The Summer of the Homerun Read online

“That was fun.”

  She turned to me and smiled. Even in the dark I could see her dark eyes lock on to mine, see her face soften and her lips form a thin smile. “It was,” she said.

  She turned and ran to the house, but stopped half way. “Oh, Smitty, my Smitty,” she said and ran into the house.

  I ran all the way home and lay awake for hours. Smitty, my Smitty.

  Even the day the New Kid hit the home run didn't seem like anything special, until he hit the home run.

  After that it was like it was after the Beatles played on Ed Sullivan for the first time. There we were one day just doing what we did best, playing baseball. The sky was blue with some clouds drifting overhead like a big fat white armada and the smell of the chocolate cooking over at the candy factory making the air seem heavier than it was, like living inside a cup of hot chocolate. You know, everything the same. Then the Beatles arrived and next thing we knew we all wanted to be rock and roll stars, driving around in sports cars and being chased by girls.

  Just like that, like nothing would ever be that simple again.

  That what it was like after the New Kid hit that home run. Everything we knew changed in that instant.

  Our heroes that summer were Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax and Al Kaline, and every day we gathered at that old field behind the candy factory where the company that plowed the employee parking lot dumped the snow and tried to be like them. I had read somewhere that somebody famous said that if he'd had a choice, he would have been one of two people: Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Ted Williams, Teddy Ballgame. The Splendid Splinter. That was us, I guess, little Teddy Ballgames.

  Ray was our catcher. He was a small kid who spent most of the next year growing out his blonde crew cut. Tommy was the biggest of us, 180 pounds of red hair, freckles and glasses. He looked like an owl when he squinted into the sun for a pop fly. He never played with us again after football season started.

  There was Donald, our pitcher, who hated being called Donny. He was a thin, exact kind of kid. He was always moving his infielders around before throwing a pitch as if he was going to throw it RIGHT THERE and have the batter hit the ball RIGHT TO THAT SPOT. I mean, really. Then there was Micah, Danny and Ron -- we called him Rhumba because of the little dance he did while waiting for a pitch -- a couple of guys from the other side of the river, and me, Smitty.

  I played shortstop.

  And then there was the New Kid.

  The New Kid moved into town in March. His real name was Steve, but try as we might, when he wasn't with us, we called him the New Kid. We weren't being mean, really. He was a nice kid, sorta smart, you know, in most of our

  classes. But he kept to himself a lot. I guess being new in town, that was natural. I tried to call him Steve, but it never worked. The New Kid played center field.

  It had to be hard to be the New Kid. He said he moved around a lot because his Dad was in the military, which was different from all of us. We had known each other since our early days at school and sort of formed up into a group.

  I watched the New Kid a lot. He seemed really confident. Maybe he would have been the kid who took Jackie Dennis to the movies, but he was different than she was. She was unattainable; the New Kid seemed okay, like all that moving around had given him a shell that protected him from all the other stuff that got in our way.

  But he could play. At bat he whacked the ball all over the place and in the field during batting practice, would run down all the balls and spins like a dancer and throw strikes to home plate from anywhere. Sometimes the throws were so straight and perfect, we would just stand and watch like being dragged behind the ball on a string.

  So anyway, we were sort of an all-star team, the town not being a large enough place to have lots of different leagues. We played teams from out-of-town, or pick-up teams of varsity scrubs. Who we played wasn't a problem. Coach brought the equipment every day, and we played ball.

  The name of the team was the problem. Darren the Pizza Baron's Red Riders. The name was so long when they stitched it on the back of the jerseys, the letters formed a complete circle. They put the numbers in the center of the circle and from the rear we looked like those little receipts you get while waiting for your food at Darren's. There was a reason they called us "checkout."

  But what the heck. Each spring Darren paid the cost of getting the field back in shape after being buried under ten feet of snow. In return, he got to have nine little billboards on the field.

  I don't know if the coaches had planned on letting me pitch that summer, or if the opportunity just presented itself. Donald, our regular pitcher, threw a curve ball. It was a wicked pitch. Donald was taller than most of our players, and really thin. He sort of towered over the pitcher's mound, and when he threw the ball, his arm was so high, it seemed like the ball came out of the clouds.

