The Boy from Left Field

by Tom Henighan

  Of course, Hawk found that “getting some sleep” was not so easy. He kept seeing the warehouse and its seemingly endless corridors, the blank walls, and shadowy recesses. He heard the clank of metal, the curses of the Rippers, the shouts of the police. He saw Ringo’s tattooed arm swinging the crowbar.… Could he duck in time? No! He screamed and woke suddenly, sweating and trembling. When he finally lay back down, he drifted off into a deep, peaceful sleep.

  The next two days passed in a kind of dream. Jim allowed Hawk a few phone calls and he was glad to hear that his friends were all doing fine — Panny and Chew-Boy, Martin, Elroy, and Albert (though Albert was in quite a bit of trouble with his parents). On the third day Hawk was up early, and ate a hasty breakfast with his father before the guests began to arrive.

  Panny zoomed up on her bicycle (green panniers today). “Where’s the loot?” she joked, adding, “Hey, I miss school already!” Martin turned up with Elroy and they played catch in the backyard and talked about baseball, just as if they were old friends.

  Then a small white moving truck arrived and parked on the narrow street in front of Jim’s house. Two men got out. One of them was Chick Ciccarelli, wearing the old number 10 on his T-shirt. He and his helper searched through the large packing case in the back of the van and hauled out two smaller square containers, each about the size of an old-fashioned steamer trunk. These they brought into the house, just as Mr. Rizzuto drove up in his red van.

  He jumped out of the vehicle, shook hands with Jim, and gave Hawk a hug.

  “I saved it, kid. I saved it for you to see. We’ll open it inside, when the gang’s all here.”

  At that moment another car drove up, a small Mercedes, and two men got out. Mr. Rizzuto introduced his lawyer, Mr. Sverov, a stocky man dressed in a blue suit and tie, and Hal Hodges, a TV reporter in jeans and T-shirt. Hodges immediately hauled an enormous video camera out of the car.

  “Everything documented, everything legal — that’s my motto,” said Mr. Rizzuto.

  Another bicycle appeared — it was Ms. Calloway, who greeted Hawk with a big smile. “Well, you’ve been busy,” she said. “I’m glad it all worked out.”

  “I don’t think I’ll do that again,” Hawk told her sheepishly.

  “No, that wouldn’t be such a good idea. You can talk to the class about it this afternoon — you and Panny and Albert — and tell them what you learned from your experience. What’s responsible and what’s not. Ms. Clarke will be there, too. She wants to hear all about it, but this morning she’s busy in Room 21.”

  Panny came out and greeted Ms. Calloway. “I don’t think Albert’s mother wants to let him come today,” she said. “She’s still a bit upset about the other night. Maybe if you called her, Ms. Calloway?”

  Ms. Calloway smiled. “I guess I can give it a try.”

  Hawk and Panny followed her inside. The two boxes had been set up on the living floor. The cameraman was already filming, and the lawyer was flipping through some legal-looking papers.

  “We can start with the second box while we’re waiting for Albert,” Mr. Rizzuto said. “I don’t think it’s the one, but we have to be sure. The records just say ‘miscellaneous, including sports memorabilia.’ Why don’t you open it up for us, Chick.”

  Ciccarelli, equipped with a hammer, pliers, crowbar, and other tools, started work. Hawk winced a bit at the sight of the crowbar.

  The lock was soon sprung open and Chick lifted the lid. All eyes were on the small, wrapped packages he brought out.

  Mr. Rizzuto unwrapped each parcel himself. “One Spalding tennis ball, slightly warped,” he began. “No apparent value.”

  He went on unwrapping the little bundles one by one: “One polo mallet, good condition. One very old pair of binoculars, water-damaged. One bag of golf balls — no apparent value. One pair of old-fashioned roller skates. One beach blanket, one folding umbrella. One bag of advertisements, programs, and so on for Hanlan’s Point Amusement Park — pretty faded but these might be interesting…. And that seems to be it. Boy, I sure hope the other box has something more exciting than this pile of junk!”

