Calico Joe (17 page)

Mr. Sabbatini grew up on the Lower East Side and knew the city like a cabdriver. He was also a Yankees fan, a pleasant one. He had tickets, and we rode the subway to the Bronx, to The House That Ruth Built, and spent that beautiful afternoon watching the Yankees, with Thurman Munson, Graig
Nettles, and Bobby Murcer, play the Orioles, with Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell, and Paul Blair.

Tom and I decided that we had been narrow-minded in the selection of the National League as our only potential home. We discussed the possibility of also playing for a team in the American League. Mr. Sabbatini agreed that this was wise on our part.

Something was different, though. My dreams were not as clear and exciting. My love for the game was not as deep. I joked along with Tom as we discussed which American League teams would be acceptable. We evaluated the important factors—uniform colors, stadium size, winning tradition, great players from the past, and so on—but it was not as much fun as it had been a month earlier.

Mr. Sabbatini listened and laughed and offered his advice. He was an exceptionally nice person, generous with his time and always kind with his comments. He seemed especially concerned about me. He understood the earthquakes and aftershocks that were rattling my world, and he wanted me to know that he was in my corner.

I
walk into Wink’s Waffles at 8:30 and ask for a table by the window. The place is full of seniors consuming far too many calories thanks to the latest coupon scheme devised to attract those over sixty-five. The hostess is reluctant to seat me where I want to be seated, so I inform her that I’m expecting at least three others. This works and I get my table, which, as I recall, is very near the one we had four years ago, when my girls met their paternal grandfather for the first and last time. I drink coffee, read the newspaper, and watch the parking lot.

At 8:55, a golf cart appears from the path next to the restaurant. It’s Warren, alone. He parks in a row of other carts, stands slowly and stretches his back, then walks with the careful movements you would expect of a man who is recuperating from a nasty surgery. Sick as he is, there is still the unmistakable walk of an old man who was once a great athlete. Head high, chest up, a trace of a swagger. He’s holding sheets of paper, no doubt my little memoir about his beanball.

I wave him over, and he joins me; no handshake, no smile. His eyes are red and puffy, as if sleep eluded him. He opens with a pleasant “You can’t print this piece of shit.”

“Well, good morning, Warren. Sleep well?”

“You heard me.”

“I can and will, Warren. Why the crude language? Hit a bit too close to home? Surely you’re not calling it a pack of lies?”

“It’s a pack of lies.”

The waitress appears, and he orders coffee. When she’s gone, he says, “What are you trying to prove?”

“Nothing. What I’m trying to do is force you to face the consequences, for one of the few times in your life.”

“Aren’t you the wise one?”

“I’m not trying to be wise, Warren. You have a lot of unfinished business in your life, and this is one loose end you can wrap up before you’re gone.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m fighting this thing tooth and nail, and my doctors know a hell of a lot more than you do.”

I am not going to argue about whether he is dying. If he thinks he is in the lucky 5 percent who will live for five years, I am in no position to say otherwise. His coffee arrives, and the waitress asks about the others who might be joining us.

“It’s just the two of us,” I say.

“Are you ready to order?”

“Sure. I guess I should have a waffle. Blueberry, with sausage.”

“Nothing for me,” he says gruffly, waving her away.

“Who do you think will print this crap?” he asks.

“Do you read
Sports Illustrated
?”

“No.”

“There’s a senior writer there named Jerry Kilpatrick. Baseball is his favorite beat. A Chicago guy, my age. I’ve talked to him twice, and he’s interested in the story, and the truth. Joe Castle will never be forgotten in Chicago, and Kilpatrick thinks the story would be great. Especially after you’re gone.”

“You don’t know the truth,” he growls.

“We both know it, Warren.”

He sips his coffee and gazes out the window. Finally, he says, “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You don’t know the game.”

“Are you talking about the code, Warren? The little unwritten rules of baseball, one of which says that beanballs must be used to, number one, get guys off the plate, or, number two, retaliate when one of your players gets hit, or, number three, put a guy in his place if he shows up the pitcher. I can’t remember numbers four and five. Is that what you’re talking about, Warren? Because if it is, then you’re dead wrong because Joe didn’t crowd the plate, nobody was throwing at your hitters, and Joe did nothing to show you up. You wanted to hit him in the head because you envied his success, and you
liked to hit players and start trouble, and, well, I don’t know, Warren, what was your reason for the beanball? You used it so often. Maybe you realized you couldn’t get him out, so you hit him in the head. Was that it, Warren?”

“You’re clueless.”

“Okay, then explain things to me, Warren. Why do you have no regrets about intentionally hitting Joe Castle in the face?”

“It’s part of the game, sort of like the football player who breaks his neck or blows out a knee, never to play again. The boxer with brain damage. The race car driver who’s killed in a crash. The skier who falls off a mountain. It’s sports, okay? Bad things happen, and when they do, you don’t run around crying and apologizing and trying to make everything okay. That’s not the game as I knew it.”

I will not bicker. I could blow holes in his twisted logic for the next hour and gain nothing. We take a break and listen to the chatter around us. Alone, the two of us, for the first time in decades. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I was alone with my father. I’ve seen him half a dozen times since he abandoned us, and only a couple of those little meetings were his idea. There is so much I would like to say, none of it pleasant, and I battle the urge to unload a lifetime’s worth of debris. But I promised myself I would not beat him up. Given his attitude at the moment, I doubt if Warren Tracey would sit still during a round of verbal abuse. He’s still a fighter.

