Shoeless Joe & Me (7 page)

THE FIRST THING I NOTICED WHEN I WOKE UP IN THE
morning was that my nose wasn't running anymore. I was going to take one of my flu pills, but decided not to. I was all better.

The second thing I noticed was the sound of the telephone ringing. I looked at Joe and Katie's bed. It was empty. The shower was running in the bathroom, so I figured one or both of them were in there. I picked up the phone.

“This is your wake-up call,” a gruff voice barked before I could even say hello.

“Huh?” I asked, glancing at the clock on the night table. It was nine o'clock.

“Where's Jackson?” the voice on the phone asked.

It occurred to me that this might be one of the gamblers who had locked me in the closet.

“Jackson's not here,” I said, trying to disguise my voice.

“Who are you?”

“I'm his nephew,” I lied. “Who is this?”

“Never mind who I am,” the guy said. “You just tell your uncle Joe to make sure everything goes according to the plan today. Or else.”

“Or else what?” I asked.

Click. The guy had hung up.

I had a pretty good idea of what he meant, and I didn't like it. The guy must be some gambler putting his money on the Cincinnati Reds to win. “The plan today” had to be that the White Sox were going to lose the first game of the World Series. If they won, the guy on the phone was going to lose money. And if he lost money, he was going to do something bad to Joe. That's what “or else” had to mean.

I put the phone down, disturbed. But my mood brightened considerably when the bathroom door opened and Katie walked through it. She was drying her hair with a towel. Otherwise, she had nothing on. I realized that I was still in my underwear.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!”

Katie hastily wrapped the towel around herself.

“What are
you
still doing here?” she asked.

“I'm sorry!” I said, feeling my face flush with embarrassment. I started pulling on my clothes. “Didn't Joe tell you? He said it was okay for me to stay over last night. I slept on the floor on the other side of the bed. I guess you didn't notice me.”

“How come you always seem to be around when I'm naked?” Katie asked, somewhat amused.

“Just lucky, I guess,” I replied. “Where's Joe?”

Katie looked around the room.

“Black Betsy isn't here. Joe probably walked over to Redland Park. He likes to get to the ballpark early for batting practice.”

“I've got to talk with him,” I said, tucking my shirt in. I rushed out the door before she could ask me why.

The doorman in the hotel lobby told me how to get to Redland Park. It was less than a mile from the Sinton Hotel. The street was already clogged with people, and cars belching smoke. There was a sense of excitement in the air. I glanced at a newspaper a guy was selling on the corner.

About five blocks from the hotel, there was a park. Just like Joe had said, people were camped out
there. Some of them were cooking breakfast over little stoves. Others were still sleeping.

At one corner of the park was a baseball diamond. A bunch of boys around my age were tossing a ball back and forth. I went a little closer to get a better look.

That's when I saw Joe.

He was in his street clothes, playing “pepper” with the boys. I had heard of the game, but I'd never played it. In my time, nobody played pepper.

Joe had Black Betsy in his hand, and six or seven boys were lined up about ten yards away from him. A boy would flip a ball to Joe, and he would slap a one-hopper back at the line of boys. Whichever one fielded the one-hopper would toss it back to Joe, who would slap it again. Only a few of the boys were wearing mitts, but they were pretty good fielders anyway.

With a bat in his hand, Joe had a relaxed, easy manner. He was graceful, like a big cat. Joe had incredible bat control. He was able to place the ball precisely where he wanted it. If a boy called out, “Me next, Mr. Jackson,” Joe would hit it right to that kid.

I looked at Joe's face as he played with the boys. He had this sweet smile that I hadn't seen up until this point. He looked like a little boy himself. He seemed so incredibly happy.

“How about a show out, Mr. Jackson!” one of the boys hollered.

“Yeah, do a show out, Joe!”

I had no idea what a show out was. It must be
some word from long ago, I figured.

“You boys don't want to see me hurt my arm before the World Series, do you?” Joe asked.

“Just one?” a young boy pleaded.

“Well, okay,” Joe said. “Catcher's keepers.”

The boys dashed away and spread themselves out across the deep outfield. Joe took the ball in his hand and gripped it carefully. Then he took a couple of hopping steps forward from home plate, wound up, and let it fly.

I had seen home-run hitting contests on TV back home, but I had never seen anything like
this
. The ball took off like a missile, soaring far over the heads of all the boys. It looked like it would never come down. It sailed right out of the park. The boys went dashing off after the ball. Joe laughed himself silly.

It seemed like a good time to speak to him, so I ran over.

“Joe!” I hollered.

“Stosh! You eat yet?”

There was a little coffee shop on the next corner, and Joe steered me inside. We took seats on stools at the counter. The waitress didn't recognize him. She handed us each a menu and stood there. Joe picked his up and looked it over carefully. I watched him, knowing full well he didn't know how to read. I realized that he was pretending to read the menu for the benefit of the waitress.

