South Bend is Not an Armpit
A dispatch from the road
Dear Readers,
I’m on the road this week, so my post for today is going to be a little different. I’m in South Bend, Indiana, though by the time you get this, I should be in Chicago. That is, unless Greyhound screws the pooch.
Before arriving in South Bend, someone told me that South Bend is an “armpit.” An armpit is a place where no light can get in and nasty things can grow. I thought, “it can’t really be that bad, can it?”
I’ll admit up front that, as a contrarian since birth (see my first post about refusing to let Sunday school teachers label me a “little lamb”), I came here determined to see South Bend as anything but a dark, dank crevice teeming with bacteria. But, even after accounting for my contrarianism, I can say for certain that South Bend is not that.
First, it’s extremely walkable. I arrived on a Greyhound from Chicago on Sunday afternoon. Five minutes after getting off of that bus, I was at Four Winds Field watching the South Bend Cubs play. After the game, I decided it would be faster to walk to my Airbnb than to wait for an Uber. Google did route me through what seemed to be a semi-abandoned housing project. (The clotheslines looked like they hadn’t been used in years and gave off an eerie vibe.) But a few blocks later, I turned onto a street lined with colorfully-painted and well-maintained Victorians.
Those turrets, porches and Italianate windows are still standing on Washington Street today thanks to assistance from the South Bend Heritage Fund, which sought not only to restore and preserve historic homes but to preserve the character of the people living in the neighborhood as well. South Bend was able to restore some of the West side’s former glory without displacing the Black residents who had lived here for decades. I recall reading that Charleston, South Carolina, was able to do something similar. It’s amazing, really: places that usually get written off as “backward” have been able to accomplish things that cities in more “progressive” states only pay lip service to. (Yes, Minneapolis, I’m looking at YOU!)
South Bend also has friendly people, inexpensive restaurants and a lovely riverfront. In short, it’s not an armpit. Too much light gets in. If you’d like to see more photos from my trip, visit my Instagram.
Now, onto the reason I came here. I released my debut novel in 2020 and am now working on a second one. It’s historical fiction set in 1954, the last year that the women's baseball leagues played. (I had this idea long before the Amazon Prime show was announced and I have timestamps to prove it.) The novel focuses on the South Bend Blue Sox (All American Girls Professional Baseball League) and the Chicago Bluebirds (National Girls Baseball League.) I came here to see South Bend firsthand and to learn all I could from local resources. I was able to access the History Museum’s archives where found answers to my biggest questions.
Here’s an excerpt of the novel:
An overnight storm had left the field wet and muddy. Though the sky was still cloudy, the air was hot, and the previous night’s rain rose up from the grass, making the air damp and heavy. Everyone complained about the humidity, except for Zoila.
On the mound, Millie was three innings into a no-hitter. Kalamazoo’s best hitter stepped up to the plate. She was the one they called “Lefty,” a girl who could play the piano like Jelly Roll Morton and sing like Dorothy Shay. She even looked a bit like Maria Felix, the Mexican actress who had turned down a chance to star opposite Humphrey Bogart in The Barefoot Contessa. It was easy to be jealous of a girl like Lefty, and Millie had been when they first met back in ‘48. But then Millie discovered that striking out a player was a hundred times more satisfying when that player also happened to be Little Miss Perfect.
Millie leaned in to watch for the sign. Flo tapped the inside of her thighs with three fingers. Millie nodded and switched to a changeup grip. She released the ball and watched as Lefty swung too early, her bat twisting through the air just seconds before the ball got anywhere near the strike zone. Flo threw the ball back to Millie and flashed the sign for a changeup again.
Millie shook her head. What was Flo thinking? Two changeups in a row? Lefty was too smart for that. But Flo kept flashing the sign, and Millie could see the home plate umpire starting to get impatient, so she decided to trust Flo’s instinct. Milllie stared at Lefty, who glared back as she waited for the pitch. Lefty fouled it off and fell behind in the count. Flo flashed the fastball sign. Millie gripped the ball with two fingers on top and her thumb, ring finger and pinkie on the bottom. Her two-seam fastball ripped through the air, hitting lower than she wanted, but Flo snapped her glove and pulled it up, framing the pitch to appear as if it were right in the middle of the strike zone.
Lefty stood with her bat resting on her shoulder and when the umpire called her out on strikes, she threw her bat into the wet dirt and turned to argue.
“That was low,” she shouted.
“It was in the zone. You’re out.”
Lefty wouldn’t back down. “It was low! That was ball one.”
The umpire lifted his mask. “That was strike three and you’re out. Go ride the pine.”
