Goodbye, Mr. Spalding

by Jennifer Robin Barr

  A lot of what she writes is her “private stuff,” and I better not look or she’ll pop me one. But every so often she writes something and reads it aloud. It’s always funny and makes me laugh. I wish she would do it more often.

  “Lefty Grove returns to face sulking A’s,” she says out loud as she writes.

  Down in the ballpark, folks have filed into their seats. “It’s a sea of hats,” Lola mumbles to herself, still writing. She’s right. It is a sea of men’s top hats, ladies’ brimmed hats, and kids’ ball caps. The stands are filled today, unusual for a game at the end of a miserable season.

  But today’s game has it all—a cool fall breeze breaking through the crisp summer sun, and a town favorite now playing for a rival team. I guess if you put all the right things together, even in a bad season, folks will come out to watch.

  “Jimmy, after the second inning, go on down for another tray of pork sandwiches,” Ma says quickly as she passes, “and don’t forget to bring one over to Mrs. Carson.”

  “Sure thing, Ma.” I look back and I see she has stopped. She walks back toward us with a strange look on her face.

  “Have I told you how much I love you today?” She kneels down and grabs each side of my face.

  “Ma, stop!” I urgently whisper. Ralph and Matty are trying to hold in their laughter.

  “Well,” she stands up and gathers herself, “I want to make sure you all enjoy the game. Don’t do any customer runs, okay? No distractions—really watch it.” She looks out toward the game. “What a view.”

  “But Ma, the school fair is later.” She looks back at me, and confusion washes across her face. I never mind running down to the street carts for food, or cigars, or iced tea, or whatever the folks in our stands need. Carl at the Red Hots’ stand sometimes gives me an extra sausage on a bun, and Hal at the hot pretzel cart always slides a second one into the bag.

  “Money,” Lola interjects. “He wants to make money for the fair.”

  “She’s right. I can make fifty cents on runs today. Please?”

  “We’ll see,” she says. But I already know she warned her customers not to bother me.

  “She’s acting strange,” Lola whispers after Ma leaves.

  “They all are. Right before the game, Mr. Fletcher said Shibe is a fool if he takes this away.”

  “What in the world does that mean?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Maybe he’s finally moving the team to Jersey,” Matty chimes in, and Ralph punches his arm. “Quit it! You know they’ve been talking about that for years. Right over to Camden.”

  “They’ve been talking about a lot of things for years,” Ralph says. “Nothing ever happens.”

  “It sounds bad. Whatever it is …” Lola mutters and starts to scribble in her notebook. I stare ahead as the game gets under way.

  Both teams come out swinging. We score twice in the first inning, only to have the Red Sox answer with four runs of their own. Even down two runs, I am happy for the distraction.

  But scoreless innings follow and the energy fades.

  Ralph and Matty are playing jacks and talking about last night’s radio episode of The Lone Ranger. Lola is reading my copy of The Saturday Evening Post, glancing up every so often. By the end of the fifth inning, the adults have picked up their conversations from earlier. Pop and I are the only ones really paying attention. Things don’t change until the sixth inning, when Eric McNair hits a home run to deep left field.

  “Atta boy!” Pop yells. Everyone looks back to the game. It suddenly becomes interesting again. By the ninth inning, the A’s have ten hits and are trailing by one run. Lefty Grove has come in to pitch for Boston.

  “Lefty looks old,” I say to Lola, purposely loud enough for Pop to hear me.

  “You’re right about that!” Pop chimes in. “You’ll see, Jimmy, we’ll take advantage of him right now.”

  Pop is right. In no time, there is a runner on second base and one out. A long single here will tie the game. A home run will win it. I can’t help but think about our fish burial. Now we need some luck.

  Jimmie Foxx is coming to the plate. He walks slowly, kicks the dirt off his shoes, and spits toward the dugout. And then he stares down his old friend Lefty Grove—with a long, hard, steady stare.

  Lefty is not only older but also slow as molasses. He takes long, deep breaths in between every pitch. He looks at second base, stretches his arms up, and then throws one right down the middle.

