Oscar’s father said, “Maybe this is what Fenway has to do. It has to let it go somehow.”
“Why are they yelling all of this stuff at us?” Pesky said.
Oscar’s father was pale. He said, “I don’t know why. I just don’t know.”
“They want us to crack,” Pumpsie said.
“We can only beat them if we don’t give in to it,” Jackie said.
“We’ve got to rise above it,” Willie said.
“It’s the only way we can really win,” Oscar added.
With one out in the sixth, Rose tripled to center field. Yawkey came to the plate, waving his arms to stir up the crowd.
“Knock it off,” Oscar told him. “Just play the game.”
“Hey, this is the fun part,” Yawkey said. “You hear that crowd? They love us. We’re their team. We’re not the bunch of misfits you’ve got. We belong.”
“You’ll spend your whole lousy life trying to fit in, Yawkey!” Auntie Oonagh shouted from the dugout. “You’re as much of a misfit as any of us!”
“Shut up! Just shut up.” Yawkey charged Auntie Oonagh, but Oscar stepped in front of him. Yawkey shoved Oscar backward. Oscar’s father quickly got in between the two boys and pulled them apart.
“We belong; they love us,” Yawkey said, bawling.
“Look,” Oscar said, “we all belong.” He thought of his old home with his mother above the dry cleaners and his new home under the pitcher’s mound with his father. It was true. He did belong.
Pinky hollered from the dugout. “What’s this? What’s going on?”
“Just play the game, son,” Oscar’s father said to Yawkey.
“Don’t call him ‘son.’ He ain’t your son,” Pinky said.
Yawkey didn’t say anything. He just stepped back and gave a sneer.
“Play ball,” the umpire said.
Yawkey wiped his face on his sleeve. And when the pitch flew in, he hit it past Pumpsie at third. Pesky dived—his body shot out long and lean—and he knocked the ball down, but that was all he could do. Rose scored, and Yawkey hopped up and down on first, safe.
The game was tied at 3, but only for a moment. Ruth was rattled and threw a wild pitch, allowing Yawkey to advance to second base. After he stole third, Fedelma hit a single, and Yawkey came sprinting home. Yawkey yelled at Oscar’s team, “See, you’re going to lose! It’s already over!”
There was another infield hit, and then Pinky strutted up to home plate and shouted, “You can’t pitch!”
Ruth seemed jangled by it all and walked Pinky to load the bases, but the Bobs weren’t as lucky this time. They swung out of sync and grounded out to end the inning.
The Final Innings
AFTER THAT, NEITHER TEAM COULD score. The seventh and eighth innings flew by with nothing to show for them on either side.
With Auntie Fedelma’s team up and no one on base in the ninth, Pinky ripped a grounder toward Buckner, who was playing deep at first base. The ball was hit so sharply that Buckner didn’t have time to charge.
Oscar saw in his mind the video clip everyone in Boston knew by heart. The hobbling, adult Bill Buckner staggering to the line, bending to the ball, and then lifting his hands in disgust as the ball rolled between his legs and dribbled to a stop in short right field. This time Buckner fielded the ball cleanly and raced to the bag. Pinky beat him by a step.
“Buckner blew it again!” Auntie Fedelma barked. “He’s to blame for keeping the Curse alive. He deserved to be driven out of Boston. Billy Buck couldn’t field a simple grounder.”
“That’s not true! The runner would have been safe, anyway. The Mets would have won the ’86 World Series even if Buckner had made the play,” Oscar shouted, but it was no use. Fedelma just laughed at him. He gave up arguing. “I’ve got a game to play.”
Oscar knew his team needed a runner. They were trailing, 4–3, in the bottom of the ninth. Jackie Robinson was up. “When you get on, you’ll have to steal second,” Oscar told him.
Jackie remained all business. “That’s right; then I’ll score if anyone gets a hit.”
“Yup, easy as that.”
But it wasn’t going to be that easy. As Jackie walked up the dugout steps, a black cat was thrown at him from the stands. A voice, disconnected, rang out across the field. “Look, it’s your cousin!” the voice said, laughing. The heckles rose up the grandstands.
