by Dan Gutman
Wait a minute! Shaking the sleep from my eyes, it occurred to me that this had to be some kind of trick. I’m no fool, and I know not to talk to strangers. I glanced around the room trying to locate my baseball bat. Maybe I could defend myself with it if I had to.
“Who are you, anyway?” I demanded.
“I already told you, Stosh,” he replied gently. “Hans Wagner.”
“If you’re really Wagner, let’s see you prove it,” I said. “Show me some identification.”
“Stosh, I don’t carry my wallet in my uniform,” the guy said calmly. “I have no way to prove to you who I am.”
“Well, I do.” I pulled my copy of The Baseball Encyclopedia out of the bookshelf and furiously flipped the pages until I reached the entry for Honus Wagner. “Okay Honus, or whatever your name is. What was your batting average in 1900?”
“That was my best year,” he answered proudly. “I hit .381.”
He was right.
“Yeah, well what’s your birthday?” I asked.
“February 24th,” he replied. “1874.”
Anybody posing as Wagner would know that. I looked down the column for a more obscure statistic. “How many errors did you make in 1909?”
“That’s easy,” he said. “Forty-nine. But at least ten of ’em should’ve been scored as hits, if you ask me. I couldn’t have reached ’em with a butterfly net.”
I still wasn’t convinced the guy was Honus Wagner. “How many home runs did you hit in your career?” I asked.
He thought about that for a moment. “I can’t answer that one, Stosh.”
“If you’re really Honus Wagner, why don’t you know how many home runs you hit?”
“Well,” he said, shaking his head. “I haven’t hit ’em all yet. I hope I haven’t anyway. I was countin’ on playin’ for a few more seasons before this old body is too beat up to hit homers.”
“What year do you think this is?” I asked him.
“Why, it’s 1909, of course,” he responded. “What year do you think it is?”
I went over to my desk, picked up my calendar, and handed it to him.
“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” He was genuinely shocked.
“Are you saying you traveled through time from 1909 to now?”
“I didn’t say nothin’, Stosh. But it sure looks like it.”
“I thought time travel was just something on TV.”
“TV?” he said, puzzled. “What’s TV?”
“Never mind. Why are you here?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Stosh. All I know is, somethin’ very powerful brought me to you. You and me gotta figure out what it is, and we gotta figure it out by tomorrow ’cause I got a big game on Saturday and I don’t want to miss it. I gotta get back to 1909.”
This guy put on a good act, but I still wasn’t entirely convinced it was Honus Wagner. It was just too weird to think that he traveled through time and landed in my bedroom.
Suddenly, I remembered the card. Where was it? Frantically, I pulled the blankets off my bed. It wasn’t there.
“Where is it?” I almost yelled at him.
“Where is what?” he replied gently.
I turned around and threw my pillow aside. The card was right there, still in its plastic case.
Honus looked at the card, shook his head, and chuckled as he watched me. “You okay, Stosh?”
“I know.” I turned to him slowly and pointed my finger at him. “You were trying to steal my card! That’s what happened. You dressed up as Honus Wagner, snuck into my house, and tried to trick me into thinking I was having a dream! Who hired you, Birdie Farrell?”
“Hired me? Stosh, why would anybody steal a baseball card?”
The way he said that, it was obvious he honestly didn’t know the answer.
“This baseball card could solve a lot of my problems,” I told him.
“Son, no piece of cardboard is gonna solve a man’s problems, unless it’s to keep a draft out of his window.”
“What if I told you this card was worth a half a million dollars?”
“I’d say you’re loony,” Honus said. “They give those things away for free.”
“Maybe in 1909 they did,” I explained. “Today they’re worth a fortune.”
He laughed again, like I was putting him on.
“Do you have any idea how much they pay baseball players today?” I asked him.
“Oh, I don’t know, Stosh. The cost of everything is always going up. $20,000? $30,000 maybe?”
“The average major league salary is a million dollars a year. If you were playing today, you’d get six million. Maybe more.”
