Shoeless Joe & Me (9 page)

AS I WATCHED THE KOZINSKYS WALK BACK TO THEIR
seats, there was a roar from the crowd. Dutch Ruether, the Cincinnati pitcher, had smashed a triple with a runner on base. The Reds had scored another run. That made it 9-1.

The game was essentially over. Many of the fans had left the ballpark. The World Series was over, as far as I was concerned. There was no point in going back to the Sox dugout. I sat in the nearest empty seat to watch the ninth inning.

Joe led off for the Sox. Desperately, I hoped he'd get a rally going. I knew there had been times when a team came back after being eight runs behind. Maybe a miracle would happen.

But it didn't. Joe flied out to left. Happy Felsch flied out, too. The last hope for the White Sox was Chick Gandil, who of course was in on the fix. He
dribbled a weak grounder to second.

The game was over. I looked up at the scoreboard:

Pathetic. The best team in baseball had been crushed, humiliated. I sat there watching the happy Cincinnati fans make their way to the exits. Soon all that was left were crumpled candy wrappers, peanut shells, and discarded programs.

A wave of sadness came over me. My mission had been to prevent the Black Sox Scandal and save Shoeless Joe Jackson. I had failed at both jobs.

I was feeling sorry for myself but at the same time feeling that I had at least
tried
to do something good. What could I have expected, anyway? I was just a kid. Even if I was a grown-up, you can't change history. My science teacher said so himself. I should have known better.

A thought flashed through my mind. While I hadn't been able to prevent the Black Sox Scandal,
the scandal hadn't happened yet
! At this point, minutes after Game 1, the world didn't know the Series had been fixed. The world wouldn't know about the scandal until the newspapers uncovered the story and printed it.

I turned around in my seat trying to find the press box, where the reporters sit during games and write their articles for the next day's paper. There was no press box. But at the other side of the field, I could see a line of about ten men sitting along the first baseline behind the dugout. I rushed over there.

Sure enough, they all had these big, clunky typewriters on their laps. They were furiously tapping away at them, their faces almost buried in the keys.

“Hey!” I hollered to them when I was close enough. “Shoeless Joe Jackson is innocent! You've got to print that!”

“What?” they asked, looking up at me.

“The Series is fixed!” I shouted. “But Joe Jackson had nothing to do with it. It's up to you to tell the world. If you don't, he'll be thrown out of baseball for the rest of his life.”

Well, they must have thought that was just about the funniest thing they had ever heard in their lives. A few of them couldn't stop laughing.

“That's a good one, kid!”

“The Reds whupped the Sox fair and square,” added another reporter. “Don't you worry about Shoeless Joe and the Sox. They'll come back tomorrow.”

“No, they won't!” I yelled. “They're playing to lose! You've got to believe me!”

“Kid, we're on deadline,” one of the reporters told me. “Why don't you go home and let us do our job?”

“Yeah, go play with your toys, sonny.”

The reporters turned back to their typewriters, and the keys began click-clacking again. They didn't want to listen to me.

I had done all I could do. The fix was on. It was only a matter of time before the scandal would be exposed. Shoeless Joe, who hadn't done anything wrong, would be caught up in it and his life would be ruined.

I might as well go back home, I thought to myself. I took a seat and pulled one of my shiny new baseball cards out of my pocket. There was nothing to do but relax, let the tingling sensation wash over me, and I'd disappear. In the back of my mind, I still felt there was something I could do for Shoeless Joe. I just didn't know what it was.

That's when another idea hit me. So
what
if I couldn't prevent the Black Sox Scandal from happening? So what if I couldn't save Joe's reputation? I could do something even
better
.

I could take Joe Jackson back home
with
me.

BY THIS TIME
,
THE USHERS AND SECURITY PEOPLE HAD
left the ballpark. I went down to the front row and hopped the fence onto the field. The Sox dugout was empty. The door at the back of the dugout wasn't locked. I opened it and went into the tunnel that connected the dugout to the locker room.

Fortunately, the Sox were still there. I followed the sound of their voices until I reached the locker room. Some of the players had showered and were getting dressed. Others were still sitting at their lockers in their dirty uniforms. Nobody seemed to care when I came in.

There was a lot of tension in the room. I could feel it. Kid Gleason, the manager, was stalking around, glaring at everybody. Chick Gandil was talking quietly with Eddie Cicotte. Cicotte must have said something funny, because Gandil started laughing.

When Kid Gleason saw Gandil laugh, something must have snapped in him. Even though Gandil was about six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier, Gleason suddenly leaped toward the first baseman and wrapped his hands around his throat.

“You think losing is funny, Gandil?” he shouted as he tried to strangle the bigger man. “You like to lose?”

