Mickey & Me (2 page)

MY MOTHER AND MY AUNT WERE HURRYING DOWN THE
hallway as I left my father's room. Mom kissed me on my forehead.

“How is he?” asked Aunt Liz, my father's older sister.

“He's sleeping,” I reported. “But I talked with him. I think he's gonna be okay. He has a subdural hemasomething or other.”

“Hematoma,” said Mom, who is a nurse and knows stuff like that.

Aunt Liz hugged my mom, whose face was emotionless. I knew she had mixed feelings toward Dad. They had never really gotten along very well when they were married. But I always thought she still felt something for him. Otherwise, she wouldn't have come to the hospital at all.

To be perfectly honest about it, Dad and I didn't
always have the greatest relationship in the world either. He was an angry man, and he seemed to think he'd had more than his share of bad luck. Maybe he had. But in the last year or so—since I turned thirteen—we had begun feeling more comfortable around each other.

“We dropped your cousin Samantha off at the Little League field,” Mom told me. “Can you bring her over to our house after your game and keep an eye on her tonight?”

“You mean I have to baby-sit?” I whined. “You said you were going to bring her to the hospital with you.”

“We decided that Samantha is too young,” Aunt Liz explained. “I don't think it would be a good idea for her to see Uncle Bill laid out in a hospital bed.”

“Okay,” I grumbled. I didn't particularly want to take care of my annoying nine-year-old cousin, but this was an emergency.

“I'll be home as soon as I can,” Mom said. “But depending on your father's condition, we may stay with him in the hospital tonight. There are leftovers in the fridge for dinner. Don't pick up the phone or open the door. I don't care who it is. You're the man of the house. Be a good boy.”

“I will, Mom.”

“And get a hit, okay?” she said, messing up my hair with her fingers.

“I'll try.”

I didn't tell my mother that I had decided not to play that day.

Louisville, Kentucky, is a big baseball town and has been for a long time. There was a major-league team here from 1876 until 1899. In fact, the National League was founded in Louisville, and the Louisville Slugger baseball bat was invented here. Today we have a big museum filled with bats used by the greatest players in baseball history.

But I wasn't thinking about bats, even as I rode my bike past the six-story-high baseball bat outside the Louisville Slugger Museum. I was thinking about my dad.

He could be dying right now, I thought. Maybe I
should ride back to the hospital to be with him. It could be my last time to see him. Then again, he might be fine in a couple of days. And I had agreed to take my cousin home with me after the game.

When I skidded up to Dunn Field, our game was already in progress. In fact, I had missed three innings. According to the scoreboard, we were three runs behind Warehouse Video, the only team in the league that we never seemed to be able to beat. Because they had lost to a few of the weaker teams, we were ahead of them in the standings by one game. But if they beat us, Warehouse and the Yellow Jackets would be tied for first place.

“Where were you?”

Coach Tropiano came running over to me as soon as my kickstand touched the ground. He was a short man, only about five feet seven and not much taller
than me. “We tried calling your house! We tried calling your mother at work!”

“My dad was in a car wreck,” I explained. “We were at the hospital.”

“Is he okay?” the coach asked, putting an arm on my shoulder. I think he had been going to yell at me for being late until he heard about my dad.

“I don't know,” I replied. “I hope so.”

“Will you be able to play, Joe?”

“I don't think I can, Coach.”

I could tell he was disappointed, even though he was doing his best not to show it. One of the other coaches had gotten into trouble recently for yelling at a kid, so all the coaches were being extra careful to be sensitive and stuff.

The coach told me to take a seat on the bench. Our team was in the field, so the only kid on the bench was Robert Greene. He couldn't hit, throw, field, or run, but he did have one thing going for him—his mother was on the city council. Coach Tropiano usually put Robert in right field in late innings, where he could do the least damage. According to the league rules, every player has to play at least one inning or come to bat once in every game.

Robert was picking his nose and wiping the result on the inside brim of his cap. Our team had signs for stealing, bunting, and swinging away, but I didn't think that was one of them.

“Where's your glove, Stosh?” Robert asked me.

“Didn't bring it,” I told him. “I'm not playing.”

“You hurt?”

“Nah, my dad's in the hospital.”

“That sucks,” Robert said, and then resumed mining for nose gold.

