Chapter 26: A Rose by any Other Name

The jumps were terrifying, but Absent Mind hung in there, and you win the race by almost a single pixel! You are surrounded by cheering well-wishers, who put a big horseshoe of flowers around the neck of Absent Mind, who marches around goofily, but proudly. But where is Melvin? Where is Charlie? You search the crowd, but don’t see either of them anywhere. But suddenly Melvin zips in. “Nice jumping, Player!”

“Yeah, thanks – but where’s Charlie?”

“When you won, the crowd went kind of crazy, and I lost him. I checked at the betting window, and he collected his money, but I can’t find him or his golf cart anywhere.”

“Well, that’s it then,” you say sadly. “I guess he got his money and we won’t see him again.”

Melvin is devastated. “I can’t believe I lost him! How will we get the ring now?”

“Melvin, I don’t think he ever had it, it was all a con. I think we have to go back to the Queen empty-handed.”

You return to the stables, and change out of your jockey clothes, and say goodbye to Absent Mind, who neighs appreciatively. As you turn to go, a little robot wheels up, and hands you a note.

“What’s it say?” asks Melvin.

You read the hastily scrawled note: “Don’t forget – cornfield tomorrow. –CH”

“Oh, come on,” says Melvin. “What’s the point? There’s nothing out there. Say… wait a minute… what if now that Charlie has his money, he wants to get rid of us?”

“I don’t know. He seems greedy, but… murderous? I guess it’s hard to tell with those dark glasses he always wears.”

Melvin suddenly becomes courageous. “We survived the Skull Spirit, we can certainly survive a con man. We are on a quest for a ring for our Queen, and we must face danger, whatever form it takes.”

You chuckle. “Okay, Melvin, sounds like we have a plan. First thing tomorrow, we head to the cornfield.”

You spend another night at the luxurious casino, and at dawn, Melvin shows you the way out of town to the cornfield. It is dismal and desolated, seemingly untended for years. Dry, yellow cornstalks are in broken rows for as far as the eye can see. You stand around for about a half hour. Finally Melvin says, “He’s not coming, is he?”

“No.”

“What are we going to tell the Queen?”

“We’ll just tell her we failed, I guess.”

Just then, you hear a sound, a distant whine. Far down a dirt road you see Charlie in his electric golf cart headed your way. You both watch as he drives up, parks at a distance, and starts walking toward you. You suddenly realize that no one is around for miles. Charlie’s dark glasses glint in the sun, and he smiles a broad grin. He reaches inside his red sport coat, and Melvin shouts “Player, get down!” You put your hands up defensively, and Charlie pulls out… a ring.

The ring is set with four diamonds that sparkle like rainbows in the sun. “Good morning, Player,” he says. “Nice day for baseball, don’t you think?”

Melvin is losing his mind. “The ring!” he shouts excitedly. “You have the ring!”

“Yes,” Charlie says, sounding ashamed. “Yes, at last I have the ring again. I’m afraid I owe you an explanation. It will help if you know who I am. You see, Charlie Hustle is… just a nickname.” He takes off his dark glasses, and you see his face for the first time, and it takes you a moment to process who you are looking at.

“Pete Rose?” you say, astonished and confused.

“Not exactly,” he says. “More like the memory of Pete Rose.”

Melvin looks at both of you. “I’m not getting this,” he says.

Charlie, or rather, Pete, or rather, the memory of Pete explains. “See, a long time ago I got in a lot of trouble for mixing baseball and gambling. I made some really stupid choices. Once I got banned from baseball, I didn’t know what to do. But at some point, I found my way here, into the Atariverse. In some ways, it’s always 1984 here, which was before I made my mistakes, so I could be a baseball star again, and I loved it. But then the Atariverse started to crumble. Players stopped coming, treasures got stolen. I can’t remember everything about it, but I remember my part in it – at least, I remember now, now that I have the ring back.” He gazes down at the ring, turning it over in his hand. “The treasures really do hold the memories of this world. Now that I hold this, I remember more what happened. You see, not all the treasures were stolen.”

“NOT stolen?” asks Melvin. “Then where did they go?”

