The Great American Novel Read Online Free Page A

did to me ten days ago at Cooperstown.
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    First off, as everyone knows, the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown was founded on a falsehood. No more than little George Washington said to his father, “Dad, it is I, etc.,” did Major Abner Doubleday invent the game of baseball on that sacred spot. The only thing Major Doubleday started was the Civil War, when he answered the Confederate Beauregard by firing the first shot from Fort Sumter. Yet, to this day, shout such “heresy” in the bleachers at a Sunday doubleheader, and not only will three out of four patrons call you crazy, but some self-styled authority on the subject (probably a Dad with his Boy—I know the type) will threaten your life for saying something so awful in front of innocent kids.
    My quarrel with Cooperstown, however, is over nothing so inconsequential as who invented the game and where. I only draw attention to the longevity of this lie to reveal how without conscience even the highest authorities are when it comes to perpetuating a comforting, mindless myth everyone has grown used to, and how reluctant the ordinary believer, or fan, is to surrender one. When both the rulers and the subjects of the Holy Baseball Empire can sanctify a blatant falsehood with something supposedly so hallowed as a “Hall of Fame,” there is no reason to be astonished (I try to tell myself) at the colossal crime against the truth that has been perpetrated by America’s powers-that-be ever since 1946. I am speaking of what no one in this country dares even to mention any longer. I am speaking of a chapter of our past that has been torn from the record books without so much as a peep of protest, except by me. I am speaking of a rewriting of our history as heinous as any ordered by a tyrant dictator abroad. Not thousand-year-old history either, but something that only came to an end twenty-odd years ago. Yes, I am speaking of the annihilation of the Patriot League. Not merely wiped out of business, but willfully erased from the national memory. Ask a Little Leaguer, as I did only this past summer. When I approached, he was swinging a little bat in the on-deck circle, ironically enough, resembling no one so much as Bob Yamm of the Kakoola Reapers (d.). “How many big leagues are there, sonny?” I asked. “Two,” he said, “the National and the American.” “And how many did there used to be?” “Two.” “Are you sure of that now?” “Positive.” “What about the Patriot League?” “No such thing.” “Oh no? Never heard of the Tri-City Tycoons? Never heard of the Ruppert Mundys?” “Nope.” “You never heard of Kakoola, Aceldama, Asylum?” “What are those?” “Cities, boy! Those were big league towns!” “Who played for ’em, Mister?” he asked, stepping away from me and edging toward the bench. “Luke Gofannon played for them. Two thousand two hundred and forty-two games he played for them. Never heard his name?” Here a man took me by the arm, simultaneously saying to the boy, “He means Luke Appling, Billy, who played for the White Sox.” “Who are you?” I asked, as if I didn’t know. “I’m his Dad.” “Well, then, tell him the truth. Raise the boy on the truth! You know it as well as I do. I do not mean Luke Appling and I do not mean Luke ‘Hot Potato’ Hamlin. I mean Luke Gofannon of the Ruppert Mundys!” And what does the Dad do? He puts a finger to his temple to indicate to this little brainwashed American tyke (one of tens of millions!) that I am the one that is cracked. Is it any wonder that I raised my cane?
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    You can look in vain in the papers of Friday, January 22, 1971, for a mention of the vote I cast the previous day at the annual balloting for baseball’s Hall of Fame. But the fact of the matter is