I cleared my throat. “The slinky.”

“The slinky?” Jackie said. “What the hell’s that?”

“Go ahead, Alex,” Randy said. “Tell the man about the slinky.”

“It was his money pitch,” I said. “It was kind of a hard slider, but he’d sort of drop down and throw it sidearm. When he had it working, left-handed batters were dead meat. It wasn’t exactly a treat for righthanders, either. It would ride right in on their hands.” I stopped right there, because I didn’t want to ruin his story. I didn’t tell them that the slinky was once my worst nightmare, because when he started to lose it, he’d start bouncing it five feet in front of the plate.

“Buford fans on it,” Randy said. “And I’m thinking, This is gonna be easy. If the slinky’s working, I’m unhittable. I’m already seeing the headlines in the paper the next morning. ‘Unknown Rookie Throws No-Hitter,’ something like that.”

“I don’t like this,” Jackie said. “I got a bad feeling about what’s going to happen next.”

“Merv Rettenmund comes up,” Randy said. “I throw him a couple right on the corner, but the umpire calls balls. I’m nobody, right? I’m not going to get a close one. I’m starting to get a little upset. So I bring the slinky again, but this time I bounce one in front of the plate. The slinky’s a tricky pitch. It can get away from you once in a while.”

Tell me about it, I thought.

“So now I’m a little rattled. It’s a 3-0 count. I figure he’s taking, so I put one right down the middle. At least it looked like it was right down the middle. Umpire calls ball four and now Rettenmund’s on first. So I start yelling at the umpire and the umpire is looking at me like he wants to run me. Two batters, and I’m already this close to being ejected. So Freehan comes out to talk to me, says, ‘Everything’s okay. Calm down, kid, relax. Don’t let the umpire get to you,’ and all that.”