by Paul Haven
“What? That's the stupidest punishment I've ever heard,” Danny said. “Why piano lessons?”
“My parents are very cruel people, Danny,” Lucas said. “I think one time many years ago I said that the thing I would hate most in the world would be piano lessons. They must have written it down somewhere and just waited.”
“What about you, Molly?” Danny asked.
“Actually, I'm not in trouble at all,” she said. “But my mother said that I am supposed to tell you, ‘You are a bad influence, Daniel Gurkin.'”
“I guess I am,” Danny laughed.
They sat down on a park bench and discussed every pitch of the Sluggers game, especially the home run.
“What a shot!” Molly said. “And did you see that pitch to Mazoo? That thing hit him square in the head.”
“You know,” Lucas said, leaning over on the bench as if he had a secret to share and turning his head from Molly to Danny. “I won the game for them.”
“Say that again?” Danny said.
“I won the game for the Sluggers,” Lucas explained. “I watched the entire ninth inning with the volume turned down on the television, and it worked.”
Danny couldn't believe his ears. Some people!
First his mother and now Lucas. Could there be any doubt who had really won the game for the Sluggers? But Danny kept quiet.
“And I dedicate my victory to my late bicycle,” Lucas continued. “It perished for a noble cause.” Molly and Danny took off their caps and put their hands over their hearts in mock respect.
Sizzling Sid Canova
Sid Canova was nervous. He paced around the back of the mound. He rubbed the ball in his hands. He took his cap off and talked to himself.
Finally, the young pitcher strode onto the mound, placed his right foot on the pitching rubber, and looked in toward the batter.
Straight into the television camera. Straight into Danny's living room.
Danny was lying on his back on the floor, directly in front of the television, his head resting on a pillow he'd grabbed from the couch. Lucas had draped himself over the easy chair Max usually went for, and Molly was sitting on the edge of the couch. Each had a half-eaten hot dog in one hand, the remains of a hasty order from Willie's cart.
Danny had insisted.
“I'm sorry to be bossy,” he'd said on the walk over from Quincy Park. “But with Canova on the mound, we can't take any chances.”
As Willie topped the hot dogs with onion goop, Danny, Molly, and Lucas told him about the trip to the Boddlebrooks mansion.
“You say there were doors shaped like hot dogs, a room covered in sauerkraut, and an old geezer with eyes that went off in different directions?” Willie asked after they had finished the story. “Now, that I've got to see.”
“You should make up your apartment like that,” Lucas said. “You know, with hot-dog doors and sauerkraut wallpaper.”
“Oh, I don't know, Lucas,” Willie said. “When I'm not selling hot dogs, I like to do other things. I don't think I'd want to take my work home with me.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Lucas replied, stuffing the corner of the first hot dog into his mouth. He gobbled up a strand of sauerkraut that was left dangling from his lip.
Danny had called his mother from a pay phone and was surprised when she'd suggested he bring his friends over for the game. He wasn't sure if it was a peace offering or an attempt to get the three accomplices together in one room.
Canova shook off the first three signs from the Sluggers' catcher, Chico Medley. He was already perspiring, and the game hadn't even started.
“Come on, Sid!” Lucas yelled from the easy chair. “Let's go! Two in a row!”
Finally, Canova delivered the first pitch, serving up a fat fastball right down the middle of the plate. He might as well have walked it over on a platter with some eggs and bacon for Bruisers batter Finnigan Clark, who crushed the ball right back toward the mound.
“Look out, Mary! Base hit up the middle,” said Bullet Santana, the Sluggers' television announcer. Canova was no longer staring in at the camera. He was sprawled on the mound with his feet up in the air and a look of terror in his eyes.
“That ball almost took his head off,” said Santana's partner, Wally Mandelberg. “Folks, if Canova seems distracted, it's because he just saw his young life flash before his eyes. Give him some space.”
“Whoa! That was a close one,” Molly said.
“Not a good start,” Danny admitted.
“Ugly,” said Lucas.
Canova gave up another hit, and then another and another. Nothing he threw seemed to be fooling anybody. The Bruisers batters sprayed the ball all over the field as if they were playing tennis.
“How do you like that, folks? The Sluggers are already down two to nothing and my seat isn't even warm yet,” Santana said. “Canova looks rattled out there.”
The young pitcher slammed his mitt into his thigh and stared up at the sky. He held the baseball up to his face and started shouting at it as manager Finchley Biggins and the Sluggers infielders huddled around him for a meeting.
“What do you think they're saying to him, Bullet?” Mandelberg asked.
“Well, I don't think they're making dinner plans!” Santana quipped. “Somebody ought to hold up a couple of fingers and make sure that kid can still see straight.”
“You guys, put your baseball caps on backward,” Danny instructed Molly and Lucas. “Sid needs some help.”
Danny got up and went into each room in the apartment, pushing down on the windows to make sure they were all closed firmly. He didn't want anything to jinx Canova.
His mother was in the kitchen drying her hands.
“I'm just coming in to watch,” she said, before noticing the look on Danny's face. “Or do you think I should do some dishes first instead?”
“I think dishes,” Danny said. “Lots of dishes.”
Danny had one more window to check. He pressed open the door to his room and stepped inside. The window was indeed open, and Danny pushed down on the sash until it was closed tightly.
“That ought to do it,” he thought, and turned to go back to the others.
Danny was about to close the bedroom door behind him when he stopped in his tracks. He slipped back into the room, reached under his mattress, and pulled out the Kosmic Kranberry.
It had only been twenty-four hours since the amazing trip to Boddlebrooks's mansion, but it already seemed like a dream. He just wanted to take a quick peek at the star-spattered packet to make sure it was really there.
