The Prospects

By Kenneth Jedding

Al Duncan has been a pitching legend for twenty-five years in segregated baseball.

It's 1946, World War II has ended and Jackie Robinson is about to cross the color line.

Al can finally prove he's not just been the best Black pitcher but the best American pitcher of any color. But Al is past his prime and he doesn't feel he

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kenneth Jedding
• Release date: May 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781736344514

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THE PROSPECTS

KENNETH JEDDING

Copyright © 2022 Kenneth Jedding

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

E-book ISBN 978-1-7363445-1-4

Printed in the United States of America

For Bette and George Roy Hill

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

PART I:   THE PLAYERS

PART II:  THE SETUP

PART III:  THE CON

PART IV:  THE GAME

PREFACE

The Prospects is a story about race and Al Duncan is the heart of the story.

By the end of the war, Al has been a legendary Negro League pitcher for twenty-five years, no small feat. But he has also known, for all of those years, that he was not only the best Black pitcher but the best American pitcher of any color. He was unable to prove it because of America’s innate racism. Now it’s 1946, the year of Jackie Robinson, and Al can finally try out for the majors and show everyone who he really is. But he’s past his prime and this throws him back on himself.

What do you do when the country you love has never consistently loved you back, or your people, and now it’s throwing you a crumb? That is Al Duncan’s challenge. In response, he reflects the best of America, even though America has not consistently demonstrated the same grace to him.

Al is no angel. He has what might be called a very difficult personality. But as The Prospects unfolds, one sees, simply put, that Al Duncan is the backbone of all that is potentially redemptive about America itself.

PROLOGUE

July 1946

Al Duncan and Tom Anderson were hungry. They had been hitchhiking across Pennsylvania and stopped in Bethel Park. They came to a diner and sat down at the counter.

 The waiter slowly approached them. What will you have?

 Pancakes and coffee, Tom said.

 The same, Al said.

 A stack! the waiter yelled into the kitchen. He moved off and looked at them from a distance. Ten minutes later, he brought out a plate of pancakes and put them down in front of Tom.

 Al looked at him. And me? he said.

 We ran out of pancakes, the waiter said.

 Then how about some eggs? Al said.

 The waiter said, No.

 Al understood, got up and walked out of the diner. Tom watched him go and said to the waiter, Do you know who he is? Do you have any idea who he is? but the waiter just turned away. Tom got up and left.

 Outside, Al gave Tom a knowing glance, nodded, and they continued down the street.

 After a few minutes, Tom said, Al?

Yes?

 Do you ever feel like giving up?

 What do you mean? Al said.

 A year ago, in Germany, sometimes the fighting was so intense that I thought I didn’t need to make it back. That’s what I mean, Tom said. I’m still hungry and part of me wouldn’t mind if that diner, and that waiter, were wiped off the face of the earth. So my question to you is: Do you ever feel like giving up?

 Al, a forty-three year old Black man in America, turned and said simply, in a matter-of-fact voice, No, Tom. I don’t.

PART I

THE PLAYERS

Al, Eleanor, Tom, Katherine

ONE

April 1946

America had won World War II the year before.

At West Field in Pittsburgh, Al Duncan stood on the pitcher’s mound. Everyone’s eyes were on him and at moments like these, he knew he was like the sun and other people were of lesser consequence. They werejust smaller entities, little planets, little moons, circling around him.

His team, the Homestead Grays, was in third place in their division but what did it matter? He was the main attraction. He knew he was the best pitcher in the country—well, if one thought of the country as Black folks, because baseball was still segregated, though everyone kept telling him, hammering into his head, never letting up, never shutting up, that it wouldn’t be so for long—that baseball was soon going to integrate.

Are you going to pitch the ball? the batter yelled. Al ignored him. They were playing New York, the worst team in the division, and he was on the verge of a no-hitter.

Al took a deep breath, smiled and looked around theballpark.EveryonewasBlack:theplayers,coaches, umpires, ball boys, announcers and the crowd in all their finery—the men who all respected him, the kids who all wanted to be him, and the women, many of whom, of age, wanted to have sex with him.

