Alive on Opening Day (8 page)

Dan was quiet for a
minute, then asked, “What does the Reds’ lineup look
like?”

David thought for moment
before replying: “It’s pretty much the same as it has been the last
few seasons. Bench, Concepcion, Morgan, Perez. I think Morgan is
really a great little ballplayer, Dan.”

Dan nodded. “What about
Pete Rose? He’s still there, isn’t he?”

“
Oh, sure,” David said.
“And guess who won the National League MVP award last
season?”

“
Rose?!” Dan was excited
by that, because Rose was his favorite Red, and maybe his favorite
player overall.

“
Yep, he won the batting
title, and that was enough to get him the trophy, even though the
Reds tanked in the playoffs.”

“
Well, that all sounds
pretty good,” Dan said, “but they’re going to have a rough time if
they can’t find someone to play third base.”

David was already shaking
his head before Dan finished his sentence. “Nope, they have third
base covered this year, Dan. Probably for the next 10 to 15 years,
too.”

“
What, did they move Pete
back to the Hot Corner?” Dan asked.

“
No way! He’s an All-Star
left fielder, which means his best defensive days are behind him,”
David said. “No, they have a young up-and-comer at third — Dan
Driessen.”

“
Dan Driessen!?” Dan
reacted as if he had just been told a ghost would be in the Reds’
lineup. “I forgot all about him! I know he was supposed to be
pretty good, but he doesn’t have any experience. What kind of
season did he have last year?”

“
Let’s see … he hit over
.300, and I think he had about 50 RBI and maybe the same number of
runs scored. He was pretty solid at third base, too,” David
said.

“
That sounds pretty good,
but he’ll probably need better numbers in the minors before he can
hope to make the Big League club as a starting third baseman.” Dan
was deep into the baseball talk now and was more relaxed than David
had seen him all day. “Was he playing at Indianapolis, or was he
back in Double-A?”

“
Oh, I
think he may have spent some time in Indy,” David said, “but those
numbers I mentioned are the ones he put up with the
Reds
. By the end of the
year, he was much better than Denis Menke, and Menke is back in
Houston this year. Driessen is
definitely
the Reds’ starting third
baseman for 1974.”

Dan studied his father’s
face to see if he was kidding, but decided David was
serious.

“
Wow,” Dan said. “So Dan
Driessen won a Major League job — as a starting third baseman — and
he’s what, just a couple of years older than me?”

David nodded, “Yep,
something like that.” He could feel Dan’s tone shifting.

“
And all it took was one
shot. He made the best of it,” Dan said.

“
Yep,” David
agreed.

Dan stopped and looked at
David. “That’s all I want, Dad,” he said. “I just need a shot at
making my own life. Making a life for me and Gabbie … and
Troy.”

David smiled at his
son.

“
Can you help me, Dad? Can
you help me get my shot?”

David clasped Dan on the
shoulder and said, “I think I can, son. I think I can.”

—

The local economy was
driven by two major forces: Dunbar University, who employed about
500 people, and HBM, where another 1000 locals worked.

David had been with HBM
for nearly 20 years, working his way up from the mail room to the
assembly line to a foreman’s position. Five years ago, his boss in
manufacturing had assumed leadership over a second division,
handling account procurement for the growing mid-size business
market. When that happened, he asked David to assume the position
of assistant director, which meant a move from the warehouse to the
office suite. The new job had come with more money but also new
responsibilities that made David uneasy. He worked as hard as
always, though, and by the time he had a year under his belt, he
had proved himself to be a capable manager.

The company was doing
well, and David’s division was thriving, so he didn’t have any
qualms about asking his boss for a favor. Besides, Tom had told him
right off the bat after Dan got injured that he would do anything
he could to help the Hodges through their struggles. That had been
a relief to David, who took advantage of the offer to adjust his
work schedule in order to make it to some consultations with
doctors but who otherwise went on — at work — as usual.

David was not surprised,
then, that Tom cut him off on that Tuesday morning as he relayed
the story of Dan’s awakening. Before he could even ask, Tom made
the offer.

“
Say,
David,” Tom said. “It occurs to me, with Dan having been, um, out
of commission for nearly a year, he probably didn’t have much of a
chance to get his after-high school plans in order. So, I was
wondering if he wouldn’t be interested in signing on with us for
awhile … you know, just to get his feet wet and maybe make a little
money. Of course, it wouldn’t be a
lot
of money, not to start. The only
thing we have open right now is a position in the mail room. Do you
think that would be OK?”

David nodded. It was
perfect.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dad's Surprise

Every year during Dan’s
high school career, David Hodges would take a couple days of
vacation time, and he and his son would head down to Cincinnati to
watch the Reds play. Because school was in session through the
middle of May, though, they never made it to the Riverfront until
well into summer, when the pennant races were already taking shape.
In the spring of 1974, with no such constraints, and with his son
awake for the first time in nine months, David called in the rest
of his favors at work and managed to clear his schedule at the end
of the first week in April. When he and David climbed into their
truck to come home from HBM that Monday, David was beaming and
bursting with the anticipation of telling Dan the good
news.

They were going to see the
Reds on Opening Day!

Opening Day in Cincinnati
was the baseball equivalent of Mardi Gras, and red-blooded males
from the youngest schoolboys to the most accomplished of executives
made it a point to skip out on class or board meetings to drink in
the atmosphere no other city could match. For the most part, Reds
fans in the Queen City were excused their dalliances on this one
day, because baseball was a virus that festered all through the
winter and could only be treated by an afternoon in the weak
sunshine of early spring in a ballpark filled with the aroma of
peanuts and beer.