“Now I’m sure you’re loony. Son, when I broke into the majors, I was paid two hundred fifty dollars a month. And that was good money! Heck, a mug o’ root beer only cost a few pennies. Last season I held out until old man Dreyfuss coughed up $10,000. With that, I’m satisfied. Ten grand is as much money as any man should be paid to throw and hit a ball.”
I sat back down on my bed. This guy actually was Honus Wagner, I realized.
I always had a special feeling about baseball cards, and now I understood what that feeling was. A baseball card, for me, could be like a time machine. With a 1909 Honus Wagner card in my hand, I wished I could meet Honus, and he traveled through time to fulfill my wish.
Cool!
If a baseball card could be a time machine, the possibilities were unlimited. I could get a Ty Cobb baseball card and bring back The Georgia Peach. Or Jackie Robinson. Or “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.
Why, I could bring Babe Ruth to my bedroom to talk about his glory years with the Yankees! I could bring The Sultan of Swat to school for show and tell! I’d just need his baseball card.
Honus interrupted my reverie. “You play ball, Stosh?”
“Yeah, but I’m no good,” I admitted. I told him how kids made fun of the way I look and how it throws me off when I’m trying to hit or field.
“They used to give it to me bad,” Honus said, putting his hands on his bowed legs. “Kids used to say that I was the only person in the world who could tie his shoelaces without bending down. They used to say that if I ever straightened my legs out, I’d be seven feet tall. That sort of thing. One guy said you could roll a barrel through my legs. But let me tell you something.” He leaned closer to me. “They could never roll a baseball through my legs.”
“What did you do when kids said that kind of stuff?”
“Simple. I’d hit a single. Then I’d steal second. Then I’d steal third. Then I’d steal home. Then they’d shut up.”
“That’s easy for you,” I said sadly, “You’re Honus Wagner.”
Honus leaned over to me again. He was almost whispering. “Y’know, Stosh, you remind me a little of me as a boy. You even look like me. You’ve got the tools to be a good player. You just have to convince yourself.”
“Sure…”
The old pep talk. I’d heard it a million times. I was sick of it. Some people are just born athletes, I had convinced myself, and others are born to do something else. I was born to do something else.
“Stosh, do you want to know the one secret to bein’ a great ballplayer?”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” I said. “Keep your eye on the ball?”
“Nah, any monkey can do that,” Honus said. “The secret to bein’ a great ballplayer—” He looked around the room as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear, “is to trick yourself into thinkin’ you already are one.”
“Huh?”
“It’s the same with anything, Stosh. The secret to bein’ a great barber is to trick yourself into thinkin’ you already are one. The secret to bein’ a great salesman is to trick yourself into thinkin’ you already are one. And once you think you are one, you become one. See what I mean?”
I couldn’t say that I did. But who was I to tell the great Honus Wagner he wasn’t making any sense?
Honus went on, spinning old baseball stories late into the night. I felt m
yself getting drowsy, but fought it off the best I could. If this is only a dream, I thought to myself, I don’t want to miss a minute of it.
Eventually my eyelids became too heavy, and I fell into a deep sleep. I hadn’t even thought to ask him for his autograph.
DAYDREAMING
8
WHEN I WOKE UP IN THE MORNING, HONUS WAS GONE. “IT must have just been a dream,” I thought to myself.
But if it was a dream, it was the most vivid dream I ever had. The Baseball Encylopedia was on the floor next to my bed. It was open to the page with Honus Wagner on it.
I stuck the Wagner card in my backpack and got ready for school. I wasn’t about to let the card out of my sight for a second.
It was impossible to concentrate at school. I couldn’t get Honus or the card out of my head. Should I sell it? Keep it? Give it back to Miss Young? Did I really have the power to bring people through time with baseball cards, or didn’t I? I didn’t know.
I was daydreaming about all this stuff during math class when I suddenly heard Mrs. Kelly call my name.
