Chapter 28: Proxy War
TL: Hanguk
I only just found out, but apparently Lincoln's visit to the ballpark was decided right around the time I stepped off the boat and boarded the train.
Compared to a year ago he'd clearly moved up in weight class, but Lincoln still wasn't a nationally recognized political heavyweight.
If pressed, I'd call him one of the Republican Party's rising stars, known for his sharp criticism of the Dred Scott decision.
Even so, a Republican polemicist who was just starting to draw attention warmly approaching Mississippi's young Cotton King was bound to turn heads.
"What brings you here?"
"I couldn't very well miss a stage this exciting, could I? I hear baseball grew out of town ball. In my day, you know, I was quite the master of town ball."
Lincoln kept beaming, clearly in a genuinely good mood.
I briefly wondered if he was up to something, but no matter how I looked at it, that guileless smile was the real thing.
They say this guy wrestled in his younger days too. The man really packed his life full.
"But is it all right for you to greet me this warmly? You should be rooting for the other side."
"Naturally, I'm on Mr. Opdyke's side. But seeing that you accepted this match, I figured you must have something up your sleeve, and I simply wanted to come see for myself. Are those warriors behind you your plantation's representatives?"
Lincoln gazed with curiosity-filled eyes at the Sergent All-Stars lined up in a row behind me.
With this many white men gathered around, anyone would have shrunk back, but they stared calmly at the ground with eyes drained completely of emotion.
An emotionless armored column of destruction rolled up from the Deep South.
That was the concept I'd asked of them, and so far they were pulling it off beautifully.
"Fine builds, and they don't look nervous either. This might turn out to be an unexpectedly interesting match, eh?"
"Or it might turn out to be a completely deflating one."
"As it happens, our side keeps saying it will mostly end in a rout, so don't expect the game to be entertaining. Still, I count it a blessing that we even have an opportunity like this. Proxy war though it may be, clashing opinions this way does far less damage than settling things with guns and spilled blood. Even if everyone in the North curses your name, I am hoping for a fine match, so give it your best."
Lincoln offered me his sincere encouragement with a wry smile, then waved and disappeared.
And then the chieftain of the Fire-Eaters, Quitman, who had spotted me from afar, came scrambling over and clasped my hand tight.
"Sergent! You've come such a long way, well done. Was the journey comfortable? Wasn't that Lincoln just now? Why is that Republican trash pretending to know you?"
"The Northern side expects a crushing victory, but Mr. Lincoln encouraged me, saying a close contest would be a better sight for everyone."
"Bah! Ptooey. Playing the saint all by himself again, what a spectacle. Sergent, that's just how the man is, so ignore him. Whatever the others may think, I believe in you!"
His words were still crude and told you everything about the caliber of his character, but ever since I saved his life from that bout of dysentery, Quitman's attitude had become noticeably warmer.
He no longer excreted filth from his mouth about joining the Fire-Eaters every time we met, and, astonishingly, he even treated my slaves with relative friendliness.
"Ha! So these are the men you trained? Sturdy builds, for a start; those soft Northern boys won't stand a chance. Mm, mm, whatever anyone says, I believe. I believe in our James Sergent, indeed I do."
"Ah, yes. Thank you."
The fact that the vast majority of the people showering me with this unstinting support and goodwill are Dixies and Fire-Eaters... my situation is truly the stuff of legend.
At this rate, I'm scared I'll end up with a hundred Dixies who absolutely adore me.
What's more, every last one of them is a bushy-bearded middle-aged man.
Honestly, it was kind of annoying.
Come on, with a background like mine, wouldn't it be more plausible for beautiful women begging me to spare them just one glance to come flocking, instead of these old guys?
It's not like I'm ugly, and I'm not short either. If anything, I look better than I did in my past life, so why is every single person who flocks to me a middle-aged dude?
Or maybe it's because those old guys are always guarding my side that nobody else even dares to approach.
Yeah, that has to be it.
I lived out my entire past life as a hopeless never-once-dated bachelor. I can't let that happen here too.
I sent Quitman on his way and was busy plotting how to deal with this somehow when a loud voice suddenly rang out from behind me.
"Wait! You there, Mr. James Sergent! Could we talk for a moment while we walk?"
"Who are you? I'm short on time; I have to go over the final arrangements before the game."
"Ah, don't worry. I'm headed that way myself. I'm Henry Chadwick. I have the honor of serving as the neutral umpire for this match."
Right, that was the arrangement.
