"I didn't do nothin'! She's just a big baby."
"It's not him," Maggie choked out. She took a second out from crying to scowl at her brother. Then she turned back to Mom, and the tears started up again. "They lost—s-so they'll have to play the next two games at—at the stupid Polo Grounds, with all the—the stupid Giants' fans there—it's not f-fair—"
"Ah, for the love of Kerry," Mom said, "it's only a game, what are you in such a stew about?"
Maggie only cried harder. She was crying because the Dodgers had lost; because they had blown such a huge lead in the standings; because not listening to the Giants' games and getting a new notebook and picking the right shirt hadn't helped. But most of all she was crying because her mother just didn't understand.
"It's not fair," she said again, her words muffled in Mom's blouse.
After a few moments, Maggie's sobs slowed a little.
"Now, then," Mom said crisply, "enough of that. It's that fine young Mr. Labine pitching tomorrow. I like the way he's been throwing. So stop your bellyaching and leave go of me. I've work to do."
Maggie had indeed stopped crying. She was staring up at Mom's face with her mouth and eyes wide open. Mom gave her shoulder a quick pat-slap and went back to her knitting.
Maggie and Joey-Mick looked at each other in silent amazement.
Mom knew a lot about the Dodgers. Clem Labine was a rookie; he had pitched in only a dozen or so games that year. You'd have had to be paying pretty good attention to know about him.
Something fell into place in Maggie's head as neatly as the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Dad was a Yankee fan. But as far back as Maggie could remember, when she and Joey-Mick were barely more than babies, it had been the Dodgers' games that sounded from the radio. And with Dad away at work all day, that could mean only one thing.
Mom was a Dodger fan.
She doesn't make a lot of noise about it, the way the rest of us do, Maggie thought. That's just her way.... I wonder who her favorite player is.
On the day of the second playoff game, Maggie and Joey-Mick arrived home at the same time and found the radio on full blast, Mom hanging wet laundry out back as she listened to the broadcast through the open window. The yard behind the house was just a patch of cement with a revolving clothesline planted in the middle, which Dad always called their tree because there was no other tree in the yard. The clothesline did have a center pole for a trunk and supports for branches, with the laundry like big leaves flapping in the breeze. "Hey, Maggie-o, pick a shirt off the tree for me," he would say.
There wasn't even time for Maggie to get her scorebook; the game was almost over. Maggie already knew that the Dodgers were winning. As usual, she had been able to hear the broadcast from radios all along the street during her run home from school.
The final out! Joey-Mick jumped to his feet and they danced around the room together, shouting and laughing, and then out the door into the yard, where he grabbed hold of a pair of Dad's dungarees pinned to the line and flung them so that the whole revolving clothesline started spinning madly, and he and Maggie ran in circles around it.
"Joseph Michael!" Mom yelled. Then she had to duck out of the way as the wet dungarees sailed toward her head, and finally she was laughing too. When they had all calmed down a little and were picking up the socks that had whirled off the line, Mom shook a finger at them and said, "Mr. Labine. Did I not tell you?"
Clem Labine's beautiful pitching and a barrage of hits by his teammates had added up to a 10–0 victory over the Giants, Brooklyn piling up run after run as if they would never stop scoring. Game 2 to the Dodgers! The winner of Game 3 would be league champion and go on to play in the World Series!
***
The morning of the third game, Maggie and Joey-Mick grinned at each other as they left for school. They had just emerged in triumph after a fierce discussion with Mom about staying home from school after lunch so they could listen to the game. "Oh, suit yourselves, then!" Mom snapped in the end, but Maggie had the feeling she wasn't nearly as cross as she sounded.
The radio was turned up loud enough so Mom could hear it in the kitchen. Maggie sat in the green armchair as usual, busy with score sheet and pencil. Joey-Mick lounged on the rug and plunked the ball into his glove, thunk—thunk—thunk. Maggie was so used to the sound that she hardly heard it. But whenever Joey-Mick stopped during an exciting play so he could concentrate on listening, she always noticed the gap in that steady beat.
