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always fair, pal,” I said.
    â€œI’m gonna get you but good.”
    Now he was getting me mad. I thought about throwing off the chicken head and showing him who was boss, but I didn’t want to get in trouble with Max Carey.
    â€œAh, blow it out your rear end,” I said, walking away from him.
    I could feel my heart beating quickly as I walked across the field. Nothing gets my blood pumping better than the possibility of a fistfight.
    I strolled over to Merle, who was playing catch with the girl Max Carey had called Ziggy. The more I looked at Merle, the more I liked what I saw.
    â€œHiya, Chicken!” she said. “What’s cookin’?”
    â€œDid you mean it before when you said I was cute?” I asked bashfully.
    â€œHoney, you look good enough to eat!”
    My heart beat even faster. She called me “honey”! She likes me! I realized for the first time that fighting was not the only way to get my blood pumping.
    I was in love.

7
A Strike for Freedom
    THE ROCKFORD PEACHES WERE FROM ROCKFORD , Illinois. They had peach-colored uniforms, of course, with reddish socks. As they took infield practice, they looked just as smooth as the Chicks.

    Tiby Eisen getting her hair done. Now there’s something you don’t see at a big-league game!
    In the Chicks dugout, the girls busied themselves in preparation for the game. Connie Wisniewski put a brace on her knee, which she had twisted the week before. Tiby Eisen, the peppy left fielder, braided her hair. She said she did it before every game for good luck. Mickey Maguire put more tape on her leg. First baseman Dolores Klosowski was peeling potatoes and dropping them into a bucket of water. Max Carey, apparently, believed that peeling potatoes strengthened the wrists. Either that or he really liked potatoes. I sat as close as I could to Merle, trying desperately to think of clever things to say to her.
    After a while, a microphone stand was carried out and placed on home plate. When a priest walked out on the field, the Chicks stopped whatever they were doing and lined up along the first-base line. The Rockford Peaches did the same along the third-base line, so the two teams formed a giant V shape that met at home plate. All the players removed their caps and bowed their heads.
    I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to remove my chicken head or not. Max Carey had told me it was a league rule to keep it on, so I did.
    â€œWill the crowd please rise,” requested the public address announcer.
    â€œLadies and gentlemen,” the priest spoke into the microphone, his words echoing around the ballpark, “as we sit here in the safety of Borchert Field, our sons, our brothers, our husbands, and ourfriends are at this moment fighting for their lives on the beaches of Normandy. Our nation did not start this fight. We didn’t want to go to war. We fight this war because the most ambitious tyranny on earth has forced us to, and we would rather die fighting than live as slaves.”
    Some of the fans clapped and cheered respectfully.
    â€œThe next few days will be critical to all human history. Victory will not be easy, but it will come. Good always triumphs over evil.”
    More cheering and clapping arose from the stands.
    â€œWe can only pray,” the priest continued. “We pray for the soldiers we know and also for the ones we don’t. A few short years ago, they were all just young boys who needed our protection. Today, they protect us. We pray for them. We pray for ourselves too, who must face the dreadful waiting. And we pray for victory and a lasting peace. Amen.”
    The priest mumbled some words in another language, and the opening strains of the National Anthem blared out of the speakers. Behind me in the stands, a woman sobbed. When the song was over, the umpire, dressed in a black suit, hollered, “Play ball!”
    The Chicks jogged back to the dugout and gathered around Max Carey.
    â€œKeep