Twin Bill

TWIN BILL

© 2021 Mike McSorley

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN PRINT 978-1-09835-572-2 ISBN eBOOK 978-1-09835-573-9

Contents

Author Bio

Background

Payback

Big Finish

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Illustrations by Jada Fitch (jadafitch.com)

Author Bio

Mike McSorley has enjoyed a career in both broadcasting and newspapers. He has been a successful radio programmer at stations throughout the Midwest, South, and Northeast.

He switched over to newspapers serving as sports reporter, copy editor, and city editor in New England.

Baseball has always been his first love, a lifelong fan of the Cincinnati Reds. This love for the game gave rise to the idea of creating his own league, stocked with fictional players who took on a life of their own.

Recording their triumphs and failures has filled many a long hour when there was no major league baseball. It was a way to get through the interminable winters between seasons. It also served as an escape when his favorite team was falling fast in the standings.

This book is just the starting point on a journey through the make-believe world of big-league baseball where every hitter might hit .300 and every pitcher could win 20 games.

He lives with his wife in Down East Maine.

Enjoy.

Background

The following stories about the Continental Baseball League are fiction, just as this incarnation of the CBL is.

There almost was a real Continental Baseball League, or Continental League.

As the nation grew and population centers shifted, more cities wanted a major league franchise of their own. The baseball establishment rebuffed expansion requests, but that didn’t stop some cities from grabbing a team. Milwaukee enticed the Boston Braves to move west for the 1953 season. Baltimore nabbed the woeful St. Louis Browns a year later. Kansas City became a major league city with the relocation of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1955. Each of these moves involved franchises from cities that had the luxury of two teams.

A dramatic event at the end of the 1957 season when the Dodgers and Giants abandoned the Big Apple for the West Coast changed everything. They abandoned New York City and Brooklyn with no replacement on the horizon.

Powerful men led by New York attorney William Shea concocted the idea of a third major league. The new league would operate within the structure of the current major leagues.

In the summer of 1959, the league announced teams in Denver, Houston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York City, and Toronto. The addition of Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Buffalo rounded out the eight franchises which would begin play in 1961.

Branch Rickey served as league president. He had developed the minor league system for the St. Louis Cardinals and others to provide a pipeline for talent. Rickey most famously had broken baseball’s color line in 1947.

Rickey got nowhere with Commissioner Ford Frick and the entrenched ownership. When the National and American leagues announced expansion plans in 1960 and 1961 to several of the prospective Continental League cities, it was the death knell.

For a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the political maneuverings, I recommend getting a copy of Bottom of the Ninth by Michael Shapiro. It’s one of my favorites.

Baseball’s popularity in the 1950s made it America’s pastime. Sports fans were baseball crazy, although most lived in markets with no major league team. My fictional ownership group targeted these underserved markets. These Continental Baseball League teams faced with little or no direct competition would be successful… and profitable.

On the surface, starting a new baseball league from scratch was a sure money-losing proposition. The American and National leagues would provide no financial help, just the opposite. The established owners would use their political influence and deep pockets to thwart any move by the upstart league. Even if the CBL was a minor threat, it was a threat. They needed to quash it.

The ownership of the Continental Baseball League included titans of industry and banking. Others hailed from old money families. Some had made their fortunes in real estate. Getting them to cooperate with each other for the good of the entire league would be the biggest challenge.

The CBL began with ten franchises: Louisville, Memphis, New Orleans, Houston, and Omaha in the West; Washington, Providence, Jersey City, Buffalo, and Columbus in the East.

To stock the new franchises, the owners envisioned three ways.

First, homegrown talent would stamp the separate identity of the CBL and build fan loyalty. It would also ensure that all the franchises would begin on a relatively equal footing. Each team received a designated draft area, giving it first claim on the amateur athletes in that zone.

Second, the CBL clubs could raid the existing minor league rosters. Each current major league team had more than ten farm clubs on average. These rosters contained a good deal of major league talent blocked from advancing to the big-league level. Many of these players would jump at a new opportunity. With integration a fact of life in baseball, CBL teams could attract players from the remnants of the Negro leagues as well.

Third, a lottery would assign each franchise an existing National or American League team as a farm club. CBL teams would be free to pursue any player in that club’s minor league system, along with players not protected on the season-ending major league roster. It would signal the start of a bidding war with the established leagues, but on a less expensive plane.