As the bottom of the ninth inning approached, Maggie and Joey-Mick were both fidgeting to contain their joy. The Dodgers had scored three runs in the eighth inning to take the lead, 4–1. Just three more outs and the pennant would be theirs.
The Giants started the inning with two straight hits, followed by an out and a double that drove in a run. But just one; the Dodgers were still ahead, 4–2. Only two outs to go.
With two men on base, Bobby Thomson would be the next batter. Pitcher Ralph Branca came in to relieve starter Don Newcombe.
"Branca?" Joey-Mick exclaimed.
"It'll be okay," Maggie said immediately. She knew what Joey-Mick was thinking: In Game 1 of the playoffs, Thomson had faced Branca and hit a two-run homer. "It'll never happen twice in a row." Joey-Mick nodded.
But if Thomson did manage to get on base, the next batter would be ... Willie Mays. When Red Barber announced that Willie was on deck, Joey-Mick glared at Maggie so fiercely that she could feel the heat of it on the back of her neck when she bent her head down to her score sheet again.
First pitch to Thomson, a strike. Maggie recorded it dutifully. She wrote a backward'S very, very slowly: If I write it slow enough and the next pitch comes before I finish, it'll be another strike. The whole game had been filled with thoughts like that: If I wait one more batter to get a drink of water, the Dodgers will get him out.... If I don't change positions until the end of the inning, the Dodgers will score a run.
She had to cheat and add a tiny extra curl to the tail of the'S so she wouldn't lift the pencil until the next pitch. Then she looked up at the radio.
"Branca pumps ... delivers ... a curve ball. A deep fly to left field—it is ... a home run! And the New York Giants win the National League pennant, and the crowd goes wild..."
Red Barber said nothing more for what felt like ages. All Maggie could hear was the crowd's roar, so loud and incessant that it sounded almost like static, as if the radio was stuck between stations, the noise a perfect match for the buzzing numbness inside her head.
The Polo Grounds had the shortest left-field fence in all of baseball. If the game had been at Ebbets Field—if it had been anywhere else—that hit would never have been a home run. Andy Pafko would have caught it easy as pie.
But it was the Polo Grounds. Game over: Giants 5, Dodgers 4.
Later, Maggie would learn that the Giants' announcer Russ Hodges had screamed over and over, "THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!"—four times altogether, at the top of his lungs. She would also hear that Jackie Robinson had refused to leave the field until Thomson touched all four bases; if he hadn't, the fifth run wouldn't have counted. Jackie was a fighter, that was for sure. Right to the end, and even after the end.
But for now, she sat frozen, pencil in hand, unable to score the final play of the game. If I don't write it down, maybe it didn't happen. The shock had paralyzed Joey-Mick too; neither of them could move enough to turn off the radio.
A ridiculous thought came to Maggie through the numbness. Willie Mays hadn't been involved at all, hadn't come to bat during that awful, horrible, terrible, dreadful inning. Suppose Willie had ended up being the hero instead of Bobby Thomson—what would she have done then?
On second thought, she probably wouldn't have had time to worry about it. Joey-Mick would have killed her first.
***
Dazed, Maggie closed her notebook without scoring Thomson's home run. Joey-Mick jumped to his feet and went upstairs without a word. As he left the room, his face was white an
d stony, as if it was about to break into a million pieces. Although she couldn't hear him, Maggie was sure he was crying. Probably lying on his bed with the pillow over his head.
She couldn't remember the last time he had cried about anything.
Maggie sat there for a while thinking about her prayers. They hadn't worked for the first game, so she had almost decided not to pray for the Dodgers the night before the second game. But at the last minute she had changed her mind. She had done it once, and if she didn't do it again, maybe God would think she hadn't meant it the first time.
The Dodgers had won the second game! So Maggie had prayed again before the third game.
And look what happened.
It hadn't worked.
It really hadn't worked. Ahead until the last swing of the bat and then losing—that was maybe the hardest way of all to lose.
What had gone wrong? Were there more Giants fans who had said prayers than Dodgers fans?