“Players helped keep the world safe,” he explains. “They solved problems, defeated invaders, kept evil at bay.” He smiles, “Not to mention keeping sports interesting. You can only watch robots play sports for so long, because they always play the same way. Anyway, we started to talk about ways to lure Players here. Big challenges, with treasures for prizes. We didn’t realize the treasures held our memories.” He keeps gazing at the ring. “That’s the thing about memory. When it starts to slip away… you don’t always notice, because… you don’t remember.” He’s quiet for a long moment. “So, everyone was proposing challenges to the Queen, and in her desire to save the kingdom, she was granting them. My proposal was the Atari Baseball Challenge. The idea was that we would challenge Players to win the most difficult baseball games in the kingdom, and then they would enter a final game that I created, which was to have been the most elaborate and challenging baseball game in the history of Atari.”

“So what happened?” asks Melvin.

“The Queen granted my request, and I was put in charge of the challenge. She gave me the ring, which was to be a prize for the greatest baseball Player in the kingdom.”

“So who won?” asks Melvin.

Pete clenches the ring tightly in his fist. “That’s just it. NO ONE won, because I wouldn’t let them. I had started gambling again, and I set expensive entry fees to feed my gambling habit. It was a perfect life for me – I could play baseball during the day, and had plenty of money to gamble at night. I realized, though, that if someone won the challenge, it might all be over. So, I set a fee so high that no one could afford to enter the final game.”

“So, no one won?”

“No one really got a chance to try. Then, the number of Players got smaller and smaller, and eventually, none were coming at all, which meant no baseball, and no casino money for me.” He unclenches his hand, and looks sadly down at the ring in his cupped hand. “So, I sold it.”

“You SOLD the ring?” asks Melvin incredulously.

“Yes,” says Pete, disgusted with himself. “I sold it to a rich jewelry collector I met at the casino. He didn’t know what it was. But it gave me enough money to keep up my gambling for years.” He looks at you now. “When you showed up, I was down to my last twenty-five bucks, hustling pool, and didn’t know what I was going to do. My memory was mostly gone, too. I had forgotten so much. But I had a feeling, when I met you, that you could turn it all around. At first, I admit,” he looks down at the dirt, “I had no plan other than to use your luck to score a few bucks.” He looks at Melvin. “But when you talked about the Queen, memories started to come back. Every time you mentioned her, I felt so guilty, and I didn’t know why.” He clenches the ring again. “But now I remember. And I realized that I had to get the ring back, and make things right. So I needed you to win all those games to get enough cash to buy back the ring.” He opens his hand and holds it up between two fingers. You see that it has a miniature baseball diamond carved into it, with an actual diamond set at each of the bases and home plate.

“Well, that’s great!” says Melvin. “We’ve got the ring, we can bring it back to the Queen!”

“No,” says Pete adamantly.

“What do you mean, no?” shouts Melvin.

He looks at you both. “I want to keep my word. I told the Queen that I would run this challenge, that I would create the most fabulous baseball game that the Atariverse had ever seen, and that I would give the ring to whoever was able to win it.” He slides the ring onto his finger.

“But you haven’t done that!” shouts Melvin. “You never created anything. There is no final game!”

“But there can be,” he says, “if we unlock the power of the ring.” He pulls out a little brush, like umpires carry, and walks over to a little flat spot in the cornfield. He bends down, and brushes it off, and to your surprise, reveals a white pentagon, which you recognize as a home plate. “I set this here, years ago, back when I was serious about the challenge. I had forgotten all about it, until I met you. Are you ready for some baseball?”

“Here in this cornfield?” says Melvin. “How is that even possible?”

Wordlessly, Pete bends down again, and touches the ring to home plate. At first, nothing happens. But then, to your amazement, everything around you starts to change. Green grass starts to sprout out of the ground, and the red clay of a baseball diamond. White bases pop right out of the clay. Blue walls and the seats of a tremendous stadium telescope up out of nowhere, and a giant scoreboard proclaims “PETE ROSE BASEBALL.” Huge white robots in spotless baseball uniforms come running out of the dugouts. Unlike the weird, pixelated baseball robots you are used to, these are more detailed, and move like humans, not like robots.

You even find yourself suddenly attired in a professional ballplayer’s uniform. The organ plays the national anthem, and as the last echoes of “and the home of the brave” die away, Pete stands nearby, now dressed as an umpire. He looks at you, and says with pride, “I play baseball one way… all out!” You think you see him wipe a tear from his eye. “Are you ready?” he asks. You and Melvin are speechless, and you take in the view from the pitcher’s mound of the most beautiful baseball stadium you could ever imagine. You look back at Pete, who has taken his place as umpire behind home plate, and nod solemnly.

“Then… PLAY BALL!” he calls, and the game begins.

Put the Pete Rose Baseball cartridge into your Atari 2600. Choose the single player game. Play until you win. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.