by Dan Gutman
“Baseball and money ruined my life,” Jim went on. “Playing ball for money before the Olympics ruined me. Now it’s ruining me again.”
We needed to get him home. Maybe a good sleep would snap him out of it. But Jim just wanted to talk, so we let him.
“Y’know, one day in semi-pro I hit three homers in one game, and I hit ’em in three different states.”
“That’s impossible,” Bobby said, rolling his eyes.
“We were playing a few miles from Texarkana, close to the border,” Jim said. “In the first inning, I hit a ball over the leftfield wall and it landed in Oklahoma. In the third inning, I hit one over the rightfield wall that landed in Arkansas. Then, in the seventh inning, I hit an inside-the-park homer. That was in Texas. Three states. Nobody ever did that before or since, and that’s a fact. Of course, those pitchers couldn’t break off a big yellow yakker like the boys do up here.”
“Yakker?” I asked.
“Curveball,” he replied.
“Is that your whole problem?” I asked. “Hitting the curve?”
“I hit the straight ones just fine,” Jim said. “But once they found out I couldn’t hit the curve, I never saw any more straight ones. And McGraw won’t give me the chance to learn.”
“I know how to hit a curve!” I said, getting up off the grass. “I can show you.”
“You’re just a kid,” Jim said.
“Oh, Stoshack is good,” Bobby said, and that was probably the nicest thing he ever said about me. “He can teach you.”
Jim struggled to get up and then crossed his arms over his chest, like he didn’t believe I could teach him anything. But I told him everything I knew about the curve—the stitches on the ball, the spin, the tornado, all that stuff my dad told me.
I told Jim it’s nearly impossible for a pitcher to throw a fastball and a curve with the same motion. Most pitchers “telegraph” when they’re throwing the curve. Maybe their delivery is a little different, or their arm speed is slower. But if you watch carefully, you’ll know when the curve is coming. Sometimes you can see the pitcher twist his wrist as he releases the ball.
I taught Jim how to read the spin of the ball. A fastball has backspin because it tumbles off the pitcher’s fingertips as they come straight down. So the seams spin up. With a curve, the ball spins sideways, and if you watch carefully you can see the seams as they spin. I taught him some other stuff too.
“Nobody ever told me that,” Jim said when I finished my little lesson. “Thank you kindly. I’ll try that next time.”
“Let us help you back to your hotel,” Bobby said.
“I can manage,” said Jim, as he started walking away slowly. “So long, boys. And thanks again.”
“Are you sure you’re gonna be okay?” I asked.
“A good sleep cures all ills,” Jim said. “And I sleep like a log. Tomorrow’s another day.”
19
I Can Dig It
BOBBY AND I WATCHED AS JIM WALKED DOWN EIGHTH Avenue. He moved slowly, but he wasn’t falling-down drunk or anything. He seemed okay. I was no longer worried that he might be a danger to himself or anybody else.
It was getting late. Time for us to go. I was tired, hungry, and hadn’t used the bathroom in almost a hundred years. I pulled my new pack of baseball cards out of my pocket.
That’s when two of the guys who were playing touch football on the field walked over to us. I hid my cards.
“Hey, we gotta go home for dinner,” one of them said. “You guys wanna play?”
I looked up at the other four guys still on the field. They were waving their arms for us to come over.
“Thanks, but—” I said.
“You bet!” Bobby said, and he waved back to the guys.
I hate when he does that! I didn’t want to play. I don’t even like football, and the last time we played together, I had demonstrated pretty conclusively how terrible I am at the game. But Bobby didn’t care. He started jogging over without even looking back.
I could have let him go. I should have let him go and just gone home by myself. That would show him. I could just leave him in 1913 and never have to deal with him again.
But I couldn’t do that. Being the dope that I am, I put my baseball cards back in my pocket and followed him.
“Do we really need to do this?” I asked angrily. “I want to go home. I gotta go to the bathroom.”
“Just hold it a little while, Stoshack,” Bobby replied. “Have some fun for once in your life.”
