Calder’s Pocket Comet — Along the riverside wall, Calder kept a cloudy glass marble in his back pocket and tapped it once before each inning. Read the full story →
Along the riverside wall, Calder kept a cloudy glass marble in his back pocket and tapped it once before each inning. He wanted to hear the tiny click his sister used to call “the pocket comet,” because it made waiting feel like watching the sky slowly decide on a color. The grass smelled damp from the river, and gulls cried over the light towers while almost nothing came his way.
By the seventh inning, the marble had warmed against his palm. Calder rolled it between his fingers, feeling one smooth nick shaped like a crescent moon. Then a high ball rose toward him, not fast, not wild, just climbing into the pale evening as if it had been saving its trip all game. He lifted his glove, and the ball settled in with a soft leather thump.
When he opened the glove, the baseball rested beside a thin beam of light slipping through the webbing. For one breath, the marble in his pocket answered with the same small glow. The cheering reached him late, like thunder after far-off lightning. If you study the glove’s pocket, you may spot the quiet place where the comet waited with him.
