to do,” she yelled as I left the house.
“Of course I’ll do whatever Reverend Casey asks me to do.”
I walked over to Johnny’s house and knocked on the front door.
“Is Johnny ready Mrs. Garrity?” I asked.
“He’s not in the house he must be outside playing.”
“He was supposed to meet me here at eleven thirty and it’s almost that now.”
“He went out about eleven o’clock and he didn’t say where he was going,” she said.
“I thought he was going over your house,” she continued. “He was getting ready for the game and ran out without even saying goodbye. He must be outside somewhere,” she said.
I walked down to the curb and looked around. Some of the younger neighborhood kids were playing on the sidewalk near the corner, but they were all smaller than Johnny was. At the far end of the block, some of the older teenagers were standing at the corner, but as I approached them, I could see that Johnny was not there either.
Panic started to set in, as it was now a quarter to twelve and I had no idea where Johnny was. I ran around our entire block covering the front of all the houses and the back alleyway, but there was no sign of Johnny anywhere. I tried to think of anywhere he might possibly have gone.
Nothing came to mind.
It was now five minutes to twelve and I had to make a decision. If I left now and ran my fastest, I could still get to the church by noon and would not miss Reverend Casey before he left. But how could I leave without Johnny. Where could he be? Why wasn’t he here? Then it hit me, he must have gone to the church without me and was surely waiting there for me. I could not figure out why he would have left for the church without me, but that was the only logical explanation. I ran as fast as I had ever run in my life. Jumping over the curbs, I did not stop to greet anyone that I passed along the way. I had to get to the church and meet up with Johnny or all our plans would go down the drain.
23
Approaching the church, I noticed a group of figures standing at the bottom of the front steps. I could not tell who was there, but was sure I saw Johnny sitting off to the side by himself. The men were all dressed in suits and stood in a circle engaged in conversation. Getting closer, I saw Reverend Casey standing in the center of the group giving out directions to the other men. Turning my head to look for Johnny at the end of the steps, I realized it was not him at all, but it was actually Michael O’Brien. Michael was the son of one of the men who was standing in the group with Reverend Casey. I did not know Michael very well. He never left his house much, and he hardly ever played with any of the other kids in the neighborhood.
I did not care that Michael was going to go to the game and picking up the Babe with us, but where was Johnny? Before reaching the spot where Reverend Casey was standing, I turned and ran back to the corner. Spinning around in every direction and I looked out as far as I could, hoping to see Johnny coming out from the distance. I was sure that he had to be coming, but I felt a sense of dizziness overcome me. I was in a total panic and did know what to do.
It was now a little after twelve noon and I had to go talk to Reverend Casey. I approached him just as he finished giving instructions to his group of helpers. Everyone understood their duties and the mission would surely be a success.
He reached down and put his hand on my shoulder, and said, “I hope you ready, we have a big day today.”
I tried to smile and answer him, but before any of the words got out he asked, “Where is your friend Johnny?”
“I don’t know, but I am sure he will be here any minute,” I said. “We just need to wait a couple minutes for him.”
Reverend Casey looked up and down the street, peering far into the distance, but there was no sign of Johnny. He looked down at me and said, “I would like to be able to wait for him a bit longer, but we are on a very tight schedule and it is very important that everything goes perfectly today.”
I didn’t say anything, but I am sure Reverend Casey saw the sadness that was in my eyes. He patted my shoulder to try to comfort me.
“I am sure that Johnny will be here by the time we get back for the game,” he said.
There was nothing that I could do. Events were starting to unfold and I was not in control of them. The men broke up into two groups and started towards the corner of Westmorland Street. I saw two big black automobiles waiting there. They were much larger than any of the automobiles that typically would be in our neighborhood. You could tell right away that they must have been borrowed, since nobody who went to Ascension of Our Lord would be able to afford such an automobile. Each group had five people and I was in the group with Reverend Casey.