We went over to the boys on the field and introduced ourselves. They told us their names, which I forgot instantly. Short attention span, I guess.
But these guys were easy to remember, because one of them was really tall, one was kind of short, one was fat, and the fourth one had blond hair. I did remember that last guy’s name, because his friends called him Blondie.
It seemed that Tall, Short, and Fat were on one team. The two guys who had to go home had been on the team with Blondie. Me and Bobby were invited to take their places, and Bobby quickly agreed. Tall seemed to be the leader, and he showed us the trees on either end of the field that they were using as goal lines.
“You guys kick off,” Bobby said.
“Fine,” Tall said. “Say, do you want to make it interesting?”
“Sure,” said Bobby.
“What do you mean, make it interesting?” I asked.
Bobby pulled me aside.
“Moron,” he said, “when somebody asks if you want to make it interesting, it means they want to bet on the game.”
“Bet money?” I asked.
“No, idiot. Bet Popsicle sticks. Of course bet money!”
“How about a buck per man?” Short suggested as he and his teammates dropped back to kick off to us.
“Sure,” Bobby agreed. “A buck it is.”
“All we have is the 20 cents the groundskeeper gave us!” I whispered to Bobby. “If we lose, we won’t be able to pay, and those guys will probably beat the crap out of us.”
“You worry too much, Stoshack,” Bobby whispered back. “Look at that fat guy and that shrimp. You think they’re gonna beat us? The only money that matters is theirs, ’cause we’re gonna take it.”
“You know I can’t play,” I reminded him.
“Just do what I tell you,” Bobby said, “and the money’s in the bank.”
Man, I wish I had that kind of confidence. Or maybe he was just stupid. Anyway, the other team kicked off and Bobby caught the ball on one bounce. It was a little wider than the footballs in our time, but the same length.
Bobby lateraled the ball to Blondie, who ran a few yards upfield. Just before he was about to get tagged, he lateraled it to me. I was cornered and got tagged before advancing the ball a yard.
I could describe every play of the game in detail for you, but it would be boring. Basically, Bobby and Blondie did the heavy lifting for our team. Blondie was our quarterback, and he had a good arm. Bobby caught most of the passes for us. I was holding my own. I blocked a few passes. I didn’t make any spectacular plays, but nobody burned me or made me look dumb either.
After we had played for half an hour or so, there was no score. Even so, the game was interesting enough, in my opinion, without having to put money on it. Especially money we didn’t have.
It was starting to get dark and I really had to go to the bathroom bad. When Blondie suggested we call it a game as soon as somebody scored, I was thrilled.
It was our ball, and we huddled up.
“Okay, what do you wanna do?” Bobby asked Blondie. I wasn’t even part of the discussion, as they had already established the fact that I totally sucked and should have no say in the matter.
We had tried all the standard passing and running plays. They weren’t fooling anybody.
“We need something different,” Blondie said.
“Hey, you wanna try the Dig?” Bobby suggested.
“Oh no,” I said. “Not the Dig.” I remembered that goofball play J
im Thorpe told us about.
“The Dig?” Blondie asked. “What’s the Dig?”
“It’s a trick play,” Bobby whispered. “Oldest trick in the book. They’ll never know what hit ’em.”
Bobby explained the Dig to Blondie and he nodded his head excitedly. They both agreed that because the other team was covering Bobby more carefully than me, it would make sense for me to be the digger and he would be the ultimate receiver.
We broke from the huddle. Bobby and I lined up on the left side and I hiked the ball to Blondie. I ran out about 15 yards, stopped, and turned around. Bobby ran deeper, maybe 10 yards or so past me.
“Hit me!” Bobby screamed. “I’m open!”
But he was just a decoy. Blondie threw the ball to me instead, just like we had planned. It was a perfect pass, chest high. As the ball flew toward me, I could sense the two defenders running over to tag me as soon as I made the catch.
I didn’t catch the ball, though. I wasn’t supposed to catch it. Instead, I put both hands under the ball, like you do when you’re playing volleyball, and I tapped it up high into the air, over my head and backward. I had no idea where the ball was going to land. The two guys tagged me, but I didn’t have the ball.