“Ah'll have the ham and eggs,” he finally said, handing back the menu.

“Me too,” I said.

“Sleep okay, Stosh?”

“Yeah. Your wife was kind of surprised to see me in your room.”

“Ah forgot to tell her,” Joe admitted sheepishly.

A guy sitting next to us was smoking a cigarette. I looked around to see if we could move to the nonsmoking section. That's when I realized that in 1919, there was no such thing as a nonsmoking section.

Joe and I made some small talk, and soon the ham and eggs arrived. He gobbled his up and washed them down with a cup of coffee. Finally I worked up the nerve to tell him about the “wake-up call” I'd taken for him.

“Tell me again what the guy said?” Joe asked, his forehead wrinkled with worry.

“He told me to tell you to make sure that everything goes according to the plan today,” I recited. “Or else.”

Joe thought about the words, then the expression on his face changed. The boyish look of happiness he'd had a few minutes earlier was completely gone. The look of worry was gone, too. It was replaced with a look of fierce determination.

He slapped a dollar bill on the counter and got up from his stool.

“Let's go to the ballpark. Ah got me a game to win.”

AS JOE AND I GOT CLOSER TO REDLAND PARK
,
THE
streets became clogged with people. The color red was everywhere. Women were wearing red dresses. Men had on red shirts. There were red flags, pennants, and banners. I was struck by all the bright color. All the old-time photos I had seen were black and white, so I assumed the whole world must have
been
black and white back in those days.

Joe pulled his hat low over his eyes so he wouldn't be pestered for autographs.

It was a good day to play baseball. The skies were blue and clear. It felt like 80 degrees or so. Some men had taken off their jackets but not their hats. It was like the hats were surgically attached to their heads. I wondered if they
slept
with their hats on.

When we reached Redland Park, a marching band—dressed in red uniforms, of course—was
standing in the street playing “Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here.” The overpoweringly wonderful smell of roasted peanuts wafted past.

The whole atmosphere looked like one big street party. It occurred to me that in 1919 “the national pastime” wasn't just a nickname for baseball. Baseball really
was
the national game. There was no NBA or NFL in 1919. Baseball was the only spectator sport around.

Near the ticket booths, six men wearing army uniforms were standing in a group, drinking whiskey. It took me a moment to realize what was unusual about them—three of them had only one leg. They must have been injured in World War I and had a leg amputated.

Still, the soldiers seemed happy.
Everyone
seemed happier than usual. I wondered if people were simply happier back in 1919.

Then it occurred to me that these people were survivors. They had survived the war. They had survived the influenza epidemic that killed millions of people. And their hometown team—the Reds—had made it to the World Series for the first time. No wonder they were happy.

Everyone, it seemed, was holding a bottle in their hand. A lot of them looked like they were already drunk. I'd seen grown-ups drinking before, but never like this. I mentioned it to Joe.

“Let 'em drink while they can,” he mumbled. “The Eighteenth Amendment becomes law in January.”

“The Eighteenth Amendment? What's that?”

Joe looked at me again like I was stupid and shook his head in wonder. “Ain'tcha heard about Prohibition? They're makin' all booze illegal. Three months from now, they won't be able to buy themselves a drink.”

I remembered learning something about Prohibition in school, but I didn't remember when it took place.

Joe hustled me past some drunks milling around the ticket booth. Box seats were selling for $1.10, and bleacher seats for just fifty cents.

“Get your World Series program!” a vendor hollered. “Twenty-five cents!”

I thought about buying one. It would be a cool souvenir to bring home. But Joe seemed to be in a hurry. He had his hand on my shoulder and steered me into a side entrance marked
VISITORS
.

“Are you going to tell your teammates I'm your nephew?” I asked.

“Don't need to tell 'em nothin'.”

We made our way to the locker room, and it was nothing like I had expected. There was no music, no laughter, no card games. The players were like two rival gangs, with one group on one side of the room and the other group on the other side. They mumbled in low tones as they put their uniforms on and shot glances across the room. I wondered if the players who weren't involved in the fix even knew it was going on.

I recognized Chick Gandil, who had come to Joe's
hotel room the night before. I couldn't tell who the other players were, because they didn't have names or numbers on their uniforms. I guessed that must
have come after 1919, and I was relieved that I hadn't done something stupid like ask Joe his number.

“Get your World Series program!” a vendor hollered. “Twenty-five cents!”

“What's a kid doin' in here?” a big guy said to Joe when he saw us come in. He was dressed up in a pink shirt and fancy shoes.

“Leave the kid be, Eddie,” Joe replied curtly, then he threw me a wink. “He's my nephew, from Louisville.”

Eddie must be Eddie Cicotte
, I thought to myself. The pitcher. He was the guy who called on the phone last night and offered Joe money to throw the game.

“How come you ain't never told us about no nephew from Louisville?” Cicotte asked suspiciously.