Normally a baseball game has one umpire as a matter of course, but everyone knew that doing it that way here would turn into a festival of biased calls, so one man was nominated by the South, one by the North, and one figure known above all others for his neutrality.
Henry Chadwick was that neutral representative, and he was a celebrity whose name even I had heard before.
If I remember right, he was called the Father of Baseball or something like that, and was even enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
"The reason I insisted on speaking with you before the game is to tell you that there will be absolutely no biased calls in this match. I've already conveyed the same to the other side, so there will be no disputes over the umpiring."
"That's a relief. This has become such a sensitive match that the moment a controversy over biased calls flares up, it could genuinely erupt into violence."
"We can't have such a thing happen in a sacred game. Ah, and just in case, let me say that I actually hold you in tremendous regard, Mr. Sergent. The Sergent Rules, was it? The moment I saw them, I let out a cheer! Yes, that's it, this is real baseball!"
Mm-hm, spoken like a man they call the Father of Baseball. A true connoisseur, someone who really knows his ball.
Anyone with a genuinely deep understanding of baseball couldn't fail to see, just from the rules I proposed, how deeply their author understood the game.
That must be why Chadwick was showing me such goodwill, too.
"I truly cannot wait to see how a man like you has trained his players, Mr. James. That is what I wanted to tell you. Well then! I have others to greet, so I'll go on ahead and wait."
Chadwick jogged off, all smiles, as if he really couldn't wait.
Watching him go, Leo scratched his head and sighed.
"Master, I suppose there are people on the Northern side who think well of us after all."
"Of course. North or South, they're both places where people live. There are absolute scum, sure, but naturally there are plenty of good people too."
"Both that Mr. Lincoln earlier and that Mr. Chadwick were hoping everyone would play a good game today... what is your intention, Master?"
When I glanced back over my shoulder, my players stood there quietly, their bearing saying they would follow whatever I decided.
"If we go all out, we could stomp them flat without mercy, but that would make the atmosphere pretty frosty, wouldn't it?"
"Yes."
"We could toy with them for a while and then win, but then those bastards might tell themselves they only just barely lost and never grasp reality at all."
"Of course."
In other words, how the mood of this ballpark played out rested entirely on my choice.
So what's the move when I find myself standing at a difficult crossroads like this?
Simple. Dump the decision onto the other side.
"It takes two to tango, as they say. Let's see the other side's attitude first, then decide."
"You mean you'll match your play to whatever course they choose?"
"Right. If they have the admirable grace to stage a hard-fought contest to save our face even though we're supposedly outclassed, then basic human decency says we do the same for them. But if this is a game that only ends once one side gets thoroughly humiliated..."
Then we simply grant them their wish, don't we?
And then came the moment when the two teams, having greeted the scores of VIPs, faced each other to swear they would play the game fair and square.
Opdyke, already looking half-drunk on victory, shook my hand with half-lidded eyes and whispered softly.
"You'll suffer a crushing defeat without even getting to put up a proper fight, I'm afraid, but you needn't take it too hard. A man must taste defeat in his youth. That is how he matures."
Ah. Yes. Is that so.
The policy was settled so swiftly it made my earlier deliberation look silly.
Back with my players, I relayed the opponent's wish, clearly and simply.
"Mr. Opdyke says he'd like to get utterly wrecked."
"Those are the words we've been waiting for!"
"We'll smash them as hard as you please!"
So you see, sir.
You really should have chosen your words more kindly.
*
It goes without saying, but the biggest names in United States politics did not come all this way just to watch some baseball.
Whether it's baseball, cricket, or town ball, what matters isn't what kind of sport it is.
All that matters is that the North, or the South, tramples the enemy and claims an overwhelming victory.
For the North, it was a chance to smash the Southern blockhead who had the gall to claim he could pick up their sport in a breezy two months, so that was good for them.
For the South, even if they couldn't win, just keeping it close would needle the North, and that was satisfying in its own way.
Honestly, with any other planter it might have been a different story, but the man who trained these slaves was that James Sergent.
The South knew very well just how uncannily James Sergent wrung profit out of his slaves.
If those brutal training methods carried over into sports, who knew? The results might be genuinely surprising.
And so, with the hopes of North and South converging on a single point, the players of both teams finally appeared, and the ballpark was seized by an excitement fit to burst.
"Yeahhhhh! Defenders of Liberty! Don't you lose to those stupid Southern blockhead sons of bitches!"
"Hope of the South! James Sergent! Stomp those arrogant Northern vermin!"
