Shoeless Joe & Me (8 page)

The plane made a few lazy circles over Redland Park. Then I saw something drop out of it. As the thing plummeted to the ground, I could see arms and legs flopping around. It was a person!

The crowd gasped. Some women shrieked. The body slammed into the pitcher's mound with a dull thud and lay there motionless. The plane flew away.

A policeman rushed out on the field. He bent over the body for a few seconds, then scooped it up in his arms. The cop had a big smile on his face.

The thing that was thrown from the plane was a dummy…wearing a Chicago White Sox uniform.

There was nervous laughter in the stands, and then the umpire picked up the megaphone again.

“Play ball!” he hollered.

THE FIRST THING THE WHITE SOX DID WAS TO KICK ME
out of the dugout. The fact that I was supposedly Joe Jackson's nephew did not carry much weight with the players.

“No kids on the bench!” Chick Gandil announced.

Shoeless Joe shrugged and said I should stop by after the game. I slinked out through the clubhouse door and into the stands. Because I didn't have a ticket, I wandered around looking for an empty seat. There weren't any. Redland Park was packed.

Down on the field, a guy with a megaphone announced that Dutch Ruether would be the pitcher for the Reds. He was a lefty. The Cincinnati crowd gave him a big round of applause. Shano Collins, the leadoff guy for the Sox, stepped up to the plate. I hadn't heard of him, and I didn't think he was in on the fix.

“I got fifty cents that says Collins gets a hit,” a guy near me yelled as a fastball zipped outside for ball one.

“Betcha buck he strikes out!” replied somebody else.

“You're on, buddy.”

Bets were flying back and forth among the fans like Ping-Pong balls. I'd never heard anything like it before. Many of the spectators sounded like they hadn't come to watch the game; they only came to place bets on it.

The next pitch was high for ball two, and then Collins took a called strike. Even without a megaphone, the umpire's voice could be heard throughout the ballpark.

With the count at 2-1, Collins ripped a single up the middle. The Reds fans moaned, and some money changed hands in the stands.

The next hitter for the Sox was also named Collins—Eddie Collins. A left-handed batter. He took a wad of gum out of his mouth and stuck it on the button of his cap as he stepped into the batter's box. Collins took a couple of pitches, then dropped down a bunt. The pitcher grabbed it and whipped it to second for the force play. One out.

Collins edged off first as Buck Weaver came up. Shoeless Joe, with Black Betsy in his hands, came out on deck. On the first pitch to Weaver, Collins broke for second base, but the Cincinnati catcher made a perfect throw and nailed him. Two outs.

Weaver lifted a fly ball to left center for the third
out. Disgustedly, Shoeless Joe put Betsy away and jogged out to his position in leftfield. He would have to wait until the second inning for a chance to hit.

I watched as Eddie Cicotte walked slowly to the mound. I wondered what he was thinking. The megaphone man announced that Cicotte had led the American League in wins with 29, complete games with 30, and innings pitched with 307. He was one of the best pitchers in the game.

But he had been paid to
lose
. Would he just lob the ball up to the plate and let the Reds hammer it? Would he miss the plate on purpose and walk everybody? Or would he wait for the perfect moment with the bases loaded and throw one fat pitch that would cost the Sox the game?

I watched as Eddie Cicotte walked slowly to the mound. I wondered what he was thinking.

I remembered that Rothstein had instructed that the first batter for the Reds was to be hit by a pitch as a signal that the Sox were doing as they had been told.

The leadoff hitter for the Reds—a guy named Maurice Rath—stepped up to the plate. Cicotte rubbed the baseball against his pants leg.

“Shiner,” a guy near me commented. “He's throwing his shine ball.”

I didn't know what a shine ball was, but I remembered from my baseball history that starting in 1920 it became illegal for pitchers to throw spitballs, scuff-balls, and other tricky pitches. In 1919, Cicotte could do pretty much whatever he wanted to the ball.

The first pitch was up around the chest, but the ump called it a strike. Maybe Cicotte had changed his mind and decided to play straight. Maybe the fix wasn't on after all.

Cicotte went into his windup again, but this time the pitch was way inside. Rath dove out of the way, but the ball smacked him right between the shoulder blades.

That was the signal. The fix was on. Cicotte was playing to lose, and so were most of the other White Sox starters. It would be up to Joe Jackson and the other honest players to win the game in spite of them.

