THE BARKER TIEDOWN

The Swede delivered the ball and Andrew Jackson smacked at it with a nice piece of poplar that he had painted with a red tip.  The Swede pitched like he cooked, deliberately and artfully.  Each throw was carefully considered, the ball turned and smoothed in his giant hands.  It made Andrew Jackson furious.  He shouted and waved the bat over his head and stomped the ground.  But the Swede didn’t understand English, nor did he know the rules of bat-and-ball, so he took Andrew Jackson’s tirades as a necessary part of the game, waiting calmly for the theatrics to end so he could pitch, smoothing the ball and nodding his huge, melon head at the President’s sputtering gibberish.

The rest of the basetenders were house servants, mousey men and women in pressed shirts.  As their job required, they were deathly afraid of dirt, and of the President.  They fielded the ball with clamped mouths and jogged it politely to the appropriate base rather than throw it.  They thanked each other for the exchange with curt nods and backed away from each other while Andrew Jackson barreled along the base-paths like a sweaty horse, his wild hair clinging white-knuckled to his head.

Andrew Jackson charged onto the field and took the ball from the Swede, who wiped his hands on his apron and plodded back down to the kitchen.  Andrew Jackson screamed at him and the Swede nodded and smiled and kept walking.

“What do you want?”

He threw the bat at my feet.  It was a nice bat, smooth and balanced.  I wondered where he had found it.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“What kind of delivery do you want? A Philly topspin?  The old Barker Tiedown?”

“What else is there?”

Andrew Jackson scowled.  “I’m not saying,” he said.

“Did you make those last ones up?”

“Yes,” he said.

“They sound complicated,” I said.

Andrew Jackson held the ball at his side and glared.

“Well what’s it going to be?” he said.

“How about a roll-around,” I said.

“That I can do,” he said, and rolled the ball toward me.  It stopped well before the plate.  “You’re out,” he said.

“That’s crazy,” I said. “The ball didn’t even get to me.”

“No matter,” he said. “It was a roll-around, and roll-arounds must be hit before they stop or else the striker is out.”

“But I made it up,” I protested.

“That’s true,” he said, “but you didn’t consider the consequences of making it up, and so you’re out.”

“You’re a crooked ballplayer,” I said.

“That’s true,” he said, “but I’m also drunk, and as the President of the United States, I can give people medals for valor. I can give myself the Silver Stripe.”

“For what?”

“For getting you out on one pitch.  I’d say that was pretty valorous.”

“Is there such a thing as the Silver Stripe?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “but I think it’s a fitting reward for my actions on the field of play.”

“What do I get?” I asked.

He thought awhile. “I don’t know,” he said. “What do you want? The Philly Topspin?  Barker Tiedown?”

“What’s the Barker Tiedown?” I said.

He threw the ball in the dirt and it rolled to my feet.

“You’re out!” he shouted and raised his arms.  “The Barker Tiedown works again!”  He frowned and pointed a long finger at me.  “You’re not letting me win, are you?”

“Yes,” I lied.  He frowned deeper and his eyebrows built a tangled bridge over his eyes and moved a convoy of heavy machinery across it.

“Fantastic,” he said.  “I’ll see to it that you get the Golden Circle of Courage for this.”