Rounding Third, Heading Home! Read online

  “What?”

  “The pig. How did he get to the hospital?”

  “Huh?”

  “In a hambulance,” he said. “Get it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m trying to loosen you up with a joke,” he said. “That’s what you’re supposed to do when the pitcher is struggling.”

  It didn’t help. I gave up four runs that inning on four walks and a double.

  “Pitcher’s off his rocker!” one of their guys shouted. “He throws like Betty Crocker!”

  When I returned to the dugout, none of the kids talked to me. They weren’t mad at me, but what do you say to someone who screwed up so badly? Dad thought he had the answer.

  “Every good pitcher has a rough outing,” he said calmly.

  “It was my only outing,” I shot back.

  Our team would have been better off if I had stayed home. We lost the game, 5–4. It was all my fault.

  “Whenever I’m feeling upset,” Dad said after the game, “I like to take a drive downtown.”

  That’s Dad for ya. What better way to cheer up than a drive through one of the most run-down cities in America? But several hours after the game, Mom, Dad, and I sat on a bench overlooking the Detroit River. The smell of car fumes was in the air.

  Sixty years ago—back in the day—Detroit was a thriving city of nearly 2 million people. But over time, most people moved to the suburbs. Houses and stores were boarded up, and crime became rampant. Today, the situation is worse than ever. A lot of people can’t find jobs, and there isn’t enough money for the schools. Unless you are going to Comerica Park to watch the Tigers, there are not a lot of reasons to visit Detroit.

  “I like watching the boats float down the river,” Dad said as he and Mom ate Chinese food.

  “It seems like half the boats are trying to escape Detroit to the north,” I said, “and the other half are trying to flee to the south.”

  “Hardee-har,” Dad replied.

  “Jacob, don’t you want some lemon chicken?” Mom asked. “It’s like McNuggets.”

  “No, I’m not hungry.”

  Dark clouds were gathering in the distance, reflecting my mood. I can’t believe I screwed up so badly, I thought to myself. I’ll never pitch again.

  I used to dream of being the next Satchel Paige. He was the Negro League pitcher who won two thousand games and tossed fifty-five no-hitters, at least according to legend. Paige’s repertoire included a dozen pitches, and he gave them all nicknames. My favorites were the Bat Dodger, the Two-Hump Blooper, the Four-Day Creeper (his change-up), and the Barber. The Barber, legend has it, would shave the hairs off the batter’s chin.

  “At least I didn’t stink at the plate,” I said.

  “Jacob!” Mom said. She put her arm around my shoulder. “You’re a great player. Why are you so hard on yourself?”

  “Ah, that’s just the nature of the game, Bridget,” Dad said. “You’re supposed to feel bad after each loss.”

  “So when the Tigers went 43–119 in ’03,” I asked, “they felt lousy practically every day?”

  “Pretty much,” Dad said. “But three years later they were in the World Series.”

  That’s true. In baseball, you always get another chance. In Game 2 of the 1956 World Series, Yankees pitcher Don Larsen stunk up the joint. In Game 5, he pitched a perfect game. Ya gotta believe—in your team and in yourself.

  “So Dad, what was the greatest baseball moment you ever saw—like in person or on TV?”

  “Uhm, probably when Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record.” He looked off into the distance and rubbed his chin. “I remember it well. …”

  “Oh brother, here we go,” Mom said, rolling her eyes.

  “I was in my G.I. Joe jammies, the ones with the fuzzy feet. It was a Monday night in April, and my parents told me to go to bed. ‘Let me see him bat just once more!’ I begged. Aaron had grown up poor in Alabama. His arms were strong from picking cotton in the fields, and he practiced his hitting by swatting bottle caps with sticks.”

  Dad loved telling stories. There was no way to stop him.

  “Aaron started out in the Negro Leagues with the Indianapolis Clowns,” he said. “Some of the restaurants didn’t like serving the team because the players were all African American. At one restaurant in Washington, the workers smashed all the dishes because the black players had eaten off them.”

  “Doug, this doesn’t have to be a history lesson,” Mom said.

