Page 7 - Way Out to the Old Ballgame

World Series

the ball around fast enough to herd all the runner’s heads toward his
torso; then they’d have him corralled and unable to evade the tag.
The Writher had eyes everywhere, however, if not brains, and
could easily devise a strategy enabling him to touch one or the other
base while the ball was in transit. If the Arthrodonts had any new sort
of defense against this maneuver, it was not yet apparent. The second
baseman, who held the ball, started running after the head retreating
from first, clutching the ball between two twitching and protruding
lower teeth. The runner then feinted with two heads toward second,
snaking around the mono-directional pitcher with ease; that drew a
toss, no doubt based on the probability that two heads were a better
target than one. No sooner was the ball in flight than the Writher
jerked back his advancing necks and shifted momentum back toward
first base.
The first baseman now stood squarely in his path, so the runner
tried to arch around him to get back to the bag. The Arthrodont
turned away from him to get the return toss, so the retreating head
could not see the ball being caught; this, Bosconi saw immediately,
was part of a plan: other Arthrodont players were converging on the
play from all parts of the field. The Writher had to put on the brakes
and retract his head from first if the first baseman truly had the ball;
his next move would be to stick out his necks toward second in
another attempt to fake out the fielders, followed by a definitive dash
to first if they didn’t throw away the ball.
But the first baseman didn’t have the ball, and the crowd of
Arthrodont defenders had disposed themselves in a pattern intended
to block the runner’s view from all angles. If the Writher possessed a
central processing unit apart from each ocular plexus, it had to be
blowing a fuse: not only would it be unsure of the first baseman, but
the pitcher and shortstop running toward him from second on either
side of the base path both acted as if they had the ball between their
teeth. The Writher coaches in their boxes outside the lines at first and
third screeched and howled, their cries jammed by a chorus of
Arthrodont snarls on all frequencies. The runner’s feet tripped and
tangled, while his heads darted simultaneously in opposite directions.
Bosconi watched as a head hook-slid into a bag with sawdust flying,

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