Oscar reached over and took the cat from Jackie, whose arms were shaking. He petted the cat’s soft head. “Never mind all that. Just concentrate,” Oscar said.
“Do we have to do it all alone?” Jackie asked.
“Where are the good guys?”
Oscar shrugged. “I don’t know.” He set down the cat, and it darted quickly off the field.
Jackie strode up to home plate, took some practice swings. And that’s when Oscar first heard a different kind of voice: someone cheering. Jackie heard it, too. He looked out into the stands and gave a smile, a nod.
Oscar jumped up the dugout steps and followed Jackie’s eyes. He saw the hazy figure of a man sitting by himself, off to the edge of the bleachers. “Who is it?” Oscar asked.
Oscar’s father appeared at his side. “It’s Izzy Muchnick,” he said.
“Who?”
“He was the city councilor who pushed the Sox to integrate. He and Jackie became good friends. Muchnick wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Then some other ghosts, black and white, walked up the bleacher steps and sat around him.
“Do you know those guys, too?”
“I think that’s Branch Rickey and Bill Veeck. Reporters, too: Wendell Smith and Sam Lacy,” he said, and he smiled. “The good guys are here.”
Jackie found his steely focus, and Perry seemed rankled by it and walked him. He kicked the rubber as Jackie jogged to first base. Perry pulled another tool from his back pocket. He hunched over the ball, the muscles in his arms flexing with effort. Oscar watched, amazed, and then felt a nudge at his elbow. It was Ted Williams. “It’s taken me a little while to figure this guy out, but I think I’ve got him now. I can see the stitching on the ball when it comes out of his hand.” And with that Williams strode out and took his spot in the batter’s box.
Williams made his smooth warm-up strokes across the plate. Jackie danced off first. Perry threw to first to try to keep him close.
Everyone in the park knew Jackie had to steal second, including Perry, including Gandil. Perry threw over to first again, and Gandil tried to kick Jackie’s hand away from the base; but Jackie seemed to know it was coming and hugged the bag with both arms. Gandil pretended to throw the ball back to Perry; but, actually, the ball was still lodged in his glove.
“Hidden-ball trick,” Oscar yelled. “He’s got the ball!”
Jackie nodded at Oscar and didn’t take his hands off the base until his foot was on it, firmly.
“Not Jackie,” Oscar’s father said to Oscar. “He’s too smart for that.”
Jackie’s savvy irked the ghosts in the stands. Slurs reverberated off the walls of Fenway Park. Something old seemed about to crack.
By the time Gandil gave up trying to outsmart Jackie Robinson and Perry had the ball back in his glove, the ghostly crowd was rabid. Oscar looked over at his father and smiled. Then Oscar’s father said, “Jackie’s going to steal second, and Ted’s going to drive him in.”
“Sounds good to me,” Oscar said.
Perry led into his windup, stepping toward home plate. Jackie took off. Oscar watched the ball dart toward home plate. It was Perry’s first fastball of the game, and it was wide.
“Pitch out!” the whole team yelled in unison from the top step of the dugout. Auntie Fedelma had been waiting for the ball to be pitched wide. She caught it and fired a bullet to second.
Oscar saw Jackie’s cleats turning up the dirt, his sleeves flapping, his eyes glued to second base. Auntie Fedelma’s throw was right on the money, slapping Pinky’s mitt with conviction. Pinky dropped the tag down toward Jackie’s
outstretched hand, but Jackie got there first.
“Safe!” the umpire yelled.
“Safe!” came the cry from the bench.
Oscar looked at Williams now, who smirked and nodded and turned his attention back to Perry. Williams looked at the next few pitches as if he were conducting a science experiment and the results interested him. On the fourth pitch, Williams leisurely cocked his bat and cracked the ball on a line drive to center.
Jackie was already sprinting for third when the ball cleared the infield. Ty Cobb fielded the ball in center, but all he could do was lob it back to his pal Pinky in the infield. Jackie came home.
Game tied, 4–4.
Oscar ran over to the radio and cranked it up just as the announcer was reporting that the Red Sox and the Yankees were now tied, too. Oscar could feel it—all of the years clicking into place; the two games were locked together now.
