by Dan Gutman
“Like I say,” Flip said, “it’s a game of inches.”
“How do you know so much about those guys, Flip?” I asked. “You weren’t there that day, were you?”
“Nah, I was too little,” said Flip. “I got interested in Carl Mays and Ray Chapman when I moved to Kentucky. It turns out that both of ’em were born right here. They grew up south of Louisville about 150 miles apart. Both of ’em were even born in the same year—1891.”
I bolted up from the bed. An idea had popped into my mind. It was like in the cartoons when a lightbulb appears over somebody’s head. I was so excited.
“I could go back in time!” I exclaimed. “I know exactly when and where it happened! I could stop it. It would be so easy. I could save Ray Chapman’s life! I could get Mays and Chapman into the Hall of Fame—just like I helped you get into the Hall of Fame, Flip!”
“Whoa!” Dr. Wright said. “Slow down, Joseph. You’ve been in a coma. You’re not going anywhere. You need to rest.”
Dr. Wright picked up his clipboard, and Flip grabbed his hat.
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” Flip said. “I never shoulda got him all riled up. I’m such an old fool.”
“Not at all,” Dr. Wright said. “The story was fascinating. Joseph, I’ll check up on you later today.”
They closed the door behind them. It was quiet in my room. I could have turned on the TV or skimmed through a magazine, but I didn’t feel like it. I was thinking about Ray Chapman and Carl Mays.
As I picked up the empty ice-cream carton to throw it in the trash, I noticed something. Flip had forgotten to take his Carl Mays baseball card. It was sitting there on the bed.
I touched the card lightly with my fingertips. I could do a little test, I thought. Nothing serious. I could zip back to 1920 for a minute, just to make sure I could still do it.
Dr. Wright had specifically told me to stay in my room and rest. But I don’t particularly like being told what I can or can’t do. Who does? Flip said it himself: grown-ups aren’t always right.
I picked up the card and thought about Carl Mays and Ray Chapman. I could save a man’s life. The lives of two men, really.
I thought about 1920. The Polo Grounds. The Yankees. The Indians. The fifth inning.
I waited. And waited. But nothing happened.
I must have been doing something wrong, I figured, because when I pick up a baseball card, I usually feel a buzzy, tingling sensation in my fingertips. It’s sort of like the feeling you get when you brush your fingers against a TV screen. And then my whole body starts tingling. And then, after a few seconds, I disappear and reappear in the year on the baseball card.
I tried again, concentrating really hard on the card. August 1920. New York City. The Polo Grounds. Carl Mays. Ray Chapman. The fifth inning.
Nothing.
My power was gone!
6
Home Games
WHEN I GOT HOME FROM THE HOSPITAL, I WAS IN FOR another shock. As Mom drove up our street, every tree had a ribbon tied around it. So did some of the mailboxes. I asked my mother what was going on, and she said, “It’s all for you.”
A lot of people must have read those articles about me in the newspapers. In my room there was a mailbag full of letters telling me how brave I was and get well cards from all over the world. Some guy in Japan said he promised to quit smoking if I got better. People had dropped off cakes in the shape of baseball bats and home plates.
It’s kind of weird that you have to almost die before nice stuff like this happens to you. I know if that ball had missed my head by an inch, nobody would have baked me a cake or told me how brave I was.
The welcome home was great. But even though I was in my own bed, I kept having bad dreams about getting hit by a ball. And I was really disturbed that I couldn’t travel through time anymore. I had thought the power was part of me, that it was something I’d always have. I figured that as I grew older, maybe I would find a way to use my power not just to meet famous baseball players, but also to help the world in some way. Do some good for humanity.
But now I could forget about that idea. I should have done it while I had the chance.
When I was leaving the hospital, Dr. Wright had told me it didn’t surprise him that I’d lost my power. The human brain is a very delicate instrument, he said. Any time it takes a heavy blow, there’s a good chance the victim is going to lose some mental ability. He said that some people can’t walk after a blow to the head. Some people have to learn how to talk all over again. Football players who get multiple concussions are sometimes handicapped for life.
“If traveling through time with baseball cards is the only brain function you’ve lost,” Dr. Wright told me, “you’re a very lucky young man.”
Well, I didn’t feel very lucky. I had to stay home for three weeks; and even though we get about 200 channels, there’s nothing good on TV during the day. I was bored out of my mind. The worst part was that even though I couldn’t go to school, I still had to keep up with my schoolwork. Every day, one of my friends dropped off a new package of homework for me.
Once my dislocated shoulder healed, Mom got me some new video games to help pass the time while she was at work. I spent a lot of that time organizing my baseball card collection too. Flip said I could keep the Carl Mays card as a present. I guess he still felt guilty about making me pitch when I wasn’t feeling well.
The story that Flip told me about Carl Mays and Ray Chapman was one of those things I couldn’t get out of my mind. While I was stuck at home and fooling around on the computer, I found myself googling Ray Chapman. I wanted to find out more about him. There was plenty of stuff online.