As there were ten CBL teams and sixteen American and National League teams, CBL owners proposed excluding the top three finishers in each league. Sharper minds reasoned that the haves would do nothing to shore up the have-nots who would be targets for CBL raiders. It would keep American and National League owners of the most financially successful teams on the sidelines in a future bidding war.

As for giving the established leagues a pass, this approach would make it easier for the Continental Baseball League to survive. The price tag to get a marquee name to jump to the CBL would be in the neighborhood of 50 to 100 percent more than his current salary. Headlong pursuit of such stars at that price would explode the CBL teams’ salary structure, destroy profits, and, eventually, the entire league.

The Continental Baseball League was already an expensive proposition. Add an all-out bidding war and it would be game over.

To buy time, the owners agreed, not without some grumbling, to respect the active rosters of the established clubs for three years, then reassess the plan. Depending on how it worked out, the owners could extend it or scrap it.

The CBL grew to twelve teams in 1958 and to fourteen franchises in 1966. There were several franchise shifts along the way, but that is a story for a future volume.

Payback

Baseball’s spring training is the season of optimism. Second-division clubs are sure this will be the season they’re in the thick of a pennant race. Contending teams are positive they have found the missing piece that left them shy of a championship. Pretenders and contenders alike reach for their sunglasses as the Florida sunshine melts away the disappointments of the past years. The future is bright for each of the fourteen franchises that comprise the Continental Baseball League, including the Memphis Blues as they gather for training camp in preparation for the 1989 season.

All eyes focused on the big blond hurler as he began his windup. There was no noticeable change in the fluid, almost effortless motion of seasons past. The ball flashed out of his golden right arm and exploded into the catcher’s mitt.

Thwack!

Ninety-two. One coach nodded, holding the radar gun.

Shit! Came from a player off to the side.

Next pitch.

Ninety-two, echoed a scout.

Shit! The observing player exhaled again.

Another fastball.

Ninety-four, exclaimed a third gun-toting exec behind the backstop. ‘The Man’ is back!

Shit! A third time.

How’s it feel? Manager Carney MacNeal yelled out to the mound.

Ron Blanchard nodded back, a big grin across his face. Good as ever!

A sigh of relief from the entire coaching staff, followed by more broad smiles from the players with one exception.

Lefty Alan Coltard had the only unsmiling face in the whole training complex as he watched Blanchard pitch. While everyone nearby busied themselves spending future shares of almost guaranteed playoff money, Coltard could only focus on his own bonus money flying away. He had seen enough. Ron Blanchard, the nemesis of his entire baseball career, had returned and in fine form. Scowling, the pitcher jogged toward the bullpen down the right field line. He passed close by two other hurlers who watched Blanchard’s exhibition.

What’s eating him? the rookie piped up to Cedric Lemaster, the Blues’ top reliever, as Coltard went by.

Knowing him, it might be any number of things, Lemaster drawled in his soft Georgia accent. "Could be straight out green-eyed jealousy since he can’t break a pane of glass at thirty feet with his fastball. If Blanchard’s back, Coltard’s demoted to the bullpen with the rest of us low-lifes. Possibly he’s fretting about catching cold being back in the big man’s shadow.

Whadaya mean?

Well, Rook, it’s a long story. But it seems everywhere Coltard’s been, Blanchard’s always been there in front of him. Hell, starting way back in high school. Ron Blanchard was the golden boy while Coltard was the afterthought. Usually high school teams get by with two, sometimes three, pitchers; ‘twas no different at their school back in Ohio, Lemaster paused as another fastball from Blanchard thumped into the catcher’s mitt.

Ninety-five, chirped a coach.

Shit!

Lemaster could have sworn he heard that cussword coming from the bullpen mound where Coltard was loosening up.

All through school, even into the state championships, Blanchard would start, and Coltard would mop up at the end. The fact he saved Hoss’ ass on more than one occasion, includin’ the state championship game, didn’t matter. Blanchard got the pub and Coltard got ignored.

Ninety-five, called out another coach on the gun.

Lemaster listened for the next expletive from one of the relievers but heard nothing this time. He scanned the bullpen until he saw Coltard, hands on hips, staring at his long-time rival Ron Blanchard. Lemaster sighed. So it’s back to that again.

Cedric Lemaster was beginning his thirteenth season with the Memphis Blues. He was just entering his prime when Ron Blanchard arrived in 1979 and Alan Coltard a year later. He credited himself with knowing the pair better than most. Lemaster had roomed with Blanchard for two years and then Coltard for the past seven years. He was steeped in the rivalry between the two. The curious thing was that it was one-sided. It wasn’t about talent. It was something personal. Alan held some sort of grudge dating back to high school and let that color his dealing with Blanchard more than a dozen years later.