  A perfect pitch.

  A pitch to hit.

  Strike one.

  “You know how this is going to end,” Lola says. I don’t look at her. I know what she is going to say. Jimmie Foxx is going to work a full count, keeping us on our toes and excited. He may even hit a few long foul balls to get the crowd going. But in the end, he’ll strike out. It’s just how the season is going, lucky dead fish or not.

  But she’s wrong.

  The next pitch looks the same at first, but this time, Foxx swings. I grab Lola’s arm as his bat hits the ball. All the spectators gasp as the Crack! echoes off the stadium walls like a gunshot. His bat splits in two, and Lefty Grove dives out of the way as wooden bat shards shoot toward the pitching mound. There’s no way this ball is going far with a broken bat. It’s probably a foul ball, as predicted.

  But the folks in the stands are looking toward us in right field. That ball is still flying, its arc high as it quickly starts downward. Closer to us. We all hold our breath.

  Mr. Harvey is on his roof screaming, “Come on! Come on!” Down in the street, a group of kids are running behind the twelve-foot right-field wall, hoping to catch a home run. The people in the ballpark shield their eyes from the sun.

  Down. Down. Down.

  And over.

  “GOODBYE, MR. SPALDING!” Pop yells as the baseball just clears our short wall in right field—the short wall that allows us to watch every game from our very own rooftop. The short wall that Lola and I sneak over all the time to hang out in the ballpark or bury dead fish. The best home run wall in all of baseball.

  The stands erupt with waving arms and hats. Pop is shaking hands with every person on our bleachers. Nina even cracks a smile. Kids are diving for the ball as it bounces off of 20th Street, and the great Jimmie Foxx is rounding the bases. His teammates rush the field, patting him on his back as he runs home. I hug Lola, and I don’t care if anyone sees.

  A Jimmie Foxx home run wins the game.

  And we had something to do with it.

  6

  “Best Shibe Park memory ever?” Lola asks a few minutes later, as she scribbles in her journal. Ralph and Matty have headed home to grab dinner before the fair. I’m still staring at the field.

  “One of them.” I shrug my shoulders. “There are too many to pick just one.” I start rattling off other Shibe Park memories. Great plays made in the field by Lou Gehrig or Ty Cobb. Long home runs that we watched bounce off a rooftop to a collection of waiting kids below.

  Lola continues to write as I describe the crisp October day when right-fielder Bing Miller looked up to me and gave me a wave and a big goofy grin.

  “And don’t you know, he hit a double right off the scoreboard to win the game that day!” I continue, now realizing that most of the remaining folks on the rooftop are listening.

  “It sure is something special,” Mr. Fletcher says, looking across the street. “It will indeed be a sad day when they block this view.”

  I crinkle my forehead, and Lola stops in her tracks.

  “I think it’s time you tell him,” he says to Pop. They shake hands as everyone says their goodbyes and makes their way down.

  Ma lingers in the corner. Pop looks nervous.

  “What?” I ask. Ten more questions come out of my mouth before Lola sits next to me and squeezes my arm to tell me to stop. We exchange worried looks as Ma and Pop wave for Mr. Sheridan to come from his roof to ours.

  “You want to tell them, Jack?” Pop looks at Lola’s father, who shakes
his head.

  “Nah, it’s all yours.”

  Ma comes over and holds Pop’s hand, taking over. “It looks like they are going to build a wall—one that is tall enough to block our view,” she says.

  The news hits me slowly, like they are talking through some sort of tunnel. I look toward Shibe Park.

  I see the grooves and rope that Lola and I use to sneak in. That’s got to be one big wall, I think to myself. It’s hard to even picture. My mind wanders to the last time I saw Babe Ruth, a few weeks ago. I can swear he looked toward my roof and nodded his head.

  Lola nudges me, and I snap back to Pop, who is now talking. Lola is writing fast, and Ma sits next to me. Nina is standing near the corner with her arms crossed. Even she looks white as a ghost.

  “I can’t sit through this again,” she says and goes down the skylight.

