Willie & Me

by Dan Gutman

  Behind the plate, some guys were setting up a huge TV camera on a tripod. It had the NBC logo on the side. Willie was right. I remembered reading at the library that this was the first series to be broadcast live to a national TV audience. Around sixteen million people would be watching the game. That’s just about everybody who owned a TV in 1951.

  Directly above my head, I could see the press box. There was a line of reporters sitting up there, maybe fifty of them. All men, and they were all smoking cigarettes and wearing those old-time fedora hats like the one Leo Durocher had had on. Each reporter had a typewriter in front of him. It occurred to me that those were three things I had never seen in a twenty-first-century ballpark—cigarettes, fedoras, and typewriters.

  My mind was racing as I made my way through the left-field bleachers. I was rattled after what Durocher and his boys had done to me. The eyepiece to the telescope was still in my front pocket. I patted my back pocket to make sure I had my pack of new baseball cards.

  It would be simple to just go home at this point, I figured. I could find a quiet spot in a bathroom or something, do my thing with one of the cards in my pocket, and that would be the end of it. I’d certainly had enough excitement to last me a while.

  But I didn’t want to go home yet. I must admit, I was anxious to see if I had really changed history by stealing the eyepiece from the telescope. Maybe I could buy one of those bags of peanuts. Enjoy the game.

  The ballplayers were warming up on the field, and I was kicking myself again for not bringing the little video camera my grandmother had given me for my birthday. It would have been so cool to shoot some footage of the players in 1951 and bring it back with me to show at home. Maybe I could have even made some money selling it to a collector. My dad would have liked that.

  I thought about the butterfly effect. Maybe I had already changed history. If the Giants didn’t replace the eyepiece of the telescope, they wouldn’t be able to steal the catcher’s signals. The game would be completely different. Bobby Thomson wouldn’t hit the walk-off home run and be the hero. Ralph Branca wouldn’t be the goat. Those two people in the stands who had heart attacks at the end of the game would continue to live.

  And what about Willie Mays? If Thomson doesn’t hit the homer, I thought, Willie could come to bat with the game on the line. Who knows what he might do?

  It occurred to me that just telling Willie he would be on deck when the game ended could have changed things. Maybe now he would relax at the plate and get a hit earlier in the game to drive in some runs. Then, of course, the score would be different in the ninth inning and there would probably be no confrontation between Thomson and Branca.

  There were so many variables to consider. If you change one little thing, it may very well change everything that happens after that—the butterfly effect.

  But then I remembered there was another possibility I had to think about. What if Durocher had an extra eyepiece for the telescope in his desk drawer? He could simply screw it on, and the game would happen exactly as it would have before I showed up. The Giants would steal the signs and win the pennant by cheating.

  Right or wrong, I came to a decision. I would at least try to let the Dodgers know their signs were being stolen. It might not make a difference one way or another, but in my gut it felt like the right thing to do.

  There were a couple of policemen standing in front of the Dodger dugout, so I couldn’t get in there to talk to anybody. I looked around. The bullpens were in fair territory, right next to the foul lines. I made my way over to the Dodger pen.

  Some kids were hanging over the railing there, holding out scorecards and papers for players to autograph. I pushed my way through until I was able to get close to the rail.

  There were only two Dodgers in the bullpen, casually tossing a ball back and forth. I recognized the one facing my direction—it was Ralph Branca! He looked a little younger than he had in my room the other night. If anybody needed to know his signs were being stolen, it was Branca. The guy he was playing catch with was closer to me, but his back was turned. His number was 29, but I didn’t know who he was.

  “Please, Ralph?” begged the kid next to me at the rail. “Gimme your autograph, please? I’ve been waiting all season.”

  Branca ignored the kid, but the other player turned around. He looked at the kids lining the railing, and suddenly made eye contact with me. His eyebrows went up.

  “Stosh!” he yelled.

  What? How did he know my name?

  “You know that kid?” asked Branca.

