Jackie & Me

by Dan Gutman

  I would have, too, but Jackie jumped up from his stool and grabbed me. Ant disappeared into the trainer’s room.

  “I’m gonna kill him!” I seethed.

  “No you’re not,” Jackie said calmly.

  “He called me a ni—” I couldn’t even say the word.

  “What, you’ve never heard that before?” Jackie burned his eyes into mine and poked a finger at my chest. “There will be no incidents, do you hear me? I made a promise to Mr. Rickey when he signed me. He said guys are going to say awful things to me. Guys are going to do awful things to me. They’re going to try to provoke me into fights. If I lose my temper and cause a riot or something, it will be ten, maybe twenty years before another Negro gets this chance. Understand?”

  I didn’t. Not entirely. “Did Mr. Rickey want a ballplayer who was afraid to fight back?” I asked.

  “No,” Jackie said. “He wanted a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back.”

  Jackie went back to his mail and I put my uniform on. I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself. The shirt was big on me, floppy all over. But so was Jackie’s. That’s just the way they wore them in 1947, I guessed. I still looked great. Like a Dodger. I was perfecting my batting stance in the mirror when I noticed Ant behind me.

  “You ain’t no player,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “Let’s get something straight. You’re here to serve the players. You’re just a batboy. I’m your boss. From now on, I want you to call me…Batman.”

  “Batman?” I asked. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Yeah, Batman,” he replied. “What’s so funny about that?”

  “Nothing,” I lied. At least he didn’t insist on calling me Robin.

  “Let’s get to work,” Ant said, hauling out some big boxes marked SPALDING. He opened the boxes and I could see there were hundreds of baseballs inside.

  “What do we do with them, Batman?” I asked.

  “What do you think we do with ’em?” he said, handing me a pen and a piece of paper. “This is Gionfriddo’s signature. Copy it. And remember, two d’s in Gionfriddo.”

  I looked at the piece of paper. It said “Al Gionfriddo” on it in smooth, flowing letters.

  “The batboys autograph the balls?” I asked Ant incredulously. He looked at me as if I was stupid.

  “Well, don’t you think Al Gionfriddo has better things to do with his time than to sit around signing baseballs?”

  Ant left again. I sat down at the table, picked up a ball, and began to write. Al Gionfriddo. I had never done this before. It’s hard to write on a baseball, I realized right away. Al Gionfriddo. There isn’t a lot of room between the seams. Al Gionfriddo. Worse, I was used to writing on a flat surface, so when I got to the “friddo” part and the ball curved down, my hand didn’t move down with it. Al Gionfriddo.

  I kept messing up, and fuming at Ant. He probably gave me the Gionfriddo baseballs because it was one of the longest names on the team. Al Gionfriddo. I remembered the name. In one of my baseball books back home, it said he was a little-known utility outfielder who became famous after he made one of the most spectacular catches in baseball history. Al Gionfriddo.

  I was doing my best to control myself when another white kid walked into the clubhouse.

  “I’m the new batboy,” the kid said.

  “The position has already been filled,” I informed him.

  “But over the phone somebody told me—”

  “Try again next season,” I suggested. The kid left dejectedly.

  After I wrote Al Gionfriddo about a zillion times, my hand felt like a claw. As I was finishing up the last few Gionfriddos, Jackie sauntered by and looked over my shoulder.

  “Nice handwriting.” He chuckled. He said he was going to go out on the field and stretch a little.

  I felt like plunging my hand into some ice water, but Ant showed up again. We got out the bats and balls, put clean towels in each locker and soap and shampoo in the showers.

  “What about the batting helmets?” I asked Ant.

  “Batting helmets?” He looked at me curiously.

  They didn’t have batting helmets in 1947.

  “Where do you come from, Mars?” Ant asked with a mocking tone in his voice.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “You’re pretty stupid, aren’t you, boy?”

  “No,” I replied. I didn’t think that telling him I got all As and one B on my last report card would do a lot of good.

  “Oh yeah?” he challenged. “Can you read, boy? Can you spell cat?”