After hovering up in the air for a few seconds, it landed, of course, right in Bobby’s hands. The guy who was supposed to be covering Bobby had switched to covering me as soon as he saw the pass heading in my direction. So when Bobby caught the ball, nobody was covering him. He ran the length of the field untouched.
“Oh yeah!” Bobby screamed. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about! Touchdown! We win! In your face! You owe each of us a dollar!”
He spiked the ball and did a touchdown dance like those receivers do on TV. The guys on the other team looked at him like he was crazy. I guess the end-zone celebration hadn’t been invented yet in 1913.
“You can’t do that!” Tall shouted.
“Why not?” Bobby asked.
“It’s against the rules,” insisted Fat.
“It was a forward lateral,” said Short.
“No it wasn’t,” Bobby explained. “Stoshack never had possession of the ball. He just tipped it up in the air and I happened to be there to grab it.”
“Yeah, I tipped it,” I agreed.
They couldn’t argue. Bobby was right. It was a devious play, and a little underhanded—in more ways than one. But there was nothing illegal about it.
“One dollar for each of us,” Bobby said, holding out his hand. “Cash only, please. We don’t accept credit cards or any other kind of lame money you use here.”
They looked like they wanted to kill us, but a bet is a bet. Tall, Short, and Fat managed to come up with the money. It occurred to me that three dollars probably seemed like a lot more money in 1913. Instead of just handing it over, Tall threw some bills and coins at Bobby’s feet.
“You guys cheated,” he said.
“Sour grapes,” Bobby said as he gathered up the cash. He gave a dollar to Blondie, who thanked us and ran off. Tall, Short, and Fat stomped away, muttering to themselves.
“I told you we’d beat those guys!” Bobby said as soon as they were out of earshot.
“Let’s go home,” I said. “I gotta pee bad.”
“Y’know, I was thinking,” Bobby said. “We oughta give this money to Jim. We never woulda won it without him. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Since when do you do the right thing?” I asked.
“Come on, Stoshack. He needs it more than we do.”
I had to admit he was right. Jim was broke. Besides, we probably couldn’t spend the old money in the twenty-first century. And I could use the bathroom at Jim’s place.
We walked a couple of blocks down Eighth Avenue until I spotted a sign for the Trinity Hotel. It didn’t look like a very fancy place. In fact, the lobby looked a little dumpy. It was the kind of hotel you wouldn’t want to stay in if you were on vacation.
There was one of those little bells on the front desk. I love ringing those things. Bobby tapped it and soon a guy appeared.
“May I help you gentlemen?” he asked.
“Can you please tell us Mr. Thorpe’s room number?” Bobby asked in his polite, suck-up-to-adults voice. “I’m a long-lost relative.”
“Yeah, really long lost,” I added. Bobby stomped on my foot.
The guy looked at us over his glasses. For all I knew, autograph hounds showed up at the hotel all the time and he was about to call security to kick us out.
“Room 413,” the guy said. “You rock, dude,” Bobby replied, and the guy just stared at him.
There was no elevator. We found the steps up to the fourth floor. Room 413 was at the end of the hall.
Bobby knocked on the door softly. When nobody answered, he knocked harder. Still no answer. Finally, he twisted the doorknob to see if it would turn, and the door opened a crack.
“We shouldn’t just walk in,” I said.
“Come on,” Bobby said, pushing the door open.
The front room was a mess. Paint was peeling from the walls. Boxes were scattered around, like Jim hadn’t fully unpacked yet. But leaning against the walls were photos of him playing football and competing in the Olympics. Jim in his glory days.
Pictures of Jim in his glory days were leaning against the walls.
“It’s hot in here,” Bobby said. “We should turn on the air conditioner.”
“Sure,” I said, “as soon as they invent it. I don’t think Jim’s here.”
“He’s gotta be here.”
The place was pretty big for a hotel. There was a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen with just a stove and a sink. No dishwasher or refrigerator.
