I was a sportswriter on a Boston paper at the time, and I became interested in Mark when he attempted to run in the Boston marathon, They couldn't officially bar him from it, but they did me next best thing. They set up a special category for centaurs. Since he was the only known centaur on earth, he had no one to compete against but himself. There was no point in running at all, and on Patriots' Day he didn't even bother to appear.

But baseball was a different story.

Mark Eques had been ruled a handicapped person, and under federal regulations in those early years of the 22nd century, handicapped persons were allowed to play professional sports, so long as their handicap did not prevent them from performing their duties. I had to hand it to Roscoe Greene for coming up with that one.

An old girl friend in the Yankee front office tipped me off to what was happening, and I drove all night to reach the Dutchess County farm where Mark was living with Professor Hagger after completing his first year at Columbia. It was horse country, with the roads bordered on either side by neat white fences that extended back over the rolling hills as far as the eye could see.

As I pulled into the Hagger farm shortly after nine in the morning I saw that Roscoe Greene had arrived first. He stood at the fence speaking with Mark Eques. When he saw me he cursed, not too softly. "What in hell are you doing here, Danny? Go back to Boston where you belong!"

"Hello, Roscoe. Glad to see you too. Is it true the Yankees are about to sign Mark here to a position in center field?'* Mark Eques, his hairy chest bare to the morning sun, grinned boyishly and pawed the grass with his front hoof.

"I'm gonna play in the big leagues," he announced proudly.

"What does Hagger say about all this?" I wanted to know.

"Why don't you ask him?" Greene answered smugly.

Professor Hagger must have observed my arrival, because he came out of the farmhouse to join us. When Greene introduced me. he said, "So the press is onto this already!