  “C-A-T,” I said.

  “Hey, you’re a regular genius! I bet you’re so dumb, you don’t even know who the President is.”

  The President? My mind raced. We learned all the presidents in school. I knew that the President during World War II was Franklin Roosevelt. But the war ended in 1945, and this was 1947. I scrambled to think of the presidents who followed Roosevelt. I wasn’t sure of the order. Kennedy, Reagan, Nixon, Ford, Johnson, Bush, Eisenhower, Carter, Clinton, Truman…

  “Truman,” I guessed.

  “Had to think about it, didn’t you?” Ant smirked. “You are stupid.”

  At least I got the answer right. I breathed a sign of relief.

  Ant looked like he was getting ready to humiliate me some more, but the Dodgers started drifting into the clubhouse.

  “Hey, Pee Wee!” Ant shouted cheerily. “Dixie, Skoonj, we gonna go all the way this year?”

  Ant knew all the players, and they all greeted him warmly. Everybody ignored me. I guess they were used to African-Americans doing things for them, so a black batboy wasn’t any big deal. Ant didn’t make any move to introduce me to anybody. I just went about my business, doing the chores he told me to do.

  The clubhouse chatter was loud, funny, and dirty. I don’t think I ever heard so many four-letter words before. The Dodgers seemed to be a really loose team, like one big happy family.

  Jackie came in from the door leading to the dugout. Suddenly, all conversation stopped. I was pretty sure the other Dodgers had been introduced to Jackie during spring training, but maybe the reality of seeing him in their locker room on opening day threw them. Everybody stared at Jackie like he was an intruder. The silence was oppressive.

  “Gentlemen.” Jackie finally cleared his throat and announced, “As long as I have your attention, it seems like this would be a good time to make a short statement. Some of you may not like me because I’m a Negro. You certainly have the right to feel that way. I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being. Regardless of how you feel about me, I hope we can work together on the field. Thank you.”

  The players went back to their conversations, but more quietly. Some whispered among themselves. Nobody came over to talk to Jackie, and he didn’t approach any of them.

  I didn’t know if the Dodgers felt the same way I did, but to me, tension was hanging over the clubhouse like a dark cloud. They no longer looked like a team; they looked like strangers getting ready for work.

  I scanned the clubhouse while I swept the floor. Pee Wee Reese, the shortstop, was a little guy, but he looked like he was one of the team leaders. Carl Furillo, an outfielder, looked very serious. He was quietly rubbing something—it looked like a big bone—over the barrel of his bat over and over again. Hugh Casey, one of the relief pitchers, took a quick swig from a bottle of whiskey and then stashed it in his locker behind some other stuff.

  An old white guy with glasses was sitting on top of a trunk sipping a Coke. I didn’t know who he was, so I walked over to Jackie and asked him if somebody should kick the guy out of the clubhouse.

  “That wouldn’t be such a good idea,” he replied, chuckling. “He’s the manager of the team, Barney Shotton.”

  Dixie Walker, another outfielder, was sitting on a stool in front of his locker writing on a pad of paper. It must be a letter to his mother or his wife, I guessed.

  My dad had a Dixie Walker ba
seball card in his collection, so I knew a little about him. He was a great hitter, that was for sure. He led the National League with a .357 average in 1944. Dixie’s dad and his uncle both played in the big leagues before him. And his younger brother Harry was a star for the St. Louis Cardinals.

  Dixie finished what he was writing, and he walked over to Hugh Casey’s locker. Walker whispered something to Casey, showed him the pad of paper and handed him the pen. Casey read what was written on the paper and signed it.

  Whatever Dixie wrote on the paper, it wasn’t a letter to his mom. I was curious.

  Walker then went over to Bobby Bragan, who was strapping on some catcher’s gear. Bragan listened to what Dixie had to say, and he signed the paper too. It must be some kind of a petition or something, I gathered.

  Next, Dixie came over to Eddie Stanky’s locker. Stanky, I knew, played second base for the Dodgers. When Dixie handed him the pen to sign, Stanky shook his head no and walked away. That was odd.

