by Dan Gutman
Once again I had failed. And I wasn’t going to get that money that Agent Pluto had in his briefcase.
Why did this always happen? When I went back to 1932, I didn’t see Babe Ruth call his shot. When I went back to 1919, I wasn’t able to stop the Black Sox Scandal. I never found out how fast Satchel Paige could throw a fastball. And I wasn’t able to save the lives of Ray Chapman or Roberto Clemente.
I was a failure. Only this time I had failed my country.
I trudged back downstairs and plopped on the couch. My mom got a wet rag and held it against the side of my head to stop the bleeding.
“Next time, honey,” she said. “Next time you’ll save the world.”
“I don’t know if there’s gonna be a next time,” I told her.
“Oh, I meant to tell you,” she said, hopping up off the couch to get something. “A letter came in the mail while you were gone. Do you know anything about this?”
She handed me an envelope that was addressed simply JOE STOSHACK, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY. It was a miracle that it got delivered to our house with that address. The letterhead said STATE STREET BANK & TRUST COMPANY in Boston. I took out the sheet of paper….
Dear Mr. Stoshack,
This is to inform you that we have a long-term savings account in your name: #2948283850. This account was opened on 12/8/41 with $1,000 and has remained untouched and unclaimed since that date. With interest that has been compounded twice annually, the total of this account is now $99,875.34. Please inform us within 30 days as to what to do with these funds or this account will be terminated and the funds will be released to the Internal Revenue Service.
Sincerely,
Kimberly VanderWater,
Long-term Account Manager
“It’s probably one of those scams,” my mother said. “I’ll throw it away for you.”
“No!” I said, gripping the letter tightly as I read it a second time. “It’s not a scam. Ted did this!”
“Ted?” my mother said. “Ted Williams?”
“He must have gone to this bank in Boston and opened a savings account in my name,” I told her. “See the date? It’s the day after Pearl Harbor! The account earned interest for over seventy years!”
“Why would he give you a thousand dollars?” my mother asked. “Didn’t you say Coach Valentini told you that Ted Williams was a jerk?”
“He was a jerk!” I told her. “But he was nice sometimes too! He taught me how to fly fish, and how to hit. He gave money to a homeless person. He visited a kid in the hospital and held his hand all night. I told him we couldn’t afford college, so he must have opened this account in my name. He knew it would grow over the years and be worth a lot of money by the time I was ready for college!”
“A hundred grand!” my mom shouted.
Mom and I started jumping up and down, yelling and screaming our heads off. I was so happy that I forgot all about my sore ribs and the cut on my face. And we were making so much noise that we almost didn’t hear the doorbell ring.
I peeked through the blinds. It was Mr. Pluto, that FBI guy.
Mom and I calmed down fast. She hid the letter, and I went to open the door.
“Mrs. Stoshack,” Agent Pluto said politely, “Joseph, good to see you.”
I knew he came over to find out what went wrong with my mission. I figured I might as well get it over with quickly.
“I…blew it,” I told him as soon as he stepped inside. “I’m sorry. I never made it to Washington.”
“Obviously,” he replied. “It’s okay, Joseph. I knew the mission wasn’t going to be easy. You can tell me all the details in the car.”
“In the car?” I asked, apprehensively. “Where are you taking me?”
I figured he was going to take me to FBI headquarters and brainwash me, or whatever it was that the FBI did to people who failed on their secret missions.
“Relax,” he said. “I told you I was a big baseball fan. Well, I bumped into your coach, Mr. Valentini. Did you forget you have a game today? You’re late! Get dressed. Get your stuff!”
With all the excitement over playing in the Little League World Series, I had forgotten that we still had a few games left in our schedule against local teams. I threw my uniform on and was still tying my cleats while Agent Pluto drove Mom and me to Dunn Field.
As we skidded to a stop on the gravel behind the backstop, I checked the scoreboard. Bad news. The game was almost over. It was the last inning, and we were losing, 6–4.
“Stosh is here!” shouted Cubby Abrams, our catcher.
“It’s about time,” said Kyle the Mutant.
I ran over to Flip in the dugout.
“Where the heck were ya?” he asked frantically. “I need ya to pinch-hit. We got nobody left. I used up our bench.”
I checked the bases. We had runners on second and third. Two outs.
“Nothing like a little pressure,” I said.
“Hey, show up on time and you won’t feel the pressure,” Flip replied. “Here’s yer bat. Get out there and do somethin’ with it.”
“I don’t want that bat, Flip,” I told him.
“What?” Flip asked. “This is your bat. I picked it out personally. What’s a matter with it?”
“It’s too heavy.”
“Whaddaya talkin’ about, Stosh?” Flip protested. “It’s just the right weight for you.”
“I’m not using that bat, Flip,” I insisted.
“Oh, whatever,” he replied. “Just grab a bat and get up there before we forfeit the game.”
The umpire was looking in our dugout. I picked a lighter bat out of the rack and took a couple of practice swings with it. It felt good. I could swing it fast.
“Okay,” Flip said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Remember what I taught you. Anything close, take a rip at it.”
“I’m not doing that, Flip,” I said.