  “He’s got to know this stuff, Bridget. Anyway, by ’74 Aaron had tied the great Babe Ruth with 714 home runs. And as I watched on ABC’s Monday Night Baseball, he socked No. 715 off Al Downing at home in Atlanta. I’ll never forget his mother running out on the field and giving him this huge hug when he crossed the plate. It’s also my favorite radio call of all time: ‘There’s a new home run champion of all time, and it’s Henry Aaron!’”

  I had heard that before on an MLB commercial. When I was in second grade, I used to go to bed at night saying, “There’s a new home run champion of all time, and it’s Jacob Vehousky!”

  “I also love the story of Slaughter’s Mad Dash,” Dad said.

  That just sounded good. “Slaughter’s Mad Dash?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Dad said. “It was the seventh game of the 1946 World Series, Red Sox versus the Cardinals in St. Louis,” Dad began. “The score was tied, 3–3, with two outs in the bottom of the eighth. Enos “Country” Slaughter was on first when the manager called for a hit-and-run. Slaughter took off while Harry “The Hat” Walker lined a single to left-center.”

  “So then Slaughter dashed all the way to third?” I asked.

  “Yes, but he didn’t stop. He rounded third and headed home!”

  “On a single?”

  “Yes! The shortstop, Johnny Pesky, held the ball for a while. It hadn’t occurred to him that Slaughter would even consider running home. By the time Pesky threw to the catcher, Slaughter slid in safely. The Cardinals won, 4–3. Now that,” Dad concluded, “is aggressive baseball.”

  Late that night, I looked up a photo of the Mad Dash in my Baseball Chronicle. Slaughter glided like a plane into home plate, his hands tilted up, a puffy ball of dust behind him. It was an elegant finish to a daring dash.

  That’s the kind of attitude I needed to bring to the next game, I told myself. Vehousky’s Mad Dash. That’s what they’ll call it.

  Chapter Five

  Tuesday With Rupa

  “Don’t look back,” Satchel Paige used to say. “Something might be gaining on you.”

  That’s how I felt going into our third game. I had put my pitching disaster behind me. Now it was full-steam ahead.

  “Come on, Morey’s!” I blared, rattling the dugout fence before the game. “Let’s get some runs!”

  “Mor-eys! Mor-eys! Mor-eys!” my teammates chanted.

  With Wednesday’s contest rained out, we were playing a rare Friday game. We had no homework and no bedtime, and everyone was on a crazy sugar high. It was Evan’s eighth birthday, and his mom had brought cupcakes with each of our numbers on them. They were supposed to be for after the game. But once Jackson opened the Tupperware lid, it was a mad free-for-all.

  Excitement was in the air at Hickory Park, and I led off the second inning with a sharp single to center. I proceeded to kick first base a couple inches toward second. It was a trick I learned from Ty Cobb.

  Cobb, the greatest Detroit Tiger of all time, holds the major-league record for career batting average (.366). But he was a mean son-of-a-gun. One time, he went into the stands and beat up a fan. When someone pointed out that the poor guy had no hands, Cobb said, “I don’t care if he’s got no feet!” When kids wrote letters to him, he threw them into the fireplace. “Saves on firewood,” he would mutter.

  Like Enos Slaughter, Cobb was a madman on the bases—and so was I. On the first pitch, I took off in an attempted steal of second. Riley swung and ripped a single to right, and I kept on go
ing—all the way around third base!

  “Whoa!” Coach Majus said, raising his arms to stop me. I slowed up and returned to third. “You don’t take risks like that when there’s nobody out,” he said.

  No gambles were necessary in this game. We defeated Snooze at Eleven (the mattress store), 8–3. The bottom of the order came through for us. The birthday boy cracked two singles, Tashia blooped a double, and Jackson got hit by a pitch three times. Rupa mustered a walk along with his three strikeouts.

  The next morning, we won, 5–4, over Dr. Aiken Family Dentistry. That nail-biter lasted nine innings, three more than the normal limit. Jeffrey had to leave in the eighth to go to travel-team soccer practice.

  “Oooh, I guess he’s too good for us,” Tashia said, as Jeffrey’s mom drove him away in her Mercedes.

  When the game entered the ninth, it sparked a discussion of the longest games in baseball history. “I saw the Mets play eighteen innings once,” said Gus, a native New Yorker.

  “The record …” Rupa said, “is … thirty-three innings.”