  As players were starting to file out of the clubhouse to warm up on the field, Pee Wee Reese approached Dixie and asked to see the pad. Dixie handed it to him and Reese read it. He looked at Walker, said a few words, and then he tore off the top sheet of paper and ripped it in half. Reese threw the two pieces in a trash can and walked out of the clubhouse.

  Hmmm. I was dying to know what was on the paper. I waited until all the players had left the clubhouse, and then I reached into the trash and fished it out.

  This is what it said…

  We, the undersigned players of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agree that we wish to be traded rather than take the field with a colored man on our team.

  Underneath that, there were the signatures of Dixie Walker, Bobby Bragan, and a few other players.

  I thought about saving the paper for my collection of baseball memorabilia back home. Those autographs would be worth a lot of money someday. But I decided they were guys I didn’t want to have in my collection. I crumpled up the paper and tossed it back in the trash.

  8

  EBBETS FIELD

  THE DELICIOUS SMELL OF ROASTED PEANUTS HIT ME AS soon as I walked out on the field. Fans were entering the ballpark now, the early birds who loved the game so much they had to watch batting practice. Ant told me we didn’t have much to do until the game started, so I should just hang around and get the players anything they might need.

  “The tickets for forthcoming games will be sold in the marble rotunda,” boomed the public address announcer.

  All the Dodgers were playing catch, loosening up their arms. I was close enough to see the sweat on their faces. They seemed to throw the ball so effortlessly and so accurately. Baseballs were exploding into gloves with a wonderful popping noise, like firecrackers set off one after the other.

  “Hey Stosh, warm me up.”

  It was Jackie, standing around looking uncomfortable. While each of the other Dodgers was playing catch with a teammate, nobody invited Jackie to join them.

  My throwing hand was killing me from signing Al Gionfriddo’s name on all those baseballs, but I wasn’t about to turn down the chance to play catch with Jackie Robinson. He flipped me a glove and I dashed out near the third-base line. The glove, I noticed, was much smaller than the one I had at home. It had hardly any padding or webbing.

  Jackie whipped the ball to me. I had played a lot of baseball in my life, but with kids. Jackie’s throw came at me so fast I was afraid it was going to hit me in the head. Awkwardly, I stuck the glove in front of my face just in time. The ball smacked into the palm of my hand.

  It must have been some kind of involuntary response, but tears gathered in my eyes. My hand hurt so much I thought it was going to come off at the wrist. Now both of my hands were killing me.

  I didn’t want anyone to know the pain I was in, so I pretended it didn’t hurt. I reared back and threw the ball to Jackie as hard as I could. The ball went sailing over his head. Jackie laughed and chased it down.

  “Easy!” he yelled. “Nice and easy.”

  After a few throws, I got used to how hard Jackie threw. Some kids along the left-field stands were watching us, and I felt like turning around and shouting at them, “Hey losers! I bet you wish you were me! I’m playing catch with Jackie Robinson!”

  I discovered that if I moved my hand backward slightly at the moment the ball hit my glove, it cushioned the impact a little. But even so, when Jackie told me he was going to go run a few wind sprints in the outfield, it was a relief. My hand was throbbing, but otherwise I felt great. I couldn’t wait to tell my dad about it.

  “A little boy has been found lost,” the public address announcer informed the crowd.

  The stands were filling up as game time approached. There was the sound of a cowbell clanging. When I looked to see where it was coming from, I spotted a fat lady with stringy gray hair swinging the cowbell over her head. “Home wuz never like dis, mac!” she shouted in a raspy voice that could be could heard all over the ballpark.

  “Butterfly girl in section twenty-three!” Eddie Stanky announced. All the Dodgers turned around to peer up into the stands.

  “What’s a butterfly girl?” I asked.

  “A butterfly girl,” Stanky informed me, “is a girl who’s so pretty that just looking at her gives you butterflies.”

  In the first-base stands, a bunch of guys with a tuba, saxophone, and other musical instruments were playing. They sounded terrible, but nobody seemed to mind. It said DODGER’S SYM-PHONY BAND on their bass drum. When the three umpires came out on the field, the band launched into “Three Blind Mice.” Everybody laughed, including the umps.

