Roberto & Me

by Dan Gutman

  Roberto & Me

  A Baseball Card Adventure

  Dan Gutman

  To Julie Krass, librarian of Deerfield

  School in Westwood, Massachusetts,

  who figured it out

  “The mythic aspects of baseball usually draw on clichés of the innocent past, the nostalgia for how things were. Fields of green. Fathers and sons. But Clemente’s myth arcs the other way, to the future, not the past, to what people hope they can become. His memory is kept alive as a symbol of action and passion, not of reflection and longing.”

  —David Maraniss

  Clemente: The Passion and Grace

  of Baseball’s Last Hero

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Introduction

  1

  It’s All You

  2

  A Mission of Mercy

  3

  Just Do It

  4

  The Great One

  5

  The Card

  6

  Going…Going…Gone!

  7

  Peace and Love

  8

  Sunrise

  9

  A Long, Strange Trip

  10

  Who’s on First?

  11

  The Wild Colt

  12

  Royalty in Rightfield

  13

  Fanatics

  14

  Dinner at El Cochinito

  15

  Good-bye

  16

  Homecoming

  17

  An Unexpected Visitor

  18

  The Future Is Ours to See

  19

  So Much for Science Fiction

  20

  Bernard’s Mission

  21

  Better Late than Never

  22

  A Quick Trip

  23

  Extra Credit

  Facts and Fictions

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by Dan Gutman

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Introduction

  With a baseball card in my hand, I am the most powerful person in the world. With a card in my hand, I can do something the president of the United States can’t do, the most intelligent genius on the planet can’t do, the best athlete in the universe can’t do.

  I can travel through time.

  —Joe Stoshack

  1

  It’s All You

  “STOSH, YOU ARE THE MAN!” BRIAN WENZEL YELLED FROM our dugout. “The man with the plan!”

  I stepped up to the plate and tapped my bat against my spikes. It was the sixth inning, which is the last inning in our league. One out. Joe Koch was on first and Clay VanderMeeden was on second. A double would tie it for us. A home run would win it. I’m not a home run hitter. In a situation like this, a single would make me very happy.

  I looked over at our coach, Flip Valentini, to see if maybe he wanted me to lay down a bunt to move the runners over to second and third. I figured there was a pretty good chance, because Flip knows I haven’t been hitting very well lately. I struck out in the second inning, and in the fourth I hit a weak grounder back to the pitcher. If I hit into a double play right now, the game would be over.

  But Flip wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the runners and touched his right arm to his left sleeve. The steal sign. Flip was telling Joe and Clay to attempt a double steal on the next pitch. Then he looked at me and touched his right ear. The take sign. He was telling me I shouldn’t swing no matter what.

  Okay, I get it. If I were to drop down a sacrifice bunt, we would give up an out to advance two runners into scoring position. But Joe and Clay are both pretty fast. If they pull off a double steal, we move both runners without giving up an out. So then we would have two chances to drive in the runners instead of one. Smart. Flip has been around forever. He’s probably forgotten more about baseball in his life than I’ll ever learn.

  The pitcher looked in for his sign, and then he looked at Clay on second. He wound up and threw. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joe and Clay digging for second and third. The pitch was right down the middle. I probably could have hit it pretty hard. But when Flip tells me not to swing, I don’t swing.

  “Strike!” hollered the ump.

  The catcher jumped up from his squat and fired the ball to third. Clay came sliding in with a cloud of dust. The throw was there. The third baseman only had to catch the ball and slap the tag on Clay’s leg.

  “Yer out!” hollered the ump.

  Ouch! Two outs. Clay didn’t argue the call. They had him by a foot. The catcher pointed his finger toward third as if it was a gun and blew on it. Jerk. Joe advanced to second on the play.

  I looked over at Flip, and he shrugged his shoulders. You win some; you lose some. Even smart strategy fails sometimes.

  All I knew was that I could still tie the game. But I’d need a hit, and I hadn’t had one in a while.