I turned around to scan the bleachers. When I made eye contact with Cousin Samantha, she stuck out her tongue and wiggled her fingers in her ears at me.

The crack of a bat got my attention. One of the Warehouse Video players hit a long drive to left field. It sailed over Andrew Bakewell's head and bounced off the fence on one hop. The kid who hit the ball was fast, and he was tearing around the bases.

“Cutoff man!” I screamed, getting up off the bench. “Relay!”

Andrew chased down the ball and whipped it to Christian Dark, our shortstop and probably the best defensive player in the league.

By that time, the kid was rounding third and his coach was waving him home. Louie Borzone, our catcher, got into position for the play at the plate.

“Slide, Brendan!” somebody yelled from the bleachers.

Christian set himself and fired the ball home. Louie Borzone snared it on a hop just before the runner arrived. He braced himself for the collision and let the Brendan kid crash into him. Louie was the bigger of the two, and the Warehouse Video guy
couldn't knock him over. Louie held the ball, and the ump called the kid out.

“All right!” Coach Tropiano yelled, slapping the guys on their backs as they ran off the field. “Way to hold 'em! Now let's get some runs!”

I felt something poking me through the fence behind our bench.

“How's Uncle Bill?”

It was my cousin Samantha. She was holding an ice-cream cone in one hand and a red loose-leaf notebook in the other. In the excitement, I had forgotten about my father in the hospital for a moment. Now that she had reminded me, I was sad all over again.

“He'll be okay, I think,” I told her. “After the game I have to take you over to my house for the night.”

“I don't need a baby-sitter,” she said. “I can baby-sit for myself. And you know what?”

“What?”

“One time I had a baby-sitter and she made popcorn and she left the microwave on too long and you know what?”

“What?”

“It burned the popcorn and smoke was all over the place and it set off the smoke detector and you know what?”

“What?”

“The fire department came and you know what?”

“Listen, Samantha,” I said, “can we talk about this later? We're in the middle of a game here.”

“I made a new bag of popcorn all by myself and gave some popcorn to the firefighters,” she announced proudly. “So that's why I don't need a baby-sitter.”

I told you she was annoying.

Samantha scampered back to the bleachers. Coach Tropiano looked over at me, but I wouldn't meet his eye. I was afraid he might ask me to pinch-hit.

The Yellow Jackets went down one, two, three in the fourth inning. Every time the coach looked over at me, I turned away or shook my head to let him know I didn't want to play.

“How come you're not playing, Stosh?” Alec Italiano asked.

“I don't feel too well,” I replied, and it was the truth.

The score was still 6-3 when we got our last licks in the bottom of the sixth. With two outs, Alec and Andrew singled, and Louie walked to load the bases.

Coach Tropiano came over to me. This time he didn't just give me a look.

“Can you pinch-hit, Joe?” he asked. “An extra base hit will clear the bases and tie this game up.”

The guys on the bench all turned to look at me.

“I'm sorry, Coach….,” I said.

The coach mumbled something to himself and looked up and down the bench.

“Have you been in the game yet?” he asked Robert Greene.

“Nope.”

“Grab yourself a bat and do something wonderful with it.”

There were a few groans on the bench as Nose Picker Boy marched to the plate and proceeded to flail helplessly at three pitches that were so far over his head he couldn't have hit them if he'd been standing on a ladder.

That was the third out, and that was the ball game. The Warehouse Video players mobbed their pitcher as though he had just tossed a no-hitter. They were tied with us for first place now. After we shook hands with the other team, both coaches agreed to play again tomorrow afternoon to decide which team would be the Louisville Little League champions.

None of the guys said anything to me as they packed up their gear. But I knew what they were thinking. If I had come to the plate, I might have hit a double or triple to tie the game. I might have even homered to win it.

I was thinking the same thing. But with my mind on my dad and all, I just couldn't bring myself to play. I grabbed my bike and went to get my cousin and go home.

“HOW COME YOU DIDN'T PLAY, JOEY?” MY COUSIN
Samantha asked as she gathered up her notebook. Then I began walking my bike home. She kicked a rock, her ponytail flipping back and forth, as she skipped beside me.

“I guess I just feel bad about my dad,” I said. “I didn't think I'd be much good to the team.”