Jackie smiled for the first time in the game when he met Oscar on the dugout step. “I told you” was all he said.
“I told you!” Oscar said, and then let Jackie pass into the swarm of his teammates.
The voices in the crowd were battling now—the bad against the good. The roars got so loud, Oscar could feel them in his ribs. The air was pulsing. His team loaded the bases but couldn’t score another run.
Extra Innings
THAT’S WHEN OSCAR NOTICED THAT the stands were filling up. Children—other twelve-year-old boys and girls—had started to appear. They hung over the railings and shouted and cheered. They were wearing their pajamas, as if they’d been woken up, too, and had rushed here in a hurry.
“Where did they come from?” Buckner asked.
Oscar called to one. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Ellis!” the boy shouted back proudly.
“Ellis who?” Oscar asked.
“Burks!” the boy said.
“I’m Jim Ed Rice,” said the boy next to him.
Another boy jumped in. “I’m Mo Vaughn. I play baseball, too.”
“I know you do!” Oscar said. “I know you do!”
And then Oscar saw some girls cheering in the stands, too. One of them caught Oscar staring.
“We’re here, too, you know! This game isn’t only for boys!” she said.
“You think you own this sport?” another yelled out. “I can play with anybody!”
The girls introduced themselves—Doris Sams and Marcenia Lyle.
Oscar smiled and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here!” The park seemed buoyed by the kids. The jeering and booing was being drowned out by their giddy whooping.
Ruth mowed down Fedelma’s team in the tenth, and Oscar’s team couldn’t get anything going in their half. Oscar did finally hit the ball; and even though it was a line drive out to Pinky at short, Oscar was proud to have made good contact.
In the eleventh, Ruth went through a bad stretch, allowing the bases to get loaded. Yawkey was up, and Oscar walked out to the mound.
“We’ve got two outs. No way this kid beats us,” Oscar said.
“I don’t know. I kind of feel sorry for him,” Ruth said. “It’s going to hurt.”
Oscar turned to look at Yawkey. He looked small and mean. “What’s going to hurt?” Oscar said.
Babe’s face broke into a mischievous grin. “How bad he’s going to lose this game.”
Oscar walked past Yawkey and settled into his squat.
Yawkey reared back and swung at Ruth’s fastball with all his might.
He connected, and the ball rose into the night, graying with distance as it soared toward center field. No, Oscar thought, it can’t end this way. It just can’t.
But Oscar had forgotten about Willie Mays.
As the ball began to careen back to Earth, Oscar caught a glimpse of the hatless Mays dashing toward an intersection with the ball. He can’t possibly catch it, Oscar thought; he has too far to go, and the ball is sinking fast.
But Mays covered the ground, grass clods flying at his back, and then he leaped and seemed to float on air, arms outstretched, toes pointed, miraculously converging with the ball. Above the sludge of nasty shrieks from the stands there came a subtle pop, and only one sound known to man makes it.
Willie Mays ran across the outfield grass, the ball raised in his gloved hand, the smile impossibly wider than his young narrow face.
Auntie Fedelma was so angry that the cords of her neck were stiff, straining against the red thread.
Even though Mays walked in the bottom of the eleventh and stole second, Oscar’s team could not get him home.
So they went to the twelfth inning. Ruth gave up another single to Fedelma but then got three outs in a row.
Oscar stumbled toward the radio, picked it up, thumbed the volume knob. When he lifted the radio to his ear, he wasn’t surprised to hear that the Red Sox and the Yankees were also playing in extra innings in the present, still tied 4–4.
Oscar’s father was up. The count was three balls, no strikes. He only needed one more ball to get the walk. And, according to the radio announcer, that was the same exact position that Manny Ramirez was in.
Perry’s pitch came in wobbly, looking as if it would be a good bit outside, but Oscar’s father cocked his bat to swing. Oscar put the radio down on the bench. He wanted to yell, “No, you don’t have to!” But his father was already swinging.