  “C’mon, Stosh!” Flip yelled, clapping his hands. “It’s all you, babe. All you.”

  “Drive me in, Stosh!” Joe shouted from second base.

  I dug my cleats into the dirt of the batter’s box. The pitcher looked in for the sign. He wheeled and delivered. It looked outside to me. I didn’t swing.

  “Strike!” hollered the ump.

  Okay. That was borderline. Maybe it was a strike. Maybe not. Doesn’t matter. Don’t think about the past. Worry about the present and the future. Two strikes now. Gotta protect the plate. Swing at anything close. No way I’m gonna strike out looking.

  I tried to remember all the advice people have given me over the years: Relax. Keep your eye on the ball. Take a breath. Quick bat. Turn your hips. Bend your knees. Don’t grip the bat too tightly. Take a practice swing. Focus.

  Too much to think about.

  The pitcher was ready now, and so was I. He went into his windup and let it fly.

  The pitch looked good, and I took a rip at it. I got a piece of the ball, but not a good piece. It went curving into foul territory down the first base line. The catcher and first baseman gave chase.

  “Get out of here!” I yelled at the ball, trying to will it out of play.

  The first baseman leaned against the fence and reached over into the first row of seats. It didn’t look like he was going to get it, but I guess the ball was curving back, because it ended up at the top of the webbing of his glove. Part of the ball was showing. A snow cone, we call it.

  Shoot! Nice catch, I had to admit.

  “Three outs!” hollered the ump. “That’s the ball game, fellows.”

  I cursed at myself and trudged back to the bench. Nobody wants to make the last out of a game. And nobody wants to make the last out on a lame pop foul.

  “You’ll get ’im next time, Stosh,” Brian said.

  What was I doing wrong? Maybe I was trying too hard. Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough. Who knew? There are so many things that can go wrong when you’re hitting.

  I remember reading in some book that the hardest thing to do in any sport is to hit a baseball. I mean, think about it. You’re holding a round bat and you’re trying to hit a round ball. That’s not easy right there. Plus, a good fastball reaches the plate about a half second after the pitcher releases it. You have like two-tenths of a second to decide whether or not to swing. The ball could be coming at different speeds, from different locations. It could be a curveball. It could be out of the strike zone, making it hard to hit. Or it could be coming at your head. Even if you manage to hit the ball, if you hit it a fraction of an inch too low or too high, you’re probably out. Or somebody in the field can make a great play and catch it. And s
ometimes you hit it right at somebody.

  No wonder players who can get a hit just three times in ten at bats are considered superstars. It’s a game of failure. You fail seven times out of ten and you’re doing great.

  I chucked my bat against the fence near our dugout in disgust.

  “Hey, none of that, son!” the ump yelled at me.

  I plopped down on the bench next to Coach Valentini, who was wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “I suck,” I muttered to nobody in particular.

  “You’re in a slump,” Flip said. “It happens to everybody, Stosh. Even the great ones—Cobb, Williams, DiMaggio, Aaron—they all had slumps. I remember this one time in 1954—”

  Usually I enjoy listening to Flip tell his baseball stories about the good old days. But today, I just wasn’t in the mood.

  “What can I do to get out of my slump?” I asked him.

  Flip has been playing and coaching baseball for something like seventy years. If anybody knew how to get out of a slump, I figured it would be Flip.

  “Ah, the great mystery of life,” he said. “Nothin’ you can do. Fuhgetuhboutit. You just gotta wait it out, Stosh. Believe me, the hits will come. You’re too good a hitter to stay in a slump for long.”

  He was trying to make me feel good. I didn’t want to hear it.

  I was packing up my equipment when I heard a buzz in the bleachers behind our bench. I turned around to check it out. It was a troop of Girl Scouts. They were marching through the crowd with cans. I figured they were selling cookies, but then I noticed one of them carrying a sign that said SAVE THE POLAR BEARS.

