The Great American Novel Read Online Free PDF

“he was born that way.”
    â€œBats in the belfry, Commissioner. Too deep to operate.”
    Haw-haw all around.
    â€œWell,” said Kuhn, looking down at my envelope, “have a good day, Mr. Smith.”
    â€œYou too, Mr. Commissioner.”
    And that was it. That was how easy it was to trick me into thinking that at long last the lying had come to an end! Shameful! At eighty-seven years of age, to be so gullible, so innocent! I might as well have been back mewling and puking, to think the world was going to right its ways because I got smiled at by the man in charge! And they call me embittered! Why, take me seriously for twenty seconds at a stretch, and I roll over like a puppy, my balls and bellyhairs all yours.
    â€œMy, my,” said the slit to the plainclothesgoon, “just give in a little to someone’s d-e-l-u-s-i-o-n-s o-f g-r-a-n-d-e-u-r, and he’s a changed person, isn’t he?”
    Well, sad to say, the slit spoke the truth. You don’t often hear the truth introduced by “my, my” but there it is. Wonders never cease.
    Also, in my own behalf, I think it is fair to say that after twenty years of struggling I had come to be something of a victim of exhaustion. When they are ranged against you, every living soul, then you might as well be down in the coal mines hacking at the walls with your teeth and your toenails, for all the impression that you make. There is nothing so wearing in all of human life as burning with a truth that everyone else denies. You don’t know suffering, fans, until you know that.
    Still and all, Kuhn took me in.
    What follows is the list of players who, according to the BBWAA, received votes that day for the Hall of Fame.

    In that to be elected requires mention on 75 per cent of the ballots, or 271 of the 361 cast (including my own, that is; according to the BBWAA it required only 270 out of 360), the electors issued this statement at about two in the afternoon: “Despite the heaviest vote in the history of the Hall of Fame balloting, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America was unable to elect a candidate for enshrinement next summer.”
    Oh, that set ’em to quacking! You should have heard those fools! How could they keep out Berra when back in ’55 they’d let in Gabby Hartnett who was never half the catcher Yogi was! Wasn’t half? Why he was twice’t! Was! Wasn’t! Same for Early Wynn: whoever heard of a three hundred game winner failing to be mentioned by one hundred and twenty electors (excluding me) when right over there is a plaque to Dazzy Vance who in all his career won less than two hundred. Next thing you know they will be keeping out Koufax and Spahn when they are eligible! Well, it took Rogers Hornsby six years to make it, didn’t it—with a lifetime of .358! And Bill Terry and Harry Heilmann eleven years apiece! Meanwhile they are also arguing over Marion and Reese, which was better than the other and whether both weren’t a darn sight better than Hall of Famer Rabbit Maranville. Oh what controversy! Tempers raging, statistics flying, and with it all not a word from anyone about a single player who played for the Patriot League in their fifty years as a major league. Not a mention in the BBWAA’s phony tabulations of my vote for Luke Gofannon.
    Billy Bruton! Jackie Jensen! Wally Moon! Outfielders who did not even bat .300 lifetime, who would have had to pay their way into Mundy Park in the days of the great Gofannon, and there they are with five votes between them for the Hall of Fame! I was near to insanity.
    What was it put me over the top? Why did I hurl my cane and collapse in a heap on the floor? Why had they to hammer on my heart to get it going again? Why have I been bedridden all these days and ordered off alliteration for the remainder of my life? Why wasn’t I calm and philosophical as befits a man of my experience with human treachery and deceit? Why did I