You're not listening to WTB, AM 1450 in Zwischen, for the simple reason that it's not broadcasting the game. Someone else is watching TV, so you follow along this pitch-by-pitch display thing online.
It's been a good week for baseball, you think. Well, other than Harry Kowallis' death, but...he was old. And the Zebras are doing well. This game had been close for a while; Mercer had hit a double to left to score Aleplow, yeah, but City of Norfolk had tied it right back up. It was maybe a little too close for comfort for the next few innings. But it's not about comfort, is it, all the time? Sometimes it's about being exciting.
Then, finally, right before the stretch, they took the lead. Meg Hietala had drawn a walk, and Aleplow and Ida Pratt had singled. Hietala scored, and the Zebras led once again. Took them long enough.
Although it is sort of quiet now, without the radio. You take out your mp3 player and put it on random play.
And there's his voice in your ears. Marshall Avilez. The voice of the Senators.
"Butendler steps to the plate," says Avilez. Said Avilez. You look down at your screen, though you don't need to; you know this one. Mustangs 6, Senators 2. Or, as Zwangzug remembers it, Kowallis' Hot Dog Game.
Well, actually, the real Hot Dog Game never happened. It would have been decades before. But the broadcast you hear again is the one people recorded, people played back.
Strange, really, that it's the random track that comes up. You have 238 of them and this just happens to be the one you were thinking of before.
Although...
This has happened before. At work, in the offseason, with nothing but the headphones in your ears alongside you for hours, you've somehow thought of the song that's coming before it comes. More than once.
And as you listen, reliving the half-inning that happened before you were born, Norona hits a batter, and a double ties up the game. Pratt reaches in the top of the ninth, but Mercer can't bring her home.
It's a little unfair, you think, that all people remember of Kowallis' career is that one game. He must have broadcast other games, right? Maybe not very exciting ones--it was the Senators, after all--but...something. You open up a new tab and start Goggling.
Walk. Single. Fielder's choice, Aleplow to Blitch, but still two on. The infield must be moving to do something about it, but all you see is the display on the screen. A sharp infield single, Mercer's got it, clutching at it, really doesn't want to overthrow this one. The runners hold.
Looks like Kowallis broadcast all of the National League. Well, that wasn't very long.
Strike, almost outside. Ball outside. Ball high. Swung on and missed. Ball. Fouled away. Ball. Bases loaded.
You wonder if Gordon Chane is throwing in the bullpen. Croes has been doing fine so far, but you did like Maren Ruud's no-closers approach. The screen doesn't say. Maybe there's a better source? New tab.
Swung on. Ball. Ball. Lifted into the left field stands, maybe three rows up.
Again with the stupid bullpen.