  At this point they stopped to have juice, coffee, and doughnuts. Albert arrived, and rather shamefacedly explained that his mother had made him swear not to go on any more unannounced “adventures.”

  Then they proceeded to open the second box. Hawk watched nervously as Chick removed the lock. Was this the end of his great dream of finding the Babe Ruth baseball?

  Hal Hodges, the cameraman, was still filming.

  Mr. Rizzuto peered into the box and held up crossed fingers. He unwrapped the first parcel and drew out what appeared to be a crumbling towel or rag. An ancient yellowed paper fluttered down. Panny picked it up and Mr. Rizzuto signalled her to read it. “Rowing trunks belonging to the internationally famous rower and later proprietor of Hanlan’s Point Hotel, Ned Hanlan,” she announced.

  Panny giggled and looked around. “Don’t know how the bidding will go on that one, Mr. Rizzuto.”

  “Well they might be worth something,” pronounced Mr. Sverov. “If they don’t fall apart first.”

  “This looks more promising,” said Mr. Rizzuto. With a weak smile, he lifted his hat and dabbed at his sweating forehead. He had picked up a square box, not large, but big enough to hold a baseball. Hawk held his breath as Mr. Rizzuto tore away the paper. From the box he pulled a round object, swathed in a kind of linen.

  “They didn’t have cellophane in those days,” Albert informed them, “or plastic wrapping.”

  “It looks like a baseball!” Mr. Rizzuto shouted. Then, tossing the object up and down in his hand, he added, “It feels like a baseball.” He tore at the swathing, and as the wrapping fell away, Hawk and Elroy chanted in unison, “And it is a baseball!”

  There it was at last — a baseball in Mr. Rizzuto’s trembling hands. But was it THE baseball?

  “It’s a very old ball,” he said. “It’s a professional ball. It’s been swatted hard at least once. Flat seams, not like today’s baseballs. Now let me see what that paper says.”

  Inside the box was a note. Hawk, peering over Mr. Rizzuto’s shoulder, saw that it was handwritten in a script that was both crude and ancient-looking — he guessed that the note dated quite far back. Certainly he’d never seen anything like it, except in photographs of old documents, like treaties, wills, and deeds.

  As the boy was pondering this, Mr. Rizzuto seemed to go manic. He screamed, jumped up and down, waved his arms, and would have dropped the precious baseball if Mr. Sverov had not made a splendid dive across the floor to catch it.

  “I hope this really is the one you’re looking for,” the lawyer murmured, handing his client the old ball. “I just tore my best suit to rescue it.”

  “It’s the one! It’s the one!” Mr. Rizzuto shouted. “Just listen to this, everybody.”

  They all drew closer as Mr. Rizzuto read from the paper: “This baseball recovered from water near Hanlan’s Point by young swimmer, 13 June, 1914. Paid youth 10 cents. Hit by Providence Grays player, name unknown. Try to resell to Leafs. Otherwise retain and store.”

  “That’s the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team,” Mr. Rizzuto explained. Thank God those cheapskates didn’t buy it back!” He turned to Hawk and stuck out his hand. Hawk shook his hand, danced away, then slapped hands in celebration with his father and all his friends. “Are we going to be rich?” he asked Mr. Rizzuto.

  “You just might be,” said Mr. Sverov.

  “You can bet your bottom dollar we’ll be rich!” cried Mr. Rizzuto “The date fits, the team fits, the ball fits like a charm. We’ve done it. We had the faith and we’ve done it. We’ve found Babe Ruth’s lost baseball!”

  Chapter 22

  Friends and Relations

  The next day a television report on the great discovery was broadcast all over Canada. RIVERDALE KIDS FIND FAMED RUTH BASEBALL trumpeted one of the newspapers. Skeptics immediately appeared, questioning the authenticity of the ball. “A ball f
ished out of the lake and missing for decades? — sounds fishy to me,” wrote one testy columnist.