  He was right. Back in 1981, the Red Sox of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, hosted the Rochester Red Wings in a minor-league game. The 1,740 fans who attended the Holy Saturday game saw two future Hall of Famers—Wade Boggs of the Red Sox and Cal Ripken of the Red Wings.

  In the 32nd inning, at 4:00 A.M., they were still playing. By that time, only nineteen fans remained. It was freezing, with the wind chill in the twenties. Pitcher Bob Ojeda gathered up all the broken bats, threw them into a big trash can, and lit them on fire to keep warm. They played the 33rd inning the next day, and Ripken’s team finally won. By that time, they had played 8 hours and 25 minutes, thrown 882 pitches, and used 156 baseballs. “I got four hits,” Boggs told his dad, “but I was up twelve times.” Dallas Williams had perhaps the worst game ever. He went 0-for-13.

  Our Marty was no Dallas Williams. In the bottom of the ninth, he smoked a line single to left, scoring Gus from third. Even then, Marty didn’t crack a smile.

  “Another day at the office,” he said as he strode back to the jubilant bench.

  In his postgame game speech, Coach Quinn praised Marty for displaying “mental toughness in a pressure situation.” Coach Quinn awarded him the game ball.

  One thing I’ve noticed in Little League is that coaches love to award game balls to the lousy players. I guess they’re trying to spark their confidence. However, it’s annoying because a great player could go 5-for-5 and pitch a no-hitter and not get the game ball.

  “I bet that by the end of the season,” Riley told me afterward, “you, Gus, Gary, and Jeffrey won’t have any game balls and Marty, Jackson, and Rupa will have like a dozen of them.”

  “Yeah, really,” I said.

  “Well,” he added, meanly, “maybe not Rupa.”

  With a record of 3–1, we were feeling good about ourselves. But now we entered the toughest part of our schedule. Coming up were Hickory Oak Proctologists and We Will Wok You Chinese Family Buffet.

  The Proctologists were really good. Their starting pitcher shut us down for three innings while they mounted a 4–0 lead. We held little hope as we prepared to bat in the top of the fourth.

  “What’s a proctologist?” Evan asked.

  “Butt doctor,” Marty replied instantaneously. It’s like Marty couldn’t wait for someone to ask that question. It’s like he had been saying it in his head the whole game: butt doctor, butt doctor, butt doctor.

  “Why do you need a butt doctor?” Jackson asked.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes!” Gary said. “Let’s concentrate on the fact that we’re getting our butts kicked!”

  “Come on guys,” Coach Quinn encouraged. “Focus. We can beat this team.”

  But we couldn’t. After Tashia pitched the fifth inning and got rocked, we trailed, 8–1. As we returned to the bench, Gary sighed and threw down his mitt.

  “What’s your problem?” Tashia asked him.

  “Girls can’t pitch,” he said.

  “Hey, you shut the …” Tashia said, charging at him.

  Luckily, the coaches were on the field and didn’t hear them.

  “Don’t start!” big Gus said, glowering at Gary and Tashia.

  “Not long ago,” Tashia said calmly to Gary, “there was an eleven-year-old girl from New York who threw a perfect game in Little League.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah …” Gary said.

  “And it wasn’t just a perfect game,” she said. “She struck out every single boy she faced! Now her jersey’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame. So don’t give me this ‘girls can’t pitch’ crap.”

  Riley started to dance and sing: “Go Tashia … go Tashia!”

  “And how about Jackie Mitchell?” Dad said as he walked in on the heated discussion. “She faced the New York Yankees in an exhibition game and struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back to back.”

  “Well, we could use Jackie Mitchell right now,” Gary said, “because we’re getting skunked.”

  We lost the game, 9–2, then dropped the Saturday game as well. Amidst a steady drizzle at Hickory Park, We Will Wok You walked all over us, 6–4. Coach Quinn’s decision to move Rupa up to the sixth spot of the batting order backfired. Jeffrey, who batted third, singled and walked. Gus, the cleanup man, smashed a double and two singles. I batted fifth and mustered two singles and a walk. Yet Rupa kept stranding us on base by striking out four times. Nobody said what everyone knew: Rupa blew the game.