  There was no Dodger mascot. Nobody was paid to dress up like a chicken and entertain the fans. The fans entertained themselves.

  The public address announcer boomed, “Will the fans along the outfield railing please remove their clothing?” There was scattered laughter. I wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not. But the people sitting along the outfield fence did take their coats off the railing.

  Most of the Dodgers went out along the first-base line to shake hands, sign autographs, and chat with the fans. Jackie, hesitant, lingered near the dugout. He was scanning the crowd, looking for his wife, I guessed. Hundreds of African-American fans gathered around him.

  They looked different from the white fans. It wasn’t just skin color. They had a look in their eyes. Worship, some of them. Pride, others. Just plain old happiness in some cases.

  The men were dressed in suits and ties. The women were wearing fancy dresses and jewelry. They had dressed up like they were going to church. An old man kept shaking his head back and forth. He must have never thought the day would come when an African-American would be a part of what was always called the National Pastime.

  Dozens of people gathered around, handing Jackie things for him to sign. I saw a little black boy hand Jackie a scorecard. The kid was so awestruck, he couldn’t even get the words out to ask for an autograph. He just stared with his mouth open, like Jackie was a god or something.

  The Braves took the field to warm up and the Dodgers gathered in the dugout. Jackie sat in the corner by himself. I was going to go sit next to him, but Dixie Walker motioned me over to him.

  “Hey kid,” he said, pulling a dollar out of his pocket and handing it to me, “go get me a hot dog, will ya? Everything on it.”

  Most of the Dodgers went out along the first-base line to shake hands, sign autographs, and chat with the fans. Jackie, hesitant, lingered near the dugout.

  I took the bill and went up into the stands until I found a hot dog vendor. He was taking care of a lady with a baby. When she turned around, I recognized her.

  “Mrs. Robinson!” I said.

  “Jackie took a long nap,” she said, shifting Jackie Jr. from one hip to the other, “and then I couldn’t find a cab driver who would stop and pick us up.”

  “You need me to help you get a hot dog?” I asked.

  “No, I hate hot dogs,” she replied.

  The hot
dog vendor reached into his cart with his tongs and pulled out a baby bottle.

  “That should be warm enough,” he told her. She thanked the vendor and gave the bottle to Jackie Jr.

  “I’m glad to see they put you to work,” Mrs. Robinson said before going to her seat. “Joe, after the game I need to talk to you about something.”

  I fished the dollar out of my pocket and ordered a hot dog with everything on it. I was afraid a dollar wouldn’t be enough, but the vendor gave me the dog and handed me ninety cents.

  I rushed back to the dugout. When I gave Dixie Walker the hot dog and the change, he handed the change back to me. That’s a ninety-cent tip on a ten-cent hot dog, I figured. Not bad! Maybe Dixie wasn’t such a terrible guy after all.

  “Mr. Walker,” I said, “can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure, kid.”

  “What do you have against Jackie Robinson?”

  Dixie looked at me, then he looked around, as if he didn’t want everyone to hear what he was about to say.

  “Son,” he said, lowering his voice, “I got nothin’ against Robinson or any of you Negroes. Ya gotta understand, though. I come from Alabama. And where I come from, a pig and a chicken don’t live in the same pen. They’d kill each other. Ya keep everything separate and everyone’s happy. That’s just the way nature works. That’s the way it’s always been. That’s the way it should be. Same thing with white folks and you Negroes. It’s nothin’ personal, mind you.”

  I certainly didn’t agree, but I wasn’t in a position to argue with him. Both teams were starting to line up on the foul lines. A microphone was brought out to home plate and a bunch of guys in Army uniforms gathered around it.

  “Oh say can you see…”

  The players quickly removed their caps and held them over their hearts. Jackie was standing next to Bobby Bragan and a pitcher named Kirby Higbe, but when they realized it, they moved a few feet away from him. That left Carl Furillo closer to Jackie, and he moved away, too.