  Mr. Rizzuto, however, was no fool. Weeks later the baseball was still being analyzed by experts, lab tests would soon be released, and everything pointed to the likelihood of this being the ball hit by the Great Bambino. “If it’s not the real deal, we’ll still make a fortune,” he assured Hawk. “I’ve already been offered a cool million, no questions asked, by a Japanese collector. I rejected it, of course. I’m holding out for a couple of million.”

  Hawk read the papers and was thrilled by the pictures and by the prospect of making a fortune, but he was sorry that the baseball had disappeared again. He wanted to look at it, hold it in his hands, and tell himself over and over that he’d helped find this very special treasure. It seemed as if they had found it, only to have it spirited away again into another kind of never-never land. His father tried to reassure him. Together, they looked at the many pictures Hal Hodges had taken of the baseball, and at one in particular in which Hawk was holding the ball up in front of him, a triumphant smile on his face.

  “That’s the idea!” Jim told him. “Be happy because you had a chance to get in touch with something unique, to hold it in your hands. Just look at that baseball,” he said to Hawk, pointing at a blow-up of the same photograph. “It’s a piece of horsehide and cork and stitching shaped in a little circle. And what’s so special about that little circle? I’ll tell you what! It connects you to the past, to another world, to a famous player who played a great part in baseball history. When you see that ball, you’re looking at a time that’s gone forever, a time that was good in some ways, but very bad in others.

  “Just think. Your friend Elroy could never have played baseball with the pros in those days — blacks weren’t allowed. You and I would have been sent off to some horrible residence school to be ‘re-educated’ and abused by white men. Panny and her relatives wouldn’t even have been allowed into the country, or if they made it here, would have been stuck with some menial job. An Irishman like Skimmer O’Boyle would have been sneered at and never allowed into the houses of some well-off Toronto folk.

  “Today, when you and I look at a little circle like that baseball, we ought to think of the Earth, the globe itself. This old Earth has shrunk some since those old days — it seems almost as easy to get a view of the whole big globe as of that small baseball. And you know something, Hawk? The whole human race — people all over the planet — are claiming a good life for themselves these days. Everybody wants to be respected, and, sure enough, everyone who tries to live right deserves to be respected — and helped. If you get some money for this little round globe of a baseball, this souvenir, you should think about that big globe and how every age has its challenges. Don’t just think about getting money. Think about how, when you grow up, you can help make the world a much better place to live in, so we don’t go back to the bad times of Babe Ruth’s ‘good old days.’”

  Storm Cloud, who had rushed back from Ottawa after Hawk’s adventure, very upset over his dangerous expedition, had soon gone back to the capital. Now that the baseball was deemed valuable, she appeared in Riverdale again to congratulate Hawk. “I always knew my son would be famous,” she told him. “But I didn’t know it would happen when you were only ten years old. You have to be careful, though, when you sell that baseball. When they find out you’re a Native, they’ll be sure to try to cheat you.”

  “Don’t worry, Mum, everybody’s been great. And Mr. Rizzuto is very smart. You know the baseball is going to be on display at the new Yankee Stadium. All of us kids are getting a free trip to the stadium, too. And Mr. Rizzuto is going down to visit his daughter. They’re going to be friends again after all these years.”

  “That’s only sensible, Hawk. Parents should always be friends with their children. Otherwise, what’s the world coming to?”

  “I’m just glad that you don’t have to sell trinkets in the street anymore, Mum. I’m glad that I can stay in Toronto and visit you sometimes in Ottawa. I love my school and my class. I finally gave my talk on the Ojibway-Cree. I showed them drawings that I did myself, I played CDs of authentic music, and I told some great stories that I got from Dad. I did tons of research. I got an A in presentation, creativity, imagination, and originality, and the class questions didn’t scare me like I thought they would. That’s an A, Mum, not a P like Mrs. MacWhinney gave me.”

  “That’s great!” Storm Cloud gave her son a hug. “You take after your mother.… And I never sold ‘trinkets,’ by the way. They were tiny art pieces. Of course, I haven’t got time to do that anymore. I’m too busy organizing events and protests. They really need me up in Ottawa. I’ve got a great apartment, too, and I can’t wait for you to come and visit. Maybe we can go on a march together.”

