Jackie & Me

by Dan Gutman

  “But you’re famous!” I protested. “You made one of the greatest catches in baseball history. Didn’t you?”

  Gionfriddo said he didn’t know what I was talking about.

  “Friddo!” Dodger manager Barney Shotton shouted. “Take over left field.”

  Joe Hatten came in to pitch for the Dodgers. He retired the first two Yankees, but then he walked a batter and gave up a single to Yogi Berra.

  Two on, two out. The Dodgers had a three-run lead, but no lead was safe against the Yankees. And now the tying run was at the plate—Joe DiMaggio.

  “He hit a homer yesterday,” Ant told me.

  A home run now would tie the game. Joe D. could go longball at any time.

  DiMaggio jumped on Hatten’s first pitch and connected. He slashed a bullet to left. The ball was heading in the direction of the low bullpen fence. A roar escaped from the crowd.

  Everybody on the Dodger bench stood up to watch the flight of the ball. It would have been out of Ebbets Field easily. But Yankee Stadium had a lot of running room.

  Gionfriddo had been playing shallow left field, but he put his head down and began sprinting toward the fence.

  The outfield fence in Yankee Stadium wasn’t cushy and padded, as they all are in my time. They were concrete walls and sharp fences.

  The ball was starting to come down and Gionfriddo could tell it was going to land near the low wire fence. A sign next to the fence indicated it was 415 feet from home plate.

  The two Yankee base runners were running on anything and had already reached home plate. DiMaggio had slowed into his home-run trot. He knew he’d hit the ball hard enough to get it over the fence.

  Gionfriddo was still running full speed, his back toward the plate. His cap flew off. As he got close to the fence, he peeked over his left shoulder. He saw that the ball was coming down over his opposite shoulder. He twisted around and stretched his glove out over the fence, like he was catching a football pass.

  He jumped and turned to avoid crashing into the fence. The ball hit the top of the webbing of his glove. It stuck there.

  Three outs! The Dodgers screamed with joy. The Yankee fans couldn’t believe it. Gionfriddo held his glove up for the umpires to see. Half of the ball was sticking out of the webbing, like a snow cone. DiMaggio kicked the dirt near second base in frustration.

  Gionfriddo jumped and turned to avoid crashing into the fence. The ball hit the top of the webbing of his glove. It stuck there, like a snow cone.

  When Gionfriddo came back to the dugout, he stared at me.

  “Nice catch,” I said.

  The Yankees threatened in the seventh and picked up a run in the ninth inning. But Dodger relief ace Hugh Casey was on the mound, and he wasn’t giving an inch. For the last out of the game, Casey gloved a grounder back to the mound and flipped it to Jackie at first.

  Final score: Dodgers 8, Yanks 6. The World Series was all tied up at three games apiece. Game 7 was scheduled for Yankee Stadium the next day.

  The Dodgers whooped it up in the clubhouse as if the World Series were over. They were throwing little Al Gionfriddo up in the air and catching him. Dixie Walker set Bobby Bragan’s pants on fire. Somebody nailed Jackie’s shoes to the floor. Guys were having contests to see who could spit tobacco juice the farthest. A few of them were running around in jockstraps playing “clubhouse ball.” That is, they were pitching beer cans and whacking them with bats. They were crazy.

  The celebration finally wound down and most of the players were gone when Ant walked up to me. He grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.

  “How come you got the same name as the colored kid?” he demanded.

  “What?” I asked.

  He showed me my wallet. “The black boy told me his name was Joe Stoshack. And now I see it’s your name, too.”

  “That’s none of your business,” I said, grabbing the wallet from him. “Keep your paws off my stuff.”

  “There’s only one explanation for this,” Ant said. “You’re a black disguised as a Polack, and you came from the future!”

  “You’ve got real psychological problems, Ant. You ought to get help.”

  “You’re the one who’s gonna need help,” he said. “How do you explain this?”

  He pulled out my Game Boy and held it in front of me.

  “It’s a portable video game system,” I explained. “You play games on it.”

