by David Aretha
“Jacob, don’t you want some lemon chicken?” Mom asked. “It’s like McNuggets.”
“No, I’m not hungry.”
Dark clouds were gathering in the distance, reflecting my mood. I can’t believe I screwed up so badly, I thought to myself. I’ll never pitch again.
I used to dream of being the next Satchel Paige. He was the Negro League legend who won 2,000 games and tossed 55 no-hitters. Paige’s repertoire included a dozen pitches, and he gave them all nicknames. My favorites were the Bat Dodger, the Two-Hump Blooper, the Four-Day Creeper (his change-up), and the Barber. The Barber, legend has it, would shave the hairs off the batter’s chin.
“At least I didn’t stink at the plate,” I said.
“Jacob!” Mom said. She put her arm around my shoulder. “You’re a great player. Why are you so hard on yourself?”
“Ah, that’s just the nature of the game, Bridget,” Dad said. “You’re supposed to feel bad after each loss.”
“So when the Tigers went 43-119 in 2003,” I asked, “they felt lousy practically every day?”
“Pretty much,” Dad said. “But three years later they were in the World Series.”
That’s true. In baseball, you always get another chance. In Game 2 of the 1956 World Series, Yankees pitcher Don Larsen stunk up the ballpark. But in Game 5, he pitched a perfect game. Ya gotta believe—in your team and in yourself.
“So Dad, what was like the greatest moment you ever saw—like in person or on TV?”
“Uhm, probably when Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record.” He looked off into the distance and rubbed his chin. “I remember it well….”
“Oh brother, here we go,” Mom said, rolling her eyes.
“I was in my GI Joe jammies, the ones with the fuzzy feet. It was a Monday night in April, and my parents told me to go to bed. ‘Let me see him bat just once more!’ I begged. Aaron had grown up poor in Alabama. His arms were strong from picking cotton in the fields, and he practiced his hitting by swatting bottle caps with sticks.”
Dad loved telling stories. There was no stopping him.
“Aaron started out in the Negro Leagues with the Indianapolis Clowns,” he said. “Some of the restaurants didn’t like serving the team because the players were African American. At one restaurant in Washington, D.C., the workers smashed all the dishes because the black players had eaten off them.”
“Doug, this doesn’t have to be a history lesson,” Mom said.
“He’s got to know this stuff, Bridget. Anyway, by ’74 Aaron had tied the great Babe Ruth with 714 home runs. And as I watched on ABC’s Monday Night Baseball, he socked No. 715 off Al Downing at home in Atlanta. I’ll never forget his mother running out on the field and giving him this huge hug when he crossed the plate. It’s also my favorite radio call of all time: ‘There’s a new home run champion of all time, and it’s Henry Aaron!’”
I had heard that before on an MLB commercial. When I was in second grade, I used to go to bed at night saying, ‘There’s a new home run champion of all time, and it’s Jacob Vehousky!’”
The Aaron story made me think of some of the other great moments in history. One I wasn’t sure about.
“What was the Mad Dash?” I asked.
“Slaughter’s Mad Dash?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It was the seventh game of the 1946 World Series, Red Sox versus the Cardinals in St. Louis,” Dad began. “The score was tied 3-3, with two outs in the bottom of the eighth. Enos “Country” Slaughter was on first when the manager called for a hit-and-run. Slaughter took off while Harry “The Hat” Walker lined a single to left-center.”
“So then Slaughter dashed all the way to third?” I asked.
“Yes, but he didn’t stop. He rounded third and headed home!”
“On a single?”
“Yes! The shortstop, Johnny Pesky, held the ball for a while. It hadn’t occurred to him that Slaughter would even consider running home. By the time Pesky threw to the catcher, Slaughter slid in safely. The Cardinals won 4-3.”
“Now that,” Dad concluded, “is aggressive baseball.”
Late that night, I looked up a photo of the Mad Dash in my Baseball Chronicle. Slaughter glided like a plane into home plate, his hands tilted up, a puffy ball of dust behind him. It was an elegant finish to a daring dash.
That’s the kind of attitude I needed to bring to the next game, I told myself.
Vehousky’s Mad Dash. That’s what they’ll call it.