“Whaddaya mean you’re not doing that?”
“I’m not swinging unless the ball is in my happy zone.”
“Yer what?” Flip yelled. “Are you bananas? Get up there and hit! Nice level swing.”
“I’m not going to swing level either, Flip.”
“What’s gotten into you, Stosh?” Flip asked, looking into my eyes. “This is common sense stuff. Level swing. That’s the way I teach everybody to hit.”
“Look,” I told him, “the mound is higher than home plate, and the pitcher releases the ball at least a foot over his head. So the ball is coming down at the batter. The best way to make good contact is to swing with an uppercut.”
“Who taught you that bull?” Flip asked.
“The greatest hitter in history,” I said.
The umpire came over. He didn’t look happy when he took off his mask.
“Get your batter up here, Flip, or this game is a forfeit!”
“Fuhgetuhboutit,” Flip said to me. “See the ball. Hit the ball. Got a problem with that, Stosh?”
I took a deep breath and walked up to the plate.
“Now batting…,” boomed the public-address announcer, “…Joe…Stoshack.”
It wasn’t like the Little League World Series, with millions of fans watching on TV. There were probably a few hundred people sitting in the bleachers on the first-and third-base sides. A couple of dogs ran around chasing Frisbees thrown by their owners. There was a baby crying. In the snack bar, they were selling candy and pizza and stuff.
But still, a game is a game. Winning beats losing any day. I like to win.
“Drive me in, Stosh!” shouted Eric Scott, the runner on second.
“You can do it, man!” shouted Josh Cresswell, who was on third.
The wind was blowing out, I noticed. Good. The ball would carry if I could get it up in the air.
I tried to remember everything Ted had told me when we were in the boat. Get a good ball to hit. Be quick. Weight balanced. Knees bent and flexible. Keep your head still. Hold the bat almost perpendicular.
I looked up at the pitcher, a l
efty. I had never seen him before. Not so good. I decided to lay off the first pitch no matter what so I could see what kind of stuff he had.
He went into his windup and let one go. It was close, but thankfully, the umpire called ball one.
“What was wrong with that, ump?” asked the catcher.
“It was outside,” I told him, “by an inch.”
Behind me, I heard the ump chuckle.
The pitcher delivered the next one a little high, and I resisted the temptation to swing.
“Ball two,” cried the ump. The pitcher threw his hands up in frustration.
“What was wrong with that one?” asked the catcher.
“High,” I muttered. “Two inches.”
Two balls, no strikes. My advantage. I stepped out of the batter’s box to think things over.
I thought, What would Ted do? I could almost hear him talking to me: Know the count. Use the count. Use your head.
If the pitcher doesn’t get a strike now, the count would go to 3-0, and he would be in danger of walking me to load the bases. Not only that, but walking me would put the winning run on base. He didn’t want that. This time he wouldn’t try to hit a corner. He would lay one over the plate. I was likely to get a good pitch to hit. I knew it, and he knew it too. I was ready to pull the trigger.
But I didn’t get the chance. The ball slipped out of his hand and bounced in front of the plate. The catcher made a miraculous stop to hold the runners. He got a nice round of applause from the parents in the bleachers. Or at least the ones who weren’t talking or texting.
Now the count was three balls, no strikes. He had to throw a strike. It was automatic. Nine times out of ten, the pitcher throws it right down the middle with a 3–0 count, and the batter takes it, hoping for ball four.
I looked over at Flip to make sure he was giving me the “take” sign: touching the brim of his cap. But he didn’t touch his cap. He rubbed his nose: the “hit” sign. He was giving me the go-ahead to swing away.
I pumped the bat across the plate a couple of times. Eric and Josh edged off the bases. The pitcher went into his windup.
And he put it right in my happy zone.
I uppercutted at that !@#$%! with everything I had.
I knew right away that I’d hit it well. You get that good feeling in your hands. No sting. The ball was up in the air, heading for right center. I couldn’t run yet. I had to watch it.
The centerfielder drifted back until he was against the fence. He was looking up.
That’s when I saw the ball sail over the fence, take one bounce off the asphalt, and land somewhere in the parking lot.
Three-run home run! We won!
I had never hit a ball so far. A bunch of little kids went running after it, and my teammates went crazy.
They chased me around the bases, pounding me on the back as I rounded first, pummeling me at second, and jumping all over me at third. When I stepped on home plate, the whole pile of them leaped on top of me, pinning me to the ground. If they weren’t so happy, I would have thought I was back at the rally being beaten up by Nazis.
As I was making my way back to the dugout, I noticed a girl in the front row of the bleachers holding a little American flag. And I don’t know why I did it. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t think about it. It was just instinct.
I jogged over to the girl and asked her if I could borrow her flag for a minute. She handed it to me, and I waved it over my head to all the spectators. They let out a cheer, and I jogged past the bleachers waving the flag and slapping hands with everybody I could reach. The rest of the team crowded behind me like a parade. We were all slapping hands with the fans.
Somebody in the snack bar must have been watching us. The loudspeaker they usually use to announce that your burger is ready started blaring out “God Bless America.”
