"Four innings," I repeated.
Kate nodded.
"To be honest, we only need two to beat you," Riffraff said with an evil laugh.
I gave Kate a pleading glance, wondering if we should just give up and accept the terms of surrender.
She seemed...overconfident.
"This isn't going to work," I said. "We're noids and they're animated. There's no way we can win."
"We can set the rules, Drew. You won't know unless you try."
"But it's a year..." I said.
"I've done it before. It's not going to kill you. And if you win, you'll have a way home!"
"Sure," I groaned. "Whatever."
I glared at the cat, wondering what sort of sadistic torture he had in store for me, in the highly probable event that I lost the game.
He gave me a mischievous smile, his teeth sparkling to emphasize the mockery.
There was no way I would commit to a year of service. I had no intention of staying in this Looney bin for that long.
After all, no one said I had to honor my word.
"The name of the game is Noid Ball," Kate said. "Drew here will tell you the rules."
"Really?" I stammered. "Cool."
"They will be fair and balanced, just like the rules of baseball in the human world," Kate said. "If we win, it will be because of skill. If we fail, it will not be because you are cartoons, it will be because you beat us fairly."
"I hope you're right," I said. "I somehow don't think this is going to end well."
"It's a year of service, Drew. It's not the end of the world."
"Fine." I glanced at the handful of cats staring up at me. The doodles were already practicing, tossing balls back and forth with the instrumental version of the old children's alphabet song playing in the background. Just observing them told me what rules I had to lay down.
"Let's get everyone together," Kate said. "This is important."
She and Riffraff whistled and yelled the other players in. Once everyone was looking at me in attention, I took a deep breath and began.
"I'm sure you know how to play regular baseball. I've seen enough cartoons to know you probably have. This one is a little more challenging. Because you all have an obvious unfair advantage against me, I want this equally balanced..."
We established the rules. No use of super stretch limbs, no unfair running speeds, no superpowered cartoon sports equipment, or baseballs hit or pitched exceeding seventy miles per hour that burn holes in gloves, inanimate objects or other players. No talking baseballs or other gag objects. No super jumps or trick pitches that defy the laws of physics.
"Um, Kate," I said. "How are we going to check all this stuff?"
She clapped her hands, and suddenly that red masked guy from He-Man with the floating chair materialized. Zodak, I think his name was.
"I have been watching and listening," the man said with a mysterious, faraway sounding voice. "And I suggest you add another rule to promote fairness between noids and doodles. So far no one has mentioned frame rate."
"Right," Kate said. "Rule seven. No frame rates below thirty frames per second are allowed. No Flash Gordons."
On cue, the actual Flash Gordon groaned and walked away. I suppose he wasn't in uniform anyway.
"We must see your limbs at all times," Kate continued. "If we see you moving at illegal speeds, we will bump the frame rate up to forty."
As she said this, all the animated characters around us began turning little dials on their arms to comply.
I still wondered if the chosen speed of successive images was high enough.
"You can't literally steal a base and go home with it," Kate said. "Otherwise we won't have anything to run to."
Several doodles groaned in response.
Gosalyn raised a feathered hand.
"Do you have a question, Ms. Mallard?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "Do I always have to stand at the foul line, or is that just a figure of speech?"
"It's a figure of speech, sweetie," Kate said.
She sighed in relief.
The gorilla wrote the rules down on a little card, which he stuffed inside his protective vest. Zodak had his on a little computer attached to his floating throne.
And so we played our first inning.
I noticed that our theme song was Count Basie's Did You Hear Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball. It seemed the guy in Cool World's sound booth was either being overly optimistic, or intentionally mocking us.
It turns out that cartoons can play normal, especially with normal baseballs.
That didn't make my team suck any less.
As the player of honor, I batted first.
When I approached the plate, I got a flashback of my childhood. Batting practice with mom in the back yard.
"Get angry at the ball!" she'd tell me.