Dan, as David had
expected, was ecstatic, and he was also full of questions. Who were
the Reds playing? Who was the Reds’ starting pitcher going to be?
And, finally, what would he do about work?

David explained that he
had already cleared the time off for both of them, and he was also
happy to report that righty Jack Billingham would be on the mound
for Cincinnati that Thursday afternoon. Who else could it have
been, really, after Jack had posted a record of 19-11 in 1973,
narrowly missing the 20-win plateau?

And the best part of all?
The Reds were hosting the Atlanta Braves.

“
I love Hank Aaron!” Dan
exclaimed.

David smiled across the
cab at his son. “I do, too, Dan,” he said.

Theirs wasn’t a sentiment
shared by all baseball fans, however.

For years, it had been
assumed Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays, or maybe both, would mount a
serious threat to Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record of 714.
Mantle’s knees broke down, though, and Mays sputtered through the
latter part of his career until, as a 42-year-old with the New York
Mets in 1973, he was infamously relegated to crawling around the
outfield on his hands and knees.

Meanwhile, Henry Aaron
continued to play at a consistent level throughout the late 1950s,
all of the 1960s, and well into the 1970s. In any other era, and
against any other backdrop, Aaron’s production would have been
considered spectacular, but the one-season heights reached by Mays,
Mantle, and even Roger Maris pushed Hammerin’ Hank toward the back
of the line of baseball greats who made their hay in the Major
Leagues during the Vietnam era. By the time the early ‘70s rolled
around, Aaron was closing in on 40 years of age but still hammering
out his 30-40 homers every season to go along with about 100
ribbies and all sorts of other offensive goodies.

As the 1973 season came to
a close, it had been four full seasons since Mantle stood in the
batter’s box, and it was clear Mays was done, but Aaron had the
Babe in his sights. On September 29, Hank swatted his 713th career
home run, leaving him just one short of the record with one game
left in the season. That he came up short in that final contest
against the Houston Astros set Aaron up for an uneasy off-season
and one of the first long-term build-ups of record-chasing hype in
baseball history.

Even though America had
made great strides during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s
and 1960s, there were still plenty of people who resented any kind
of notable success by a black man, and that sentiment was sharpened
all the more in Aaron’s case because he was chasing down the most
hallowed individual record in all of sports, held by the most
mythical and arguably the most beloved figure in all of sports,
Babe Ruth. A wide swath of baseball fans would have had held
ill-will toward
any
player trying to take down the Babe, black or not. Even
Mantle himself would have faced naysayers had he been able to keep
his game, and his body, rolling long enough to approach the
record.

But in 1973, it was Aaron
who stepped squarely into the baseball spotlight, and thus became
the recipient of all the glories
and
indignities such lofty status
entails. While fans across the country like Dan and David Hodges
hurried to the front stoop every morning to see if Aaron had tagged
another home run the night before, and died a little each Saturday
when “The Game of the Week” did not feature Aaron, there were
enough death threats and jeers to make Aaron less than sanguine
about his future.

Aaron told reporters as he
headed home for the winter that he just hoped he lived to see the
1974 season.

Dan, of course, had missed
most of Aaron’s magical exploits the season before, when, at 39
years of age, the legend had smacked 40 home runs in just 495 plate
appearances. What looked like an outside possibility 12 months
earlier, had matured into a
likelihood
during the summer heat
while Dan slumbered, and now stood as an absolute certainty with
Opening Day just 72 hours away.

“
Do you think he’ll even
play on Thursday?” Dan asked.

David nodded: “Yes, I
think he will. I heard on the news this morning that the
Commissioner is going to mandate Aaron play two of the first thee
games — no reason for him not to play on Opening Day, then. If I
were him, I’d play Thursday and see what happens. No home runs, I
play again on Saturday.”

Aaron and his team, the
Atlanta Braves, wanted to capitalize on the publicity and
attendance boost of the homer chase, so they had planned to sit him
during the opening series in Cincinnati. Then, returning home for
their second series of the season, Aaron would be poised to both
tie and pass Ruth in front of his home fans. Commissioner Bowie
Kuhn quickly put the kibosh on that idea, citing the best interests
of the game.

“
Well, I
hope he doesn’t play on Saturday, then!” Dan said, and grinned at
his father. “In fact, I hope he smashes
two
on Thursday, you know, just to
take the pressure off himself.”

“
You’re such a good boy,
Dan,” David teased him. “Always thinking of others before
yourself.”

—

Tuesday and Wednesday were
a blur for Dan as he and David prepared for their trip to
Cincinnati. The first pitch was scheduled for 3 pm, put they
planned to be in downtown Cincinnati in time to see the Opening Day
parade and all the other festivities surrounding the start of
another baseball season. They’d leave home around 6 am, which was
way too early for the day’s schedule, but David had suggested the
premature start in order to have more time to spend with his son.
Dan had not questioned David’s timing because he missed his father,
too.

Before their big
adventure, though, Dan and David had two very full days to take
care of. Work was busy for both the Hodges men, and Dan had two
doctors appointments, one on each day. In the 10 days Dan had been
awake, he had seen Dr. Parks five times, for general check-ins and
for specific tests. So far, Parks assured him when he left the
office on Wednesday, everything seemed fine. All his vital signs
were normal, and blood work showed no hormonal anomalies, so it
appeared the crisis had passed. His beard and hair were growing
again, too. Still, Parks wanted to see Dan again on Monday after he
and David had recovered from their trip.