Shoeless Joe & Me (10 page)

I OPENED MY EYES
,
AFRAID THAT I MIGHT STILL BE
sitting in the foul-smelling basement of that poolroom. I was afraid that I might be dead.

There was a big cardboard cutout of Ken Griffey, Jr., in front of me, and it was the sweetest sight I'd ever seen. I was lying on the floor in Flip's Fan Club. I felt my chest to see if there was a bullet hole or blood there. I was alive.

I looked around. The walls of Flip's were almost bare. I guessed that Flip had sold off just about everything in the store. There was a new sign on the door:
GOING OUT OF BUSINESS
.

I stood up. Flip was sitting in his chair, putting some cards into boxes.

“Stosh!” he said, surprised. “I didn't see you come in.”

“I…just got here,” I replied. “Are you still open?”

“Tomorrow morning I have to close the store for good. Then I'll watch your last game and I'll be officially retired.”

I shook my head. I was still getting over what had happened to me, thankful that I was alive. Nothing else mattered.

“You okay, Stosh?” Flip asked. “You look a little pale. What's with the old-time clothes? You goin' to a costume party?”

“No.” I chuckled. “Remember when you told me about Shoeless Joe Jackson?”

“Yeah.”

“And I told you I could travel through time with baseball cards?”

“Yeah.” Flip snickered.

“Well…I just got back from 1919,” I said. “I actually met Shoeless Joe Jackson.”

Flip laughed. I went through my pockets to make sure I had all my stuff.

“You crack me up,” he said. “Oh, I'm gonna miss you kids.”

“Flip, when you gave me that baseball card, I told you I was going to do you a favor someday. Remember?”

“Sure, but you don't have to do me any favors, Stosh.”

“I want to.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the two scraps of paper Joe Jackson had autographed for me.

“Here,” I said, handing them to Flip. “I want you to have these.”

Flip took the papers and looked at them. One of the scraps was burned at the edge from Shoeless Joe's candle.

At first, Flip didn't seem to understand what he was holding. But then, slowly, his eyes widened. He grabbed for his magnifying glass and examined the scraps of paper carefully.

Flip's jaw dropped open, and he looked at me. Now he knew. In his hand were two copies of the most valuable signature from the last two hundred years. In his hand was the equivalent of one million dollars.

“These look authentic,” he whispered, his hand trembling.

“I know they are.”

“Where'd you get 'em, Stosh?”

“Joe Jackson wrote them out for me personally,” I replied. “Like I told you, I can travel through time.”

Flip looked at me. It was the same look Shoeless Joe had on his face when I told him I could travel through time.

“They're for you, Flip,” I said. “Maybe now you can buy a real baseball team, like you've always wanted.”

Well, I've seen a few grown-ups cry in my life. But never like this. It was like Niagara Falls going down his face. He tried to give me back the autographs, but I wouldn't take them.

“Stosh, I don't know how you got these,” Flip
said, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, “but I thank you.”

He got up, went over to the door, and ripped up the
GOING OUT OF BUSINESS
sign.

FLIP WAS NICE ENOUGH TO DRIVE ME HOME
(
AFTER ALL
, I
did
give him a million bucks!). Neither of us said much in the car. I think we were both still a little blown away by what had happened. And all because of a silly little baseball card.

“Joey!” my mother shouted when she opened the front door. She hugged me like she didn't ever want to let go. “I'm so glad you're back!”

“Mrs. Stoshack, your son is a remarkable boy,” Flip told my mom.

“Don't I know it!”

Mom tried to get Flip to come in for a cup of coffee, but he told her he had some errands to run. I knew his first errand would be to get those Shoeless Joe Jackson autographs into a safe.

“How was your trip, sweetie?” Mom asked as we went inside.

“It was…different,” I admitted. No way I was going to tell my mother that somebody shot at me and I'd been probably a millisecond or two away from getting killed.

“Different?” Mom looked concerned. “What happened?”

“Nothin'. Hey, what do we have to eat, Mom? I'm starved.”

As we walked into the kitchen, I was surprised to see an old man sitting in a wheelchair. He had a hearing aid in his ear.

“Who's the old guy?” I whispered to my mother, just to make sure the old guy couldn't hear me. Mom looked at me, a puzzled expression on her face. The TV was on, but the guy was asleep.

“What did you say?”

“I said who's the old guy?” I repeated. “What's up with the guy in the wheelchair?”

“Are you joking, Joey?”

“No,” I replied. She was looking at me really strangely. “How am I supposed to know who he is? I never saw this guy in my life.”

“Joey, that's Uncle Wilbur! He's been living with us for years! You know that, don't you?”

“I…thought he was dead.”

“That's a terrible thing to say, Joey!”

She put her hand on my forehead, the way she does when she thinks I have a fever. “Are you okay? Where's your medicine?”

“I…must have left it in 1919.”

The old guy in the wheelchair opened his eyes and looked at me. I looked at him. And I could see, right there, a faint resemblance. Suddenly it was all clear to me. This wrinkled old man, maybe a hundred years old, was the same Wilbur Kozinsky I had met when he was a boy in 1919!

“Hello, Joseph,” he said weakly, waving at me.

“I think I need a drink of water,” I said, sitting in the chair next to Wilbur Kozinsky.

As my mother went to get me a drink, I looked at the old man in wonder. Uncle Wilbur. I'd saved his life by giving him my flu medicine. I put my hand on his shoulder to prove to myself that he was real. I
had
changed history.

“Your sister, Gladys,” I whispered to Uncle Wilbur. “What happened to her?”