That was bullshit. I mean, sure, you get power, but the thing she should have emphasized was focusing on where the ball was, and actually hitting it.
It seemed my game had not improved since little league. Despite my little practice, and mentally forcing myself to be `in the moment', I struck out.
I swear it had nothing to do with me staring at Cleo. She just pitched the ball in a really annoying way, and I hadn't batted in years.
Kate, well, she did get to first base (no comment), but when Sailor Uranus hit a foul (note: it had no feathers), Kate tried to steal second (not literally), getting caught by the pigtailed duck.
Sneezer struck out because he was too damn short, and Cleo kept throwing balls over his head.
We called a meeting about that one, finally determining that the mouse was entitled to a second try, with the pitches restricted to the range he could possibly bat. Really, it was no different than an ump calling a pitch unfair for aiming outside the window.
Sneezer got his second chance, but he struck out again. From what I saw, I had to agree it was legal.
We took the outfield as a matter of course.
I have always hated the outfield. In little league I played so poorly that I was forever Left or Center. I got so frustrated with them either hitting the ball too far behind me or not hitting the ball to me that I picked the grass and played with the dirt instead of paying attention.
Now older, with a hopefully clearer head, and in charge of the team, I decided to try my hand as first baseman.
My choice of players on the field was basically random. I had no clue about their individual strengths and weaknesses. I was certain we were going to lose, but there wasn't much I could do about it, aside from tire out my players with a practice, probably making their game worse. I could only cross my fingers and hope for the best.
Here's a diagram of how I placed my players:
(image)
Sabrina, left field, Montgomery Moose, Center, Bingo Beaver, Right. Sailor Uranus (no, I didn't make that up), second, Sneezer doing short stop, Shaggy on third and Scoob catching at the home plate. Kate, naturally, was pitching.
Right at the beginning, we had problems. Riffraff's teammate, a feline alien from the Star Trek cartoon, tried to bat Kate's pitches, but the ump declared them to be poorly done, so the creature walked all the way to home.
Hector hit the ball. After hitting two fouls, he knocked the ball out to the Second line.
Our Sailor, I don't know, was too dainty or something to grab the thing and throw it to me until Hector was standing on my plate.
Riffraff came to bat after him, knocking the ball to center field.
The moose caught it, but again Uranus was being a primadonna, so when he threw to her, Kate had to run and grab the ball, leaving ample time for Hector to reach the next base.
Mungo knocked the ball on the edge of the foul line, almost a run, but he never did run swiftly, due to his girth.
Bingo threw the ball to me, and I got my first out.
To my annoyance, Hector stole a base while we were doing this (not literally, of course - he didn't make it that easy to win), and now stood next to Shaggy on third.
We struck out Morgana, who had slipped into the dugout without me noticing, but the Ghost in the Shell lady (Kusinagi?) had ninja skills, so, clad in a weird pantless White Sox outfit, she hit the ball to right field, slid into first, and Hector got the first win for Riffraff's team.
Riffraff also reached second base.
The Persian cat pole dancer knocked the ball over the batting cage on the first swing, but hit the second one out by the short stop.
Riffraff tried to reach third, but when he saw Sneezer with the ball, he slid back to second with the `Ghost', leading me to devise an additional rule: No sliding on the dirt like a skier behind a motorboat.
Dogbert hit next. Kate tried to pitch a fair ball, but he was like a short potato, kind of hard to aim at, so the ump allowed him to walk.
Predictably, Riff took this opportunity to run to home plate. Kusinagi tried to follow, but Kate tossed the ball to Scoob, driving her back to third.
Riffraff tried to put Bam Bam up to bat, but I called him out on it, and we amended our rules to forbid superpowered athletes, referring back to the rule we made against hitting a ball through or over the moon.
The cat benched the little caveman, sending Pac-Man to bat instead.
If not for that yellow guy striking out, we would have never left the outfield.
0 to 3. Things weren't looking so good.
