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The Universe defeats the Banners 10-6 in a wild game capped with a grand slam by Maya Angelou, as Phoenix advances to the World Series against the Dublin Laureates. Home plate umpire Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the starting pitcher for the Florence Banners, Dante Alighieri, were at odds from the start. Dante bitterly said after the game: “The honorable judge does not know the strike zone.” Dante likes to work the inside of the plate, and he plunks the occasional hitter. Dante put Bob Dylan on his back in the first inning. With Ruth Ginsburg calling inside pitches for balls, as the game progressed, Dante became increasingly livid. But his downfall came when he was on offense. First base umpire E.O. Wilson ejected Dante in the fifth inning, following a scuffle involving many players, including Angelou, the Universe’s catcher. Dante, as the base runner, became tangled up with Universe first baseman Anthony Hecht, as Dante tried to beat out a slow roller to the mound, the ball picked up by Universe starting pitcher Raymond Carver. Dante complained Hecht interfered with his base running, and Hecht objected just as vociferously that the opposite was true. “Why did they throw Dante out of the game, and not Hecht? They say Dante put his hands on [umpire] Wilson, but that’s not true,” Desiderius Erasmus told the press after the game, “but we accept the loss. We congratulate the Universe.” The hitting of Henrik Ibsen and Chuck Berry gave the Universe a 6-3 lead after five complete innings, but in the top of the sixth, Dante Gabriel Rossetti singled, Ben Mazer doubled him over to third, and Guido Cavalcanti homered to tie the game, 6-6. Marge Piercy relieved Carver for the Universe and kept the Banners in check, until she handed the ball over to Jean Cocteau, who earned the win—his third win of the playoffs, with a 0.00 ERA. Meanwhile, Giovanni Boccaccio, relief pitcher for the Banners, began the ninth inning, with the game tied, 6-6, and walked three straight hitters—Delmore Schwartz, Philip Levine, and Larry Levis. Desiderius Erasmus, the manager of the Banners, was thrown out of the game by home plate umpire Ginsburg as he disputed her calls. Pope Leo X, the pitching coach of the Banners, relieved Boccaccio and inserted Sandro Botticelli, who fanned Yusef Komunyakaa and Chuck Berry. With the crowd roaring, and the count 3-2, Maya Angelou advanced the Phoenix Universe into the World Series against the Dublin Laureates with a tremendous home run to left center field.