“Mr. Stoshack, can you tell us the answer?”
“Uh…” I guessed. “Four?”
The class roared with laughter.
“Joe, the question was, ‘What is one-tenth of two thousand?’ I’m going to assume that you knew the answer but your mind was elsewhere, okay?”
“Thanks, Mrs. Kelly.” She was a pretty-all-right lady for a teacher.
“Good, Joe. Now let’s try and focus on what we’re doing.”
But I couldn’t. I don’t think I learned much at school that day.
“Nobatternobatternobatternobatternobatternobatter…”
The Galante Giants are a strange bunch. The team is sponsored by the Galante Funeral Home. The black uniforms don’t bother anybody, but they make a big show out of carrying their bats to their games in a fake coffin. People decided the Giants were really weird when they started bringing a tombstone to their games and putting the name of the opposing team on it.
The Giants are also really good players. With most teams, every time there’s a fly ball to the outfield, three or four guys run out there, bonk heads, and the ball drops right between them. The Giants are careful to call “I got it.” They know their signals. They always throw to the right base. They never forget how many outs there are.
They had us 7–4 going into the sixth inning. Our first two guys struck out and the game looked hopeless. But their pitcher walked a couple of guys, and Billy Shields cracked a double down the rightfield line to score both of them. That made it 7–6. Billy was on second base. A single would tie it up.
Johnny Conlon was due up, but he had a dentist appointment and his mom took him home at the end of the fifth inning. Coach looked up and down the bench for a pinch hitter. I hadn’t been in the game yet, and every kid is supposed to play at least one inning.
I slunk down into my seat. I had fanned to end the last game, and I didn’t want to make a habit of it.
“Stoshack,” Coach yelled, “Grab a bat.”
Shoot!
Somebody groaned when Coach called my name, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. Everybody knew I couldn’t hit. Putting me up there in this situation was like throwing the game away.
I decided I wasn’t going to swing no matter what. If you don’t swing, you can’t miss. Maybe he’ll walk me, I figured. He’s walked two guys already this inning. Somebody else can make the last out.
The Giant’s pitcher looked in for the sign, nodded, and threw. It was right down the middle of the plate, nice and easy.
“Steeeerikkkke one!” yelled the ump.
Maybe he’s on to me, I thought. He knows I’m not swinging, so he’s going to throw it right over. I swung my bat menacingly and put a determined look on my face. Gotta pretend I’m gonna take a rip at this one.
Once again the pitcher got the sign and threw a marshmallow right down Broadway.
“Steeeerikkkke two!” yelled the ump.
Two strikes. I stepped out of the batter’s box. He definitely knows I’m taking all the way. He’s gonna lay it right over the plate again. That’ll be strike three and the end of the game.
That’s it, I said to myself. I’m swinging.
I thought about what Honus had told me. The way to be a great player is to pretend you already are one. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine I had hit a home run in my last at-bat, and I was the league’s Most Valuable Player. Nobody could throw a pitch by me.
I got back in the box and gave the pitcher my meanest glare.
“Drive me in, Stosh!” Billy hollered from second as he stretched his lead.
“Tie it up, Joe!” somebody yelled from our bench.
“Stoshack, we’re gonna bury you!” one of their guys screamed.
“We’re gonna murder you!”
I let all the air out of my lungs to get relaxed. My bat was nearly straight up and down. I held it firmly, but not so tight that I wouldn’t be able to turn my wrists. My weight was on my back leg.
The pitcher looked in for the sign, but I knew what he was going to throw. A cream puff right down the middle. That’s exactly what I saw—a big, fat, juicy, slow ball, just right for whacking over a wall.
“Hey!” somebody yelled as I pulled the trigger, “Noodle nose!”
I brought my arms around, swiveling my hips, shifting my weight forward, and whipping the bat head across the plate. Bat and ball met, with the bat kissing the ball an inch below its equator. The ball soared almost straight up in the air.
“Run, Stosh!”