  “Oh, sure you do!” Ant said. “I bet it’s some kind of a secret spy gadget. You’re a Communist spy, aren’t you?”

  “Give me a break, Ant.”

  “I finally figured you out, Stoshack, or whatever your real name is. The Commies want to steal our atomic secrets so they can take over. You’ve been sent here from the future to infiltrate us. You thought you could fool us by disguising yourself as a colored boy. Ain’t that right? Well, it didn’t work.”

  Man, what a nut case! Ant made fists and started dancing around like a boxer.

  “Put ’em up, you colored commie Polack!”

  Jackie was watching from his locker. I looked at him. He looked back at me and raised his eyebrows, as if to say, “So what are you going to do about it?”

  I turned around and walked away from Ant. I had better things to do than mix it up with a lunatic. Game 7 would be tomorrow. Then I would go back to Louisville. I couldn’t wait.

  16

  EAT AND RUN

  JACKIE HAD A SINGLE AND A DOUBLE IN GAME 6, AND HE was in high spirits afterward. He knew I would be going back home after Game 7, so he offered to take me out for a farewell dinner.

  Mrs. Robinson and Jackie Jr. joined us and we went to a place called Frank’s in Harlem. I was the only white person in the restaurant, but nobody said anything about it. The food was great.

  When we got back to the Robinsons’ apartment, Jackie took out his key to open the door, but the door was already open.

  “Jack,” Mrs. Robinson said anxiously, “somebody broke in.”

  “I’ll go in and look around,” he told her. “You stay out here.”

  We waited on the sidewalk for a few minutes. Mrs. Robinson had a worried look on her face the whole time. Finally, Jackie emerged from the apartment.

  “Nothing is missing,” he said. “I guess we must have left the door open when we left.”

  That’s when I realized what might be missing. I dashed inside, with Jackie, Rachel, and Jackie Jr. right behind me. I tore open the door of the front closet and looked through it frantically.

  “My suitcase!” I shouted. “It’s gone!”

  The Robinsons assured me that the suitcase and anything inside it could be replaced. I knew it wasn’t true. That suitcase had the last of the Bond Bread cards. They were priceless.

  I was furious. It had to be Ant. It just had to be.

  The phone rang, and Jackie picked it up. He listened for about a minute and said only two words—"How soon?"—before hanging up.

  “Who was that, Jack?” Mrs. Robinson asked.

  “A friend at the police station,” he said, looking at me. “He told me the cops are on their way over. Somebody called and gave them an anonymous tip that I kidnapped a white boy.”

  “Ant!” I shouted. “I’ll bet he took my suitcase, too. I’ll kill him!”

  “No you won’t,” Jackie said, grabbing me by the shoulders.

  “You never back down from anybody,” I complained. “Why do you want me to?”

  “Stosh,” he said calmly. “You’re emotional, like me. You like to fight back. Well, sometimes I don’t fight back. I have sat in the back of buses so whites could sit up front. I’ve eaten sandwiches outside while my teammates ate the best food in a fancy restaurant. I’ve slept in seedy hotels while the rest of my team stayed in the nicest place in town. I’ve held back my fist when I wanted to hit somebody with it. I did that because some acts show courage. Others show stupidity. You’ve got to pick and choose your battles. You’re not going to win this one.”

  The doorbell rang. Mrs. Ro
binson peeked through the curtains.

  “It’s the police,” she whispered, then shouted, “I’ll be right there!”

  “Stosh,” Jackie said to me, “you’ve got to go now.”

  “But I want to be there for Game 7!” I begged. “And I want to get my suitcase back.”

  “No,” Jackie said firmly.

  Rachel picked up a pillow and put it on one side of the couch. I took my Griffey card out of my pocket and lay down. I thought about going home to Louisville. It took a few seconds, but soon the tingling sensation was there.

  “Good luck tomorrow,” I told Jackie.

  “Thanks, Stosh. The guys will miss you.”

  There was an insistent knock at the door. That was the last thing I remembered.