Where was I, Rook?

High school, the young pitcher replied. And the name’s Taylor, Zachary Taylor.

You don’t say? Zachary Taylor? Gotta nice ring to it. Lemaster spat a stream of tobacco juice alongside the rookie’s spikes and shifted the wad to his other cheek.

Well, Rook, after winning the high school championship, cameras were going off taking pictures of the winners and reporters was swarming all over Blanchard, even though he had been yanked in the ninth inning after walking the bases loaded with none out in a one-run game, I think it was.

And Coltard came in to save the day, right? the rookie pitcher chimed in.

Lemaster flashed a hard look at him, advising the youngster that he would not tolerate further interruptions of a master storyteller.

Lemaster remembered getting a peek at the newspaper clippings one night when he and Coltard had first roomed together. Coltard was one of those guys who devoured every article in the sports section. He paid special attention to the box scores, writing down everyone’s stats in a little book. He never knew when a gleaned tidbit might help him out of a tough spot.

In part because of his roommate’s nightly notebook entries, Cedric thought Alan rather odd. Not the kind of odd where you would sleep with one eye open, but the kind where he obsessed over the game. He was like many ballplayers who had a lot on the line every game. Alan knew he wasn’t the most talented hurler to toe the rubber, but he was good enough to be a major league pitcher. He would let nothing take that away.

Lemaster turned to the rookie. He just didn’t ‘come in’. He flat out won that championship trophy for them. First pitch, a bouncer back to the box, throw home for one, on to first, double play. Coltard was already delivering his pitch to the next hitter before Coach could call time and get to the mound. Alan, a student of the game even then, knew that Coach would have him issue an intentional walk to the batter to set up another force play, Coltard don’t believe in walks. His pitch sails in, the batter swings! Pop up! Third baseman cradles it, and they’re state champs on two pitches from Alan ‘Bucket’ Coltard!

Let me guess, the rookie said, they nicknamed him ‘Bucket’ ‘cause he mops up, right?

Good guess, Roo-, what’d you say your name was again?

Taylor, Zachary Taylor.

Right, thanks. Lemaster smiled. "Well, Rook, your guess is a mile off. ‘Bucket’ is the nickname I gave him ‘cause he’s always totin’ the pail, bringin’ the water, anything the team needs. I’m the only one who can get away with it on account of him and me roomin’ together. So I better never hear it come out of your mouth. Remember, I know where your locker is! Got it?"

Taylor nodded.

Now, where was I?

State championship.

Yeah, Lemaster spat again. Game’s over, reporters everywhere, except where Alan is. They’re in a bunch hemming in ol’ golden boy Blanchard. They was firing questions from all sides, but the big one was ‘who’s Blanchard gonna sign with?’

Lemaster watched the next pitch come in, a curveball with a nasty 12-6 late break. He looked out at the mound and Blanchard was still smiling. Coltard was too far away for him to pick up anything from the lefty this time.

It was back before the common draft came in. Blanchard was bein’ pursued by both leagues and playin’ hard to get. The harder he played, the more ‘get’ he was in line for. I think the White Sox offered somethin’ like three hundred fifty thousand to sign while Memphis was waving three-twenty-five, college tuition (which his Dad insisted on) and a new car, Lemaster said as he nodded out toward Blanchard and gave a big smile and a thumbs up.

He signs with Memphis ‘bout a week later for what ended up being closer to $400,000, a big feather in the cap of the upstart CBL. And o’ course that was splashed all over the papers. Meanwhile, wa-a-ay down in the corner of the inside sports page a little item said somethin’ to the effect that Alan Coltard had also signed with the Memphis Blues and had received a signing bonus of five thousand and a AAA Trip-Tik on how to get to his rookie league assignment. Lemaster let fly another stream of tobacco juice.

A loud grunt along with an even louder thump of the ball into a mitt interrupted Lemaster. The big reliever looked out to the bullpen mound where Coltard was warming up.

Eighty-seven! he hollered with a big smile.

Coltard wasn’t laughing. He snapped at the return throw from the bullpen catcher and went right into his windup. Alan uncorked another fastball and heard the same satisfying thump in the catcher’s mitt.

Eighty-seven point two! Lemaster bent over double at his