Chapter 5
Tuesday with Rupa
“Don’t look back,” Satchel Paige used to say. “Something might be gaining on you.”
That’s how I felt going into our third game. I had put my pitching disaster behind me. Now it was full-steam ahead.
“Come on, Morey’s!” I blared, rattling the dugout fence before the game. “Let’s get some runs!”
“Mor-eys! Mor-eyes! Mor-eyes!” the guys chanted.
With Wednesday’s contest rained out, we were playing a rare Friday game. We had no homework and no bedtime, and everyone was on a sugar high. It was Evan’s eighth birthday, and his mom had brought cupcakes with each of our numbers on them. They were supposed to be for after the game. But once Jackson opened the Tupperware lid, it was a mad free-for-all.
Excitement was in the air at Hickory Park, and I led off the second inning with a sharp single to center. I proceeded to kick first base a couple inches toward second.
“What are ya doing there, Jake?” asked Coach Quinn, who coached first base.
“It’s a trick I learned from Ty Cobb,” I said.
Cobb, who played a hundred years ago, was the greatest Tiger of all. He holds the major-league record for career batting average (.366). But he was a mean son-of-a-gun. One time, he went into the stands and beat up a fan. When someone pointed out that the poor guy had no hands, Cobb said, “I don’t care if he’s got no feet!” When kids wrote letters to him, he threw them into the fireplace. “Saves on firewood,” he would mutter.
Like Enos Slaughter, Cobb was a madman on the bases—and so was I. On the first pitch, I took off in an attempted steal of second. Riley swung and ripped a single to right, and I kept on going—all the way around third base!
“Whoa!” Mr. Majus said, raising his arms to stop me. I slowed up and returned to third. “You don’t take risks like that when there’s nobody out,” he said.
No gambles were necessary in this game. We defeated Snooze at Eleven (the mattress store) 8-3. The bottom of the order came through for us. The birthday boy cracked two singles, Tashia blooped a double, and Jackson got hit by the pitch three times. Rupa mustered a walk along with his three strikeouts.
The next morning, we won 5-4 over Dr. Aiken Family Dentistry. That nail-biter lasted nine innings, three more than the normal limit. Jeffrey had to leave in the eighth to go to Travel Team soccer practice.
“Oooh, I guess he’s too good for us,” Tashia said, as Jeffrey’s mom drove him away in her Mercedes.
When the game entered the ninth, it sparked a discussion of the longest games in baseball history. “I saw the Mets play 18 innings once,” said Gus, a native New Yorker.
“The record…,” Rupa said, “is…33 innings.”
He was right. Back in 1981, the Red Sox of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, hosted the Rochester Red Wings in a minor-league game. The 1,740 fans who attended the Holy Saturday game saw two future Hall of Famers—Wade Boggs of the Red Sox and Cal Ripken of the Red Wings.
In the 32nd inning, at 4:00 a.m., they were still playing. By that time, only 19 fans remained. It was freezing, with the wind chill temperature in the 20s. Pitcher Bob Ojeda gathered up all the broken bats, threw them into a big trash can, and lit them on fire to keep warm. They played the 33rd inning the next day, and Ripken’s team finally won. By that time, they had played eight hours and 25 minutes, thrown 882 pitches, and used 156 baseballs. “I got four hits,” Boggs told his dad, “but I was u
p 12 times.” Dallas Williams had perhaps the worst game ever. He went 0-for-13.
Our Marty was no Dallas Williams. In the bottom of the ninth, he smoked a line single to left, scoring Gus from third with the winning run. Even then, Marty didn’t crack a smile.
“Another day at the office,” he said as he strode back to the jubilant bench.
In his postgame game speech, Coach Quinn praised Marty for displaying “mental toughness in a pressure situation.” He awarded him the game ball. One thing I’ve noticed in Little League is that coaches love to award game balls to the lousy players. I guess they’re trying to spark their confidence. However, it’s annoying because a great player could go like 5-for-5 and pitch a no-hitter and not get the game ball.
“I bet that by the end of the season,” Riley told me afterward, “you, Gus, Gary, and Jeffrey won’t have any game balls and Marty, Jackson, and Rupa will have like a dozen of them.”
“Yeah, really,” I said.