Like Flip said, Ray Chapman was hit on August 16, 1920. The thing I found most interesting was that there were no batting helmets in those days. This was hard to believe. Pitchers were throwing rock-hard baseballs 90 or so miles an hour to batters whose heads were just inches away from the strike zone. And all they wore on their heads was a cloth cap! It was only a matter of time before somebody got killed. How could they not know that? Why didn’t they do anything about it?
If Ray Chapman had been wearing a batting helmet, it would have saved his life. The pitch would have glanced off the helmet. Chapman would have jogged to first, maybe with a little ringing in his ears. The game would have continued like it was no big deal. Everything would have been different. Today, Ray Chapman and Carl Mays would very possibly be in the Baseball Hall of Fame together.
RAY CHAPMAN DIES; MAYS EXONERATED
Widow Brings Body of Ball Player, Killed by Pitched Ball, Back to Cleveland.
CITY MOURNS SHORTSTOP
Pitcher Who Threw Ball Unnerved by Accident—Other Teams Would Bar Him.
MIDNIGHT OPERATION FAILS
Player’s Brain Crushed by Force of Blow—District Attorney Says Accident Was Unavoidable.
The body of Ray Chapman, the Cleveland shortstop, who died early yesterday in St. Lawrence Hospital after being hit in the head by a pitched ball thrown by Carl Mays at the Polo Grounds
Sometimes the smallest thing changes everything.
The only problem, of course, is that batting helmets didn’t exist back in 1920. I didn’t know if this was because it didn’t occur to anybody to invent one or because they didn’t have the technology in those days to make one.
I made up my mind. If my power ever came back to me, I would travel to 1920 with a batting helmet for Ray Chapman. This was a matter of life and death.
After a week at home, the bandages came off my head, and I started to look normal again. Two weeks later, I had some peach fuzz on my head. You couldn’t see the little scar on my skull where Dr. Wright had inserted the pressure monitor. I was feeling stronger every day. I was itching to get back to school.
“I’m fine,” I told my mother when three weeks were almost up.
“You’re staying home,” she said. “Doctor’s orders.”
We fought about it. There was a lot of yelling and stomping upstai
rs and slamming doors. But in the end, I did what she told me to do. She’s my mom, after all. Once I’m 18, I guess I’ll be able to make my own decisions.
In the meantime, I did something I didn’t tell my mother about. Every day, after she left for work, I ran through my brain exercises. I would take an old baseball card and hold it in one hand. Then I would concentrate on it. I would focus on the card, on the player, and on the time period.
I figured that when we get a cut in our skin, the cut heals in a few days. If we break our leg, it heals. So my brain could heal too, right? I should be able to get my power back. Then I could go to 1920 and save Ray Chapman’s life.
I didn’t have a Ray Chapman card. But I realized that I didn’t need one. I had the Carl Mays card. At the moment Chapman got hit in the head, I knew where Mays was—exactly 60 feet and 6 inches away, on the pitcher’s mound. So if I could get to Mays, I could get to Chapman.
Well, nothing happened. The brain exercises didn’t work. It was like a switch had been flipped and my power turned off. It was frustrating. I felt like my little “mental workouts” were a waste of time. I couldn’t travel through time anymore, and that was it. I might as well get used to it and get on with my life.
But I kept at it, anyway. As soon as Mom pulled out of the driveway to go to work, I would pull down the shades in my room, take out my Carl Mays card, and sit on my bed. I’d close my eyes and think about where I wanted to go. I’d imagine myself in New York City in 1920. Running around the outfield grass at the Polo Grounds. Catching an imaginary fly ball. Sliding into second base.
And then, one day, just as I was about to give it all up, I felt the slightest tingling sensation in my fingertips.
I dropped the card.
I was so excited! There was so much to do. Quickly, I jumped up and ran around the house gathering the stuff I would need for my trip. There was a batting helmet in the garage. I took out some of the foam from the inside so it would be big enough to fit a grown man’s head. Then I found a laundry bag to put the helmet in.
I rummaged around my desk drawer until I found an unopened pack of baseball cards. I would need it to get home again. You see, a baseball card is like a ticket to me. Just like an old card takes me back to the past, a new card brings me back to the present day.
I gathered my stuff next to me on the bed and shut my eyes. This was it. I picked up the card. Nothing happened at first. Nothing ever happens at first. It takes a while. But now I was hopeful.
I thought about Ray Chapman. No, no, that wouldn’t do me any good. I thought about Carl Mays. It was his card. I had to get to him. In 1920. New York City.
After a minute or so, I started to feel a tingling sensation. It was very weak at first, but I could feel it coming on. It was like trying to start a campfire with a match and some twigs. If you do it right and the wind doesn’t blow out the match, and you’re lucky, it will ignite.
The tingles moved up my fingers and through my wrist. The fire was catching! My whole arm was vibrating, and then the feeling washed across my chest.
I had my power back!
I wanted to open my eyes and see it happen, but I didn’t dare. My whole body was buzzing now, and I had reached the point of no return.
The fire was blazing. I felt myself disappear.
7
Sweet Adeline and the Great Houdini
I WAS FLOATING ON A CLOUD, AND MY ENTIRE BODY WAS made of thin glass. I could see right through myself. It felt so real. I had a bat in my hands, waiting for a pitch.