Then Mom called from the kitchen, "Turn off that radio, Margaret Olivia. It's giving me a headache."
Mom didn't use Maggie's full name very often. Only when she was angry. She's not mad at me, Maggie thought. It's the game. She's upset about it, too.
Maggie found that her legs were shaky when she stood and crossed the room. So was her hand as she reached to turn off the Philco. It was strange that she didn't feel like crying herself. In her brain she knew that the Dodgers had lost, but somehow the news hadn't reached her heart yet. Inside she was just ... empty.
Suddenly, she had to get out of the house. She knew exactly what to do: She had to go to the fire-house and hug Charley. And then maybe take him for a walk.
"I'll be back soon," she mumbled to her mother.
Mom nodded, then said, "There's an end from the bologna." Maggie looked at her gratefully and took the scrap of meat from the Frigidaire.
The street was ominously quiet; all the radios had been turned off. Maggie didn't stop at any of the shops to say hello. If anyone looks at me, I probably will start crying.
Charky met her half a block from the firehouse. As always he was tongue-and-tail delighted to see her. Maggie knelt on the sidewalk to give him the bologna. He snapped down the treat while she hugged him fiercely. Then he pranced by her side as she walked on. "You'd be even happier if the Dodgers had won, wouldn't you, boy?" she murmured. "Wait till next year, Charks."
As Maggie neared the firehouse, she could see George and Vince and Terry sitting in front of the bay doors. Jim wasn't there. Maggie was ashamed of the relief she felt, but she didn't think she could face a Giants fan right now. Not even one who was as good a friend as Jim.
"Hey, Maggie-o," George said, but without his usual cheer. The other two greeted her as well, both solemn.
"Hi," she said. And couldn't think of one more word to say.
She went inside the bay doors to fetch Charky's leash.
"Helluva thing," she heard George say. "Just when you thought the day couldn't get any worse."
"Hey," Terry said. "Don't talk like that. It don't mean nothin' yet. We don't even know—heck, he might not get anywhere near the fighting."
What were they talking about? Maggie came out with the leash in her hand. Charky bounded around her. "Down, Charks," she said absently. "George?"
George cleared his throat and looked down at the ground.
"Might as well tell her," Terry said. "She's gonna find out soon enough. Besides, he'd probably want her to know."
He? Who—Jim? Find out what?
George raised his head. "Yeah, Maggie-o, it's Jim. He left right after the game." He paused. Maggie waited in silence, but she was starting to feel itchy.
"He's somethin, our Jim," George went on at last. "The game ends, right? And he asks if he can leave his shift a little early, so he can go celebrate with—with his Giants friends." George said the word "Giants" like it tasted bad. "Then he takes this envelope out of his pocket and sorta waves it at us. 'Gotta get in some good times pretty quick,' he says."
George shook his head. "Helluva thing," he said again.
Terry spoke up. "It was his call-up notice."
"His what?" Maggie asked.
"Army," George said. "Jim's been drafted. He's going to Korea. To the war"
DEAR JIM
1952-53
"You're gonna write to him, aren't you?" Treecie asked.
They were in Mr. Aldo's shop on an errand for Maggie's mom.
Maggie picked out a can of baked beans. "Of course" she said. "As soon as he leaves. Next week sometime."
Before Christmas, Jim had been to basic training camp for several weeks. He was home now for a quick visit; he would be shipping out to Korea very soon.
January—a bad time of year now made even worse, Maggie thought. Whenever baseball season ended, the six months without games felt like a long straight road stretching to a pinpoint on the horizon and beyond it—a road that would never end. November and December weren't too bad; there were all the holidays plus Maggie's and Treecie's birthdays. But New Year's Day was followed by three and a half torturous months: short gray days, cold dull weather, and no baseball. How would she ever get through it?
"Keep busy" was what Mom would say.
Maggie snapped her fingers. "You know what I could do? I could write to him and mail it even before he leaves, and that way it'll get there right when he does and it'll be a big surprise!"
"But where will you send it?"