  “Again? Does Nina already know? Does everyone?” I bark.

  “We told Nina this morning. She’ll have to …”

  “Jimmy, remember The Rules,” Ma cuts Pop off and gently rubs my back. Of course, she’s not talking about my rules. She doesn’t even know about the book of rules that Lola and I have created.

  She’s talking about the original rules, Rules 1–10. The Life’s Little Rules page that she cut out of Ladies’ Home Journal, put in a frame, and hung on our bathroom wall. I guess she thought we would be sitting down an awful lot and could read the rules over and over. And she was right.

  Ma is probably referring to Rule #2: Things always happen for a reason. But she could also be referring to Rule #6: Don’t expect life to be fair. I know she’s not referring to Rule #9: Treat others the way you want to be treated, because the folks that want to block our view sure aren’t treating us well.

  I focus again on what Pop is saying.

  “John Shibe and Connie Mack are arguing that there are not enough people filling the stands, and they think we are to blame.”

  “They don’t think we are to blame, dear,” Ma interjects. “We’re just one part of the problem.”

  “But nobody who watches the games from here can afford to buy a real ticket!” I exclaim, my voice cracking. “Not this year! What do we have? Ten? Twelve people each game?”

  “Twenty today. Back in ’29, we squeezed in eighty per roof,” Pop chimes in, and Ma gives him a that’s-not-helping look.

  “But they always say things like this. It never happens,” Lola says.

  “Yes, well this time is more serious,” Mr. Sheridan says. “They’ve already asked the courts to make us take down the bleachers, and the courts sided with us. So now they think the only option is to build a wall to block our view.”

  Ma picks it up from there. “You remember that when we originally built these stands, we agreed to sell seats only if the ballpark was sold out. That’s not happening anymore, and John Shibe has never been happy with this arrangement.”

  I look down the rows of bleachers on each roof, with the last few happy spectators slowly leaving for their own homes. Mrs. Carson is sitting alone, watching the ballpark empty out. Without people up here watching the games, these rooftop bleachers will be an ugly reminder of something that once was great.

  “How can the games sell out if they are trading away all the good players?” Lola interjects.

  “I agree,” Pop says. “Mack creates a dynasty, and then sells it off. Who wants to see second-rate players lose to the men who used to be our very own all-stars? What a pill.” Pop shakes his head.

  “The Depression has hurt Shibe Park attendance, just as it’s hurt us,” Ma says, much calmer. “Every spectator that they see on the rooftop could have been a paying customer inside of Shibe Park. It’s created some bad feelings.”

  Mr. Sheridan chimes back in. “In April, they caught Mr. O’Connor convincing people in the ticket line to come to his roof instead. That made them angry, taking good money-paying folks right out from under their noses. What a fool.” He shakes his head. “And last night, Mr. Donahue told us they got a new hot-shot lawyer on their side, Richardson Dilworth.” He looks at me. “They still promise you batboy next season?”

  “Yes,” I reply, straightening up a bit.

  “Good.” Mr. Sheridan kneels by my seat. “Now don’t go and do anything to mess that up. That may be the only way you actually get to see them play.”

  7

  “Why don’t you run down to the fair and take your mind off of this,” Ma says, searching her housecoat for some change. She hands me two quarters. Lola and I glance at each other, knowing two quarters is too much to spare.

  “Very well then,” she sighs, taking one quarter back, “but make sure you spend it. This fair is to benefit St. Columba after all.”

  Neither of us wants to go to the fair yet. We leave by the back ladder and wander aimlessly up and down the streets. There is more activity than normal for a Sunday night, with folks coming and going to the fair. Kids whiz past us on bicycles, holding remnants of cotton candy. Parents sit outside on their porches or stoops, chatting with neighbors.

  Will anything ever be the same? I picture a wall big enough to block us, like some sort of prison. How often do I sit in my bedroom window and gaze out at the ballpark? For hours I watch it—no matter if it’s filled with people on a sunny afternoon or completely empty at dusk.