The umpire, exasperated, took off his mask. Anything we can get you, Al? A sandwich? Some dessert? I mean, we don’t want to inconvenience you but if you wouldn’t mind pitching the damn ball! and the umpire spit, put his mask back on and crouched down behind the catcher. Al laughed and threw the ball for strike three.

The batter walked to the dugout and the next batter came to the plate.

Randall? You’re up? Really? Al said. I should be able to finish you off in no time, and Randall, the next batter, glared back.

Again, Al took in the stadium. Black folks here, white folks across town. That would be the Pittsburgh Pirates and their white players and their white stadium. They hadn’t let Al show them who he was, not when he was twenty, not when he was thirty, not when he was forty. Did they really expect him to show them now?

Why would I bother? It's too late, isn’t it? But Al didn’t like to think that way. It's never too late for me. I'm Al Duncan. He knew who he was.

So then, what was it?

The answer came to him and it seemed quite simple, really.

There were two factors. First, I have nothing to prove to white people. And then, this: I don’t really like white people.

TWO

Eleanor Jones stood in her bedroom and wondered,Am I too late?  

Then she tried to mentally change the subject.

She put on her dress, red, cut to highlight her small cleavage and dropping to just below the knee. She looked at herself in the mirror. She found her body to be particularly ripe but she thought, My legs are too white. I need to get some sun.

She moved her mouth into a smile but then she relaxed and, as if made of elastic, her expression moved back to its resting position, with her lips turned down in the corners. She didn’t like that. She considered covering it with lipstick but that would make her look like a clown. Still, she needed to do something.

Eleanorhadwaitedforherhusband,George,to come back from the war but he’d died in Germany. One year ago. Now he was looking at her from a photograph on the table where she kept her perfume and cosmetics. He was smiling as if he had his whole life ahead of him.

Eleanorlookedathimandwasheartbroken,asalways.Butlately,therewassomethingelse:She wondered who she’d be now. After all, she was only thirty-two.

She had a date to see John Ashford and go to a local baseball game. John, a rich man.

Pretty good, George, no?

How easy it is for you to move on from me, she heard George say, but he was just a photograph in a frame. Still, he had a point.

Then she thought of George’s friend, Tom … Tom Anderson … George had written from Germany that if he didn’t make it back, he’d asked Tom to look after her. She almost wanted to pull out the letter to see the exact wording but no, she wouldn’t. It was along the lines of Tom will take care of you.

Oh really, George? Is that right?

Eleanor walked to the window. People were laughing andshoutinginthestreet.Joyandcelebrationwere in the air, even then, a year after the war. Life was just beginning.

Not your life, George.

You’re one to talk, she imagined George saying. The corners of your mouth turn down.

My life is going to begin.

As a whore.

Totally, she thought and she turned down George's photograph on the table.

Eleanor arrived at the local ballfield in the back of the school. She was holding John Ashford’s arm and she thought they looked like movie stars.

  John wasn't a real ballplayer but was the only one wearing an actual baseball uniform. She found it to be a bit much. Still, it made John look well-to-do, as intended. She walked beside him in her red dress and red lipstick.

 Just then, she and John noticed a man asleep on the grass near home plate. He was wearing an army uniform. Look at this, John said and they walked toward the sleeping man. Hey! John said. No response. Hey there, soldier! John said, nudging him, and the man opened his eyes. You can’t sleep here. We’re going to play a game here.

The man sat up and Eleanor saw that he was Tom Anderson, George’s friend. It had been three years since she’d seen him. She put on her large sunglasses.

Tom looked at John, then at her the way men often looked at her, momentarily stunned and intimidated.

Then Tom stood, seemingly to confront John for waking him up, and he paused to look at Eleanor again.

THREE

Al was still on the mound and he found himself thinking about his life.

Al Duncan was born in 1903.

He was pitching to his older sister when he was five, was a star pitcher in the neighborhood by the time he was twelve, and when he was sixteen, three of his neighbors, older men who sat on chaise lounge chairs in the street, drinking coffee by day and beer by night, told him he’d be the best pitcher in the world before long.