  “Sure I do!” the guy said, coming over to me at the railing. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

  I looked at his face carefully. He was in his late twenties, I figured. Dark hair. Crew cut. But just about all the ballplayers looked like that in those days. I swore I had never seen that man in my life.

  “It’s me,” he said, almost in a whisper as he put his big arms on my shoulders. “It’s me, Flip.”

  Flip Valentini, my coach!

  Of course! I had taken Flip back in time with me on a previous trip, and he was still there!

  Here’s what happened that day. Flip had been wishing he was young again, and when we arrived in 1942, he was eighteen years old. Flip and I had brought a radar gun with us because we wanted to see if Satchel Paige could throw a baseball a hundred miles an hour. That’s when Flip fell in love with Laverne. As it turned out, Laverne’s dad went nuts and tried to kill the both of us. I was forced to leave Flip back in 1942, where he married Laverne, learned how to throw the hesitation pitch from Satch, and got signed by the Dodgers. And now he was in the Polo Grounds at the same time as I was!

  Flip lifted me out of the stands and gave me a big hug. It was great to see him, and he seemed thrilled to see me.

  “You came back, Stosh!” he whispered. “I knew you would!”

  He couldn’t stop hugging me. Ralph Branca threw up his hands and went to find somebody else to warm him up.

  I pulled Flip aside so the kids at the railing couldn’t hear what I had to say.

  “Flip, I have something really important I need to tell you,” I whispered.

  “Is it about the game today?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The Giants—”

  “I know. I know,” Flip said. “Thomson’s gonna hit a homer in the ninth to win it all. The Shot Heard Round the World.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “Because I already lived through it once, remember?” he said. “I lived through it when it first happened, and then you took me back in time with you, so I’m gonna have to live through it again.”

  I did the math in my head. I had left Flip in 1942. Now it was 1951. So he had been living in the past for nine years. That’s why I didn’t recognize him. He was nine years older.

  “Stosh, I’ve been waiting a long time for you to come back,” he said seriously. “Every time I see a kid your age out in the stands, I think it might be you, comin’ back to get me.”

  “Get you?” I asked.

  “Listen,” Flip whispered in my ear, “you gotta get me outta here.”

  “Wh-why?” I asked, flustered. This I wasn’t expecting.

  “I can’t take it,” Flip said.

  “But you’re living everybody’s dream, Flip!” I told him. “You’re young again. You’re pitching in the big leagues. You’ve got Laverne. You have your whole life ahead of you. Flip, you’re going to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, y’know. You got a second chance. You got to live your life over again.”

  “I know. I know,” he said, shaking his head.

  “So why would you want to give that up?”

  “The problem is, I know everything,” Flip told me. “I know who’s gonna win this game, and exactly how. I know how the rest of my life is gonna play out. I know who’s going to win the next dozen presidential elections. I know we’re gonna have a war in Vietnam and we’re gonna put a man on the moon. Nothing surprises me, Stosh! I pick up the newspaper and I
know what’s gonna be in it. So I put it down again. What’s the point of reading it? Can you imagine what it’s like to know everything that’s going to happen before it happens?”

  “I would think it would be cool,” I admitted. “I would like that. You don’t have to worry about anything.”

  “It’s not cool, Stosh,” he said. “I have to worry about everything. I have to be careful every day of my life. I’m afraid to do anything, touch anything, say anything, because I might change history, for the worse. It’s like I’m walking around on eggshells all the time.”

  “The butterfly effect,” I said. “That’s what they call it. If a butterfly flaps its wings in Ohio, for instance . . .”

  “I know, I know,” Flip said wearily. “It could cause a tornado in Hawaii. That’s why I’m terrified that I might do something stupid and . . . I don’t know, start World War III, or whatever. I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t tamper with history, but it’s not easy. It’s a horrible way to live your life.”

  “Wow, I had no idea.”