“Gladys died many years ago, Joseph. You know that.”

My mother came back with a tall glass of water and I took a long swig of it. Uncle Wilbur looked at the TV set.

“So I guess you didn't change history, eh?” Mom asked me, running her fingers through my hair.

I looked at her. Did she know what I had done?

“You weren't able to stop the Black Sox Scandal, were you?”

“Oh. No, I tried to stop it. But there was nothing I could do.”

“Was it just a big waste of time?” Mom asked.

“Oh, I wouldn't say that, Mom.” I looked at
Uncle Wilbur. “No, it certainly wasn't a waste of time at all.”

Uncle Wilbur turned from the TV suddenly and looked at me.

“Hey, Joseph,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“I want to ask you a question.”

“What is it?”

“Where'd you get those pants?”

And I could be wrong, but I thought I saw him shoot me a wink.

“
C'MON
,
MILLER
,”
I SHOUTED FROM MY POSITION AT FIRST
base. “Let's get this thing over with!”

I was somewhere between angry and furious, maybe closer to furious. There we were, cruising along with a one-run lead in the bottom of the last inning. The leadoff guy for Yampell Jewelers had fouled out to our catcher, and the next guy bumped an easy grounder up the first baseline. I smothered it and stepped on the bag for the second out. One more out and we would be world champs. Well, champs of the Louisville Little League anyway. Pretty amazing, considering that half our team was away playing in some traveling soccer tournament.

When the next batter lofted a lazy fly to rightfield, I was sure we had won it. I was ready to run off the field and grab the trophy they give the winning team.

But Michael Barton, our right fielder, booted the ball. I couldn't believe it! It tipped off his glove and rolled all the way to the fence. By the time Barton got to the ball and threw it in, the batter was sliding into third.

“C'mon, Barton!” I hollered. “What do you think you've got a glove for?”

“That's enough of that, Mr. Stoshack!” Mr. Kane took off his ump's mask and walked halfway to first base. “What did I tell you about unsportsmanlike behavior?”

“Okay, okay…”

I kicked the dirt disgustedly. We'd had the game in the bag, but now everything was different. If the runner on third scored, it would be a tie game. I hate tie games.

“Settle down, boys,” Coach Tropiano shouted. “Just get this next guy out and it's all over.”

The next “guy” was actually a girl—Jennifer Cossaboon. There were a few girls on my teams when I was in the minors, but by the time we got to the majors, all the girls had switched to softball except Jennifer. She could play the game. She didn't throw like a girl or anything. And she could hit better than some of the boys.

“Get a hit, Jenny!” somebody shouted from the bleachers.

“Strike her out, Miller!” shouted somebody else.

Jennifer stepped into the batter's box and looked to her third base coach for a sign. She knew how to
bunt, I remembered. But I didn't think the Jewelers would try to squeeze the run home from third. If we threw him out at the plate, they'd look really stupid. I took one step back and a step toward the line to guard against an extra base hit.

“The play is to first base,” hollered Coach Tropiano, clapping his hands. “Get the easy out.”

Miller went into his windup, and Jennifer let the first pitch go by.

“Strike one!” called Mr. Kane.

“Nice pitch!” I hollered to Miller. “Two more like that, baby!”

Jennifer stepped out of the box for a moment. The parents on both sides of the field started shouting encouragement to everybody. I think some of them were more nervous than their kids.

As Miller went into his windup again, I got into my “baseball ready” position. Coach Tropiano tells us to always be thinking about what we will do if the ball is hit our way. I knew what I would do. I would grab it and step on the bag. Game over. We win.

But the ball wasn't hit my way. Jennifer smacked a grounder to short. Greg Horwitz moved a little to his right. He blocked it with his glove, and the ball rolled a few feet away from him.

The runner streaked down the third baseline.

Jennifer dropped the bat and sprinted for first.

I ran to the bag to get ready for Greg's throw.

Greg picked up the ball.

Mr. Kane ran up the first baseline so he could make the call.

I put my foot on the bag and stretched my glove out as far as I could reach.

Greg threw the ball, and it was on target.

I waited for the ball to get to me. If the ball hit my glove before Jennifer's foot hit the bag, she would be out and we would be the champs. But if her foot hit the bag before the ball hit my glove, she would be safe and the runner on third would score the tying run. I could tell it was going to be close. Real close. Everybody was screaming, but I was only listening for one sound.

Pop. Pop.

The first pop was Jennifer's foot hitting the first-base bag. The second pop was the ball hitting my glove.

Shoot! She was safe! I looked to Mr. Kane for the call.

“You're out!” he shouted.

Out? I couldn't believe it. Mr. Kane had blown a crucial call for the second week in a row! Only this time, I wasn't complaining. All the guys on Flip's Fan Club ran to the mound and mobbed Miller. We were the champions of the Louisville Little League. Everybody was going crazy.

But we weren't nearly as nuts as the Yampell Jewelers were. Their players and parents were all over Mr. Kane, screaming at him, cursing him out, threatening him, and telling him that he was blind
as a bat. I couldn't blame them. But there was nothing they could do. The umpire's decision is final.

 

When it was all over, everybody on Flip's Fan Club gathered around Flip Valentini, and the mayor of Louisville presented us with the trophy. Everybody cheered and took pictures of us.

Flip leaned over and whispered into my ear, “She was safe, wasn't she?”

“Yeah,” I said, with a little giggle.

“Life isn't fair, is it?”

“No, it's not,” I replied. “But things usually even out in the end.”