It was a hit to shortstop. His father started running. Pinky bobbled the ball. Oscar’s father wouldn’t make it, though, even with the bobble. Oscar could tell. Then something strained against the fabric of his father’s shirt. The shirt tensed and then ripped, and two wide wings unfolded from his father’s back. They whipped open—soft, dun-colored feathers. They spread and began to beat, lifting his father slightly off the ground, speeding him to first.
Oscar had never seen anything so strong and graceful in his life. How could his father have ever been embarrassed by those wings? The ball sailed across the infield, but Oscar’s father was safe.
The bench went wild. Oscar shouted and hooted. His father looked the most surprised of all. He smiled and waved, his wings open, lush and full. He stood tall, ready to take off to second.
Ruth strode to the plate. He shuffled the dirt in the batter’s box, slid his hand up and down the bat to make sure it was clean, and rested the bat against his thigh.
Then Ruth did something Oscar had only seen one other player do: Ruth rubbed his palms together, separated them, and then made a tremendous clap. A vibration rippled the dusty air.
It was a sign, even though Ruth didn’t know it. It was a sign to Oscar, and he knew exactly how to read it.
The clap was David Ortiz’s clap.
Oscar had seen him do it all summer long watching games on NESN on the little black-and-white screen. Oscar held the radio to his ear again. The announcer was talking about Ortiz, who was up at bat; but Oscar was watching the batter’s box. Ruth raised his bat and pointed out a spot in right field.
Jeers and taunts exploded from the stands, but so did the good voices; and the twelve-year-olds were screaming. Everything stirred. The grass seethed. The air buzzed as if filled with hornets.
The Red Sox announcer made the call: “Ortiz, so many times the hero for the Red Sox, trying to have the ball club jump on his back one more time. Here’s the 2–1 pitch.”
A jolt went through Oscar and echoed through his body. He watched Ruth swing the bat with all of his might. The crack of bat on ball came simultaneously from the field and, at the same moment, through the static haze of the radio’s tinny speaker. Oscar rushed up to the top step of the dugout and watched Ruth’s ball fly out of sight. From the radio gripped in his hand, he heard the announcer shout over the noise, “…deep to right, way back, and this ball is gone! Jump on his back, fellas. The Red Sox win!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Broken
EVERYONE RUSHED BABE RUTH AS he crossed home plate: Oscar’s teammates, his father, Auntie Oonagh, Auntie Gormley, and Smoker, Osca
r jostling among them. They leaped around on Ruth, hugging him and one another, shouting and whooping. Everyone was going wild in the stands too: Muchnick, the reporters, and all of the boys and girls in pajamas.
But, amid all of the wild celebration, something strange caught Oscar’s eye.
The red thread.
It had uncoiled and was rising in the air, weaving through the rowdy joy of his teammates, across the infield. Oscar took off running after it.
Auntie Fedelma was running away from her team, too, across the field. Her thread had come off of her neck and was spiraling now as if caught by the wind.
“No,” she shouted. “Stop!”
The threads were quick, slithering through the air. They were headed for the slit in the Green Monster—still lit by the Pooka’s eyes. Just as Oscar and Auntie Fedelma reached the wall, the threads slipped through the slit.
Oscar collapsed on the grass, staring back across the field to his team. “What now?” he said.
Auntie Fedelma, breathless, leaned against the wall. “No,” she sputtered. “No, no.”
And then the door opened. The Pooka stepped out, hunched over his cupped hands. He opened them, and there was the ball—wholly intact—wound up tight, its skins perfectly stitched. He tottered on his hooves. “Look,” he said. “Look!”
Auntie Fedelma backed away from him. “Stay there,” she said. “Don’t come near me!”
The Pooka said her name, softly. “Fedelma, my girl.”
His voice took her breath away. And she and Oscar stared as his large horse head grew smaller. His nostrils shrank and faded. His mane disappeared. His legs became manly. His hooves turned into feet, and then became covered with old leather shoes. A hat appeared on his head. Suddenly he was wearing woolen pants. A shirt flipped over his back and buttoned up the front. He was an old man, weathered but still tough. He grabbed the cuffs of his sleeves. They were held together by red thread. “How is it possible?” he asked Oscar.
“Those are fakes,” Oscar said. “The real threads are in the ball.”