“Well,” he added, meanly, “maybe not Rupa.”
With a record of 3-1, we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. But now we entered the toughest part of our schedule. Coming up were Hickory Oak Proctologists and We Will Wok You Chinese Family Buffet.
The Proctologists were really good. Their starting pitcher shut us down for three innings while they mounted a 4-0 lead. We held little hope as we prepared to bat in the top of the fourth.
“What’s a proctologist?” Evan asked.
“Butt doctor,” Marty replied instantaneously. It’s like Marty couldn’t wait for someone to ask that question. It’s like he had been saying it in his head the whole game: butt doctor, butt doctor, butt doctor.
“Why do you need a butt doctor?” Jackson asked.
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes!” Gary said. “Let’s concentrate on the fact that we’re getting our butts kicked!”
“Come on guys,” Coach Quinn encouraged. “Focus. We can beat this team.”
But we couldn’t. After Tashia pitched the fifth inning and got rocked, we trailed 8-1. As we returned to the bench, Gary sighed and threw down his mitt.
“What’s your problem?” Tashia asked him.
“Girls can’t pitch,” he said.
“Hey, you shut the…,” Tashia said, charging at him.
Luckily, the coaches were on the field and didn’t hear them.
“Don’t start!” big Gus said, glowering at Gary and Tashia.
“Not long ago,” Tashia said calmly to Gary, “there was an 11-year-old girl from New York who threw a perfect game in Little League.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah…,” Gary said.
“And it wasn’t just a perfect game,” she said. “She struck out every single boy she faced! Now her jersey’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame. So don’t give me this ‘girls can’t pitch’ crap.”
Riley started to dance and sing: “Go Tashia…go Tashia!”
“And how about Jackie Mitchell?” said Dad as he walked in on the discussion. “She faced the New York Yankees in an exhibition game and struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back to back.”
“Well, we could use Jackie Mitchell right now,” Gary said, “because we’re getting skunked.”
We lost the game 9-2, then dropped the Saturday game as well. Amidst a steady drizzle at Hickory Park, We Will Wok You walked all over us, 6-4. Coach Quinn’s decision to move up Rupa to the sixth spot of the batting order backfired. Jeffrey, who batted third, singled and walked. Gus, the cleanup man, smashed a double and two singles. I batted fifth and mustered two singles and a walk. Yet Rupa kept stranding us on base by striking out four times. Nobody said what everyone knew: Rupa blew the game.
In Coach’s postgame speech, Rupa sat at the end of the bench with his head down. His face was smoldering, but through great effort he succeeded in holding back his tears. Afterward, he walked toward the parking lot. He couldn’t even bear to greet his mother, or even look at her. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder, and they walked away together.
Three days later, Mrs. Kovner dropped off Rupa at our house. This was not my idea, but my mom’s and dad’s. “Jacob, your coach had asked you to be a team leader,” Mom had said. “This is your chance.”
The truth is that Mom had felt sorry for Rupa and thought that someone should invite him over to play. The “leader” thing was just an excuse.
“Hi, Rupa!” Mom said as he and Mrs. Kovner arrived at the door.
“Hi, Mrs….Vou…Vou….”
“Thanks so much for inviting Rupa,” his mother said.
“Oh, it’s my pleasure!” said Mom, going overboard with the sweetness. “We’ve been talking about getting the boys together for a while.”
Riley was supposed to come to help ease the tension. But he weaseled out of it with a lame excuse: “Uh, I have to accompany my mother to go wax the car.”
“Hey,” I said to Rupa.
“Hi,” he said.
“You want to…go to the basement?” I asked.
I led him down the steps. Our basement is big but unfinished. The floor is bare concrete, and the walls are smooth cement. I pulled the long string that turns on the light bulb, revealing our shelves of board games.
“Anything look good to you?” I asked.
Amid Star Wars Monopoly and Battleball, Rupa found his game of choice. He pointed to Connect Four.
This is the game in which you drop plastic “checkers” down slots. You try to get four in a row of your color. It’s like tic-tac-toe, but much brainier. Since I was family champ at this game, I figured I could mop the floor with Rupa. I’ll have to take it easy on him, I thought to myself.