I took off for first. Billy, running on anything, dashed for third. It looked like it would be a fair ball, and it looked like it would never come down.
The Giant’s catcher ripped his mask off his face and tossed it aside. He took two steps forward into fair territory and planted his feet. The ball reached it’s highest point and started coming down. I reached first and turned around to watch. Billy was steaming around third and charging home. If the catcher makes the play the game is over. If he can’t hold on to the ball, Billy scores and we tie the game.
Plop.
The ball settled in the catcher’s glove. Three outs. Game over. We lose. At least I didn’t whiff, I thought, as I trudged back to the bench.
“Woulda been a home run,” the catcher said as I passed him, “if we were playing in an elevator shaft.”
The team got in a line, shook hands with the Giants, and everybody scattered to go home. I packed up my duffel bag with my bat, glove, and a bunch of balls. I was about to leave when I heard somebody call to me.
“You’re overstriding,” a man’s voice said. “That’s why you got under the ball.”
I turned around. It was Honus, sitting on the steps in street clothes, with a dog on each side of him and a bag behind him.
“It wasn’t a dream!” I shouted, giving him a big hug. “You’re really here!”
“Or if it was a dream, we must both still be dreamin’.”
I was so happy to see him. I was bursting with questions. “When did you leave last night? Where did you go? Where did you sleep?”
“Whoa! Slow down, Stosh. I guess I was borin’ you with my stories, ’cause you fell asleep right in the middle of one of ’em. So I climbed out your window. I walked the streets a bit and I slept right here.”
“You slept in the field?”
“Stosh, I slept in plenty of fields in my time.”
I turned around. It was Honus.
“Where’d you get those clothes? You look pretty good!”
“Thanks. Somebody was throwin’ ’em away and I grabbed ’em just before the garbage man came down the street. Thought I’d look pretty strange walkin’ around in my uniform.”
“You must be starved, Honus. When’s the last time you ate?”
“In 1909,” he laughed. “I could use a bite.”
There was a little luncheonette around the corner, and the dogs followed us there. I got a sandwich to go and a Pepsi
to wash it down. He devoured the sandwich in about ten seconds as we walked by a vacant lot.
“Hey Stosh, wanna play some ball?”
“With you?!”
“Well, Ty Cobb ain’t here, is he? Grab your glove.”
I handed him my bat, and he looked at it strangely. “Ain’t they got wood no more?” he asked.
“Yeah, but in Little League we use aluminum.”
“Can’t stop progress, I guess.”
I ran out to the middle of the lot and Honus slapped a grounder at me. I scooped it up and fired it back to him. He smothered the ball in his huge hands. He slapped the next grounder a little to my left so I had to reach for it, and then another to my right so I had to backhand it. Each time I handled the ball cleanly.
He hit about a dozen grounders my way, and then a bunch of high pops. I nabbed nearly all of them, and when I didn’t he’d shout, “Get down on the ball!” or “Charge it!”
“Not bad, Stosh,” Honus shouted when he saw I was out of breath. “Now let me see you hit the ball.”
I grabbed the bat and drew a strike zone on the cement wall with a rock.
“You can pitch?” I hollered as he paced off sixty feet.
“Heck, I twirl a few games when the regular pitchers are worn out. I don’t have much of a curve, but I throw hard. They say if I ever hit a batter they should send for an undertaker, because it’ll be too late for an ambulance.”
Honus went into his windup and whipped the ball over. I could barely see it.
“Whoa! I’m only twelve, y’know!”
“Sorry!” He slowed it down a little on the next one, but all I hit was air. “Don’t twist your body all up! Keep your feet planted!”
He threw another one and I fouled it off to the right.
“You’re jerkin’ your swing, Stosh! Smooth it out!”
After thirty swings or so, I was hitting the ball pretty good, and Honus was shouting, “Good!” “Better!” and, “Now you’re hittin’ like you mean it!”
We flopped down in the grass by a fence. Honus pulled up a big piece of grass and chewed on it. I did the same.