Before the Say Hey Kid is known,
before he plays in center field deep,
I’ll find Willie Mays at twelve years old
and wake him from his dreamy sleep.
Oscar found himself in a closet next to a pair of work boots covered in red dust. He opened the door slowly. There was a boy in a bed—a small boy for twelve, scrawny and short. But his hand—stretched out on his pillow, lit by the moonlight coming in through the window—was huge, like a mitt itself.
There were the sounds of other people sleeping, not far-off. Oscar whispered, “Willie?” He shoved his shoulder. “Willie? Wake up.”
Willie didn’t wake up calmly like Jackie. He jolted upright, his eyes wide. “Who are you? What do you want with me?”
Oscar told him the story, as quickly as he could; and Willie interrupted him when he came to the aunties. “You have aunties?”
“Yeah, two good ones and another who’s kind of sour.”
“I have aunties, too, and an uncle; and they’re good to me. It’s just my daddy, you know, and the aunties here. My mama’s gone.”
“My mom’s gone too,” Oscar said.
Oscar thought of how he’d been stingy with his mother on the phone when she’d called. He’d been punishing her for leaving him. “Look, we need an outfielder who can really catch.”
“I can catch,” he said. “I sure can catch.”
As Oscar led Willie back through the tunnel to the kitchen, Willie told him all about how he was already a batboy; and how his dad, Kitty Kat, played ball in these parts and was really well known; and how he loved the game, how he loved to sprint and run and stretch to catch a ball in midair.
I’ve got to find twelve-year-old Teddy Ballgame—
The Kid, The Splendid Splinter, whatever the name.
Tonight I need his Red Sox career to begin
so that he can help us earn a true win.
There were two beds side by side—a boy in each—but it wasn’t hard for Oscar to figure out which one was Ted. He wasn’t asleep. He was lying there on his back with his hands lifted, squeezing tennis balls. His bed was covered in homemade baseballs: balled-up white rags tied with string. He wasn’t surprised by Oscar. It seemed as if he’d been waiting for someone. While they talked, the other boy, a little smaller than Ted, kicked in his sleep. In another room, not far-off, a man was snoring loudly. Ted let Oscar tell him the story while he tightened the knots on the balled-up rags.
When Oscar asked Ted if he would follow him into the future to play a ball game, Ted was quiet. Oscar looked around the room—small and unkempt, dusty, dingy. It could have used some scrubbing. There was a thin cross hung on the wall, paint chipping all around it. The dresser was missing some knobs. There was an ancient-looking chair with the cane seat blown out.
“It’s a mess. Go on and say it.” Ted got up and walked to the window. He looked up the street. It was dark. “She’s out late,” he said.
“Your mother?” Oscar asked.
“You know her?” he said. “You’ve probably made fun of her, ringing that bell on the street for the Salvation Army. Can’t get enough of helping poor people—like we aren’t poor enough ourselves. She’ll want me to have said my prayers and gone to sleep a long time ago. But I can’t.”
“Where’s your dad?” Oscar asked.
“Passed out.”
He picked up some of the baseballs off the floor.
“You make those?”
“I’ll hit anything. Tennis balls, rags like this. Anything at all.”
“Well, how about hitting tonight.”
“What? We’re going to play in the dark?”
“No, under lights.”
“Lights?”
“They have them rigged up. Trust me.”
Ted’s eyes toured the room. He paused on a photograph on his dresser: a picture of a beautiful woman with brown skin, shiny black hair. His mother, Oscar could tell. He recognized the way Ted seemed to know the picture by heart but still studied it.
Ted said, “I don’t know that there’s anything keeping me here.”
Oscar rubbed his eyes. “Okay then. Let’s go.”
I need to meet Pesky at twelve years old,
when he was a boy just enjoying the game.
We have a new story to unfold,
and Fenway Park will never be the same.
With Pesky there was some confusion at first. Oscar found himself at a ballpark in the middle of the day. The scoreboard showed that the home team was the Portland Beavers. He saw what seemed at first to be a row of ballplayers with billowing shirts; then the shirts flew up, kicked by a breeze. It was only a laundry line of uniforms. Oscar asked a kid at the end of the laundry line if he knew a boy named Pesky. He pointed to a boy sitting alone in the bleachers, watching batting practice. “He’s always here. It’s like he doesn’t have a home or something.”