Rath got up slowly and jogged to first base. The next batter, Jake Daubert, smacked a single up the middle. The Reds had runners on first and third with nobody out. The Cincinnati crowd was screaming for a hit. It looked like Eddie Cicotte was going to blow
the whole game right there in the first inning.

But he didn't. The next Cincinnati batter was Heinie Groh, the guy whose baseball card got me to 1919 in the first place. Groh had a weird bat that was shaped almost like a bottle. He hit a shot to leftfield. Shoeless Joe ran back almost to the fence to make a great catch. The runner on third tagged up on the play and scored.

The next two Reds were retired easily on grounders. I thought Chick Gandil, the first baseman, might drop the ball on purpose, but he didn't. The Sox were out of the inning and the score was 1-0. It could have been a lot worse.

I thought Chick Gandil, the first baseman, might drop the ball on purpose, but he didn't. The Sox were out of the inning and the score was 1-0.

When Joe Jackson came out of the dugout to lead off the second inning, a hush fell over the
crowd. They knew that if Jackson got hot, he could carry the White Sox on his shoulders.

“Give 'em Black Betsy, Joe!” a Chicago fan shouted as Joe approached the plate.

Using his toe, Joe drew a line in the dirt about three inches from home plate on the left-hander's side. Then he made a right angle at the back of the batter's box and carefully put his left foot on it. His feet were close together. He rested the bat on his left shoulder, holding the bat at the end so his right pinky curled around the knob.

Ruether went into his windup and pumped strike one over. Joe just looked at it. He didn't wave the bat around like some of the other players. He just stood there, motionless. He watched as ball one came in too low.

He rested the bat on his left shoulder, holding the bat at the end so his right pinky curled around the knob.

The next pitch he liked. Joe took a long stride and smashed a hot grounder in the hole at short. The Cincinnati shortstop dove for it and knocked the ball down, but his throw to first was wild. Joe never stopped running and slid into second base in a cloud of dust and dirt.

The few Chicago fans, who were sitting as a group on the third-base side, cheered happily. It looked like it could be a big inning for the Sox.

The next batter, Happy Felsch, bunted to advance Joe to third base. Chick Gandil was up next. I figured he'd strike out on purpose, but he hit a high fly to short leftfield. None of the Reds could reach it, and Shoeless Joe trotted home for the first Chicago run. The other Sox went down quietly, but the game was tied at 1-1.

The Reds went down one-two-three in the bottom of the second, and nobody scored in the third inning. Once again, I was beginning to hope and believe that maybe the game was being played on the level. Maybe something had happened. Some of the Sox might have changed their minds, come to their senses, and decided to play their best.

But then came the fourth inning, when Eddie Cicotte and the White Sox collapsed. With one out, Pat Duncan singled to right center. The next batter hit a bouncer right back to Cicotte. Easy double-play ball that would end the inning. But Cicotte hesitated before throwing, and then made a low throw to second. The runner was out there, but there was no chance for the double play.

That's when Cicotte collapsed. Greasy Neale singled up the middle. Ivey Wingo singled to right on the first pitch to drive in a run. Dutch Ruether—the pitcher!—whacked a triple for two more runs. That made it 4-1 and the crowd was going crazy.

I saw somebody start warming up in the Sox bullpen. The infielders gathered at the mound to try and calm down Eddie Cicotte.

Whatever they said had no effect. Maurice Rath ripped a double down the third baseline to drive in another run. Jake Daubert singled to right to make it 6-1.

That made it six hits and five runs scored in one inning. The Chicago fans on the third-base side had sunk into a silent gloom. The Sox manager marched angrily out of the dugout and waved to the bullpen for a relief pitcher to come in. As Eddie Cicotte walked off the mound, the Cincinnati fans hooted and threw fruit at him. Cicotte hung his head all the way to the dugout.

The new pitcher stopped the hitting spree, but the damage was done. The Sox looked terrible. There was nothing Shoeless Joe could do, and there was nothing I could do that would change the outcome of this game. I didn't even feel like watching the rest of it.

I looked up at the scoreboard. It was the end of the fourth inning. Suddenly I remembered that I had made a mental note to do a chore at the end of the fourth inning. It had nothing to do with baseball.

I had to go find Gladys and Wilbur Kozinsky.

AS I MADE MY WAY TO THE THIRD-BASE SIDE OF THE
stands at Redland Park, I began to look for my great-grandmother Gladys Kozinsky and her brother Wilbur. Not that I really wanted to see them or anything, but my mother had asked me to take their picture. Sometimes you've got to do stuff just for your mom whether you like it or not.

