“Now it’s time to play ball”
The Book of Mirrors“Now it’s time to play ball” is first presented as a remembered stadium announcement and later returned to Derek Simmons by Roy Freeman as a challenge to his story. The phrase’s force comes from that change in use: a detail Derek offers as evidence of memory becomes, in Roy’s hands, evidence that Derek may have concealed what he knew.
The Stadium Memory
Derek says he was in the Bronx in 1979 and heard the words after an eight-minute standing ovation in memory of Thurman Lee Munson, who had died in a plane accident in Ohio. In recounting the announcement, he adds, “Thank you for your cooperation.” Roy points out the chronological problem: Derek’s account of the stadium depends on knowledge of where he was and what he heard in 1979, while Derek has claimed that an accident left him needing to learn everything about himself. Roy rejects that explanation, arguing that such a personal detail could only have been remembered, not acquired afterward.
The Phrase Turned Back
Roy later repeats the wording as “It’s time to play ball, Derek, right?” The repetition is pointed: he has just pressed Derek about the timing of his memory, his call to Joseph Wieder on the morning he says he found his wife’s body, and when he first met Wieder and arranged for an expert opinion in his favor. The phrase no longer functions as a neutral recollection of a game; it becomes part of Roy’s accusation that Derek’s account is evasive.
Derek tells Roy to leave while he finishes packing. He then points the index finger of his left hand at Roy and curls his thumb into the shape of a pistol. Against that gesture, Roy’s use of the phrase carries the shape of a taunt, and Derek’s response that Roy was “real smart with that” leaves the confrontation unresolved rather than clarifying the truth of his memory.
Narrative Function
The phrase links an apparently incidental sports memory to the dispute over Derek’s credibility. Its first appearance supplies a specific date and setting against which Roy can test Derek’s explanation; its return turns that remembered line into a verbal challenge. The repeated wording therefore does not settle whether Derek truly lost his memory or pretended to do so. Instead, it sharpens the gap between what he claims to remember and what Roy believes he could only have known by remembering.