Oscar walked over to him. “Are you Johnny Pesky?” he asked.
“No,” the kid said, keeping his eyes on the batter.
“You aren’t?” Oscar said, rummaging his pocket, pulling out the sheet of rhymes again. “Are you sure?”
“Am I sure who I am?” the kid asked.
Oscar mouthed through the rhyme again. “Yes, are you sure?”
“I’m Johnny Paveskovich. Some people call me Pesky.” He said his last name with a strong accent. It was a heavy name that lingered in the front of the kid’s mouth. “But it’s not my real name.”
“Paveskovich,” Oscar repeated. “You’re twelve, right?”
“Yeah. My parents are immigrants. They don’t understand America,” Johnny said. He looked down at the book in his arms—a baseball book—his finger hooked on a chapter about Charlie Gehringer. “Baseball’s the American game. Everybody knows that. To be an American you’ve got to love it.”
“You’re the person I’m looking for,” Oscar said.
“Looking for? What do you mean?”
“You feel like playing a ball game in Fenway Park?”
Johnny looked at Oscar wide-eyed. “Are you kidding me? Who wouldn’t love that? I’ve wanted to do that all my life.”
“I’ve got a deal for you, Pesky,” Oscar said. “A real sweet deal.”
Twelve-year-old Bill Buckner dreams at night
of meeting the fastball just right.
We need him playing first
if we’re going to break the Curse.
When Oscar knocked his head on a pipe and tumbled out of a cabinet door onto hard floor, a boy was standing over him with a bat swung back over his head. “Who are you? What are you doing in there?” The boy was lean and muscular, with a faint mustache.
“Don’t kill me,” Oscar said. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I just came to talk to you.”
It was Buckner. He’d been woken by the neighbors fighting and had been listening at the kitchen window. While Oscar explained who he was and why he was there, Buckner stayed at the open window, still listening to the fight, the bat gripped in his fists. When Oscar asked him if he’d come play, he said, “Tonight? Fenway Park?” He was tempted. “Jan’s asleep. Maybe she wouldn’t notice.”
“Who’s Jan?”
“My older sister. She keeps me straight.”
The neighbors started up again. The man was cursing now at the top of his lungs.
“Don’t you hate that. Who can sleep through it?”
“You could shut the window,” Oscar said.
“No,” Bill said. “Then I couldn’t hear them, you know, if the woman needed help or something….”
“Oh,” Oscar said.
“I can’t leave,” Buckner said, gripping his bat, his eyes fixed on the neighbor’s house. “Not until it dies down at least or the old man out there runs out of steam. He’s drunk. He usually just gives up, but you never know. What if I’m the only one paying attention? The only one who can help her?” he said. “Can you wait?”
Oscar nodded. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll wait.”
/>
And so they did. They drank milk and talked baseball while Buckner kept watch at the window. He was right. Finally the old man gave up. They both stood at the window and watched the woman walk through the house, straightening furniture, turning out lights.
Then Buckner put the bat under his arm, pulled on a ball cap. “Okay,” he said. “Now we can go.”
I need to find Pumpsie Green
before he’s even turned thirteen.
I’ll find him all alone at night, wide-awake,
and tell him there’s a curse to break.
Pumpsie was the only one Oscar couldn’t convince to come along. Oscar spotted him through a crack in the closet door—a boy with dark skin and dark eyes, sprawled out on a tired sofa but, like Williams and Buckner, not asleep. When Oscar stepped out of the closet, Pumpsie wasn’t afraid.
“Is this part of some prank my brothers put you up to? Look, I’m tired. I’ve been working all afternoon, working for my mother—on the farm, in the neighborhood. I’m so tired I can’t sleep. My legs are twitching. I almost have enough to buy a baseball glove. A three-finger one. A Caledonia.” He smiled and leaned back and closed his eyes. “A Caledonia.”