  “I’ve given this a lotta thought, Stosh,” Flip said. “And I decided that if you ever came back, I was gonna leave with you. I don’t need to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I want my old life back. I want to experience uncertainty again. Bring me home with you, Stosh. I can’t take it here anymore.”

  “What about Laverne?” I asked. “If you come home with me, she’ll still be here. You’d show up in the twenty-first century, and she wouldn’t be in your house. She wouldn’t be your wife. It would be like you’d never met her.”

  “I would find her,” Flip said. “I would track her down.”

  “And what if she married some other guy?” I asked.

  “Laverne and I were made for each other,” Flip said. “I’m sure she would choose me over some other guy.”

  Flip was talking crazy. Those nine years living in the past had done something to him.

  “In my time, you’re an old man, you know,” I told him.

  “I realize that,” Flip said. “But I’d rather be an old man who doesn’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow than a young man who can predict the future.”

  He had completely blown my mind. I always thought that getting the chance to live your life over again would be the coolest thing ever. You could correct all the dumb mistakes you made the first time around. You could take advantage of opportunities you missed. But Flip had the chance to live his life all over again, and he hated it. He looked at me imploringly.

  “I can take you with me, Flip,” I said. “But there’s something that I need to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “Back home, in the twenty-first century, you had an accident,” I told him, putting my hand on his shoulder. “You broke your hip falling in the dugout at one of my games.”

  “That I didn’t know,” he said. “Am I gonna be okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “The last time I saw you, you were in the hospital. The doctor told me you might not walk again.”

  “Is that all he said?” Flip asked.

  “No,” I told him honestly. “Flip, if I take you back home with me, we might get there and find you’re dead.”

  WELL, THAT STOPPED FLIP COLD. THE THOUGHT OF TRAVELING more than sixty years through time and finding himself dead on arrival definitely threw him for a loop.

  “How could that even happen?” Flip asked. “Is that really possible?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “All I know is, when I was visiting you at the hospital, Laverne told me that mortality rates after hip fractures are really high for old guys.”

  Flip’s forehead got all wrinkly. He was mulling it over.

  “That may change stuff,” he said. “What’s the point of going home and havin’ that happen to me? Livin’ here like this has gotta be better than goin’ home to Louisville to die. I gotta rethink this.”

  The game would be starting soon. The bleachers were just about full now. Behind Flip, I could see Ralph Branca throwing a ball back and forth with one of his teammates. There were a few other Dodgers in the bullpen now, too. I had to keep my voice low.

  “Flip, there’s something else I need to tell you.”

  “Believe me, Stosh, anything you could possibly tell me about the game today, I know already. Remember, I lived through this once. I know what’s gonna happen.”

  “Did you know that the Giants cheated?” I asked him.

  “Whaddaya mean they cheated?” Flip said. “You mean they’re gonna throw spitters or cork their bats? Somethin’ like that? Everybody does that stuff, Stosh.”

  “No,” I told him. “Well, they may be doing that stuff, too. But they’re stealing signs.”

  Flip laughed. “Everybody steals signs, Stosh! It’s part of the game. I told you that a million times.”

  “Not like that,” I told him. I pointed to center field. “See that window? That’s Leo Durocher’s office. He’s got a telescope up there.”

  “So?”

  “It’s pointing at home plate,” I told Flip, “and right next to the telescope on the desk is a buzzer system. When you push the button, it buzzes down in the Giants bullpen. You see? They steal the catcher’s signs and tip off their batters what the next pitch is going to be.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Flip asked, raising his voice almost a little too loud. “Jeez, how do you know all this, Stosh?”

  “I saw it with my own eyes,” I said. “I was up there.”

  “I-I can’t believe it. I mean, I know Durocher likes to win and all, but . . .”

  I took the eyepiece out of my pocket and handed it to Flip.

  “Look,” I said. “I took this off the telescope. But for all I know, Durocher has another one.”

  “Holy moly!” Flip replied, slapping his forehead. “I had no idea. This changes everything.”