“Ah don't tell you everythin', Eddie,” Joe said, turning away from him.

Nobody else seemed to care that I was there. Joe went to his locker and put on his uniform, a pin-striped, dirty old thing that hung off him as if it was a few sizes too large. The word “Sox” was written with one big
S
, and the
O
and
X
sat in the curves of the
S
. There was an American flag on the left sleeve. Joe pulled on his cap, which had a much smaller brim than my baseball caps at home.

Somebody said it was time to shoot the team picture, and the players lumbered through the clubhouse door and into the dugout, their spikes clattering against the concrete floor. I followed.

The field was big—bigger than our fields.
Centerfield looked like it was a mile away. There were billboards on the outfield walls—Pepsi-Cola, Cracker Jack, Ever-Ready Safety Razor. In the apartment buildings beyond the outfield wall, I could see binoculars popping out of every window. People were also up on the roofs and hanging on to telephone poles.

While Joe looked out on the field, I pulled out my little camera and snapped his picture. He didn't seem to notice.

A photographer with an enormous camera on a tripod gathered the players around. I told Joe that he'd missed two buttons on his shirt, and he buttoned them. Then he took a spot right in the back row, throwing his arm around the player next to him. I stood off to the side and a little behind the photographer.

While Joe looked out on the field, I pulled out my little camera and snapped his picture. He didn't seem to notice.

Looking at the White Sox, I thought they appeared to be the most serious, unfriendly group of men I had ever seen.

“Come on, boys,” the photographer hollered. “Show some teeth! You're gonna be World Champions!”

“Don't bet on it,” Chick Gandil cracked.

When the players laughed, the photographer tripped the shutter. I took a picture, too.

A roar erupted from the crowd, and I turned around to see the Cincinnati Reds jog out of their dugout. They were wearing white uniforms with red trim and piping. On their uniform front was a big
C
curled around the word “Reds.” Naturally, they wore red stockings.

When the players laughed, the photographer tripped the shutter. I took a picture, too.

I took a seat in the Chicago dugout near a short, older guy while the players played catch with each other. The ballpark was beginning to fill up. The bleachers in right field, I noticed, were just wooden planks. Fans out there were blowing horns and clanging bells. Red, white, and blue flags were draped over the more expensive seats on the first and third baselines, where the rich people sat.

The scoreboard wasn't electronic. I could see somebody sitting inside it, fiddling with big wooden numbers he would put up when runs were scored.

The other thing that caught my eye was the gloves the players were using. They were much smaller than the one I used in Little League, and the fingers were not even connected with laces. The ball had to be caught right in the palm of the hand.

While I was looking around, Shoeless Joe had jogged over and approached the short guy who had been pacing up and down the Sox dugout.

“Skip,” Joe moaned, “Ah don't feel too good.”

“What's the matter, Jackson?” the guy replied. I assumed he was the White Sox manager.

“Ah dunno. Ah'm sick, Ah reckon. Maybe you better bench me.”

“Nothing doing,” he told Joe. “I need Black Betsy in the lineup. It's just nerves. Shake it off, Joe. You can take a good long rest after we whip these bushers.”

Joe hung his head and walked away. He grabbed a bunch of bats and sat down on the dirt outside the dugout. Using a cloth and some kind of oil, he
lovingly rubbed each bat.

“This here's Blonde Betsy,” he explained when he saw the puzzled look on my face. “And this is Caroliny.”

“Do you name all your bats?” I asked.

“Well, sure! There's Ol' Genril over here and this one's Big Jim. You boys gonna get me some hits today?”

A fan with a Cincinnati pennant leaned over the fence and yelled to Joe, “Hey, professor! You read any good books lately?”

He grabbed a bunch of bats and sat down on the dirt outside the dugout. Using a cloth and some kind of oil, he lovingly rubbed each bat.

Joe just spit in the guy's direction. He picked up Black Betsy and walked up to the plate for batting practice. He ripped the first three pitches over the rightfield wall. Then he looked over at the Cincinnati fan who had yelled at him. The guy's mouth hung open. Some of the guys on the Reds looked on in awe, too.

It was almost two o'clock, according to the scoreboard. The players cleared the field, and the managers came out to give their lineup cards to the umpire. A marching band came out to home plate. The crowd got to its feet as “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played.

The umpire picked up a huge megaphone, which I guessed was the only public address system they had in 1919. He was about to say something when a loud noise was heard in the distance. It sounded like a lawn mower to me.

Everybody stopped what they were doing and looked up in the sky. It was a little airplane, one of those old-fashioned ones where each side has two wings, one on top of the other. People in the stands pointed and gazed with wonder as the plane circled the field.

I remembered reading that the one hundredth anniversary of the first flight was in 2003. That meant the Wright Brothers got off the ground in 1903. So the airplane was only sixteen years old in 1919. No wonder all the people were looking up. Not only had they never
been
in a plane, but many of
them probably had never
seen one before.