The public address system proclaimed: Now batting, number seven, Enrique Oliveras! No one cheered. The stadium lay empty. Enrique Oliveras smiled from his portrait on the giant video screen, his face washed pale by the early morning sunlight. Banda music streamed from hidden speakers, trumpets ricocheting off concrete before fading into echo.

From the concourse the hot dog machines whirred and spun, meat baking under the balmy suntan lights. Occasionally an arm would pull a withered sausage off one of the prongs, and it slid greasily down a chute into darkness. Another arm replaced it from a hidden compartment. From behind the counter, taps of energy drink and iced coffee spit sharply and stopped, cleaning their feeds.

“Thank you for attending Uber Field,” came a different, identical voice from the ceiling. “It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame. Please follow all safety precautions, report any unsportsmanlike behavior, and enjoy your afternoon at the ballpark.”

Somewhere in the walls, the servers hummed to themselves contentedly, harmonizing.

…

Bottom of the fifth. A light rain began to fall, so light that it almost floated. The stadium roared to life, cables clicking, pulleys grinding, as the stadium roof glided above the field. “Please excuse this brief delay,” a voice said, but there was no one to delay, no one huddling under emergency ponchos. The raindrops brushed the acid-washed plastic seats, mottled faded green.

Along the walkways small robots hovered over the concrete, dustpans in front of them, all rubber and metal, pushing brooms along dustless pavement. They danced in the empty halls, dodging invisible pedestrians, always out of the way. Then, at some hidden signal, they bustled back into their indentations in the walls, their electric eyes fading within serene plastic faces. The stadium was clean.

…

Bottom of the fifth. Neatly manicured grass shone like emerald under the brilliant lights, watered with automatic sprinklers, shaved and fertilized by small tractors behind the center field fence. The chalk was a perfect bone-bleached white. Near the plate along one wall, by the netting, a simple digital screen counted down from 20 to zero, each time adding a ball to the count, like a clock that was made with no concept of time.

The clock reached zero again, and the count went to ball four. An invisible robot umpire clicked its invisible indicator. Congratulatory music blasted through the speakers, and high above the score of the visiting team incremented, its numbers running off the screen. Now batting, number 23, Jake Stearns! The applause never came.

…

Bottom of the fifth. The turnstyles sat motionless, the metal detectors sang their invisible radiation. Please have your ticket ready, a pleasant female voice begged apologetically. Please make sure you have disposed of all liquids, foods, firearms, flammables, sharp objects, blunt objects, and laser pointers before entering the stadium. The masonry of the southeast wall near home plate was charred an even black, save for a handful of places: a man holding the hand of a little girl in pigtails, a teenager with his arms raised, the profile of a boy with a cap and an oversized mitt. Those spots of paint were all that remained. The mist sprinkled on the charcoaled walls.

…

Bottom of the fifth. A lone seagull, its feathers a dingy gray, found its way into the stadium. It glided in heavy arcs, scanning for leftover bits of caramel corn in the empty bleachers, but the vendors and their wares were gone. It knew the stadium, had been here many times, but the waste bins were empty, the last ketchup-stained wrappers picked apart. The only foods that remained were the hot dogs and the pizza slices and the garlic fries, all locked within sanitary glass displays, bathed under unblinking heat lamps. From somewhere, a T-shirt cannon fired and struck the bird, breaking a hollowed wing. It hurtled into the left field bleachers, struck an aluminum bench with a crunch, and died.

A Hardball Times Update by Rachael McDaniel Goodbye for now.

Upon its impact, the stadium roared to life. Fireworks erupted from a hidden cannon, vibrant with chemical life, unnatural dancing blues and pinks, tumbling across pictures and songs of synthetic joy.

Moments later, a robot slid down the ramp, its broom raised. Soon, the seagull was gone.

…

Bottom of the fifth. The stadium began to die.

The grand slam added four runs to the score, driving the integer beyond the computer’s capacity. It replaced the number with a symbol of a crown and a letter Q. For a moment, nothing happened, the clock winding down, but then somewhere another number divided by that number. The out-of-town scoreboard displayed names of cities that never existed. The counts ran full, then overfull. A dozen walk-up songs played at once, a cacophony of exuberance.

The robots began to clean each other, shrieking with the grinding of metal. The roof rocked back and forth like a disconsolate mother. Machines spat tickets to games that would never be played. Smoke poured out from grills, hamburgers burning on high flames, grease spitting. A robotic vendor, a catapult on wheels, flung hot dogs into random empty seats.

A ball return fired baseballs from behind the plate back to the pitcher’s mound. They struck a small riding mower in the infield grass, knocking it over, continuing to pound ball after ball into the fuselage. Another mower struck the first, sparks catching leaking fuel, and suddenly the infield was alight. The grass burned quickly. Smoke detectors blared as the field burned, catching the fabric of the walls, the wind whipping it upwards and outwards. The dry air itself seemed to burn. The T-shirt cannon fired ammunition through the flames, sending fireballs into the upper decks. The fire roared like applause.

…

Bottom of the fifth. The sun did not rise, but the thick gray haze grew orange in the east. Smoke hung over the stadium, now silent, except for a single voice stuttering from a speaker in an overturned brick wall.

“We apologize… rain delay… canceled. The game… made up on…” A pause, and then a different, identical voice, whispering: “It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame… it’s a beautiful… ballgame…”

References & Resources