Belle of the Ball

By Norman Keifetz

Belle Fortman is a feisty, curious, intelligent woman who is determined to break into a traditional world controlled by men who will go to extremes to exclude herprofessional baseball. Against all odds, shes determined to become the first woman umpire in the Major Leagues.
In this endeavor, she faces obstaclesfrom setbacks in umpiring school to travails in her life and on the field as she moves up the minor league system, from tank town sandlot games to Triple A, longing for an assignment in the Majors. Along the way, Belle falls in love and runs into characters readers get to know so well that theyll feel theyve actually met them. The author has the uncanny skill to make the strangest, most unlikely characters seem so compellingly real.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514453841

Norman Keifetz

Norman Keifetz has published nine earlier novels, had plays produced, entertained readers of Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines as well as literary quarterlies. He is a surprising writer, a treat for readers who know his work and for those who come upon his writing for the first time. His work has been honored at book festivals in London, New York, Amsterdam and Los Angeles. The author is married to the award winning Mexican poet, Issamary Simmons Benavides. They live in New York and San Miguel Allende, Mexico.

Book preview

1

B ELLE FORTMAN STOOD to the left, slightly outside the ragged circle of men—two opposing managers and two of her… well, let’s call them colleagues in blue uniforms, the rest of her umpiring crew. These guys in blue were hardline; not what she would call gender-friendly. There was resentment. She could understand that. Belle hoped time would soften them. She could see they were trying not to make eye contact with her, pretending to be absorbed in the group discussion of the ground rules. But she kept her eyes riveted on them, willing them to look. The two umpires became aware of her stare at last. They stole glances at her at first and then finally looked her way. She winked at them when she finally caught their eye, forcing them to turn back in embarrassment and address themselves to what batted ball constituted two bases and what was an all the hitter could get shot. Belle thought both their faces had flushed.

The fans were pretty vocal for a mid-sized crowd in the Bougainvillea Burros’ ballpark. The novelty of a woman umpire in this Minor League city on Florida’s West Coast had not yet worn off. She was on an umpiring team in this town about two weeks before. And the crowd got a look at her yesterday when she was the first base umpire. Some of the fans had greeted her with hoots and whistles, cowbells and cymbals, and the same music makers seemed to have shown up again for game two of the series. She was still uncertain if all the howling, tooting and banging was in support of her or in defiance. Yesterday, just before the game the Burros’ team came out and stood along the first base foul line facing her. All bowed in unison, Japanese respect style. She smiled, returned the bow with a curtsey, said, I’m giving up two hits today. Who wants ’em? The players were clearly thrown, some managed crippled smiles, their eyes darting around. Sound familiar? she asked. They stared at her as though they thought she’d lost her mind. The players had missed the reference. She was surprised that this predominantly African American ball club did not realize that she was quoting the beloved Satchel Paige. Oh me Oh my. An omen?

The hardest of all umpiring jobs would be hers today, home plate. They’d told her and the other wannabes in umpiring school that the plate makes or breaks the man, er woman, because you’re on the hot seat with every darn call.

Now the coaches trotted back to their respective benches. Except for Belle, the umpires looked dyspeptic as they started to take their places. Did you ever have the feeling that you wanted to go, wanted to stay? Belle sang a line softly to herself from an old Jimmy Durante number. The umpires parted. Her colleagues grunted, then one smiled. It was enough of an invitation to Belle, That’s it. Loosen up, darlings, you know I won’t bite you. Besides, we’re going to need each other, right? The clamor in the stands started, then stopped abruptly when Belle shouted, Let’s play some hard ball! The crowd cheered, but then they always did when the home team took the field.

Trouble began almost immediately. The first batter took a wicked swing, but barely ticked the ball. It fell near his feet, and died there in fair ground. The hitter assumed it was a foul tip and didn’t move. When Belle made no call, the catcher scrambled out from behind the plate, pounced on the ball and threw to first.

You’re out!

Whaddya talking about? The hitter questioned, That was a foul tip!

Nope, Belle said, that was in fair territory. Take a seat!

Belle saw the batter’s manager, George Bah Bah Black, rise from his spot on the near end of the bench. Bah Bah had been a major leaguer for only a short time. In the parlance of the game, he had a cup of coffee in the Majors with the infamous New York Mets of the 80’s when it was said that almost the entire team came to work stoned out of their heads.

Bah Bah had the reputation of a crybaby. That was how he acquired the nickname. He was on the top step of the dugout when Belle turned and threatened, I wouldn’t if I were you.

It seemed a fair enough warning and, as the game was only one pitch old, the manager didn’t. Bah Bah sat down.

On the next batter there were two checked swings to decide upon. Belle called the first one no swing, but on the next one, she’d ruled the batter had gone through the strike zone and, as it was a third strike, she punched the batter out. From the bench, Bah Bah called, He checked his swing. Why dontcha ask for help from the first base umpire? It was clear as a bluejay is blue.