  Maybe that's why he was that way, always explaining how to grip the ball --even just walking down the street -- holding out his hand and saying, "Now if you're going to throw a fast ball, you need to spread your fingers apart. But for the curve (or the ‘yacker,’ as he always called it), you slide your fingers together to one side like this, cock your wrist when you bring the ball back behind your head, and snap your wrist hard downward just as you throw the ball. The ball should break like it was dropped off the edge of a table." And then he'd throw it. The ball would break like it was dropped off a table. And we couldn't hit it. Maybe that's why none of us really liked Donald.

  Anyway, on this particular day, I was out at short just minding my own business and kicking at the ground -- infielders just naturally do those kinds of things between pitches. Of course on our field, it was self-defense. Sometimes the ruts in the base paths eluded all of Darren's good intentions and by mid-summer were hard as a rock. The ball sometimes hit the edge of a rut and rocketed over your head, or somebody, usually the visiting team's shortstop, stepped in a hole and twisted his ankle. Or worse, the ball could hit one of those ruts just right, and

  POW! you'd look like Tony Kubek in the '60 Series in Pittsburgh when that ball jumped up and hit him in the throat. And then Mazeroski hit that homer.

  Me, I played deep. I had a good arm.

  Anyway, next thing I know, Donald, the old curveballer, is standing next to me trying to hand me the ball.

  "What's this for?" I asked. I mean I didn't know.

  "You're pitching," he said.

  "Sure I am."

  Donald stuck the ball in my glove. "You are. Go ask Coach. I've developed a blister. "

  And sure enough, right there on his middle finger, right near the first knuckle, was a blister. The skin had pulled away and a little blood had collected on one edge. The middle of it was a deep pink and that skin seemed to be torn.

  "I can't throw the yacker," he said, sounding worried, as if his career, or something, might be over.

  I wondered as I walked to the mound if he wasn't supposed to soak his hand in salt water or pickle juice to toughen it, you know, to prevent that sort of thing.

  Without the yacker, I thought, the game will be lot quieter.

  But I didn't have time to ponder it anymore, because there I was, at the pitcher's mound, a batter was at the plate, Ray was yelling at me not to worry, and Coach was saying to just take a few warm-ups.

  It felt weird. I had never been up on the mound before, you know, as a pitcher. I mean all us infielders had been around the mound to talk to the pitcher when he messed up, or when the Coach changed pitchers. We all stood around, patted the kid on the ass with our gloves and said, "We'll get 'em next time," when what we wanted to say was, "What's your problem you can't get these jerks out."

  But then it felt great. I was the pitcher. I was the pitcher! I took the ball out of my glove and rubbed it and kicked at the rubber and looked in at Ray behind the plate. And slowly, with each action, I felt a change taking place. No longer was I the shortstop, all gangly arms and nervous feet before a pitch, rocking back and
forth, waiting, waiting, then leaping to one side or another, slashing the glove toward the ball spinning away, then planting my right foot and like a dancer, turning my body as I slung my arm and threw the ball to hear the satisfying smack as the first baseman gloved it as the runner dashed by too late.

  I was the pitcher. I stood on the mound and glanced around the field a moment. All the players were watching me. I had never felt so important before in my life.

  I threw a couple of pitches, and it seemed okay. I mean, I didn't hit anybody. I tried to think of how I had seen major league pitchers do it, and for some reason

  thought of Whitey Ford, which was a problem, because he was a lefty, and I threw right-handed. But I didn't have time to think of anyone else. I sort of rocked back, brought my hands together in the glove, raised them over my head and threw the ball. I followed through and landed like I guessed a giraffe might if they had arms and could throw a baseball. Ray shouted, "Yah!" as he tossed back the ball. "Alright, Smitty. Throw to the glove." Then he slipped the black mask

  over his face, crouched behind the plate, grabbed a handful of dirt with his right hand and made his glove a target for me to hit.

  I looked over at Donald, still examining his hand.

  Developed a blister. What are you some kind of scientist?

  "Smithers, come look. I've developed a blister." Right.

  Coach just stepped