The other players separated the two men before any punches could be thrown. But the damage was done. A few minutes later, Ray Schalk, the catcher, attacked Eddie Cicotte and had to be pulled off him.

Gloom filled the locker room. I saw Joe Jackson sitting at his locker, his head down, hands on his face. Swede Risberg came over to Joe before I could get to him.

“You looked pretty good out there today, Jackson,” he said. It wasn't a compliment, I could tell.

“Thanks,” Joe said softly, his head still in his hands.

“You're making the rest of us look bad,” Swede continued, lowering his voice so the others wouldn't hear.

Joe looked up, anger in his eyes.

“Then play like you want to win,” he said.

I thought he might take a swing at Risberg, but he didn't and Swede went off to take a shower. I pulled up the stool next to Joe.

“This ain't no place for a boy, Stosh,” he said. “You oughta get out of here. Go on home.”

“I need to talk to you first, Joe. This is important.”

“There's nothin' Ah can do,” Joe said glumly. “Ah played my best. The other guys—”

“There
is
something you can do, Joe!” I said. “You can get out of here! Get out before it's too late!”

He looked up at me. “What are you talkin' 'bout? Where am Ah gonna go?”

“Joe, you're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you. But you have to, for your own good. I live in the future, and I can take you there with me.”

Joe looked at me, expressionless.

“Ah thought you said you lived in Louisville.”

“I do! I live in Louisville in the twenty-first century. I traveled over eighty years back in time with a baseball card to meet you. Now I'm going to go back, and I can take you with me.”

A little smile snuck into the corners of Joe's mouth. “You gotta be kiddin', Stosh.”

“I'm not kidding!” I said, reaching into my pocket excitedly. “Look. You see this camera? You've never seen a camera like this, have you? That's because it doesn't exist in your time. And these baseball cards? Look at these statistics on the back. I come from the future, Joe!”

Joe took one of the cards and examined it. Then I remembered he couldn't read, so I told him the name of the player on the card was Barry Bonds, and that he'd hit seventy-three homers in the 2001 season.

“Ah ain't never heard of no ballplayer named Bonds.”

“That's because he plays in the
future
, Joe! He
hasn't even been born yet.”

“Seventy-three homers in a season?” Joe chuckled. “Aw, c'mon, Stosh! Nobody could do that. Nobody ever hit
thirty
homers in one year.”

“Joe, he
did
it!” I insisted. “It's a whole different world in the future. I could take you with me and your life will be completely different.”

Joe looked at me again, like he was trying to decide whether or not to believe me.

“They got baseball where you live?” he asked.

“Sure they do! And in the future, players like you make millions of dollars a year! You'll be a rich man. And we've got cool stuff like DVD players, the Internet, and video games.”

Joe thought it over for a minute or so, a puzzled look on his face. He kept looking over at me, as if he was expecting me to say “April fool!” or something.

“Thanks, anyway, Stosh,” he said, shaking his head. “But even if you could do what you say you can, Ah got Katie to think about. We wanna have kids someday. And Ah got to think about my mama, too. Ah can't go running out on them. Not at a time like this.”

“Joe, all your troubles will be over if you come with me.”

“Ah maybe can't read,” Joe said, “but Ah know this much. A man can't solve no problem by runnin' away from it. Thanks, but Ah think Ah'll stay put right here.”

There was no convincing him. He stuck out his hand, and I shook it.

“Good luck, Joe.”

“You too, Stosh.”

 

As I left the Sox locker room and made my way out of the ballpark, I was feeling pretty good. While I hadn't exactly succeeded in my mission, I had given it my best shot. I felt a sense of satisfaction for at least
trying
to do something good.

Even if Joe had agreed to come home with me, it might have been a big mistake. Where would he live in the future? How could a guy who couldn't read or write survive in the twenty-first century?

I figured I would go back to that park where I had seen Joe playing ball with those boys earlier in the day. Maybe I could find a nice, quiet, grassy spot under a tree where I could relax for a few minutes and prepare for my trip back home.

I was thinking those pleasant thoughts when two big guys jumped me from behind.

A HAND CAME OUT OF NOWHERE
,
COVERED MY MOUTH
, and wrapped around my face. The hand smelled of cigars. I had no time to react. Another guy grabbed my arms and twisted them behind my back. It hurt, and I was scared.

“We been lookin' for you,” a gruff voice spat in my ear.

They were holding my head, but out of the corners of my eyes I could see that the two guys were the same two guys I'd encountered in the basement of that billiard parlor when I first arrived in 1919: Abe and Billy. They worked for that gambler Rothstein.

“You gonna scream if I take my hand off your mouth?” Billy asked. I shook my head, and he took his hand away. They kept their grip on my hands behind my back, though.

“That was pretty sharp, kid, the way you got out of that hotel room closet.”