Because a bluejay only looks blue. It’s actually black, Mr. Black. Belle said. Let’s get another batter up here, and stop crying on every pitch! Something foul followed from Bah Bah’s mouth. Bah Bah Black sheep, Belle thought. On a bad day Belle would have tossed him out of the game. But today, she turned, assumed a boxer’s stance, and moved her fists around, as though challenging him.

All the players and coaches on the bench broke out in laughter and even Bah Bah cracked a smile. The crowd cheered her.

The home crowd cheered on when the next batter unintentionally hit a swinging bunt down the first base line. The catcher came out, picked it up and threw to first. The throw hit the batter in the back. The crowd groaned. To everyone else he appeared to be safe at first, but Belle called him out. He was not in the baseline. That’s obstructing the catcher’s ability to make a throw. Out, out, out!

This time Bah Bah charged from of the dugout. He was screaming even before he reached her.

Belle held up both hands. Yield not to misfortunes, kind sir.

Whaaa?

The game’s still young, Bah Bah. Don’t push it!

Give us a call, willya? You’re killin’ us. You’re cuttin’ our throats.

Now, now, a good shepherd sheers her sheep, she doesn’t skin them.

Good shepherd, my fanny!

Goodbye, Bah Bah. Now, can we get another hitter up here?

Bah Bah and the rest of the players, even the fans, had a tense if quiet time of it for the next seven innings. Belle called four plays at home plate, two outs, two safes, two for each team. The score was 1-1 going to the bottom of the ninth. Oh, of course, the batters on both teams complained that Belle had given the pitchers every call. Alas, in the perennial freakishness of baseball, the first man up in the ninth walked on four pitches. He was moved to second by another four-pitch walk. First and second. Bah Bah yelled out to Belle, You called those same pitches strikes for eight innings. Now, suddenly they’re balls? The lady umpire ignored him.

The next batter laid down a perfect bunt. The bases were loaded. Belle could see the young pitcher was rattled. He walked around the mound grumbling. Picked up the rosin bag, threw it down, briefly leaving a low-lying cloud of rosin. He was still upset on the mound because he promptly walked the next hitter, again on four pitches. The runner from third came home and tagged the plate. The Bougainvillea Burros had won, sending a happy crowd home.

A steaming Bah Bah waited for Belle, hand on hips. You blew the game, Belle. You’re the worst stinkin’ umpire in this league.

Well, you know what St. Bernard said, dontcha, Bah Bah? Belle asked as she passed him.

Yeah, now what?

To be born is misery, to live is suffering, to die is anguish.’ I think he meant a baseball manager’s life.

Bah Bah turned to the other umpires who were now near Belle. Is she nuts, or what—?

The other umpires answered as one, She’s different.

As Belle and the other two umpires were heading toward the dressing room, they said, again almost as one, Nice game, kiddo.

Was that meant sincerely or in sarcasm? She wondered. I guess I’ll be finding out soon enough.

2

P EOPLE HAD BEEN following her for almost a month. She was sure of it. They had tried to be clever, changing off, watching her from across the road, all sorts of strategies to make it seem that she was not under surveillance. She knew they had been watching, but she didn’t know who was really behind it. Perhaps just a bad crowd, trying to intimidate her. She would never have believed there were so many people against her becoming a Triple A umpire.

She had had earlier tastes of discontent in the lower minor leagues at the idea of a woman umpire, but nothing as intense as the reactions against her now she’d hit Triple A ball. She had received threatening phone calls, text messages, people had tried to sell her cocaine probably so they could offer evidence to the league that she had drugs. God, you wouldn’t think these nice people in Norfolk and the Eastern Shore would want to harass her out of the minors.

She had been on TV and radio talk shows—from Jimmy Kimmel to Steven Colbert and Chelsea Handler Live to Leonard Lopate and his New York and Company on WNYC. She had been filmed and photographed and interviewed by dozens of news shows—network, sports and women’s programs. Someone reported that she had made the cover of more publications than Cate Blanchett or Brad Pitt. All the publicity tools sought by Hollywood, not only celebrity appearances and even paper dolls, showed Belle Fortman’s image. But maybe, behind it all, was the Commissioner himself, the lord of baseball, checking her out, seeing how she responded to harassment, offers of drugs, various temptations, seductions, the radio and TV interviews, now that there was talk of her going into the big time. Maybe the Commissioner was having her watched. She knew they did that sort of thing in Washington. Spies, diplomats. Informal surveillance. But, God, she wasn’t in that kind of league. She was still just a minor league umpire. It was true there had been lots of talk in early spring that she’d be brought up this year, but when the season started she was assigned to Triple A, as a crew chief umpire. No big time after all. Yet.

