Let go of your body. Be reborn, back in 1925, and grow up to become a 3’7, 60-pound performer named Eddie Gaedel. You work during World War II installing airplane parts, because you are small enough to climb inside the wings. In the summer of 1951, you’re hired by St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck to pinch hit in the first inning of the second game of a doubleheader. Before your appearance, you pop out of a cake on the field, as part of a beer company promotion. You wear the number 1/8 on the back of your jersey. Feel the buzz of the crowd as they realize they’ve just bought a ticket to the freak show, and you’re the freak. They’re pointing at you, like you’re a monkey in the St. Louis Zoo. Well: a gig’s a gig, right? Get into your crouch. Lay the toy bat they’ve handed you on your shoulders and don’t dare to pull the trigger: Veeck has assured you that he’s positioned sharpshooters in the bleachers, and if you swing at a pitch, they’ll fire. You know he’s full of shit, but you also know the pitcher can’t find your strike zone with a ten foot pole. Watch four fastballs whizz by your head, then toss the bat aside, and trot to first. Wave to the crowd. Admit it: if you were watching this, you’d be eating it up as much as they are, like a goddamn box of Cracker Jack. The thornier question of whether this represents progress of any kind for people of your size—still marked by the “M” word—isn’t one you can afford to ask. When you’re replaced with a pinch runner, you trot to the dugout, basking in the moment, the impossible dream of becoming a big-leaguer fulfilled. In the locker room, you tell the assembled press that you “felt like Babe Ruth out there.” When Veeck hands you a crisp $100 bill for your troubles, you go out and spend it on drink. You appear on Ed Sullivan and Bing Crosby’s shows and get paid 17 grand. You’re a star, of a sort, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that you’ll always be seen as 1/8 of a man. Eleven years later, you’re mugged on the street for $11, and die within a few days at the age of 36. But the crazy thing is: to this day, whenever I think of baseball, the first thing I think of is you. Who never swung a bat, who never threw a pitch, who never should have been anywhere near home plate. Whose story I’ll never outgrow.

Matt Leibel lives in San Francisco. His short fiction has appeared in matchbook, Post Road, Electric Literature, Portland Review, Passages North, Quarterly West, Wigleaf, DIAGRAM, Socrates on the Beach, and Aquifer: The Florida Review Online. His stories have been included twice in the Best Small Fictions anthology, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  Find him on twitter/X at @matt_leibel.