There was just one other person up there on the cloud with me. It was Hammerin’ Cameron, and he was the pitcher. He went into a big, exaggerated, cartoony windup.
The pitch was coming right at me. I tried to back away, but I couldn’t move. I was frozen in place, like a statue. The ball crashed into my head.
Millions of tiny pieces of me exploded off in all directions, reflecting sunlight in slow motion. I was hollow. There was nothing left of me.
When I opened my eyes, I realized it had been a nightmare. That never happened before. Hopefully, it would never happen again.
I looked around to see that I was surrounded by about a million people. But I wasn’t home, and I wasn’t at the Polo Grounds—or at any other ballpark. I was in the middle of a city street.
Why does this always happen to me? Why is it that I never end up where I want to be? Where I need to be? Just once, I wish it would be easy.
Whenever they show time travel in the movies or on TV, some guy just steps into a booth and twists a few knobs; and the next thing you know, he’s sharing a cup of tea with Napoleon or George Washington or somebody like that. But with baseball cards, I discovered, you never know where you’re gonna wind up. It’s not fair.
People were pushing and shoving. It looked like I might be in the right town at least—New York City. I had been there before. Maybe this was Times Square on New Year’s Eve, I thought. Nah, that couldn’t be right. It was daytime, and it was too hot and muggy to be December.
I slipped the Carl Mays card into my pocket. Mays was probably somewhere in this crowd. But how would I find him? All the men looked the same, wearing those goofy, old-time straw hats.
Everybody was looking up in the air; and when I looked up, I saw one of the strangest sights I’d ever seen.
There was a guy dangling upside down high above the street. His ankles were tied together with thick rope, which extended up to a crane. His body appeared to be wrapped in some kind of cloth too.
It was one of the strangest sights I had ever seen.
He was wriggling around like a worm up there, and people below were pointing and oohing and ahhing. A gust of wind came along, and the guy hanging from the rope swayed one way, then the other. It looked like he was going to bang into the side of a building.
“Ooooooooooh!” moaned the crowd.
There was a little girl standing near me. She looked about nine years old.
“Excuse me,” I asked. “What’s that guy doing up there?”
“Jeepers creepers!” the girl replied. “Didn’tja ever hear of the Great Houdini?”
Well, sure I’d heard of Houdini. He was probably the most famous magician ever. I just didn’t know he would hang himself upside down in public.
Squinting into the sun, I could see that Houdini was struggling to get out of the cloth that was wrapped around him. I guessed it was a straitjacket, one of those things they used to put on crazy people so they couldn’t escape.
Houdini was twisting and turning and grunting while the crowd below cheered him on. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Nobody could.
“He’s nutty as a fruitcake,” said one man.
“He’s swell!” a lady said.
The performance, if you can call it that, went on for about 15 minutes. Gradually, Houdini managed to loosen the cloth that was binding him. He got one arm free, then the other. Finally, he extended his arms out to his sides dramatically and threw off the straitjacket. It fell to the street below.
The crowd exploded in cheers.
“Come see the Great Houdini perform his complete act at the Orpheum Theatre tonight at eight o’clock sharp!” hollered some guy with a megaphone. “The Great Houdini will do his famous Chinese Water Torture Cell Escape. No shackles can bind the Great Houdini! Tonight at eight o’clock sharp! The Orpheum Theatre.”
The crowd let out another cheer; and then, quite suddenly, everybody started walking off in different directions. They were like roaches when you turn on the light. Within a minute, the crowd was gone and this looked like any other city street.
If Carl Mays was in that crowd, he was gone now too. I had blown my chance. I’d never find him in all the millions of people in New York City.
I thought about calling it quits and going home.
A newspaper was lying on a bench. I picked it up.
Nina Wallace
Aha! Monday, August 16, 1920. That was the date Ray Chapman was killed. Well, at least I showed up on t
he right day.
The newspaper cost two cents, I noticed. It had only 24 pages, and it wasn’t separated into different sections. I flipped through until I found the sports pages.
AMERICAN LEAGUE.
Won.
Lost.
Cleveland………………
70
40
Chicago…………………
72
42
New York………………
72
43
St. Louis……………….
53
54
Boston…………………
49
58
Washington……………
47
59
Detroit…………………
41
67
Philadelphia……………
35
76
The Indians had a slim lead over the White Sox and Yankees.
The Indians were in first place—barely, just like Flip had said. Scanning down the page, I saw this:
BASEBALL TO-DAY, 3:30 P. M. POLO
Grounds. Yankees vs. Cleveland.—Advt.
Judging by the angle of the sun in the sky, it was probably close to noon. Chapman was going to get hit in the fifth inning. That meant I had around four hours to save his life.
I was about to ask somebody how to get to the Polo Grounds, but something stopped me. Carl Mays had to be somewhere near me now. That was the way it always worked.
I looked around, trying to spot Mays. A man stepped out of an unmarked doorway about 25 feet away. I rushed over there, hoping to grab the door before it shut; but I was too late. The wooden door slammed in my face.
I knocked twice. A few seconds went by before a thin slot opened in the door at about eye level. I could hear music and noise inside.