Sports people said her latest assignment was a prelude to the major leagues the following year. But she wasn’t quite ready for this intense surveillance. Of course, she knew that being the first woman umpire in the big leagues would have significance for baseball and for other women. Once having entered this province of men at any level, she’d be judged as the measure of all women. She didn’t want to blow it for those who might follow her, or let anyone down. She’d always loved the game, in part because of the very rules which defined and controlled it, the rules she now had to interpret. Baseball was a game of individual wills and skills set free to create and, like a painting, the game was defined by the length of the canvas and controlled by the chemistry of the paints. And the rulebook was, in fact, what kept it all from chaos. It made the artistry of baseball that much more beautiful.

Some people thought it strange that a young biologist and science teacher should suddenly want a career change, decide at least to try to become an umpire. But it didn’t seem all that strange to her. She had always loved the physics, and the art and laws of baseball. She had been umpire for the fun of it for high school teams and Little League when she was studying chemistry and biology at college, and she enjoyed controlling the game, keeping the picture from running off the canvas. She liked rules that made the game special and she liked seeing them applied. She was not an especially good ball player herself, even though people who knew arms said she had a cannon. Umpiring seemed like something worth trying and a challenge more adventurous than a career in biology. What she hadn’t thought about when she made the decision to go for it was the intensity of the resistance, including a microscope on her personal life as well as her umpiring skills. She who had peered through the lens was now under it. It didn’t feel good.

She was certain now that the snap that she had heard a little while ago as she lay still in bed was the door lock or the window latch. What did they want from her, whoever they were? Perhaps it was the police. But they wouldn’t break into a motel in Belle Haven, Virginia in the middle of the night to harass her or plant drugs. If they knew drugs had been planted, they’d just knock on the door, present her with the accusation and ask her to come along. She had heard that ballplayers who had been on drugs and performance-enhancing substances were secretly watched by investigators from the league office to discover if they were sinning again. Were they watching her from the league office to see if she was worthy of being an umpire in the high minors? She found it hard to believe that that sweet man, Gilmer Totten, the Commissioner of Baseball, would stoop to watch her every move like this.

Belle Fortman wished she were dreaming; she sensed someone was in the room. She was in bed nude, covered only by a sheet.

Belle’s eyes were closed but she could still sense the figure moving closer. She sneaked another look. Maybe she was dreaming, but she felt the sheet being slowly drawn down her body. She just couldn’t lie there and let herself be attacked. The drawn sheet had exposed her buttocks. She tightened. Scream! Scream, Belle, fool, scream! Wake up the whole stinkin’ Belle Haven. When the sheet was at her ankles, she screamed bloody murder, jumping up, swinging her arms.

She was standing in bed, flailing away, cursing the intruder, when she realized she was alone. The dream again. She sank back down on the bed, bathed in sweat, only somewhat relieved that it was a nightmare, after all. She sighed, maybe she slept.

Then, in what seemed like only minutes, there was a knock on the door. She wrapped the sheet around her, unconsciously crossed her legs, asked who it was. The answer seemed to be one in need. God, who was this lunatic? She was in the city to do a weekend series at Tidewater, the Tides against Rochester. She hoped it wasn’t some local screwball. She hoped it was Zach Rein who was coming to Tidewater for the weekend. Hand on the doorknob, she called softly, "Zach-? from behind the closed door. Only when she heard his voice did she open the door. When she saw him standing there with his overnight bag, and his jeans and his dark blue La Coste shirt, and his powder blue sports jacket (he was so handsome in light blue) and those looks that reminded her of old films she’d seen of Tyrone Power, she pulled him in, closed the door, and let the sheet fall away. Welcome to the Eastern Shore. She saw him smile as he looked up and down and said: I don’t know, you just have the nicest toes. They’re not gnarled and the nails aren’t horny. There just so shapely and smooth."

You always say the nicest things. I want you to know I’ve just had a nightmare. You’ve practically awakened me from it. He was, after all, a psychiatrist. Who better to tell?

I’ve got just the thing for it, he said. He was still smiling. God, what a smile he had. It could make you do anything. He was tough and strong looking and the faint scar high on his right cheekbone only added to his virile looks. He once told her that his father had looked like George Raft, so she had rented films of the actor. She saw the resemblance, even if Zach had said that he guessed his father’s virility had gotten watered down in the next generation. My children will probably lose any trace of garlic and gefilte fish.

Shall I brush the dragon breath from my mouth first? She had both hands wrapped around the front of his belt.

Later, I think, he said.

Okay, Zach Rein, but will you have the guts to kiss me as a dragon—?

He didn’t answer because she was kissing him.

He could bring different colors to her mind and the sound of chimes to her head and then finally, perhaps like an astronaut, she sailed off to the moon. Up there she realized that what he did, really, was create a yearning and then filled it with a loveliness that did things you always longed for.