  I didn’t bother telling Flip that Durocher and his boys had roughed me up and tied me up in the equipment room, or that Willie Mays had rescued me. He had enough information to process.

  Flip was clearly floored by what I had told him, and furious, too. After it had sunk in, he looked over at the Giants’ dugout, where Leo Durocher was talking with his players.

  “Cheaters!” Flip said, spitting on the ground. “We had a thirteen-game lead on those guys! Now I know how they won all those games at the end of the season and caught up with us. And people call us bums.”

  “And it goes into the record books for all time that the Giants won the pennant,” I said.

  Flip had calmed down a little. Now, I could tell, he was plotting strategy.

  “So in the ninth inning, Thomson’s gonna know what pitch is coming,” he said. “If they can’t steal our signs, he won’t hit the Shot Heard Round the World and they won’t win the pennant.”

  “Probably not,” I agreed.

  “And Ralph won’t be the biggest goat in baseball history for the rest of his life,” Flip added.

  “Right.”

  “Ralph is one of my best friends on this team,” Flip said. “I can’t let the Giants ruin his life. I’ve gotta do something.”

  “I thought you made a vow not to change history,” I said to Flip. “Aren’t you worried about the butterfly effect?”

  “Yeah, but I’m worried about Ralph, too. This is just wrong. I can do something to make it right. Lemme think.”

  I figured Flip was going to suggest we tamper with Thomson’s bat or throw a pitch at his head to knock him out of the game. But he had a different plan.

  “Here’s what I’m gonna do,” he whispered. “In the ninth inning, when it’s time for Ralph to come into the game and pitch to Thomson, I’m gonna convince Dressen to bring me in instead.”

  “What?” I exclaimed. “But then you’ll be the goat for the rest of your life!”

  “That’s not gonna happen, Stosh. If the catcher calls for a fastball, I’ll throw my curve. If he calls for the curve, I’ll throw my fastball. If the Giants steal our signs, they’ll be stealing
the wrong signs. And if Thomson is expecting my fastball and I throw him the curve, no way is he gonna hit it. I’ll probably strike him out on three pitches. I’ll be the hero.”

  “What if Thomson hits a homer off you fair and square?” I asked Flip. “Then you’re the goat.”

  “I’m willing to take that chance,” Flip replied. “Listen, Stosh. I’ve lived my life. Twice now. Whatever happens to me, good or bad, I can handle it. But I don’t want this to happen to Ralph.”

  A marching band came out on the field to play the national anthem. Flip told me he was going to run over to talk with manager Charlie Dressen and plant the idea in his head to bring him in during the late innings.

  “Don’t move, Stosh,” Flip instructed me, as he turned to run to the dugout. “I’ll be right—”

  What happened next is painful to describe. Somebody had left a couple of bats on the ground next to the bullpen. As Flip turned to take his first step, his right cleat landed on the thick end of one of the bats and he went sprawling. He tried to avoid it, but his left foot landed on the other bat. There was a sickening crack when he hit the ground.

  Oh no, not again!

  “Owwww!” Flip hollered. “Who left these damn bats here?”

  Flip was moaning in pain. A bunch of the Dodgers came running over. I recognized Jackie Robinson and a few of the others. They all gathered around Flip, who was writhing on the dirt.

  “Somebody get a doctor,” Ralph Branca shouted.

  The national anthem was delayed. An umpire came running over to see what was going on. So did the Dodgers’ trainer. He sliced open the leg of Flip’s uniform with a pair of scissors and touched the skin on Flip’s left leg. Flip yelled in pain.

  “I think it’s broken,” he said, grimacing.

  “We need to get you to the hospital so they can set this,” said the trainer.

  A few of the Dodgers groaned. Baseball players tend to be superstitious. This could not be a good omen.

  Ralph Branca and Jackie Robinson helped Flip get to his feet and hobble gingerly off the field. I opened the door for them so they could bring Flip into the clubhouse while he waited for the ambulance to arrive. They put him down on one of those training tables they use for massages.