Lefty Righty

Fiction by Jim Siergey

A young pitcher’s career is shaped by politics and zoology….

Baseball season is upon us and I find my thoughts drifting back to a forgotten ballplayer from the 1970s.

I don’t recall his name. It was Daltry or Daugherty or Delancey — something like that. But I do remember his nickname.

It was Dart.

He was a pitcher, and the epithet was hung on him because he threw so hard that the ball flew by the batter like a dart, nestling in the bull’s-eye of the catcher’s mitt.

Dart was one of those rocket-armed phenoms, signed out of high school and on the mound for his major league debut before he was 19 years of age. An auspicious debut it was, because he threw a one-hit shutout. It was a great beginning for what many baseball insiders predicted would be a Hall of Fame career.

Unfortunately, his sudden notoriety also piqued the interest of the Draft Board.

The Vietnam War was still going on, and Dart had wanted no part of it. When he received his induction papers into the United States Army, he simply ignored them.

When the authorities finally came sniffing around for him, Dart hightailed it to Canada. He officially became a “draft dodger.”

Despite his ignominious retreat, the kid was so talented that it was hard for at least one major league owner to ignore it. He wasn’t in Canada very long before he was signed by the Montreal Expos and added to the roster.

Even though he could only pitch in games played at their home field in Montreal, the management felt he was well worth his spot on the team since he was so damned good. He rewarded their risky confidence by winning the majority of games he pitched there.

Other owners, as well as the U.S. Government, were outraged that this draft-dodging unpatriotic son of a bitch should be allowed to successfully play an all-American game on Canadian soil. Even the great Muhammad Ali was stopped from plying his trade for refusing induction. The prevailing thought was that Dart must be punished.

Despite legal as well as clandestine attempts to remove him, the youngster continued to pitch season after season for the Expos in his limited but triumphant role as a home field hurler. Then, in 1977 President Jimmy Carter declared amnesty, pardoning all the draft dodgers.

Dart could now pitch openly on American soil.

His return debut was scheduled to take place at Shea Stadium in New York. But on the day before the highly anticipated game, disaster struck. Dart was viciously attacked and beaten. His left arm was stomped on, twisted and broken in several places.

Conspiracy theories abound. Some say it was an enraged fan, an avid supporter of the conflict in Vietnam, who did it. Others say it was a thug hired by a patriotically incensed owner of a baseball team. Maybe even the commissioner himself, to save the dignity of the game, arranged this heinous act.

However, whoever attacked Dart was either not a baseball fan or just didn’t know his left from right. Dart was a right-handed pitcher. His mangled left arm would not affect his throwing.

The public disgust for this vile act combined with the unifying efforts of a post-war nation (not to mention the aspect of losing the extraordinary talents of Dart to grease the turnstiles at ballparks all across the country) compelled Major League Baseball to come up with an unusual compromise.

Since Dart’s left arm was in a cast, leaving him helpless to field a ball hit back at him, he was allowed to pitch that season with the assistance of a “helper monkey.”

The little Capuchin would sit atop Dart’s shoulder and serve as his “mitt.” Coincidentally and quite aptly, the monkey’s name was Mitzi.

Mitzi turned out to be quite an adept fielder. So adept that for the first time in the history of major league baseball, a Gold Glove award was presented to a monkey.

Opposing base runners rarely took a long lead off from first base or tried to steal, because the ever-vigilant anthropoid would secretly squeeze the nape of Dart’s neck, letting him know that the time was ripe for a pick-off throw.

Dart successfully pitched all that season with a cast on his arm and a monkey on his shoulder. He was voted the top pitcher in the league and bestowed with the Cy Young Award. Privately, the team gave Mitzi an MVP award: Most Valuable Primate.

Publicly, Mitzi the helper monkey reveled in her new-found celebrity. She appeared at store openings, on magazine covers and in television programs. She even did a stint co-hosting The Mike Douglas Show.

Dart was busy that winter too. The cast came off, and he worked diligently at rehabilitating his injured wing. By the time spring rolled around, his arm was all healed, fully flexible and mobile. He no longer needed the assistance of Mitzi, so he bid farewell to his little friend.

This did not bode well for either of them.

Dart was discovered one morning in his hotel room, strangled to death. Tiny fingerprints were found around his throat. The suspect list consisted of one.

The theory is that Mitzi had become so enamored of her fame that when she was unceremoniously dumped and removed from the public spotlight, the sensitive simian, well, simply went bananas. She showed her dissatisfaction by choking the life out of her former companion.

Embarrassed by how they handled his entire career, Major League Baseball decided that it would be in their best interest to erase all mention of Dart from the record books. They believed that the scar of time would heal over the deception and the exploits of the draft-dodging, monkey-helpered pitcher would eventually be forgotten.

But some of us remember. Oh yes, some of us remember.

©2012 Jim Siergey