RULE OF THUMB

RULE OF THUMB

(From Tales of a Decket County Child)

By

Larry Eugene Meredith

“Strike three, and now the home lads get a last crack at it down seven to three.”

The radio announcer kept a tone of optimism in his deep, well-trained voice, but it was one, two, three and the home lads were out at the old ball game. But this time the pitcher struck out too.

Jim Welsh was the hurler who took the lost; only it wasn’t his first of the season. He was one and eight, and he needed help in the one he won. He got bombed every game he pitched and losing pitchers don’t stay in the Majors. When they are Jim Welsh’s age, they don’t stay anywhere.

The game had been a day game in August heat. It was night now, but still hot. Jim sat in the empty bleachers, dressed in civilian clothes and short-sleeve shirt, replaying every inning. He started many games in his career and won a majority of them, with a multitude of shutouts and complete games. He even had a perfect game to his credit. That was once upon a time and you could read about in the yellow scrap of newsprint he kept in his scrapbook. There was talk he might make the Hall of Fame once he retired.

There were a lot of good years behind big Jim Welsh, the six foot four lefty from Whitney Grove, Pennsylvania, a little obscure crossroads in the eastern corner of the state; a lot of pitches thrown since he broke in with Philly as a twenty-year old with dark whiskers on his chin. Now he was in his late thirties and his beard came in grayer.

Everything had been on his side until he fell on some wet turf last spring. The full weight of his large-framed body smacked down on his magic left arm, twisting and spraining it. He was on the DL before the season began. It was three months before he tossed his first game of the year, perhaps three too late. His fastball didn’t whistle and his curve didn’t break. By the mid-innings he felt stiffness in his elbow.

Jim sat in the stands of the empty stadium hearing old ghosts whisper to him from their haunting places under the dugouts. At lot of the great ones passed through here: Dean, Feller, Roberts, Spawn, Lemon, Ruth, and him, Big Jim Welsh. He was washed up now like all those. Dean’s pain and Spawn’s age and Robert’s poor run support had all caught up with Jim. He had all a pitcher didn’t need.

What he didn’t have, besides wins, was schooling. He knew no trade. His dad, a high school coach, a frustrated minor leaguer, saw and honed the talent in his son against all else forgetting even in the best there comes a day when talent fails.

“Jim?”

Teresa, his wife, came out of the shadows. She sat down and he put an arm around her. She snuggled against his chest and listened for the ghosts.

“Have any spoke to you?” she asked.

“I don’t think they really speak,” he said.

“Once you did. You use to tell me what they said.”

“I mean I don’t think they talk. I believe they get in your head.”

“I remember the ghosts use to help you.”

They grew silent and listened. He tugged her closer and kissed her atop the head.

“I heard one say this. ‘Faith and love are the greatest forces in the world. Those two things can face every batter the world lines up against them and turn all misfortune to betterment.’

“You think?” he said.

She smiled. They stood in the stadium and listened for a while longer. He could feel her heart beating or was it his? Arm in arm they walked across the grass, infield dirt and out the gate.

He never played upon that field again.

He was inducted into the hall on the day that stadium was torn down. Hard to say where the old ghosts went after that. Perhaps they were never anywhere except Big Jim’s head to begin with. At any rate, Big Jim and Teresa stood arm and arm often after a game. It never bothered him that the cheers were now usually jeers.

It’s hard to believe another forty years went by. Not many people in the newer stadiums remember Big Jim Welsh on the mound, firing his smoke and sending batters to the bench with their head cast down.

But a lot of them remember his booming calls behind the plate. He would chuckle about it and say his dad would be rolling in his grave knowing his son was an umpire. His dad hated umpires, but without an umpire, you wouldn’t have a game. Besides the elbow never pained and pinched when he called a man out or safe the way it did when he wound up and let go from the mound.

Teresa died before him by a couple years. He still walks out on the stadium grounds under the twinkling stars late after a game. He sits in the bleachers and listens.

And when she asks how he was doing, he’d say, “I’m the happiest man who ever lived by the rule of the thumb.”

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