  In Coach’s postgame speech, Rupa sat at the end of the bench with his head down. His face was smoldering, but through great effort he succeeded in holding back his tears. Afterward, he walked toward the parking lot. He couldn’t even bear to greet his mother, or even look at her. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder, and they walked away together.

  Three days later, Mrs. Kovner dropped off Rupa at our house. This was not my idea, but my mom’s and dad’s. “Jacob, your coach had asked you to be a team leader,” Mom had said. “This is your chance.”

  The truth is that Mom had felt sorry for Rupa and thought that someone should invite him over to play. The “leader” thing was just an excuse.

  “Hi, Rupa!” Mom said as he and Mrs. Kovner arrived at the door.

  “Hi, Mrs. …Vou … Vou. …”

  “Thanks so much for inviting Rupa,” his mother said.

  “Oh, it’s my pleasure!” Mom said, going overboard with the sweetness. “We’ve been talking about getting the boys together for awhile.”

  Riley was supposed to come to help ease the tension. But he weaseled out of it with a lame excuse: “Uh, I have to accompany my mother to wax the car.”

  “Hey,” I said to Rupa.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “You want to … go to the basement?” I asked.

  I led him down the steps. Our basement is big but unfinished. The floor is bare concrete, and the walls are smooth cement. I pulled the long string that turns on the lightbulb, revealing our shelves of board games.

  “Anything look good to you?” I asked.

  Amid Star Wars Monopoly and Battleball, Rupa found his game of choice. He pointed to Connect Four.

  This is the game in which you drop plastic “checkers” down slots. You try to get four in a row of your color. It’s like tic-tac-toe, but much brainier. Since I was family champ at this game, I figured I could mop the floor with Rupa. I’ll have to take it easy on him, I thought to myself.

  We set up the game on the table in the dining room, a cramped little area outside the kitchen. As Rupa and I dropped checkers, I realized that he could play. He had the concentration level of a mad scientist. He beat me in the first game … and the second, third, and fourth.

  “Man, where did you learn to play like this?” I asked.

  He mustered a half smile.

  “I’m … good at games,” he struggled to say. “I’m very good at … at … at … chess.”

  “You play chess?” I asked.

  “Yes. I … usually beat my uncle. … And w
hen he was … in school … he was … chess champion.”

  I started to think about what my mom had said. “Everyone’s got strengths and weaknesses,” she told me. “Your father pulled straight As in school, but he has no sense of direction when he drives. Your Aunt Renee speaks four languages, but she can’t remember anything. Albert Einstein was dyslexic, as was Thomas Edison. Babe Ruth ate too many hot dogs, but he could hit the baseball a mile.”

  Rupa had trouble speaking, but he had a brilliant mind. He beat me in the fifth game with moves I had never seen before.

  “Whoa!” I said, as he broke into a smile. I was totally impressed.

  Rupa and I played baseball in the basement. One of us would throw the tennis ball off the wall, and the other would hit it with a Wiffle bat. A liner off the wall was a single. If you hit it above certain lines, it was a double, triple, or home run.

  I let Rupa be the Tigers while I was the Yankees. I won the game, 14–13, but it took me ten innings.

  Afterward we watched The Simpsons, the one where Homer gets a job as Mr. Plow. Rupa stayed for dinner (Mom’s homemade mac and cheese, with breadcrumbs), and then his mom came to pick him up.

  The dreaded “play date” with Rupa turned out to be fun. I wish I could say the same for our next game.

  Chapter Six

  Slaughtered by United Bank & Trust

  “I feel like France,” Gary said, “right before the Germans dropped the bombs in World War II.”

  It was ten minutes before game time at Hickory Park, and eight of us sat shivering on the bench. It wasn’t just the chilly Saturday morning air that had us shaking in our cleats, but the team we were about to face. Our opponent was United Bank & Trust, the most talented, wealthy, spoiled, and dominating team the Hickory Oak Little League had ever seen.

  While Jeffrey warmed up with Gus behind our bench, the rest of us watched the awe-inspiring spectacle unfold in front of us. Coach Jonathan K. Reynolds hit hard ground balls to his infielders. “Turn two,” the coach said.

  “Why, Dad?” asked his second baseman and son, who flawlessly executed the play. “They’ll never get a guy on first base?”