamps on the baseball bat. Uncle Dave tells Snider that he will give him 15% of any sale he makes on an item he researches. Snider notices specifics about the bat and that it has the name Babe Herman branded on it, and he sees the postage stamps. He researches Babe and realizes that he is not Babe Ruth. He learns that a man named John Kieran wrote about Herman and his team, the Robins, and he finds the stories hysterical. He learns that the tar stains on the bat were likely from tobacco Babe would spit onto the handle. His uncle gives him the name of a stamp specialist so he can learn more. The specialist asks him about his name, and he says that Snider is from the other side of his family. Snider learns that the stamp is from 1926, and he looks closely with a magnifying glass and learns that the bat was sent back to Spalding, the company that made it. He goes to the library and finds an article about how Herman said he was going to mail his bat back as defective after a notorious double play previously detailed because he believed it was his bat’s fault.

Uncle Dave says they have enough information to know it is the bat in question. They hope to get $1,200 for the bat when he lists it for sale. Snider wants to be more aggressive, and he messages someone on a fan site to see if he wants to buy it. When the man emails back, possibly interested, Snider second guesses selling it, but he agrees to meet with the man, Brian McNamara. He cannot figure out where the box came from, just that it was part of an estate sale of someone named Walker. McNamara comes to the shop and tells Snider he was at the last game ever played at Ebbets Field before the Dodgers moved away. After some haggling, McNamara buys the bat for $1,200. His father was at the game in question. His father is dead, but even though he lost his memory toward the end of his life, he could still talk about those baseball games with his son.

Afterward, Uncle Dave tells Snider that it can be hard to part with items after becoming part of their history, even if he is only part of it for a brief while, but Uncle Dave knows the man should have it because it means a lot to him. Snider realizes that this is how the house is to his parents. Snider cannot find information about a lot of the items like the champion little league team, some baseball cards, and a Brooklyn cap, but he knows that the ball is from the 19th century and that the inside of the ball is worn, making him think that it could be shoe leather. He knows that the ball was much loved because it is so worn. He believes the ball is worthless, but Uncle Dave reminds him that it is worth something to the man who had it and who died with it. He traces his fingers over the S and decides that the S now stands for Snider.