The waitress delivers the waffle, a thick dessert-like creation
smothered in whipping cream. I take a bite of link sausage, something Sara would never consider buying, and dive back into our little session. “So, finally, after thirty years, you’re admitting you deliberately hit Joe?”

“I’m really hesitant to say anything to you because you might add it to your little short story here. Since you’re divulging family matters anyway, I don’t trust you.”

“Fair enough. You have my word that anything you say here today will not be included.”

“Still don’t trust you.”

“I’m not going to argue such things as trust and responsibility, Warren. Why did you throw at Joe Castle?”

“He was a cocky kid, and I didn’t like what he did to Dutch Patton. Dutch and I played together in Cleveland.”

“He was not a cocky kid, no more so than any other major leaguer. And you did not play with Dutch Patton in Cleveland. Dutch never played for the Indians.” I take a small bite of a large waffle, without taking my eyes off him. His mouth drops open and his eyes glow, as if he might throw a punch. Suddenly he grimaces and exhales as a jolt of pain shoots through his midsection. I forgot what he’s going through.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I’ll be all right. I’m thinking about playing golf tomorrow.”

I appreciate the change in subjects. We talk about golf
for a few minutes, and the mood lightens considerably. Then it darkens again when I realize he has played golf since he was six years old; he won the Maryland Open when he was seventeen; and he has never played a single round with me. I understand the DNA thing, but the man across the table is nothing but my biological father. Nothing more.

I make quick work of the waffle and sausage and slide the platter away. “You were trying to explain why you beaned Joe. I don’t think we finished that part of the conversation.”

“You’re so damned smart, why don’t you explain it?” he snaps angrily.

“Oh, I know, Warren. I’ve known for a long time. There were several reasons you wanted to hit Joe, all twisted and pretty sick, but as you say, that was your game. You resented his success and the attention he was getting. In your warped mind, he showed you up after he hit his home run in the first inning. You wanted to be the first tough guy to hit him in the head. You loved hitting people and starting trouble. And you were envious because I, along with countless other little boys in the summer of 1973, worshipped Joe Castle. You had slapped me around. You were trying to make amends, trying to be my hero, and you couldn’t stand the thought of me dreaming of becoming some other player. All of the above and probably more, but that’s enough. I don’t have access to your thoughts, thank God.”

“So it was all about you?”

“I didn’t say that, Warren. Only you know why you did it.
The sick part is that you can’t admit it. You’ve lied for thirty years and never had the spine to admit what you did.” This sounds much harsher than I want it to be.

His shoulders sag a little, and there are tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. He pinches his nose and almost under his breath says, “I’m sorry I slapped you around, Paul.”

I roll my eyes in frustration and want to curse. “You’ve apologized a hundred times for that, Warren. I’m not here because of the slapping. I’m not here to dredge up your deficiencies as a father. I buried those a long time ago.”

With a paper napkin, he wipes the sweat from his face. His skin has lost what little color it had. He takes a sip of coffee and stares at me. In a voice that is suddenly weak and raspy, he says, “I threw at Joe, but I swear I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

I was waiting for this, one of baseball’s greatest lies, one of the lamest excuses in the history of sports. I shake my head in disbelief and say, “Gee, what a surprise. The same asinine cop-out pitchers have been using for a hundred years. So, let me get this straight, Warren. You deliberately throw a fastball at a batter’s face, at ninety or perhaps ninety-five miles an hour, from sixty feet away, a distance that gives him less than a second to react, with the intent, the goal, the dream to see the ball hit him somewhere above the neck and knock him to the ground, preferably in a state of unconsciousness. If they carry him off, no big deal. If he misses a few games, no big deal. Yet when the beanball actually does serious damage, you
can hide behind the old faithful ‘Gosh, I didn’t mean to hurt him.’ Can’t you see how utterly ridiculous this is, Warren? You sound like a fool for saying it.”

Again, I am aware that this sounds too harsh, but I’m fighting anger right now.

He drops his head, nods at something, then looks through the window. There is a crowd of seniors waiting around the front door. The hostess keeps looking our way. I think she wants our table, but I’m in no hurry.

He finally mumbles, “It was just part of the game.”

“Your game, maybe,” I shoot back. “But then, you were a headhunter.”

“I was not.”

“Then why did you throw at their heads? Why didn’t you throw at Joe’s thigh or hip or ribs, anything below the shoulder? That’s what the code says, right, Warren? The code says sometimes you have to hit a guy—I understand that. But the code also says you never throw at a guy’s head. But you were a tough guy, weren’t you, Warren? You wanted to hit Joe in the head.”

“I’m bored with this conversation. What do you want, Paul?”

“Let’s take a trip together, go to Calico Rock. You can sit down with Joe and shake hands, say what you want to say, have a long chat about the game, about life, whatever. I’ll be there. Joe has a couple of brothers who take care of him, I’m sure they’ll be there. It will mean a lot to Joe and his family.
I promise you, Warren, you will not regret doing this. Let’s close this chapter. Now.”

He picks up my story and says, “And if I don’t, then you’ll get this published after I’m gone?”

“That’s the plan,” I reply, doubting now that the blackmail was a good opening strategy.

Quickly, he rips it in two, tosses it at me, and says, “Go ahead. I’ll be dead.” He’s on his feet and working his way through the crowd at the front door, moving nicely for an old sick man. He gets in the golf cart, grips the wheel, and pauses as if he’s hit with another sharp pain. He gazes into the distance, waiting, deep in thought, and for a second I think that maybe he has changed his mind.

Then he drives away, and I am certain I will never see him again.