Maggie hadn't thought of that. How did soldiers get their mail? "I'll ask my dad," she said.
Sure enough, Dad knew what to do: He called Jim's sister in New Jersey to get the address. Dad kept in touch with most of "his boys"—the guys he had hired to be new firemen—but not usually with their families; Maggie was surprised that he knew Jim's sister.
When she asked Dad about it, he said, "She's the only folks he's got left." Maggie knew that, and she thought she understood what Dad meant by saying it: that he was keeping an extra-close eye on Jim. Probably even more so because Jim worked at Dad's old firehouse.
The address was a ship that would leave from Seattle in Washington State. She had never sent a letter to a ship before. And Seattle seemed so far away; it was hard to imagine that Jim would be crossing the whole country and then crossing a whole ocean as well.
January 6, 1952
Dear Jim,
You want to know something funny?
I'm writing this letter at the firehouse
and you're sitting right next to me! You're
reading the paper and I think you think
I'm doing my homework....
Maggie didn't have much to write about since he hadn't even left yet, so she thanked him again for the present he had given her for her birthday: a photograph of Willie Mays. At the bottom was a caption: "Willie Mays, the 'Say-Hey' Kid," and underneath that, "N.L. Rookie of the Year—1951." Jim had explained that when Willie couldn't remember someone's name, he always called out, "Say hey," and that was how he got his nickname.
The photo was taped to the wall above her bed now, and Willie smiled at her every night before she turned out the light.
The firehouse guys had a little goodbye party for Jim. A tray of cold cuts and rolls, and bottles of soda, and folks from the neighborhood stopping in at the end of the day. Maggie and Treecie handed out sodas and napkins; Maggie fed Charky bits from the tray.
As people left, they shook Jim's hand.
"Give those Commies what-for, Jim."
"You show them reds who's boss."
"They're nothin' but yella cowards, Jim. Make 'em run."
Maggie stayed until the end with Dad and helped clean up. Finally, Jim said it was time for him to go. He had to be up early the next day to catch a train.
He shook hands with George and Vince and Terry.
"They won't know what hit 'em," George declared. "Nobody makes a better soldier than a smoke-eater, and that's a fact. You're gonna do us proud, Jim."
Dad shook Jim's hand and gave
him a bear hug and a clap on the back.
Maggie wondered what she should do—shake his hand? Or hug him? Sometimes George gave her a hug, but that was different; she had known him since she was a baby. She didn't have to decide right away, because the next thing Jim did was drop to one knee.
"Hey Charks! C'mere, Charky-boy."
Somehow Charky knew it was a solemn moment, for he walked over instead of bounding, the way he usually did. He nosed Jim's hand, then licked it.
Jim rubbed the dog's neck with both hands. "Charky," he said, "see Maggie there?"
Charky knew her name. He looked at her and pranced in place a little but stayed where he was.
"You gotta keep her company now. When she's scoring a game, or goes for a walk. I'm countin' on you. Okay? Okay, boy?"
The dog barked twice in response. Everyone laughed, and Maggie knelt down to pet Charky, too. "Good boy," she said.
Jim reached over and ruffled her hair. "You take care, Maggie-o."
"You too, Jim."
"Keep them scorebooks up to date."
"I will," she promised.
Then Jim stood and saluted them all. He turned the salute into a little wave as he went out the door.
Charky barked again and ran to the door. Maggie followed him. Together they stood on the pavement and watched Jim walk down the street.
Maggie leaned her leg into the dog's warm fur. "He'll be back soon, Charks," she murmured. "And you know what? We'll have an even bigger party for him then."
With balloons. And me and Treece can make a big banner that says "Welcome home!" And maybe Mom will help me bake a cake....
Jim wasn't even out of sight yet, and already she couldn't wait for him to come home.
One morning a couple of weeks after Maggie sent her letter, Treecie was waiting for her on their usual corner, where they met to walk to school together. Maggie started to run, waving an envelope in the air.
"Treece! He wrote back!"
January 14, 1952
Dear Maggie-o,