  “Oh, give me a break,” said our third baseman, Ricky Hernandez.

  “Hey, why don’t you girls get a life?” said our catcher, Teddy Ronson, when the Girl Scouts got within earshot.

  “Why don’t you guys get a conscience?” said the girl holding the sign. “Do you realize that burning fossil fuels has warmed the atmosphere so much that Arctic sea ice is melting, making it harder for polar bears to hunt for food? In forty years, they all could be gone. Extinct.”

  “Boo-hoo. I’m crying,” said Tommy Rose.

  “Ya think that if humans were dying off, the bears would go around with cans collecting money for us?” said Lucas Riley.

  “Hey, you girls should adopt the polar bears and turn them into pets,” said Tommy.

  We were all laughing. The guys started in making cracks about the Bad News Bears, the Care Bears, Smokey the Bear, and every other kind of bear they could think of.

  I had to admit that I felt the same way. I’ve got enough problems of my own trying to hit the ball. I can’t worry about a bunch of bears.

  “What are you gonna do with that money you’re collecting?” I asked. “Buy freezers for the polar bears?”

  All the guys laughed and gave me high fives, which made me feel good. At the same time I felt a little guilty. I’ve got nothing against polar bears. I just don’t like fouling out with the tying run on second to end the game.

  2

  A Mission of Mercy

  AS I PEDALED MY BIKE HOME, I MANAGED TO GET MY MIND off the game by thinking about my birthday. It was coming up, and I decided to ask for a portable video game system. I have a secondhand Game Boy that is like a thousand years old. But I saw in a magazine that Nintendo has a new system coming out that is very cool.

  I hopped my bike over the edge of the driveway and wheeled it into the garage. In the kitchen, my mom was preparing dinner, still in her nurse’s uniform. She works in the emergency room at Louisville Hospital. Usually she works the night shift, but today she was home early.

  “Hey, Mom, I was thinking,” I started, “for my birthday—”

  I probably should have checked her mood before launching into the conversation.

  “Mister, you’re in trouble,” she told me.

  She didn’t have to tell me I was in trouble. I knew I was in trouble because the only time my mother ever calls me “mister” is when I’m in trouble.

  She handed me a piece of paper that said PROGRESS REPORT at the top. In between report cards, my school sends out progress reports to parents to let them know if their kid is screwing up or not. I don’t know why they call it a progress report if they basically say you’re not making much progress.

  The progress report said that I was doing fine in all my classes except Spanish. There was a note that said POOR WORK and some code after that.

  “I thought I was doing okay in Spanish,” I said.

  “If flunking is okay,” my mom said, “you were right. It says that if you don’t do something to bring up your grade, Joey, you’re going to get an F on your next report card.”

  I’m a pretty decent student. Let me say that right now. But I would be the first to admit that I’m not very good in Spanish. I just don’t get it. I don’t see why I have to learn a foreign language, anyway.

  At my school, we have to take Spanish, German, French, and Italian, each for one marking period. Then, at the end of the term, we choose one language to study the following year. I’m definitely not going to choose Spanish.

  The next day, like it or not, I had to go talk to my teacher, Señorita Molina, to see what I could do to bring up my grade. I have Spanish last period on Thursdays, so I just waited until the other kids left the class before approaching Señorita Molina.

  She’s an okay lady, I guess. Kids think she’s kind of strange. Like, she keeps a lit candle on her desk at all times, but she never tells anybody why.

  Señorita Molina can’t walk. She’s in a wheelchair, and the whiteboard in her classroom is lower than normal so she can write on it from a sitting position. There have been lots of times in the lunchroom when me and some other kids sit around and try to guess what happened to Señorita Molina to make her disabled. But nobody knows for sure. And nobody has the nerve to ask her. She’s one of those teachers who gives you the impression she doesn’t want to talk about personal stuff.

  “Buenos dias, Tito,” she said when I came over to her desk.