  17

  A PRESENT

  THE FIRST THING I DID WHEN I WOKE UP AT HOME WAS TO reach for The Baseball Encyclopedia. I flipped to the section that gives the results for every World Series, and turned the pages until I found 1947.

  The Dodgers lost Game 7. The Yankees were the World Champions.

  If I had been there, would I have been able to make a difference? Could I have tipped off one of the Dodger hitters so he’d hit a home run? Could I have taught one of the pitchers how to throw a split-finger fastball or some other new pitch that hadn’t been invented in 1947? Probably not.

  “Aren’t you going to call your father and tell him you’re home?” Mom asked once she had finished hugging, kissing, and feeding me.

  The thought of meeting Dad terrified me. I knew he was going to ask about the suitcase he’d given me to fill with baseball cards. I knew he was going to hit the roof when I told him that for the second time I didn’t bring it back with me.

  It didn’t matter. Mom left a message on Dad’s answering machine telling him I was home. Dad rushed over as soon as he heard it.

  “Did you bring back the baseball cards?” he asked excitedly as soon as we were alone in my room. He knew right away from the look on my face that I hadn’t.

  “I asked you to do one simple thing,” he fumed, throwing his hands toward the ceiling in exasperation. “Fill a lousy suitcase with cards. Then come back with it. Is that so hard? Is that too much to ask? But no, you come back with nothing.”

  “The suitcase was stolen,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry. But I did come back with something.”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the scorecard Babe Ruth had signed for me. This is what it said…

  Dad’s fingers trembled, as if he were holding a million dollars in his hand. But for a moment or two, I felt, Dad wasn’t thinking about money.

  18

  LESSONS

  MRS. LEVITT WAS NOT OVERLY THRILLED WITH THE ORAL reports from Black History Month, and she let us know it. I had to admit they were pretty boring. I almost fell asleep in the middle of George Washington Carver. Finally, it was my turn.

  “Mr. Stoshack, you selected Jackie Robinson. What books, magazines, and other research materials did you use to do your report?”

  Research materials? I didn’t use any research materials. I went back in time and met the guy!

  “Uh, I used baseball cards,” I admitted. Some of the kids laughed.

  “So tell us, Joe. What did you learn about Jackie Robinson?”

  “I learned what it must be like to be hated because of the color of your skin.”

  “Explain, Joe.”

  “Well, you see, I only picked Jackie Robinson because I love sports. I thought that studying him might help me learn how to hit the curveball or make the double play. But he taught me a lot more than that.

  “Jackie Roosevelt Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia, in 1919. He was the youngest of five children. When he was just six months old, his father abandoned the family. His mother, Mallie, raised and supported all the children by herself. Jackie’s brother Mack was a championship sprinter, and he finished second to Jesse Owens in the 200-meter dash at the 1936 Olympics.”

  “I didn’t know that!” Mrs. Levitt said.

  “While he was growing up, Jackie experienced segregation and discrimination, like all African-Americans did at the time. But when he became the first black man to play in the big leagues since 1887, it was much worse. While his team was on the road, he had to stay in separate hotels that admitted black people. He had to eat in separate restaurants. Other teams refused to play if he was on the field. Some of his own teammates refused to speak to him. His wife, Rachel, would rub Jackie’s sore legs at night because the trainers didn’t want to touch his skin.

  “On the field, players would intentionally spike him. They would throw fastballs at his head. They would curse him out. Fans threatened to kill him and his family. This didn’t take place in ancient times or during slavery. I’m talking about the middle of the twentieth century in America, where the Constitution states that all men are created equal.

  “Jackie could have retaliated. He could have charged the mound and started fights. Busted heads. That would have been his natural reaction. But he didn’t. He answered with silence and self-control. He answered with dignity. And he answered by being a great player despite everything he had to endure. Instead of fighting back with his fists, he fought back by showing how good he was. And because he was so good, many of the people who hated him—and all other African-Americans—came to respect him and like him. That’s what I learned about Jackie Robinson.”