  At every turn, something reminds me of the A’s. We pass Nick’s Restaurant, where the Clubhouse Boys pick up dinners for the team, and Ruvane’s barbershop, where players come and go for a shave and a haircut. We make our way to 22nd Street, stop in front of Pop’s hardware store and Sheridan’s tailoring, scanning down all of the storefronts filled with A’s pennant banners under every window. Lola is skipping over cracks, jumping off curbs, and glancing over at me every few seconds. I know she wants to talk about it, but I just want silence.

  “Stop!” I say, irritated.

  “What?”

  “That pebble. You’ve been kicking it for the whole block. It’s getting on my nerves.”

  “Well your silence is getting on my nerves.” She kicks it out to the street and sits on a stoop. “We should head to the fair soon. Besides, you need a new fish. Hey, we should add that to the rule book. Win lucky fish at every school fair. That should be a new rule. Rule 13a.”

  “What kind of luck did burying him bring? You heard them. We’re losing our view.”

  “Did you forget that a little someone named Jimmie Foxx won that game? On a home run!”

  “So?”

  “So, we buried that fish to help win games. Not to stop walls.”

  “I guess. I just really don’t want to have to see anyone right now,” I confess. She rolls her eyes and pulls my arm.

  “Come on. No sense in wallowing.”

  “Wait,” I whisper, but she has already frozen. We both hear the distinct voices of the four Polinski brothers just around the corner.

  “We gotta try Lee’s Bakery.”

  “That baker’s not gonna have any money.”

  “Sure will. I heard she stashes her dough right under the floorboard.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “Just what I heard. And the cellar door only has a padlock.”

  “Ya think Pa scrounged up some cash today?”

  “Nah. He’s only good for playin’ the street number and gamblin’ it away.”

  They turn the corner and stop in their tracks at the sight of us.

  “Heya, guys.” Boy, do I sound stupid.

  “You spyin’ on us again, Jimmy Frank?” the oldest one says. They gather around, standing tall with arms crossed.

  “What? No. We were just sitting here. About to head to the fair.”

  “I hope you didn’t hear nothin’. For your sake.”

  “Didn’t hear anything. Honest.”

  “We were just sitting here. You were walking,” Lola says, and I shove her with my elbow.

  “We gotta go.” We squeeze through them, walking briskly in the direction of Reyburn Park.

&nb
sp; “Hey, Frank,” I hear one of them say, but I keep looking forward.

  “That was close,” I finally exhale.

  “We need to warn Michele,” Lola says.

  “Who?”

  “The baker. Ma knows her.”

  “I doubt it will matter. You should hear them at school. Every day they’re talkin’ about breaking into one place or another. They’ve probably moved onto another scheme by now.”

  “Why don’t you ever tell anyone?”

  “No way. They’ll kill me if I snitch. You know that.”

  “How would they know it was you? They think the baker has some hidden money just because they heard she has dough,” she cackles.

  “They really are dim,” I agree.

  “Okay, enough about the Polinskis. We have a plan of our own, so let’s move.”

  “What?”

  “It’s time to win you a new pet fish.”

  We make our way to Reyburn Park and the annual St. Columba fair. Just around the corner on Lehigh Avenue, Reyburn is a perfect little patch of green in the middle of the city, named after an old mayor who threw out the first pitch in Shibe Park back in ’09.

  “Where are the rides?” Lola asks. We scan the park. There are no rides, or big prize tables, or anything that resembles school fairs from the past. The big fancy signs have been replaced with handwritten posters, and the familiar sound of ringing bells is missing.

  “Too expensive, I guess.”

  “They sure are trying to make it look like a real fair. Get a load of that,” she points to the fairground ahead. Before us are handmade games trying very much to look like the real thing, now staffed by nuns, instead of game vendors, dressed in flat caps and money aprons.

  There are darts, a Popeye Pipe Toss, and something called The Sword Swallower. Beyond it, I see a BB gun shooting gallery with playing cards propped up as targets. Santa, Ralph, and Matty are all taking turns with the mallet to try and ring the top bell. With every unsuccessful bang of strength, nearby girls giggle louder.