  Tito is my Spanish name. On the first day of school, Señorita Molina said that each of us had to choose a Spanish name for ourselves. Most of the names sounded lame, but Tito sounded kind of cool, so I chose it.

  “My mom got the progress report in the mail,” I said.

  “I was disappointed, Tito,” said Señorita Molina.

  “I’ll try harder,” I told her.

  “Tell you what,” she said. “You can do an extra credit project to bring up that grade.”

  “What sort of extra credit project?” I asked.

  “Whatever you like,” she said. “Usa tu imaginación, Tito. Use your imagination.”

  She looked down at her papers, so I figured she was finished with me. I was about to leave; but then I figured, what the heck? Nobody else was around. It was just the two of us. What did I have to lose?

  “Señorita Molina,” I said, “why do you keep a candle burning on your desk?”

  She looked up at me, not with anger in her eyes but with sorrow. She paused for a moment, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to confide in me or not.

  “It is for Roberto Clemente,” she finally said.

  Well, being a big baseball fan, I knew a thing or two about Roberto Clemente. Just about the only thing I ever read is baseball books. I’ve got a whole shelf of them at home. I know a lot about baseball history, both from reading and from seeing it with my own eyes.

  I knew that Roberto Clemente played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, mostly in the 1960s. Rightfield. He had a great arm, and he was one of the few players to reach 3,000 hits. No more, no less. 3,000 hits exactly. He’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

  Señorita Molina reached into her drawer and pulled out a framed picture.

  “I met Mr. Clemente when I was una niñita, a very little girl,” she told me. “I grew up in Puerto Rico, and so did he.”

  “How did you meet him?” I asked.

  “I was so young, I barely rememb
er,” Señorita Molina said. “It was toward the end of 1972. I developed an infection in my spine and had to spend the whole year at San Jorge Children’s Hospital. That’s in San Juan. There was a medica mentos—an antibiotic—that could have made the infection go away, but my family was very poor and could not afford a hundred dollars to pay for it.”

  It was a photo of Roberto Clemente. He had even signed it.

  “Is that why you have the wheelchair?” I asked.

  “Sí. Yes. Anyway, Mr. Clemente visited the hospital one day. He would do that all the time. There were no photographers or reporters there. He just did it because he cared. And he was so nice. The big baseball star—sitting at the edge of my bed! He told my parents that he was going to come back in a few weeks and give me a hundred-dollar bill so I could get the antibiotic I needed to get better. But he never did.”

  At that point, I could see Señorita Molina’s eyes were wet. It occurred to me that maybe I never should have asked her about the candle.

  “Why do you think he didn’t come back?” I asked.

  “Because se murio. He died, Tito.”

  Señorita Molina dabbed her eyes with a tissue and told me what happened. On December 23, 1972, there was a huge earthquake in Nicaragua, which is in Central America. It just about leveled the capital city, Managua. 350 square blocks were flattened. Two hospitals were destroyed. The main fire station collapsed. 5,000 people died, and 250,000 were left homeless, with no water or electricity.

  Señorita Molina told me that Roberto Clemente had played winter baseball in Nicaragua and grew to love the people there. He wanted to help. So he organized a relief effort in Puerto Rico to get food, medicine, and clothing for the survivors of the earthquake. And he personally paid for a plane to fly the supplies to Nicaragua. He even insisted on going on the plane himself to make sure the stuff got to the people who needed it.

  At that point, Señorita Molina cried as she pulled a yellowed newspaper clipping out of her desk drawer and showed it to me.

  “It was La Noche Vieja—New Year’s Eve,” Señorita Molina told me. “The plane was loaded with 40,000 pounds of cargo, more than it was supposed to carry. The pilot was sleep deprived and in danger of losing his license. The crew was unqualified. There were mechanical problems too. The plane was only volano…how do you say…airborne for two minutes before it crashed into the ocean. Five people died, including Mr. Clemente.”