“No, this isn’t a prank,” Oscar said, and he told him the whole story—the Curse, the ball game—and why he needed him. “I need you,” Oscar said.
“The Red Sox need you.”
“The Red Sox need me?”
“In the future.”
“You know the future? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, see, you’re going to be the first black player on their team one day.”
“Not me,” Pumpsie said. “I’d like to play for the Oakland Oaks, but the majors? No. I’m just a kid.” Pumpsie paused. “You think they’re going to let black players play in the majors?”
“Yes,” Oscar said. “Jackie Robinson is going to be the first. He’s going to meet with Branch Rickey, and Rickey’s going to talk Robinson through being turned away from hotels, dining rooms, and railway cars, and prejudiced sportswriters and fans. And then he’s going to get right up in Robinson’s face and ask him what he’s going to do when some angry player hauls off and punches Robinson right in the cheek. And Rickey’s going to pretend to punch him, and he’ll shout at him, ‘What do you do?’”
It was quiet for a moment. “And what is Robinson going to say?” Pumpsie asked.
“He’s only going to whisper, ‘Mr. Rickey, I’ve got two cheeks. That it?’”
Pumpsie stared down at his shoes. “And is that going to be it?”
“No,” Oscar said. “That’s just going to be the beginning.”
Pumpsie sat up then, swung his feet to the floor, rested his elbows on his knees. He looked really tired now, suddenly, like an old man. He shook his head. “I don’t know. I just feel like I’m about to get punched. I feel all tight inside. Have you ever had that feeling?”
Oscar nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“I can’t play for you tonight,” Pumpsie said. He shook his head and stared at the floor.
“I understand,” Oscar said. “I know. It’s okay.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Lineup
WHEN OSCAR CRAWLED OUT THROUGH the doorway of the Door to the Past, everyone was there, waiting for him in the warm kitchen.
Buckner was standing with his bat still clutched under his arm. Willie’s eyes were darting around nervously. Pesky was jumpy, too, fiddling with the strap on his glove. Auntie Oonagh had warmed some hot dogs, and Jackie was putting his plate in the sink. Ruth picked up two more hot dogs and finished them off in big gulps. Auntie Gormley and Smoker watched the kid eat, a little awestruck.
Pesky pulled Oscar aside and whispered urgently, “That’s Babe Ruth right there.” He pointed to Ruth, who was chugging a glass of milk.
“I know,” Oscar whispered back, and then he raised his voice. “Okay, here we all are. Except for Pumpsie.”
“Pumpsie Green?” Buckner asked.
“Right,” Oscar said. “He couldn’t make it.” He glanced up at his father, who seemed to understand that it hadn’t been easy with Pumpsie.
“We don’t have time to replace him,” Auntie Oonagh said.
“Nope, we’ll just have to go forward,” his father said.
Oscar cleared his throat and went on. “So, here we are: Babe Ruth.” Ruth bounced his eyebrows. “Jackie Robinson.” Jackie nodded solemnly. “Willie Mays.” Willie flashed a smile while sizing up the team. “Johnny Pesky.” Johnny gave a salute. “Ted Williams.” Ted tipped his cap nervously. “And this is Bill Buckner.”
Buckner looked stunned. He leaned over to Oscar. “You didn’t tell me who I’d be playing with!”
“I know. I know. Sorry,” Oscar said.
“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Buckner said, slapping Oscar on the back. “I don’t know how it’s possible. I have no idea! But I like it.”
Oscar went on with the introductions. “And me, Oscar Egg. My dad, Malachi Egg. Auntie Oonagh. Auntie Gormley, and Smoker.”
“Ruth is going to pitch. Buckner’s on first. Jackie’s on second. Willie Mays plays center. Pesky is shortstop. I’ll be catcher. Smoker will play third—the hot corner. My dad will play left field. Ted will play right. Auntie Oonagh and Auntie Gormley will be our subs. Got it?”
They all nodded.
Auntie Oonagh started pacing. She said, “Oh, I don’t know! I just don’t know!”
“Know what?” Oscar asked.
