Read an Excerpt From McCurdle's Arm, the New Novella From Baseball-Lit Slugger Andrew Forbes

Acclaimed author Andrew Forbes has worked in a variety of forms, being lauded already for his short fiction, he's also written some of the most definitive non-fiction tomes in Baseball Literature, always finding the most profound and human elements of the sport and the stories within it.

It's no wonder then that Forbes has taken baseball into his fiction as well, and his craft and passion are on full display in the new novella, McCurdle's Arm (Invisible Books). The story takes place in Southern Ontario, 1892, and follows the semi-professional Ashburnham Pine Groves of the South-Western Ontario Base-Ball Players’ Association. Sponsored by the Grafton Brewery, the men of the Pine Groves are a coarse and rough bunch, but still remain impressive when they're sober and on their game.

Amidst them is Robert James McCurdle, a formidable pitcher who is looking down the line at his future, and how long he can last in the sport. His journey is filled with wildness, violence, uncertainty, and love, and set in a world without the comforts and polish of modern baseball as it's known to so many now. McCurdle finds himself in the middle of it all, and must eventually make the choice about whether to stay in the game at all costs, or reunite with the woman who loves him.

We're ready to gear up and share this exciting sample of Forbes' latest literary exploration of the sport that keeps on calling him back, and you can read it right here on Open Book:

An excerpt from McCurdle's Arm, by Andrew Forbes

On his way out the door of his rooming house McCurdle bent to leave a saucer of milk for the ragged little cat with a lopsided face that frequently slunk about the front step there. He’d first seen it the very day he’d moved in, and that same evening he’d left it a sliver of fish on a scrap of oilcloth, to which it reacted with begrudging gratitude, and their relationship had continued that way steadily since. McCurdle had originally thought it might be missing an eye, but one day as it purred around his pantleg he wrapped his hand around its skull and held it firmly, though the animal was frantically struggling to free itself, and rubbed the eye socket with his thumb to discover that the eye was present but the fur around it matted so that it appeared shut.

Presently the cat emerged from a dogwood shrub clumped roadside and gave a happy mew. It dashed for the dish he’d left it while McCurdle strode on down the street.

Meeting Long Tom at the barber shop as they’d arranged, McCurdle found Klopp freshly shorn and reading the Recorder. The barber’s chair was empty, so McCurdle took a seat and asked for the usual. The barber caped him and began.

Here is McCurdle, Klopp read aloud. Excuse me, he said, you’ll want to know the headline. It reads: PINE GROVES DRUB TECUMSEHS. The article then: Here is McCurdle, right on time. The hurler and patroller of the Quaker Grounds’ spacious centre field lawn has begun to put it all together for the men in green this summer. McCurdle’s arm is in top form, slipping the bean past eleven Tecumsehs in the first of two games this Saturday past, a 9–3 Ashburnham victory, and wielding a big stick, too, bringing across four runs with his three knocks. The big man is batting a mean .422 thus far this season and shows no signs of cooling off. The Groves—

That’s good, said McCurdle, that’s enough, as the barber trimmed his nape.

Klopp folded the Recorder down, looked over at McCurdle reclined in the chair. Sure you don’t want to hear more? he said. It gets good here.

No thanks, Kloppy. I think that’s enough.

Impressive showing, said the barber. Highest average in the league.

Some league, said McCurdle, his mind at once in Detroit, New York, Chicago, and Brockville. Anywhere but where he was. To have found himself atop a very small mountain pleased him less each morning. He was running out of ways in which to forestall his senescence, and it soon would come calling, with him never having seen a pitch in the National League. Can a person call himself successful in such a circumstance?

Says you were born in Leamington, Klopp persisted. I didn’t know that.

Wasn’t. Come from a nothing little town nearby nobody’s ever heard of. A crossroads.

Name of?

Ostrander.

I know it.

The hell you do.

Sure, on the road from Ingersoll to Tillsonburg, isn’t it?

’Tis.

I was chased out of it once by an angry father, but I was only passing through anyway. One night only, like most of my appearances were in those days.

The barber, who was familiar with Klopp’s reputation, only smiled as he worked.

Well, what do you know. Klopp was the closest thing to a chum McCurdle had on the Pine Groves, owing mostly to the similarity in their ages—Klopp just months younger— and similar tenures, McCurdle having latched on with the club only a month after Klopp began there, four years back now. They often drank together, and Mrs. Klopp would insist her husband invite McCurdle for a Sunday dinner two or three times a season. At these affairs McCurdle watched his words to avoid implicating his teammate in the unsavoury adventures everyone but Klopp’s wife knew him to enjoy. It was tiring, though she made a good roast.

Always thought you were born in Windsor, said Klopp.

The barber scurried around, held up the mirror behind his head to suggest to McCurdle that he was done, so long as McCurdle approved. Everything looked even. He nodded.

McCurdle said, I was, in a manner of speaking. It was clear this made little sense to Klopp but he chose not to pursue. Something else had his attention. Now hold on, he said. Says you could well be done after this year?

Says what?

McCurdle, Klopp quoted, who may not be renewed for the next championship season—

According to who?

Doesn’t specify. Grafton? Have you spoken to our man Spence?

Not recently, nor with any measure of specificity. Who’s written the article?

Welt.

Baxter Welt.

He has Grafton’s confidence.

Does he.

Klopp said, In my estimation, yes.

McCurdle closed his eyes and thought about this. The barber was slapping his neck with the horsehair brush and unclipping the cape. McCurdle sat a moment longer in rumination while the barber stood and Klopp leaned, both men looking at him, waiting for him to speak.

How much longer did he have in him? It was the question he never fully faced, always turning away before any honest attempt at reckoning toward an answer. Playing, pushing, working, trying. The whole dread enterprise of living the way he did. Liquor, aches, worry, hecklers, fistfights, a ball in the mouth. The constant high-pitched refrain of his right arm’s squeal, and the numbness further down. These men who were his peers, from lumber camps, railways, canoe works, iron foundries, farm fields. Louts and liars, giants and saints. They performed astonishing feats as well as acts of unfathomable cruelty, and though nothing ruins a base-baller’s reputation quite like kindness, there persisted whisperings of great altruistic works conducted in confidence. How much longer would all of this suit, and how many more games did he have in him? Would he be done with the game before the game was done with him? Much as he wished to avoid such inquiry he felt in his blood that an accounting was soon due.

And perhaps that was all right. The image recurrent in his dreams was of waking in the early hours with dearest Maureen asleep next to him, an open window on a hot night, the softest cooling breeze light on his face, the feeling of being wrapped in the Earth’s sweet benevolence. A thousand nights of this, ten thousand, adding up to something like grace.

Welt’s probably just guessing, said McCurdle finally, then stood and brushed the front of his pantlegs, glanced once more at himself in the big mirror, and dug into his pocket for the right coin, which he laid on the walnut counter and walked out into the afternoon, which was thick with dust and pollen and heat.

How’s your arm, McCurdle? shouted a man on the opposite side of the street. McCurdle simply raised his left and waved.

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Andrew Forbes is the author of the short story collections Lands and Forests (2019), and What You Need (2015), which was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and named a finalist for the Trillium Book Prize. He is also the author of two collections of baseball writing, The Utility of Boredom and The Only Way is the Steady Way. His work has appeared in publications such as the Toronto Star, Canadian Notes and Queries, and Maisonneuve Magazine. Born in Ottawa, Forbes has lived in Atlantic Canada and rural eastern Ontario, and now resides in Peterborough, Ontario.