Lefty picked up her bat and stomped off in the direction of the visitor’s dugout. Millie trotted off the field.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, the score was still tied at zero. Zoila, who’d had a hot bat for the last three games, batted leadoff. She almost went down on strikes, but she fouled off what would have been strike three and was suddenly locked in a duel with the pitcher. She fouled off three more pitches.
From the dugout, Millie could see that the Kalamazoo pitcher was starting to get tired. “Watch,” she whispered to Joanie, “she’s going to hang a breaking ball and Zoila will beat the cream out of it.”
Joanie shook her head. “Nah. I bet you a dime she gets a strike call.”
“You’re on,” Millie said, surreptitiously shaking Joanie’s hand.
The pitcher threw a breaking ball, the kind that was supposed to look like a fastball and drop out of sight just before crossing the plate. Only it didn’t drop. Zoila’s bat connected and lifted the ball into a four-hundred-and-fifty foot arc, landing in the centerfield grass beyond the reach of the outfielders.
In the top of the fifth, Millie struck out the side. South Bend scored two more runs making the score three to nothing.
Millie racked up three more strikeouts in the sixth. In the stands, fans put up signs with a hashmark for every strikeout. Was she really at eight? She’d never had that many strikeouts in a game; she usually got outs by getting players to hit into double plays. Millie’s entire body hummed with an electric energy. When she shut her eyes, all of her thoughts cleared away, like clouds chased by wind.
In the seventh: popout, lineout, strikeout.
Millie batted ninth. The Kalamazoo pitcher, who should’ve been yanked three innings ago, looked droopy. She also had a tell: whenever she switched to a breaking ball grip, she held her elbow out to the side like she was saluting a flag. The pitch missed the strike zone, winding to the outside. Ball one. The pitcher kept her elbow low so Millie expected a fastball; it landed in the dirt three inches in front of the plate. Ball two. Two more fastballs missed: ball three, ball four. Millie flipped her bat away and trotted to first base.
Zoila came up to bat and hit a line drive on the first pitch. The centerfielder dove for it but missed. Zoila reached third and Millie came around to score. The next batter laid down a bunt and Zoila ran for home.
On the mound to pitch the eighth, Millie felt cool, relaxed. The Blue Sox had a comfortable five-run lead. Millie held her breath as the first batter hit a ground ball to short, but Zoila caught it with her bare hand and left the Earth as she threw it to the first baseman who tagged the runner out. She struck out the next batter on four pitches.
Then Lefty came up to bat. Her cloud of dark hair exploded from the bottom of her cap. She looked at Millie with an arched eyebrow and a gimlet eye, looking every bit like a silver-screen villainess.
Millie threw a curveball, hoping Lefty would chase it, but instead the umpire called ball one. Flo called for a fastball and Lefty fouled it off, evening the count at one and one. Millie went back to the curveball; Lefty checked her swing.
“Ball!” the umpire shouted.
Millie leaned in for the sign. Flo called for a changeup. Lefty hit a long ball that sliced foul; Millie exhaled a heavy sigh of relief as the ball bounced into the metal bleachers. She just needed one more strike to send Lefty back to the Kalamazoo bench.
Lefty drew her cleats through the dirt like an impatient thoroughbred waiting in a starting gate. Millie narrowed her eyes and glared at Lefty for an entire bed. Flo tapped her thighs. Millie threw another changeup.
The crack of the bat made Millie’s heart sink to her feet. The ball bounced to third base but the throw wasn’t in time and Lefty was called safe at first.
Millie tucked her glove under her arm and stared down at the wet grass. Flo called time and strode out to the mound.
“There goes the no-hitter,” Millie said.
“You’ve still got the shutout,” Flo reminded her. “Come on. Let’s send the Lassies back to Michigan with their tails between their legs.”
Millie lifted her head and shoved her hand back into her glove. “You’re right,” she said. “Let’s send them to the showers.”
The next batter fell behind in the count. Millie was about to throw strike three but just before she set up for the pitch, she saw Lefty out of the corner of her eye, running for second. Millie turned and fired the ball to the second baseman who tagged Lefty out. As the players left the field, Lefty passed Millie and said, “You think you’re hot shit,” Lefty said, using the kind of language that could get a player fined.
“Have a good trip back to Kalamazoo,” Millie shot back. “I hear they have lots of celery there for you to drown your sorrows in.”
South Bend tacked on another run in the bottom of the eighth and the Lassie’s went down quietly in the ninth. The Blue Sox gathered on the field to celebrate the shutout. Millie cupped her hands around her mouth to amplify her voice as she shouted, “Lassies, go home!”