CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dad's Surprise
Every year during Dan’s high school career, David Hodges would take a couple days of vacation time, and he and his son would head down to Cincinnati to watch the Reds play. Because school was in session through the middle of May, though, they never made it to the Riverfront until well into summer, when the pennant races were already taking shape. In the spring of 1974, with no such constraints, and with his son awake for the first time in nine months, David called in the rest of his favors at work and managed to clear his schedule at the end of the first week in April. When he and David climbed into their truck to come home from HBM that Monday, David was beaming and bursting with the anticipation of telling Dan the good news.
They were going to see the Reds on Opening Day!
Opening Day in Cincinnati was the baseball equivalent of Mardi Gras, and red-blooded males from the youngest schoolboys to the most accomplished of executives made it a point to skip out on class or board meetings to drink in the atmosphere no other city could match. For the most part, Reds fans in the Queen City were excused their dalliances on this one day, because baseball was a virus that festered all through the winter and could only be treated by an afternoon in the weak sunshine of early spring in a ballpark filled with the aroma of peanuts and beer.
Dan, as David had expected, was ecstatic, and he was also full of questions. Who were the Reds playing? Who was the Reds’ starting pitcher going to be? And, finally, what would he do about work?
David explained that he had already cleared the time off for both of them, and he was also happy to report that righty Jack Billingham would be on the mound for Cincinnati that Thursday afternoon. Who else could it have been, really, after Jack had posted a record of 19-11 in 1973, narrowly missing the 20-win plateau?
And the best part of all? The Reds were hosting the Atlanta Braves.
“I love Hank Aaron!” Dan exclaimed.
David smiled across the cab at his son. “I do, too, Dan,” he said.
Theirs wasn’t a sentiment shared by all baseball fans, however.
For years, it had been assumed Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays, or maybe both, would mount a serious threat to Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record of 714. Mantle’s knees broke down, though, and Mays sputtered through the latter part of his career until, as a 42-year-old with the New York Mets in 1973, he was infamously relegated to crawling around the outfield on his hands and knees.
Meanwhile, Henry Aaron continued to play at a consistent level throughout the late 1950s, all of the 1960s, and well into the 1970s. In any other era, and against any other backdrop, Aaron’s production would have been considered spectacular, but the one-season heights reached by Mays, Mantle, and even Roger Maris pushed Hammerin’ Hank toward the back of the line of baseball greats who made their hay in the Major Leagues during the Vietnam era. By the time the early ‘70s rolled around, Aaron was closing in on 40 years of age but still hammering out his 30-40 homers every season to go along with about 100 ribbies and all sorts of other offensive goodies.
As the 1973 season came to a close, it had been four full seasons since Mantle stood in the batter’s box, and it was clear Mays was done, but Aaron had the Babe in his sights. On September 29, Hank swatted his 713th career home run, leaving him just one short of the record with one game left in the season. That he came up short in that final contest against the Houston Astros set Aaron up for an uneasy off-season and one of the first long-term build-ups of record-chasing hype in baseball history.
Even though America had made great strides during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, there were still plenty of people who resented any kind of notable success by a black man, and that sentiment was sharpened all the more in Aaron’s case because he was chasing down the most hallowed individual record in all of sports, held by the most mythical and arguably the most beloved figure in all of sports, Babe Ruth. A wide swath of baseball fans would have had held ill-will toward any player trying to take down the Babe, black or not. Even Mantle himself would have faced naysayers had he been able to keep his game, and his body, rolling long enough to approach the record.
But in 1973, it was Aaron who stepped squarely into the baseball spotlight, and thus became the recipient of all the glories and indignities such lofty status entails. While fans across the country like Dan and David Hodges hurried to the front stoop every morning to see if Aaron had tagged another home run the night before, and died a little each Saturday when “The Game of the Week” did not feature Aaron, there were enough death threats and jeers to make Aaron less than sanguine about his future.
Aaron told reporters as he headed home for the winter that he just hoped he lived to see the 1974 season.