The Cincinnati fans I walked past looked like a bunch of kids on Christmas morning. Their Reds were killing the Sox, and the fans were loving it. People were hugging each other, laughing, throwing stuff. If they had known the Sox were blowing the game on purpose, I doubt that they would have been celebrating so enthusiastically.

Gladys and Wilbur shouldn't be hard to spot, I figured. After all, they were twins. My mom had told me they were twelve years old in 1919. And Gladys told me to meet them at the hot dog
vendor on the third-base side.

There were a few boys and girls near the hot dog vendor, but none of them looked like twins. Watching them eat made me a little hungry, so I got in line.

“What'll it be, son?” the hot dog guy asked when it was my turn.

“One hot dog, please,” I said, fishing around in my pocket for the twenty-dollar bill my mom had given me.

“That'll be five cents, sonny.”

“Five cents?!”

Five cents for a hot dog? The last time I went to a ballpark, my dad had to pay three dollars for a hot dog.

“Whatsa matter?” the hot dog guy asked, as I was still hunting for the bill in my pocket. “You ain't got a nickel?”

“All I have is a twenty-dollar bill.”

“Ain'tcha got nothin' smaller?” the hot dog guy asked, looking at me with disgust. “Sonny, I don't make that much dough all
week
.”

I stuck my hands in my pockets, but all I could find was my medicine, my camera, and my baseball cards.

“Rich kids,” the hot dog guy grumbled under his breath.

“I'll pay for his hot dog,” somebody chirped behind me.

I turned around. It was a girl about my age, with long, kinky hair that was pulled back from her
forehead. She held out a nickel to the hot dog guy and smiled at me.

The hot dog guy took the nickel and handed me the dog. I thanked the girl and took a bite. It tasted good.

“You have twenty dollars?” the girl asked, impressed.

“Somewhere in here,” I replied. “My mom gave it to me.”

“Your mama must be loaded, giving a boy your age so much money.”

She flicked her eyelashes up and down, still smiling at me.

“Not really,” I replied.

Twenty dollars, I gathered, must have been
big
money in 1919. My mother once told me we weren't rich and we weren't poor, but we were a lot closer to poor than rich. She also told me that if a girl ever flicks her eyelashes as you, it means she thinks you're cute. I tried not to blush.

“Let's
go
, Gladys!” urged a boy standing about ten feet away. “I got a headache!” The boy was wearing a white mask that covered his nose and mouth, the kind of mask doctors wear on TV when they do surgery. He had a book in his hand titled
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang
.

“Shut up, Wilbur,” the girl replied. Then she whispered to him, “He's
rich
!”

“
Youshut up,” the boy responded.

Gladys? Wilbur? Suddenly I realized the boy and
girl were my great-grandmother and her brother!

“Are you Gladys Kozinsky?” I asked, marveling that this girl in front of me would grow up to be my great-grandmother.

“Why, yes!” She smiled, holding out a hand. “And who might you be?”

“Joe. Joe Stoshack.”

Gladys looked puzzled. “The boy who called me on the telephone? I was looking for somebody with a camera. How are you going to snap our picture if you don't have a camera?”

“With this,” I said, pulling the Olympus out of my pocket.

“You're going to take a photo with that little bitty thing?” She giggled uncontrollably. “Look, Wilbur. It's a toy!”

I wasn't about to explain to them how computer chips had made it possible for many machines to be much smaller than they used to be. They probably didn't even know what a computer was.

Wilbur didn't seem interested anyway. He stood off to the side, tapping his foot impatiently, reading his book, and smoking a cigarette. Whenever he took a puff, he pulled the surgical mask away from his mouth.

I wondered if wearing a mask was some weird 1919 fad. A number of fans were wearing them. I thought about telling Wilbur that smoking was bad for his health, but he looked like he might punch me or something.

“It's…a new camera,” I said simply. “Hey, I
thought you were twins. You don't look anything like your brother.”

It was true. Wilbur was more fair-skinned, with straighter hair and squinty eyes. It was hard to tell exactly what he looked like with that mask on his face, but he sure didn't look like Gladys.

“We're not identical,” she said. “Do you still want to snap our picture?”

“Sure,” I said, fiddling with the camera. I couldn't stop glancing at Wilbur's silly mask. It couldn't be a Halloween costume. It was only October 1.

“Why is your brother wearing that mask?” I whispered to Gladys when my curiosity got the better of me.