  A few days later the kids were in Professor Sam’s apartment, telling him about their adventures. Panny’s cousin listened eagerly and even took notes — after all, he was a crime expert, and was already collecting information on their case.

  “This is great stuff,” he assured them. “I’m almost glad you didn’t take my advice and stay away from that Ripper gang. It was dangerous, but you did have a real adventure. Does anybody know what’s happened to the gang members?”

  “My cousin Stanley — he’s a policeman, the one who rescued us — he told me a few things,” Albert said. “It seems that the Ripper boys, including Ringo, are going to give information on Mr. Big and his operations in exchange for reduced sentences. I’m not supposed to talk about that, though.”

  “That’s okay,” Sam reassured him. “We all know how to keep a secret, don’t we?”

  “Hawk does, for sure,” Panny said. “He had to live with some pretty dangerous secrets, like the Ferrets trying to put the squeeze on him, and our adventure at the warehouse, and at least one special secret, too, like the search for the Babe Ruth ball. How did you do it, Hawk-boy?”

  Hawk thought for a moment, and then told the kids, “Well, it wasn’t easy, but then I had to learn to trust my friends, my teachers, and my dad. I paid attention to what my dad said about having an inner power. It’s great when your friends and family and your teachers back you up. That’s when the world stops being a scary place.”

  He looked around the room and grinned. “But let’s eat the rest of this food. Martin and Elroy and I have to play baseball today. We’re starting in the Little League pretty soon and we want to be as strong as possible. Right, guys?”

  Martin agreed and Elroy nodded. Chew-Boy barked and stood on his hind legs.

  The kids laughed. “Did you teach him to do that?” Elroy asked Panny.

  She smiled. “Of course not! Let’s get one thing straight. Chew-Boy has a mind of his own. Of course, now and then he obliges me — like when I ask him to catch people by the ankles.”

  “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again for a while,” Hawk said.

  Chew-Boy barked again, as if to say “me too!” The kids laughed, and went back to eating their dumplings and egg rolls.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Michael Carroll, editorial director and associate publisher at Dundurn, and, like me, a great baseball fan, for his encouragement and support of this project. Also, Dr. Burf Kay, a Riverdale resident, for his expertise on his home neighbourhood and his suggestions for changes. Any lingering mistakes about the Riverdale scene are not his fault. Like many fiction writers who set their stories in real places, I have taken pains to be accurate, but I have also felt free to do some inventing and juggling to suit my story. All the characters in The Boy from Left Field are imagined and none are based on a real person — any resemblance to actual people is purely coincidental.

  The description of the “gifted” classroom that is Hawk’s salvation is, however, based on my own experience at Ottawa’s Mutchmor School, even though none of the students are portrayed in my book. The two team-teachers of the grade four class I often visited were marvellous exponents of the “multip
le intelligences” approach. They encouraged imagination and creativity, and taught their students to develop their talents without apology, but to respect those who had different skills. Competition was acceptable, but the achievements of all were to be celebrated. Intellectual precision and enthusiasm were encouraged, yet the body — and physical exercise — were not neglected. Issues of classroom behaviour and morality were important. It was also considered essential for the students to understand the world outside, the whole globe, to learn about the environment, for example, or to know how to read the media, and also to value diversity. Both teachers in this classroom had previously worked with special education students from more disadvantaged groups, and they found parallels between the needs of the most gifted and the more challenged. For a while, at least, their unique program escaped the red tape and meddling of the school bureaucracy, much to the delight of the fulfilled and grateful children and their impressively committed and often demanding parents. Adults who knew what went on in Room 27 saw it as an inspiring place and would have loved to experience it themselves when they were children —this writer counts himself among them.

  Finally, I would like to thank my Dundurn editor, Allison Hirst, who read this text with care and helped shape it into its present form. As with all of my books for young people, I have tried to please my audience, and love it when they respond to my stories, but, as usual, this one is really for the wide-eyed child in me.

  Copyright © Tom Henighan, 2012

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