We set up the game on the table in the dining room, a cramped little area outside the kitchen. As Rupa and I dropped checkers, I realized that the kid could play. He had the concentration level of a mad scientist. He beat me in the first game…and the second, third, and fourth.
“Man, where did you learn to play like this?” I asked.
He mustered a half-smile.
“I’m…good at games,” he struggled to say. “I’m very good at…at…at…chess.”
“You play chess?” I asked.
“Yes. I…usually beat my uncle…. And when he was…in school…he was…chess champion.”
I started to think about what my mom had said. “Everyone’s got strengths and weaknesses,” she told me. “Your father pulled straight As in school, but he has no sense of direction when he drives. Your Aunt Renee speaks four languages, but she can’t remember a thing. Albert Einstein was dyslexic, as was Thomas Edison. Babe Ruth ate too many hot dogs, but he could hit the ball a mile.”
Rupa had trouble speaking, but he had a brilliant mind. He beat me in the fifth game with moves I had never seen before.
“Whoa!” I said, as he broke into a smile. I was totally impressed.
Rupa and I played baseball in the basement. One of us would throw the tennis ball off the wall, and the other would hit it with a Wiffle bat. A liner off the wall was a single. If you hit it above certain lines, it was a double, triple, or home run. I let Rupa be the Tigers while I was the Yankees. I won the game 14-13, but it took me 10 innings. And we smashed only one light bulb.
Afterward we watched The Simpsons, the one where Homer gets a job as Mr. Plow. Rupa stayed for dinner (Mom’s homemade mac and cheese, with breadcrumbs), and then his mom came to pick him up.
The dreaded “play date” with Rupa turned out to be pretty fun. I wish I could say the same for our next game.
Chapter 6
Slaughtered by United Bank & Trust
“I feel like jolly ol’ England,” Gary said, “right before the Germans dropped the bombs.”
It was 10 minutes before game time at Hickory Park, and eight of us sat shivering on the bench. It wasn’t just the chilly Saturday morning air that had us shaking in our cleats, but the team we were about to face. Our opponent was United Bank & Trust, the most talented, wealthy, spoiled, and dominatin
g team Hickory Oak Little League had ever seen.
While Jeffrey warmed up with Gus behind our bench, the rest of us watched the spectacle unfold in front of us. Coach Jonathan K. Reynolds hit groundballs to his infielders. “Turn two,” the coach said. “Why, Dad?” asked his second baseman/son, who flawlessly executed the play. “They’ll never get a guy on first base.” The coach chuckled to himself. “Be a good sport, Morgan,” he said.
In the outfield, another coach swatted high fly balls, which fell softly into the players’ gloves. Behind the backstop, a third coach tossed balls to a menacing hitter, who drilled liner after liner into the fence. We cringed every time the ball crashed into the chain-linked metal. Smash!... Smash!... Smash!… Smash!
“It’s psychological warfare,” Riley said. “They’re trying to rattle our brains.”
“Don’t let ’em get to you guys,” said Coach Quinn, whose expression was filled with worry.
United Bank & Trust was no ordinary team. They had won the seven-, eight-, and nine-year-old Hickory Oak championships and were gunning for their fourth straight title. Jeffrey said they had never lost a game.
“There’s something not fair about this,” Tashia said. And there wasn’t. Mr. Reynolds, an executive with United Bank & Trust, wasn’t just the team’s coach. He was the commissioner of the entire Hickory Oak Little League! Dad had been grumbling about that for three years.
“If you’re the umpire, and the commissioner comes out and argues the call, what are you going to say?” Dad said. “You’re going to say, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Commissioner. I’ll reverse my call right away, Mr. Commissioner. Please don’t fire me, Mr. Commissioner.’”
Coach Reynolds, with his slicked-back hair and confident posture, oozed wealth. In fact, all of UB&T’s players were from the wealthy Lovelton School. While our moms and dads sat on the bleachers, their parents brought their own foldout chairs—with double cup holders.
Jeffrey was the only Morey’s player to play Travel League ball, a summer league that you have to try out for. Almost every UB&T player, if not all of them, played Travel ball. Jeffrey said that most of them worked out at Frozen Ropes. That place is really expensive, but the kids get instruction from professional ballplayers—some of whom played in the major leagues.