“I look at these boys and think of all the wrongs that are going to be committed. The Red Sox, oh, so much of this they’ve brought on themselves! I don’t know if the Curse can be reversed.” Her cheeks flushed with sudden anger. “I don’t know if it should!”
“If they’re so bad,” Jackie said, “I don’t know if I want to help them break the Curse.”
The other boys nodded.
Willie said, “Why should we, anyway?”
Oscar looked up at his father. His father stared back at him. Why should they? he seemed to be asking with his eyes. Oscar thought about how much his father had disappointed him all of these years. He thought of the sickly man hunched over the wrong order at Pizzeria Uno who hadn’t ever fought to be with his mother, with him, and who’d just let the Curse be the Curse all of those years. But ever since he brought Oscar here into this world, he’d been a great father. He was truly a good man, only cursed. And how could Oscar not forgive him for that? Oscar didn’t know the whole story of what had happened between his father and mother, and he knew he never really would; but, right now, he could feel his forgiveness rising up. He felt it tighten his chest.
He turned to the group of boys. He said, “It’s better to forgive people. It’s better to forgive them for their future wrongs. It’s better to go out there and let that forgiveness make things right. Ugliness and racism and meanness have ganged up to make things wrong. It’s only forgiveness—your forgiveness—that’s stronger than this curse.”
The boys looked around at one another. Some were nodding already. Others still weren’t so sure.
“Plus,” Oscar said, “this is a taste of what’s going to come your way. You’ll get to see a little of your future, and maybe knowing what’s to come will give you the confidence you’ll need later to get you through.”
Willie just got on with it. “Okay,” he said, “who are we playing against? I like to know the competition.”
Oscar’s father smiled at him. The boys were in, for good. Oscar smiled back. Oscar’s father told Willie, “It’s time to go find out.”
And so, one by one, they herded through the doorway of the Door to the Past—all of the ballplayers Oscar had collected first, then Smoker, Auntie Oonagh, and Auntie Gormley holding tight to the weasel.
Oscar and his father were about to head through next, but Oscar stopped. It was just the two of them in the kitchen now. Oscar said, “There’s something I want to know before we go on. I want to know if you were surprised.”
/> “Surprised? By what?”
“Were you surprised that you’d adopted a mixed-race child. I mean, maybe you got tricked; maybe you didn’t know.”
“I knew, Oscar, from the beginning,” his father said. “And I was surprised too, because the moment I held you, you were mine. I didn’t know it would feel like that.” He leaned down and kissed Oscar on the forehead in a way he hadn’t done since Oscar was little. When Oscar looked up at his father, he saw that his father’s eyes were wet with tears. His father smiled broadly. “Go on now,” his father said. “We’ve got a game to win.”
Oscar crawled in through the doorway. His dad followed. They huddled in the tunnel with all of the others. Oscar pulled out his piece of paper and read the final rhyme he’d written:
We need to meet Auntie Fedelma’s team in the past
so that we can break the Curse at last.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Auntie Fedelma’s Team
OSCAR AND HIS TEAM EMERGED from the Red Sox dugout and stood in a loose row near home plate. The field stretched out before them, broad and green, the lines white, the bases gleaming. All around, the stands seemed to be leaning in. The moon was up in the sky, straight up, gazing down at them unblinkingly. The lights too seemed to be watching them. One of the slits in the Green Monster was lit up by the Pooka’s glowing eyes. Surely he was inside, winding the cursed ball.
This was Fenway Park on an off night in the past, but there was no mistaking that in the present reality it was also Game 4 of the Red Sox–Yankees playoffs. Auntie Oonagh had brought the transistor radio with her, and it squawked from a corner of the dugout. The park felt electrified. The seats were empty, but there was still an intensity of energy all around the players.
Clem, the umpire, was pacing behind home plate. He wore a bow tie and a black cap with a button on top. The other team was warming up. The pitcher—a lanky twelve-year-old—was lobbing slow pitches at the catcher: Auntie Fedelma, bulked up by a chest protector. She’d loosened her wings and was using them to flutter up to catch a ball that bounced off the front edge of home plate. How? Oscar wondered. She was nearly blind!