“Too bad your parents are divorced,” Samantha said. “My friend Jessie's parents got divorced and you know what?”

“What?”

“Her mom and dad hated each other so much, they used to throw stuff at each other.”

“My folks were never like that,” I said.

“Hey, Joey, you got a girlfriend?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It doesn't,” Samantha explained. “I changed the subject.”

“No, I do not have a girlfriend.” Not that I would have told her even if I did have a girlfriend.

“Ever been on a date with a girl?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Samantha pressed. “My mom told me that boys and girls start getting interested in each other when they get to be twelve or thirteen and you're thirteen so you should be getting interested in girls right about now.”

“Well I'm not,” I lied.

“Do you like boys?”

“No!”

“Just asking! You said you're not interested in girls. If you're not interested in boys, what are you interested in?”

The truth was, there was this girl named Emily in one of my classes who I was very interested in. She was beautiful. But I wasn't going to tell Samantha I liked Emily. I hadn't even told Emily I liked Emily! I had never even spoken to Emily.

“I'm interested in baseball cards,” I said, hoping that would be the end of the discussion.

“Do you have hair under your arms yet, Joey?”

“None of your business!”

She started tickling me and trying to peek at my armpits, but I grabbed her and tickled her back until she collapsed in a fit of giggles.

“It's all because of hormones, you know,” she informed me. “When you reach puberty, hormones go through your system and all these weird things start happening.”

“Your mom told you all this?” I asked.

“No, I read it in a book I found hidden under some stuff in a drawer in her bedroom,” she said. “And you know what?”

“What?”

“It even has pictures!”

“You're too young for that stuff,” I said, making a mental note to check out my aunt's bedroom drawer the next time we went over for dinner.

I knew all about puberty. Our gym teacher had given all the boys in the class “the talk” at the end of fifth grade. You know the one I'm talking about. Each of us came home with a stick of deodorant.

“You know, I'm interested in baseball cards, too,” Samantha told me.

“What does that have to do with hormones and puberty?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I changed the subject again. And you know what?”

“What?”

“I've got my whole baseball card collection in this notebook. Wanna see it?”

“Maybe later.”

We had just about reached my house. Samantha told me again how she didn't need any baby-sitter, going off on a long, involved story about the time her parents' car broke down so she was all alone for a night. I decided to make my special macaroni and cheese for the two of us.

“Girls used to play professional baseball, you know,” Samantha said as I drained the noodles.

“Oh yeah?” I said. “Name one.”

“Connie Wisniewski.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Never heard of her?” Samantha was outraged. “She was the best pitcher in the AAGPBL.”

“The what?”

“The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League,” Samantha said, as if any idiot would know that. “They played during World War Two when a lot of major-league players were away fighting. Didn't you ever see that movie
A League of Their Own
?”

“No,” I replied, mixing the noodles with butter, milk, and the packet of cheese powder. Macaroni and cheese was my specialty. Well, to be honest, it was the only thing I had learned how to make.

Samantha dashed off to the living room and came back with the red notebook she had been carrying around with her.

“Is it later now?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“You said you would look at my baseball card collection later,” she explained. “Is it later now?”

“I guess so,” I replied as I scooped some mac and cheese into bowls for each of us.

She opened her notebook on the middle of the table, and I had to admit she wasn't making the whole thing up. Page after plastic page was filled with cards of female baseball players. The photos were all black-and-white—pictures of women with old-time
hairstyles, wearing dresses, and holding bats and balls and gloves. They had funny names—Corky Clark, Peeps Pieper, Be Bop Vukovich. They were the strangest baseball cards I had ever seen, and I had seen them all.

“Look,” Samantha pointed out. “Here's Connie Wisniewski. She's my favorite.”

The page was labeled
MILWAUKEE CHICKS
, 1944. I turned the page to look at the back of the card. It said that Connie Wisniewski played nine seasons, winning 107 games while losing only 48. One year she went 33-9. Her nickname was “Iron Woman.”

“If she was a guy,” Samantha claimed, “Connie Wisniewski would be in the Baseball Hall of Fame today.”

“If she was a guy,” I snorted, “she couldn't make my Little League team today.”

“That's a lie!”

“Oh, come on,” I said. “Girls can't play baseball.”