After me and the guys had high-fived everybody on the first-base side, I led them across the field. I looked behind me and saw that the kids from the other team had joined our little parade too. The whole gang of us ran over to the third-base side and slapped hands with the people over there. Then we all ran out to home plate, and a roar went up from the crowd that rang in my ears as they cheered for us.
So what if my mission was a failure? I didn’t stop the attack on Pearl Harbor. And I didn’t help Ted Williams crack 700 home runs. But it was okay, I figured, because everybody makes mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. Flip is a great guy, but he’s a lousy hitting coach. The FBI agent screwed up and gave me the wrong baseball card. Charles Lindbergh wasn’t the perfect hero so many people thought he was. And even Ted Williams—the greatest hitter who ever lived—made an out six times out of every ten times he came to the plate.
I never felt so good in my life.
Facts and Fictions
EVERYTHING IN THIS BOOK IS TRUE, EXCEPT FOR THE STUFF I made up. It’s only fair to tell you which is which.
It’s true that Ted Williams was one of the greatest hitters ever. The statistics in the book are correct. It’s also true that some teams would shift their entire defense to the right side of the diamond to defend against Ted, although that began five years after this story takes place.
It’s true that Ted hit .406 in 1941, and nobody has hit .400 since. Anthropologist Stephen Jay Gould called it “the greatest achievement in twentieth-century hitting.”
Even so, Ted did not win the Most Valuable Player Award that year. Joe DiMaggio did, because of his 56-game hitting streak. By the way, during DiMaggio’s streak, his batting average was .408. During that same period of time, Ted hit .412.
It’s true that Red Sox manager Joe Cronin offered to let Ted sit out the last day of the season so his average would be rounded up to .400. It’s also true that Ted walked the streets of downtown Philadelphia for hours the night before the doubleheader. What’s not true is that Ted agonized over whether or not he should play. He has been quoted as saying, “I never thought about sitting out. Not once.” And “If I couldn’t hit .400 all the way, I didn’t deserve it.”
Shibe Park in Philadelphia was real. It was renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953. Two years later, the Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City. The Phillies played in the ballpark until 1970. It was torn down in 1976.
Everything about Ted’s military career is true. He enlisted after the 1942 season. While he didn’t see action during World War II, he did train other pilots. In Korea, Ted flew 39 bombing missions. On February 16, 1953, his F-9 Panther jet was hit, and he nearly died crash-landing the plane. He was awarded the Air Medal and later the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
It’s true that ten weeks after Ted hit .406, Pearl Harbor was attacked. It’s also true that before that day many Americans were opposed to the United States getting involved in the war. Antiwar rallies took place all over the country in 1941, and frequently the speaker was Charles Lindbergh.
Lindbergh was famous for being the first to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean but not quite as famous for being a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite. He visited Germany four times and even accepted a medal from the Nazis. The words Lindbergh spoke at the rally in chapter 17 were actual quotes from his speeches.
Father Coughlin (1891–1979) was a real Catholic priest in Michigan who made anti-Semitic radio broadcasts that were heard across the country.
It’s true that Ted Williams was a complicated man who could be quite mean one minute and a real sweetheart the next. He would often visit sick children in hospitals, and for forty years he worked tirelessly with the Jimmy Fund, a Boston charity that benefits the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Ted would also give money to old friends in need. He would ask the friend to donate ten dollars to a charity. Then, after he received the check, Ted would anonymously deposit thousands of dollars in the friend’s bank account. So if Stosh existed in the real world, Ted might very well have put some money in a secret bank account to pay for his college education.
After his baseball career was over, Ted managed the Washington Sen
ators for four years, and he was named American League Manager of the Year in 1969. He was also a spokesman for Sears Roebuck, had a radio show and a syndicated newspaper column, and founded the Ted Williams Baseball Camp in Lakeville, Massachusetts.
It’s true that Ted loved fishing almost as much as he loved hitting. In fact, in 2000 he was inducted into the International Game Fishing Association Hall of Fame.
Ted died two years later, at the age of 83. About that, no more needs to be said.
Read More!
I DIDN’T JUST KNOW ALL THE FACTS THAT WENT INTO THIS book. I got them from reading other books and newspaper articles, watching videos, and searching the internet. These are some of my best sources….
Berg, A. Scott. Lindbergh. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1998.
Cramer, Richard Ben. What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?: A Remembrance. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.
Creamer, Robert W. Baseball in ’41: A Celebration of the “Best Baseball Season Ever”—in the Year America Went to War. New York: Viking, 1991.
DiMaggio, Dom, with Bill Gilbert. Real Grass, Real Heroes: Baseball’s Historic 1941 Season. New York: Kensington Publishing, 1990.
Halberstam, David. The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship. New York: Hyperion, 2003.
Linn, Ed. Hitter: The Life and Turmoils of Ted Williams. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993.
Montville, Leigh. Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
Roth, Philip. The Plot Against America. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
Seidel, Michael. Streak: Joe DiMaggio and the Summer of ’41. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.
Underwood, John. It’s Only Me: The Ted Williams We Hardly Knew. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2005.
Wallace, Max. The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich. New York: St Martin’s Press, 2003.