To my surprise, after the first couple pitches, Scoob made it to second, and Shaggy to first.
We had an order of players, but Kate urged me to go next.
I actually knocked it into left field.
Well, near Left, like a yard behind second on a diagonal. Regardless, it was legit.
I was so shocked that I froze a moment and nearly got tagged out. But I made it, and Scoob got third base.
Montgomery walked on a technicality. Hector had illegally extended his arm, so Scoob was able to get us our first point.
I, on the other hand, got caught en route to Second.
So. Shaggy on Third.
An animated version of Abbott and Costello came into the dugout, doing the Who's On First routine, but Kate got rid of them with a carefully timed trap door lever.
Kate batted next, knocking the ball to Center.
It defies physics, but fat assed Mungo dove and caught the ball.
"Duh, that was weird," he said from the ground. "But it felt good."
I was happy, at least, to see Shaggy sliding into home while the ball went airborne.
I sent Bingo Beaver to bat. The ball went right, bouncing off the ground in front of Wordsworth.
"You won't home run, you son of a gun!"
Before the beaver could make it to first, Riff caught Wordsworth's throw, and we were on the outfield again.
Round 3. Score: 2 to 3.
Not bad, not good, either.
Riff and the umps both agreed that if I prevented any points from scoring this round, I could bat again. The cat, of course, announced this with an air of amused skepticism.
Dissatisfied with my Sailor, I sent her to the bench.
I turned my back to her for a moment, brooding over the rest of my selected catchers, puzzling over who I would place on second. As I did this, I suddenly noticed someone tapping me on the shoulder.
"Not now, Sneezer," I said, as he had gone past me in that direction, but when I turn around, I see that it is Amanda "M" Bunny, dressed exactly like her non-animated twin.
I stared at one Amanda, then the other.
"You're right!" I said. "I admit I doubted your story a little, but...wow. You're right!"
"Like I told you," she said. "It's this place!"
"All right," I said. "Um, `M.' You've got second."
Sadly, she didn't catch any better than Sailor Uranus. Although less dainty, and more ready to get her hands dirty, she still missed the ball.
We lost the game. Big time.
We had doodles on our team, but I guess some are simply better at the sport than others.
Once Riff brought the score up to 2-4, the additional runs were just an insult. It seemed I was doomed to a life of slavery.
We stood defeated, the faces of my players mostly reflecting expressions of annoyance or indifference. I was probably the only one that felt miserable about it.
Perhaps in attempts to cheer me up, Kate said, "What do players normally do at the end of a baseball game?"
"Uh...celebrate?" I frowned. "Or, if you're little league, you get all your team members in a line, and have them walk by everyone in the other team, high fiving and saying `good game, good game' to everybody."
"That's a perfect idea! It promotes a peaceful, harmonious game!"
"Right," I groaned.
And so we did that stupid little ritual. It made me think of several times in which I'd muttered "good game" to my opponent with clenched teeth.
"Enjoy your last evening of freedom," Riff told me as I grudgingly gave him a high five. I felt like slugging him.
When I returned to the dugout, Kate wrapped her arms around me, nuzzling her face into my sweaty neck. "Are you getting turned on by all of this?"
I grimaced in disgust. "What, about being a slave for a year?"
"No, silly," she said, sliding a hand down my hip. "About losing. About failure."
I looked at her like she were crazy. "Seriously?"
"I think you are," she purred. "Would you like me to check?"
I didn't want to admit it, but she was right.
"You planned this all along!" I cried. "You knew I couldn't win!"
She shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not."
I should have gotten mad, maybe yelled at her or something, but instead I only thought about kissing her.
"You're really weird," I said.
"How about we go back to my apartment, and make things weirder?"
"You still haven't told me your secret," I said.
She pressed herself close to my body. "I'll do better than that," she said. "I'll show you."
"I'm not sure I like the sound of that," I said with discomfort.
But when she took my hand to lead me out of the dugout, I didn't resist.