There was a door leading off the living room, and Bobby put his hand on the knob.
“Don’t open it!” I said. “That must be Jim’s bedroom.”
“Then that must be where he is, Stoshack!” Bobby said, and he opened the door.
Jim was lying on the bed, facedown.
20
The Right Thing to Do
JIM LOOKED LIKE HE MIGHT BE DEAD. HIS FACE WAS buried in the pillow and his arm hung off the side of the bed. He was so still. “Is he alive?” I asked Bobby.
“Relax, Stoshack,” Bobby replied. “Can’t you see him breathing? He went on a bender and he’s sleeping it off. Didn’t you ever get drunk?”
“No, I didn’t.”
It didn’t surprise me to hear that Bobby had been drunk before. If he was addicted to something as dangerous as heroin, he must have used alcohol. Me, I took a sip of my dad’s beer once and almost threw up. I don’t know how anybody can drink that stuff.
Suddenly, Jim started mumbling in his sleep. It was hard to understand what he was saying. It sounded like, “I miss you, Charlie”—or something like that.
“Who’s Charlie?” Bobby whispered.
“Beats me.”
“I won those medals, Charlie,” Jim mumbled. “Won ’em fair and square. You believe me, don’t you?”
Jim rolled over and thrashed around, muttering something unintelligible.
“We can leave the money on the night table with a note,” Bobby said.
“I gotta use the can first,” I told Bobby.
I found my way to the bathroom, and was happy to see it had a regular toilet that flushed.
While I was doing my business, it occurred to me that since we’d been in 1913, Bobby hardly had any opportunity to use the syringe he was hiding in his backpack. That movie they showed us at school said junkies had to get a fix every few hours.
Right now would be the perfect time for him to shoot up, I realized. Jim was asleep. I was in the bathroom. Bobby was alone.
Flushing the toilet would tell him I was finished. Instead, I tiptoed out of the bathroom, sneaking back down the hall into Jim’s bedroom. I fully expected to see Bobby with the syringe in his hand.
Well, he had the syringe in his hand all right. But he wasn’t injecting himself with it.
He was about to stick it into Jim!
“What are you doing?!” I demanded.
“Shhhhh!” Bobby whispered. “You’ll wake him.”
“What are you doing?!” I repeated.
“None of your business.”
Now, I don’t know anything about wrestling, but I remembered the move Jim did on that big guy, Tesreau, in the Giants’ locker room. I grabbed Bobby from behind, crossing one of my legs over his leg. Then I yanked up his hand that was holding the syringe and twisted the other one behind his back.
“Let go of me, Stoshack!” Bobby begged. “This is very dangerous!”
“I know,” I grunted. “That’s why I’m doing it. Drop the syringe.”
Bobby tried one last time to break the hold, but I had him locked up.
“I call this the Armbreaker,” I said.
“Okay, okay,” he said, letting the syringe fall to the floor.
Jim, amazingly, slept through the whole thing. He really did sleep like a log.
“I can’t believe this,” I whispered. “You’re trying to shoot him up with heroin?”
Bobby looked at me like I was nuts.
“Heroin?” he said. “I wasn’t giving him heroin. Why would I do a crazy thing like that?”
“Because you’re addicted,” I said. “You’re a junkie.”
“Are you nuts?! What makes you think I’m a junkie?”
“You didn’t want me looking in your backpack,” I explained, “so I went in there while you were asleep outside the Polo Grounds. You had the syringe and two unmarked bottles.”
“It’s not heroin, you moron!” Bobby said.
“Then what is it?”
Bobby took a few seconds, then sighed.
“It’s steroids,” he said.
Steroids?!
In case you don’t know, steroids are these really powerful drugs that some athletes use to build muscles. Steroids are banned in just about all sports. Some players have gotten caught using them and were fined, suspended, or even banned for years. It has become a huge issue in cycling, track, football, and baseball.
The fact that Bobby wanted to give Jim steroids floored me. I had been dead wrong. Bobby wasn’t a junkie. He was a pusher! And he was pushing steroids!