  “You got all that from baseball cards?” Mrs. Levitt asked.

  “Uh, yeah, well, sort of.”

  She went to her desk, reached into the drawer, and handed me four tickets to Kentucky Kingdom.

  19

  A NEW BALLGAME

  “WELL, WELL, WELL!” BOBBY FULLER SNEERED AS I STEPPED up to the plate. “Look who’s back! Stoshack the Polack!”

  I had been suspended for most of the season because of the riot I had started. My team, the Yellow Jackets, had done pretty well without me. They finished the season tied for first place with Fuller’s team. We were playing a one-game playoff to see who could call themselves the champions of the Louisville Little League.

  The president of the League had lifted my suspension so I could play in the final game. But Coach Hutchinson was still mad at me, so he didn’t put me in the starting lineup. Somebody reminded him that a League rule states everybody on the bench has to play at least one inning, so Coach Hutchinson had no choice but to put me in the game.

  The score was tied at 6-6 in the bottom of the sixth inning. We had two outs when Coach Hutchinson finally decided to put me in as a pinch hitter.

  How cool would it be, I thought, to slam a home run off Bobby Fuller right now? That would totally humiliate him and win the championship for us in one swing of the bat. Man, if I did that, Fuller might as well get a shovel and dig his own grave right on the pitcher’s mound. Life as he knew it would be over.

  “The big, dumb, ugly Polack is back.” Fuller laughed, looking in for the sign. “Did you enjoy your vacation?”

  He wound up and threw his hard one right at my head. Instinctively, my legs crumpled to pull my head out of the line of fire. Fuller laughed as my bat flew up in the air and hit me on the arm. The umpire gave Fuller a warning and helped me to my feet.

  “Oops!” Fuller smirked. “That one slipped.”

  “You gonna let him get away with that?” the catcher whispered to me. “Why don’t you go out there and show him who’s boss?”

  Yeah, I could do that. But it wouldn’t put a run on the scoreboard.

  “I see you have the guts to throw the ball at my head,” I yelled to Fuller. “Do you have the guts to throw it over the plate?”

  “You saying I’m gutless?” Fuller shot back.

  “You heard me,” I shouted. “You know you can’t get me out fair and square. You’re afraid to pitch to me.”

  “I could come over there and break your face, Stoshack!”

  “Yeah, that would be another way to avoid pitching to me.”

  Fuller stomped arou
nd the mound, thinking things over.

  “Cut out the trash talk, boys,” the umpire hollered. “Your mommies don’t want to hear that stuff.”

  I knew Fuller was going to throw a slow curve over the outside corner, and he did. I flicked the bat at it and sent it up the middle. If he had merely stuck his glove in front of his face, he would have caught the ball and the game would be over. But Fuller ducked to get out of the way. The coward! The ball skipped over the second-base bag and into center field.

  Fuller was steaming. I took a lead at first base. He looked at me, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “I’m going to steal,” I teased him, “and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  Fuller threw over to first, almost throwing the ball away. I jumped right back up and extended my lead a little further. He didn’t want me to reach second, I knew, because I could score on a single from there.

  Fuller wheeled around quickly and threw to first, trying to catch me off base. I didn’t hesitate. Instead of diving back to the bag, I broke for second.

  Seeing me run the other way must have thrown him off. His throw to first went wild. It sailed over the first baseman’s head and into the crowd. I was already past second, and the umpire said I could advance to third on the overthrow.

  If Fuller had been a volcano, he would have erupted. His infielders gathered around him to try and calm him down, but it was hopeless. They needed a tranquilizer gun.

  “Bobby,” I called sweetly from third base. “Oh Bobby! It’s me, your worst nightmare! You know, the dumb Polack? I’m gonna steal home now. Don’t think I won’t try.”

  Stealing home, I know, is one of the most risky, physically dangerous, and exciting plays in baseball. No human being can run as fast as the slowest pitch. The odds are against the runner. That’s why hardly anybody ever does it. But if you can get a good jump, a bad pitch, and a little luck, you can pull it off.