Dan, of course, had missed most of Aaron’s magical exploits the season before, when, at 39 years of age, the legend had smacked 40 home runs in just 495 plate appearances. What looked like an outside possibility 12 months earlier, had matured into a likelihood during the summer heat while Dan slumbered, and now stood as an absolute certainty with Opening Day just 72 hours away.
“Do you think he’ll even play on Thursday?” Dan asked.
David nodded: “Yes, I think he will. I heard on the news this morning that the Commissioner is going to mandate Aaron play two of the first thee games — no reason for him not to play on Opening Day, then. If I were him, I’d play Thursday and see what happens. No home runs, I play again on Saturday.”
Aaron and his team, the Atlanta Braves, wanted to capitalize on the publicity and attendance boost of the homer chase, so they had planned to sit him during the opening series in Cincinnati. Then, returning home for their second series of the season, Aaron would be poised to both tie and pass Ruth in front of his home fans. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn quickly put the kibosh on that idea, citing the best interests of the game.
“Well, I hope he doesn’t play on Saturday, then!” Dan said, and grinned at his father. “In fact, I hope he smashes two on Thursday, you know, just to take the pressure off himself.”
“You’re such a good boy, Dan,” David teased him. “Always thinking of others before yourself.”
—
Tuesday and Wednesday were a blur for Dan as he and David prepared for their trip to Cincinnati. The first pitch was scheduled for 3 pm, put they planned to be in downtown Cincinnati in time to see the Opening Day parade and all the other festivities surrounding the start of another baseball season. They’d leave home around 6 am, which was way too early for the day’s schedule, but David had suggested the premature start in order to have more time to spend with his son. Dan had not questioned David’s timing because he missed his father, too.
Before their big adventure, though, Dan and David had two very full days to take care of. Work was busy for both the Hodges men, and Dan had two doctors appointments, one on each day. In the 10 days Dan had been awake, he had seen Dr. Parks five times, for general check-ins and for specific tests. So far, Parks assured him when he left the office on Wednesday, everything seemed fine. All his vital signs were normal, and blood work showed no hormonal anomalies, so it appeared the crisis had passed. His beard and hair were growing again, too. Still, Parks wanted to see Dan again on Monday after he and David had recovered from their trip.
Dan spent several hours each evening with Gabbie, either at her house or at his, and with baby Troy. It still seemed unreal to Dan that he was suddenly a father, and it hurt him that he had missed Gabbie’s pregnancy, but there was nothing he loved more than holding his own infant son in his arms. Dan was concerned about his relationship with Gabbie, though, and wasn’t sure where it would lead. He loved her, and they had talked briefly about marriage when they were both in high school, but they always came to the same conclusion: they should wait until they were finished with college and until they figured out whether or not Dan had a future in baseball.
Once they were settled in their careers, then they could decide about their lives together. In the back of Dan’s mind, he was asham
ed to admit even to himself, he always had felt comfortable with that agreement because it gave him a natural “out” in case he met someone else. After all, they were very young, and what were the chances a high school love could last through four years of college and maybe a fledgling baseball career?
But Gabbie had stood by his side, if not literally then certainly figuratively, while he had been dead to the world for nine months. More than that, she gave him a son, so the two would always be bonded even if they were married to other people. He was confused, and it didn’t help that he felt some hesitancy from Gabbie, too. She was not as affectionate as she had been a year before, and Dan wondered if she was having the same types of doubts he was.
So they spent their evenings talking about Troy’s future, and about their future, too, but usually only in the context of what it meant for their son. One of them would bring up the question of where the two of them were heading, but the other would invariably steer the conversation back toward Troy, or to the events of the day. By the time he left Gabbie at her doorstep Wednesday night, Dan’s head was swimming with possibilities but clouded by the consequences implied by any of them. More than ever before, he needed his dad.
Back at home, Dan told his parents good night and confirmed with David that they were set to leave early the next morning, then took a shower and climbed into bed. He was too anxious about Gabbie and the game and his future to sleep, so he turned on his nightstand light and opened up his tattered copy of “The Boys of Summer.” He had already read Roger Kahn’s opus three times, but it seemed like the perfect night for one more go-round.