“I was scared.”

“You better be more scared
now
.”

“Are you going to lock me up again?”

“No, we're gonna hurt you.”

My eyes bugged out.

“Kid, I
told
you that if you ran away, I would have to hurt you. I'm a man who keeps my promises.”

I should have listened to my mother. I should have listened to my mother. I should have listened to my mother.

I kept repeating it to myself. How stupid I was! My mother
warned
me that it would be dangerous to go back in time again. She
told
me that the more I did it, the bigger the chance that something would go wrong. But, no, I had to go and listen to what my math teacher said about probability. And now I was going to get beaten up, maybe killed.

As they marched me down the street, I looked around for a policeman or somebody.
Somebody
would have to notice these guys were taking me somewhere against my will.
Somebody
would do something about it.

But nobody seemed to notice. All the Cincinnati fans were still giddily celebrating the outcome of the game.

I couldn't fight back. They were too big for me. When I decided to just stop walking, they grabbed
my shoulders and dragged me. They dragged me into the billiard parlor and carried me roughly down the steps into the basement.

Rothstein was sitting there. There was even more money on the table than last time. Rothstein was counting thick stacks of bills.

“We found him, Mr. Rothstein,” Billy reported.

“Where was he?”

“We spotted him talking to some newspaper guys at the ballpark,” Abe replied. “Then he went into the Sox dugout. We followed him out of the ballpark. We don't know where he was goin' next.”

“Good work, boys.” Rothstein ordered, “Tie him to the chair.”

Abe pushed me down in the chair, while Billy grabbed some rope from a shelf. I could feel my heart beating in my chest. They wrapped the rope around me again and again until it just about covered my chest, arms, and legs. Then they pulled it tight and knotted it in several places. I tried to move my arms, but they were tight against the chair. I could feel sweat beading on my forehead and dripping under my arms.

When he was satisfied that I wasn't going anywhere, Rothstein got up and walked over to me. I looked to see if he was carrying a gun, but I didn't see one.

“Who did you talk to?” Rothstein demanded.

“Nobody.”

“I think you're lying.”

Of
course I was lying. What else could I do?

“Are you going to shoot me?” I asked.

“No,” Rothstein replied. “I don't shoot people.”

I let out a sigh of relief.

“
Billy's gonna shoot you.”

I thought I was going to die right there. Billy pulled a revolver out of his belt and started sliding bullets into it. I gasped.

“Please!” I begged. “I'm just a kid. I didn't mean to hurt anybody. I just wanted to do the right thing.”

“Sometimes the right thing is actually the wrong thing,” Rothstein explained. “You did the wrong thing, kid. So now I have to do the right thing.”

“I won't say a word! I swear it! Please don't kill me.”

Billy had finished loading the gun. I'm no cry-baby, but I couldn't help but start crying. My life was about to come to an end.

“I don't see that I have any choice but to kill you,” Rothstein told me. “You ran away from me once and you went blabbing. If I let you go now, you'll probably go blabbing some more. I can't have you telling newspaper boys what we're up to. This is business, sonny boy. I got a lot of dough riding on this Series. I won't let you mess things up for me.”

Rothstein stepped aside and motioned for Billy to do what he had to do. Billy stood in front of me and raised the gun.

“Wait!” I shouted. I had one last, desperate idea.

“What?” Billy asked.

“I have a last request,” I said. “Aren't you supposed to give somebody one last request before you kill them?”

“Whaddaya want,” Abe asked, “your teddy bear?”

“No,” I said. “There's some baseball cards in my pocket. My left pants pocket. I want to hold one in my hand when I die. It means a lot to me. And I want a minute of silence before you shoot me. That's all I ask for.”

Billy looked at Rothstein. Rothstein nodded. Abe reached into my pocket and pulled out one of my baseball cards. The ropes were holding my hands down, so he put the card between my fingers.

“Okay, kid,” Billy said. “You happy now? You got one minute.”

I closed my eyes and tried to forget about what was happening to me. I tried to think about where I wanted to go. The future. I wanted to go back to my own time. I wanted to be safe again.

“Make it snappy, kid,” Abe muttered. “We ain't got all day.”

Soon the tingling sensation arrived in my fingertips. I kept thinking about going back to my own time as the tingles moved up my hands, my arms, my chest. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world.

“What's happening?” Rothstein asked, alarmed.

The tingling sensation washed down my body.

“He's gettin' lighter! He's disappearin', boss!”

“That's impossible.”

The tingling sensation washed down my legs.

“Shoot him! He's getting away!”

As I felt myself fading away from 1919, the ropes that had been holding me tight against the chair began to slip down where my body had been sitting.

I heard a gunshot.

The bullet slammed into the back of the chair I had been sitting in.

But I was gone.