“Can too!”

I'd had some experience with this issue. When I was younger, there were usually a few girls on my Little League teams. By the time I reached what we call “the majors,” most of them had switched to softball or dropped out entirely, and there were only two or three girls my age in the whole league. They couldn't hit for beans and they threw like, well…like girls. I think one of them was only on a team because she was the coach's daughter.

“My dad told me that men and women are fundamentally different,” I explained to Samantha. “Men are bigger and stronger. We're naturally competitive. Girls don't like physical confrontations. You're afraid you'll get hurt. You need to be protected. That's why girls can't play baseball. It's all because of hormones and stuff.”

“That's a lot of bull!” Samantha shouted. Then she reared back and punched me on my cheek.

“Owwww!” I yelled. She had taken me totally by surprise. I put my hands up just in case she might try to get another shot in.

“Well, my mother told me that the only reason
girls don't play baseball is because they aren't given the chance. Everybody is telling them that they're supposed to play softball.”

I thought about arguing that point, but I was afraid she might sock me again, so I let it go. We had finished our macaroni and cheese, so I took the bowls to the sink.

“You know,” Samantha said, “I can read with my eyes closed.”

“Are you changing the subject again?” I asked.

“Watch.” She slipped one of her baseball cards out of the plastic page and held it in front of her. Then she closed her eyes and began reading the statistics off the back of the card.

“You're peeking!” I laughed.

“No I'm not! I'm reading the words right through my eyelids!”

“That's pretty impressive,” I said, humoring her. “You know what I can do with a baseball card?”

“What?”

“I can travel through time.”

I'm not sure why I decided to tell her. It's not like I told everybody I met that I had this power. It wasn't any deep, dark secret or anything. I just figured anyone else would think I was crazy. But my cousin was kind of annoying, and I thought it would be cool to blow her mind.

“You cannot travel through time with a baseball card!”

“I can,” I said. “The card works like a time
machine. It can take me back to the year on the card.”

“Really?”

“Would you like a quick demonstration?”

“Sure!”

My baseball card collection was up in my room. I thought about which card I should use. I had been thinking about Roberto Clemente, Ty Cobb, Satchel Paige, Roger Maris….

Then I remembered what my dad had said in the hospital. He'd hidden a Mickey Mantle rookie card in my room and asked me to warn Mickey about the drain cover at Yankee Stadium. I had almost forgotten about it.

“I have the perfect card,” I told Samantha.

I ran up to my room, taking two steps at a time. An oval rug covered the floor near my bed. I slid it out of the way and poked around until I found a loose floorboard. It lifted easily. There was an envelope in the space below, with writing on the outside.

I ripped open the envelope and peeked inside. Sure enough, it was the famous Mantle rookie card, safely encased in a clear plastic holder. I had seen pictures of the card in magazines but never the real thing.

In my desk drawer were some unopened packs of new cards I had bought a few days before. I grabbed one pack and slipped it in my pocket. Just as an old card could take me back to the past, I needed a new card to return me to the present.

Clutching the Mickey Mantle card, I went down to the living room, where Samantha was leafing through her notebook on the couch.

“Is it like magic?” she asked, looking at the Mantle card.

“It's a lot like magic.”

“How does it work? How long does it take? Does it hurt? What does it feel like? When will you come back?”

“Just watch,” I instructed her. “I have to give a message to Mickey Mantle. I'll be back as soon as I can. If the phone or doorbell rings while I'm gone, ignore it.”

I got comfortable on the couch and carefully slipped the Mantle card from its plastic holder. I closed my eyes.

“Is it working?” Samantha asked.

“Shhhhh…”

It took a few seconds, but soon I felt that familiar tingling sensation in my fingertips. It started out very gently and became stronger until my fingers felt like they were vibrating.

Then I felt a slight jolt, like a car switching gears. The feeling started to spread, first to my hands, and then up my arms to my shoulders. Then
it washed down my chest like a wave crashing onto a beach, down my legs and to my toes. The whole time I was thinking about Mickey. There was a feeling of lightness, numbness. My body was undergoing a transformation. I couldn't have stopped it at that point if I had wanted to.

“Joey,” Samantha said, “you look…lighter.”

And then I felt myself disappear.