They had first met at the hatcheck stand in a Manhattan restaurant. She was there with a woman friend she had known in New Mexico who now worked for the Guggenheim as one of its curators. Rein was behind her and had pushed his arm through his coat, his hand landing accidentally on her rear.

Hey! she said, turning toward him.

I’m sorry, he said. He made a face indicating his embarrassment.

Just watch it!

"I’m sorry. That was unintentional. I’m sorry! He hesitated for a moment as he looked at her more carefully and said: Let’s get married."

That handsome smile of his was sweet and winning, He quickly asked her if he could buy her a drink. She shrugged. Why not? He was so cute.

I give you my promise, he said, I’m going to try to touch you anytime I can. he said.

He was darling. She was in love. Later she learned that he had been a doctor, a psychiatrist, and had worked with the other good doctors of Médecins Sans Frontières .

The State of California had swooped him up when he left Doctors Without Borders and put him in charge of seeing prisoners who were still on substance abuse, in the vernacular of the state prison system. He’d married in California, he’d told her, and divorced.

When she returned to earth, Belle nude, in the center of the bed, asked him if he had slept with his former wife a lot. He ignored the question.

Afterward, while he showered she sat in a corner of the darkened room, in a Yoga position, tears of joy on her wet cheeks, her eyes relaxed behind closed lids. She thought of silent seas, twenty fathoms deep, of caves so far down, they were empty of echo. But, of course, she saw that she could not detach from the external world because Zach was on her mind and she could still imagine him inside her. A former and brief boyfriend at the University of Texas at El Paso, a Zuni Indian, had told her that to achieve peace, bliss and illumination, one must first bear in silence the utter pain of freezing by contemplating polar winds, frozen tundras and ice caps as the concentration points. And then, through the numbness of frost, the soul can remove disturbances and uncontrolled desires. Belle let herself freeze.

Later when she had thawed and showered and they were sitting over coffee, he reached over and lovingly pinched her cheek. She had a strong, thin, but curvy body, bruised from foul tips the catchers had missed. And when he fondled her, he tried to avoid pressing those spots. She wasn’t a great beauty but she was someone you liked to be near. Her eyes were big and very blue. And while her hair was sandy, her eyebrows were dark, the sun usually having lightened her hair and missing her brows. He got up kissed her chin.

Do you care that I have these nightmares and that I have had them for a while?

That’s a question? Of course. Do you want to talk to someone about it—?

How about you? she asked.

We can’t. I don’t want to change what we have. I don’t want to turn into your father or your mother or your confessor. I don’t want any transference to deal with, but I think you should talk to someone, Belle.

Why? Do you think I’m flipping out? You think I’m losing it?

I think you have a hard job. I think being something of a celebrity is stressful, and I think being the only woman umpire in Triple A ball puts you under a lot of pressure. It can’t hurt to talk to someone about it.

She didn’t feel like talking to anybody except him just yet, but she took comfort in knowing that he was a psychiatrist and surely would not have gotten involved with her if he thought she was nuts or even nearing that condition.

Debating with herself, she decided to postpone telling Zach she suspected she was being followed. Maybe he’ll think that I really am nuts! She would pick a better time, she figured, knowing she had to discuss it sometime—and soon.

Zach was involved with her. Thank the heavens for that. She was certain he watched her carefully, studied her. He always wanted to know things, personal things, intimate things. He didn’t probe in a clinical way, never as a shrink. He inquired like lover, exploring details about her life with the same interest and enthusiasm that helped him uncover the secrets of her body. He would ask questions about her doubts, concerns, hopes. Was the umpiring school all she had hoped for, or like most schools, did she have to bring more to it than it offered her?

And he would ask the details of what to her seemed less important now that she was actually performing—questions such as had she been recruited to umpire school, or had she sought it out? Was it a whim? Or was it a dream she had chased? Was she recommended to the umpiring school? Or did she show up one day with her mask and chest protector? In this respect, Zach was not unlike many reporters who essentially wanted to know, ever since her first assignment, a la that wonderful movie line—What’s a nice girl like you doing in a dump like this?

She told Zach once, It’s odd that everyone is so interested in the practical details and less in the fact that I am here doing it.

Not so odd. That’s the storyline, ain’t it? At least since a guy named Kierkegaard. Essence preceded existence in your case, right? First God then gospel, wasn’t it? he asked. You weren’t suddenly born an umpire. People want to know how it came to happen.

One of the things she loved about Zach was that he gave everybody’s intelligence the benefit of the doubt. He didn’t ask if you knew this philosopher or that thinker. And if he used some reference that was unknown to you or you’d forgotten, he usually explained, covering all the bases. She had told him, of course, that things had gone