Approaching the cars, I saw a sign in the side window. It read, “These automobiles are on loan from the Studebaker Sales Company at 216 North Broad Street.” They were shiny brand new 1923 Studebaker Special Six models that the sign said sold for $1,550.00. The sign also said that the Studebaker Company had a 71-year reputation for honest value.
I sat in the car first, followed by two other men one of whom was the driver. Then Michael O’Brien got in, followed by Reverend Casey.
The interior of the auto was very spacious, even with five passengers there was plenty of room. Michael sat next to me in the middle of the back seat and Reverend Casey sat on the other end.
I felt the roar of the engine as it started up. As they let the engines warm up I could only wonder where Johnny was, and hoped that he would run up to the car at the last minute. I looked at Michael and knew that I had nothing to say to him, it would be a long ride with an uncomfortable silence.
As they put the car into gear, I looked out the side window in the direction of my house and tried in vain to catch a glimpse of Johnny. I consoled myself with the thought that even though Johnny would not get to see the Yankee game, or get to drive back to Boger Field with the Babe, at least he would get to see the Ascension game.
I do not know if I was feeling sadness or if I was angry with Johnny. We had spent so much time preparing for this and he messed it all up by not coming on time. I could not imagine what else he might be doing, and what might be more important than this. He had to be somewhere and doing something, but I could not conceive of what that might be.
The cars were now moving, and we pulled onto the street. As we reached the corner of Venango Street, I turned to take one last look out the rear window, hoping to see Johnny before we turned the corner. As I twisted my body and stretched my neck backwards, I saw that there was nobody in sight. Johnny had messed the whole thing up.
24
As we turned off Venango Street onto Kensington Avenue, we pulled over next to a paperboy who was standing at the corner selling newspapers. Reverend Casey motioned for the boy to come over to the window.
“Here son, give me one of those,” he said.
“Do you want the Inquirer?”
“Yes give me one of those.”
“That’ll be two cents Sir.”
As Reverend Casey pulled the paper into the car, I leaned over trying to read the headlines that were plainly visible. Certainly, the front-page headline would be about Babe Ruth coming to play with the Ascension club for the charity game tonight. Instead, I saw that the headline told of a major earthquake that had just occurred in Japan. The headlines read that 500,000 people were feared dead and twelve Japanese cities were in complete ruins. Under a picture was a caption saying that nothing remained standing in the capital city of Tokio and that dead bodies were everywhere. It brought me back to reality, our exhibition baseball game really was not very important in the overall scheme of things.
“What a terrible shame for all those poor people,” he said. “It makes you appreciate how lucky we are.”
He then opened the paper and paged through until he got to the sports section. The headline read, “Yankees Grab Two Games from Mackmen,” and it detailed the doubleheader sweep from the day before.
I watched as Reverend Casey flipped over the paper to read the
stories below the fold. There was an article about how the Ascension Catholic Club took two games from the Nativity Club on Monday. They played the first game at Boger Field in the morning and played the second game at the Nativity field at Belgrade and Ontario Street in the afternoon. Bud Bradley, our pitching ace, pitched a shutout to win the first game. Cy Mellinger pitched and only gave up only one run, to win the afternoon game.
“I cannot believe they did not even mention our charity game once in the whole paper,” Reverend Casey said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I was sure that the newspapers would be putting in articles to help us promote the game.”
As he reached the end of the sports page, he did not see anything about the charity game. Finally, he spotted something at the very bottom of the page.
He read it aloud so everyone in the automobile could hear.
“Babe Ruth to help out Ascension today,” is the headline Reverend Casey read. The rest of the article was as follows:
“Immediately after the Athletic-Yankee game today Babe Ruth, the home run king of baseball will jump into a new baseball uniform and take part in another battle on the diamond.”
“The Bambino will play in the outfield on the Ascension Club in its twilight game with Lit Brothers. A new uniform has been provided for him.”
“There will be an auto waiting for Ruth as soon as he finishes his daily labors at Shibe Park. The Reverend William Casey
Me, Johnny, and The Babe Page 20