Gladys looked at me like I was stupid. She pointed to a sign that had been tacked up to a wooden post behind the hot dog guy.

“Wilbur's got the flu,” she said.

I was going to say “Me, too,” but stopped myself. The
flu
, I realized for the first time, was the same as
influenza
. I remembered the newspaper article I'd seen in the bathroom yesterday. It said millions of people died in the influenza epidemic of 1918, even more people than died in World War I.

“Shouldn't he be home?” I asked.

“He's not going to get better at home,” she replied. “There's no cure.”

“Is he going to die?” I whispered to Gladys.

“We don't know,” she whispered back. “I hope not. He was fine yesterday. And then he got the fever…”

Gladys pointed to a sign that had been tacked up to a wooden post behind the hot dog guy.

I didn't know what to say. Wilbur stood off to the side, smoking his cigarette. I noticed for the first time that he was hugging his arms around himself, as if he was trying to stay warm.

“So you wanna take my picture or not?” he snapped.

“Yeah, I do.”

I stepped forward so I could frame him in the camera's viewfinder.

“Take off the mask, Wilbur,” Gladys instructed her brother, “and smile pretty.”

Wilbur took the mask off his face and slipped it into his pocket. The picture looked pretty good through the viewfinder, so I pushed the button. Then I took one of Gladys.

Wilbur took the mask off his face and slipped it into his pocket. He didn't exactly smile, but I guess he didn't have much to smile about. The picture looked pretty good through the viewfinder, so I pushed the button. Then I took one of Gladys.

“What kinda picture's that little thing gonna shoot?” Wilbur asked. “Postage stamps?”

“It takes thirty-five millimeter film,” I explained. “You blow it up.”

“Sounds dangerous!” Gladys exclaimed. “I'll leave blowing things up to you two boys. I've got to visit the powder room. Will you excuse me for a moment?”

Gladys sashayed off, leaving Wilbur and me
alone. I never was much for small talk, so I decided to keep my mouth shut rather than say something stupid. Wilbur put his mask back on and returned to reading
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang
.

There was a roar from the crowd. I glanced at the scoreboard. The Reds had scored two more runs. Now the score was 8-1. I thought about commenting on how well the Reds were playing, but Wilbur didn't seem to care about the game.

“Where'd you get them pants?” Wilbur suddenly asked as he took a puff from his cigarette.

The question took me by surprise. Boys my age don't usually talk about stuff like clothes. I looked down at my pants. They were the pants my mom had found in that box up in the—

Wait a minute! I looked at Wilbur's pants.

They looked exactly like mine!

Could Wilbur and I be wearing the
same pair of
pants at the same time? Would it actually be possible for somebody to save somebody's pants for eight decades, travel back through time wearing the pants, and then meet the guy whose pants you're wearing while he was wearing the same pants?

Or did Wilbur simply have a closet full of the same pants?

In any case, it was pretty cool.

“I guess we got them at the same store,” I replied.

“Yeah, probably.”

Suddenly, Wilbur started coughing violently. He
doubled over, hacking and wheezing. When he was finally able to get control of himself, he dropped the cigarette and stepped on it.

“Smoking is bad for you,” I pointed out.

“It ain't the smoking,” Wilbur replied, grinding the butt into the ground. “It's the flu.”

I thought about taking another picture of Wilbur but decided against it. I slipped the camera back into my pocket. As I did, my fingers brushed against my medicine bottle. I stopped.

The flu.

I was just getting over the flu. Wilbur had just come down with it. We had the same thing! Maybe my medicine could help Wilbur. I pulled the plastic container from my pocket.

“Wilbur,” I said urgently, “I want you to have this.”

“Tamiflu,” he said, reading the label. “What is it?”

“Medicine for the flu,” I told him.

“There ain't no medicine for the flu,” Wilbur said. “The doctor told me so. He said nothin' does any good.”

“Just
take
it,” I urged him. “It might make you feel better.”

“Couldn't hurt,” he said, slipping the container into his pocket.

Gladys flounced back from the bathroom, bouncing over to me with her flirty smile.

“Mr. Joe Stoshack,” she bubbled, “I just had the
most marvelous idea! Why don't you come over to our house for dinner tonight? We can celebrate the Reds' victory. I'm sure Mother won't mind.”

“Thanks anyway,” I said, as her smile vanished instantly, “but I've got to be getting back home tonight.”

“Well, maybe some other time then,” she said, trying to hide her disappointment. “We'd love to see your little pictures.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Maybe some other time.”