Listening to the deranged cheering, whose purpose was not to support the players on the field but to hurl abuse at the other side, Opdyke sipped his beer contentedly in the VIP box.
"What do you think? Isn't this a grand enough stage to properly humiliate those Southern boys?"
"The scale is certainly bigger than expected. The mayor of New York, Tammany Hall, even congressmen from the South. Though I do wonder whether those Southern congressmen even know the rules of the game."
"The beauty of baseball is that anyone can easily tell their side is getting pounded. The score will be posted right up there on that big wooden board."
Opdyke kindly explained the rules, in case anyone present didn't know them.
"So, those nine men take turns on offense and defense. On offense, a batter is out after three missed swings, and once three men are out, the sides switch again."
"Aha, so as long as the batters don't get out, you can just keep attacking without end?"
"Senator Seward, as expected! A senator of your caliber grasps rules like these after hearing them only once!"
Opdyke's eye happened to fall on the mug of James Sergent, seated arrogantly in a chair placed close to his players like some sort of team manager.
Honestly, anyone with common sense couldn't fail to know he was destined to be taken apart, and yet that impassive-looking face of his was somehow irritating.
It was irritating, too, that when this side had demanded strictly fair umpiring before the game, the man had chimed in to say he agreed entirely.
'Fine, just wait. Once the game begins, everyone will know.'
After all, the pro-Northern figures gathered here were expecting an execution show, a stupid Dixie who didn't know his place getting taught a lesson.
Truth be told, though he was an opponent of slavery, he had no particular desire to clash all that fiercely with its supporters.
The reason he had pushed so hard for this game was purely to lay a stepping stone for his climb upward within the Republican Party, which was pressing the antislavery cause hard.
All the more reason a dazzling victory had to follow, if he was going to squeeze a return out of his investment.
"Ooooooh!"
"It's starting! It's starting!"
And carrying all of Opdyke's fervent hopes with them, the eighteen players finally appeared on the field.
By rights, it made no sense for white men to play a game against a team composed purely of Black men, but this was, in the end, a fight not against the Black men themselves, but against the James Sergent standing behind them.
Neither Opdyke nor the Defenders of Liberty out on the field paid any real mind to the Black men they were actually about to play.
What would those pitiful slaves know?
Their fate was to be worked to the bone and drilled without ever understanding why, then dragged out here to be mocked by the crowd.
'Poor devils. Bear with it just a little longer. The nightmare will soon be over.'
But pity was pity, and a contest was a contest.
At the sight of New York's ballplayers taking their places at the plate, the Northern VIP box lit up.
"Oho! It seems we're batting first."
"Now, now, you said the sides don't switch until three men are out, yes? What happens if three men aren't out by the time it grows dark?"
Common sense said that would never happen, but surely a good ten runs or so would come easily.
Opdyke leisurely poured himself another beer and raised it in a toast as he watched the Sergent team's pitcher climb the mound.
New York baseball was, as a rule, pitched underhand only, but this game was under the Sergent Rules, which permitted overhand throws as well, and sure enough, the Black pitcher took his stance with a big windup.
"Heh heh heh, the form looks the part, but throwing like that, his control will..."
Thwack!
"Strike!"
"Huh?"
"F-fast, isn't it. Mr. Opdyke, do they all normally throw at that speed?"
"Pardon? Ah, no... I-I mean, well..."
How on earth would he know?
Like any other politician, all he had ever done was show his face at a few games and pretend to love baseball for the sake of his image.
But honestly, even to his eye, that was fast.
Very, very fast.
"That is, I mean, normally they all..."
Whoosh!
Thwack!
"Strike two!"
"The bat isn't even grazing the ball?"
The VIP box was close enough to make out the players' faces, so it was plain as day how badly rattled the white player now at the plate, Mickey, was.
"Mr. Opdyke, something is not ri..."
And at that moment, the ball left the hand of the Sergent plantation's ace left-handed starter, Peter, and bent along a trajectory that defied comprehension.
Whooosh!
As if mocking Mickey and his latest magnificent whiff, it was sucked straight into the catcher's mitt.
"The ball... curved?"
What is this? A trick? Or magic?
Having watched a ball bend before their very eyes, an incomprehensible sight, the Northern players froze where they stood.
And so the North's leadoff batter, even after being struck out at light speed, stood there dazed, unable to leave the box.
"What the hell is this."
Something... something is happening.
When Opdyke reflexively looked down toward the field, his eyes met those of James Sergent, who happened to be looking his way.
Those eyes wore an ominous smile, and they were saying.
The real fun starts now.
*****
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