Before he knew it, Danny had unpeeled another stick of gum and slipped it in his mouth. He puckered his lips as the awful taste oozed over his tongue. Then he got up and scurried back into the living room.
“What's that smell, dude?” Lucas asked almost immediately. “It smells like Thanksgiving dinner or something.”
“Oh, just some gum,” Danny said, trying to sound as casual as possible. “Sorry, I only have one piece.”
Canova had somehow managed to get out of the inning while Danny was away, but the Sluggers were down 3–0. Lydia Gurkin had washed all the dishes twice and came in to watch, sitting down next to Molly on the sofa.
Sam Slasky led off the bottom of the first inning for the Sluggers, and the television flashed his statistics—a. 237 batting average with just two home runs and fourteen runs batted in. Not exactly the kind of numbers that will get you into the Hall of Fame. But Slasky had stopped his run of strikeouts at seventeen the night before, so things were looking up.
The Bruisers pitcher was a hard-throwing kid from Wyoming named Brockton Kern. He was blond and beefy, like a lifeguard, and he threw the ball just one way.
Fast.
In the off-season, Kern had been on a safari in Kenya when a 280-pound lion charged out of the bushes straight at him. Kern was unarmed except for a baseball he always kept in his jacket pocket. Suffice it to say, the lion was now a rug at Brockton Kern's summer house.
And Slasky was no lion.
Bang!
“Did you see that?” shouted Mandelberg. “He hit it! And not only that, he crushed it!”
The ball shot off Slasky's bat like a rocket and out toward the center field wall. The Bruisers center fielder ran toward the wall and leapt in the air, but he had no chance. The ball settled into the stands, ten rows back.
“Home run!” Danny cheered.
“Yahooooooooo!” screamed Molly, Lucas, and Mrs. Gurkin.
Kern looked stunned. No 152-pound weakling like Slasky had ever touched him for a home run, certainly none that played for the Sluggers, the worst team in baseball.
It was inconceivable.
It was 3–1.
But Slasky's home run was only the beginning. Chuck Sidewinder doubled. Boom-Boom Bigersley singled him home. P. J. Planter laid down a surprise bunt base hit, and Spanky Mazoo smashed another home run to make it 5–3 Sluggers.
Brockton Kern suddenly seemed two feet shorter. His massive chest had deflated, and his eyes held a look of utter confusion.
“That lion must have been a pussycat,” Danny thought with delight as he, Molly, and Lucas waggled their arms in front of their chests like zombies.
In the second inning, Canova mowed down the Bruisers one-two-three, and after that the Sluggers went back on the attack, knocking Kern around like a piñata.
By the sixth inning it was 14–3, and every Sluggers player had at least two hits. Kern was long gone by then, having showered and left the stadium for an emergency phone session with his psychologist.
Canova, on the other hand, seemed to be getting stronger with every batter. When he came out for the ninth inning with the Sluggers up 19–3, the crowd gave him a huge ovation. Danny, Molly, Lucas, and Mrs. Gurkin were standing too, their voices hoarse from all the cheering they'd been doing.
“Mow 'em down, Sid!” Lucas screamed after the first batter struck out.
“Take us home!” Molly yelled as the second batter fanned too.
“One more to go!” Lydia Gurkin shouted as the last Bruisers batter, Bill Bagwell, stepped to the plate.
“Folks, we are on the verge of history here,” Santana gushed. “The Sluggers haven't scored nineteen runs in a game since 1957, and they lost that game twenty-three to nineteen! Heck, they go months sometimes without scoring nineteen runs combined.”
“You know, Bullet, I've been pinching myself all night,” Mandelberg said. “I keep thinking the alarm clock is going to go off and I'll wake up and be an announcer for the worst team in baseball again instead of for a team that's about to win two in a row. This is uncharted territory!”
The two announcers ran through the big-league scoreboard. The Tornadoes had lost, so the Sluggers were on the verge of picking up another game. They would still be fifteen games out of first place, but at least they were heading in the right direction.
The stadium crowd was on its feet as Canova turned his attention to Bagwell and delivered.
“Strike one!” screamed the umpire.
Bagwell stepped out of the batter's box and rubbed his eyes. How could Canova still be throwing this hard after nine innings?
“Strike two!”
Even Canova looked a little surprised at how much velocity he'd gotten on the ball. One strike to go.
This time Canova threw a curveball. Not just any curveball, however. This was a thing of beauty, starting in at Bagwell's head and then biting sharply toward the plate as if it were on a string. It hit Chico Medley's mitt with a thump. Bagwell didn't even wait for the umpire's call before he started walking back to the dugout.
“STRIKE THREE!” the umpire screamed, jabbing his right hand in the air like an exclamation point.
“The Sluggers have done it again! That's two in a row,” Santana shouted. “My friends, get out your dictionaries and turn to the back. I think that's where you'll find the definition of a winning streak!”
The New Caretaker
It took several weeks for Skidmore Boddlebrooks to get the courage up to visit his dead brother's mansion, though he had heard reports that the old man who had interrupted his party had already made himself at home, cleaning and dusting every room of the massive house.
Strangely, the Sluggers had been playing well ever since the man had moved in. The team was in first place for the first time in nearly thirty years, and they looked to be heading for a pennant. That summer, the summer of 1934, was shaping up to be perhaps the most glorious in memory. The sun shone nearly every day, the sky was a deep and satisfying blue, and Winning Streak Stadium was packed to the last seat.
It was a time of great optimism, and great profits.
Skidmore's driver held open the door of the mustard yellow Rolls-Royce and stood at attention as his boss got out of the car. Skidmore scowled as he glanced up at the enormous double hot-dog doors, the round windows, and the baseball-bat towers of the impossibly red building in front of him.
“What a monstrosity,” he mumbled to himself as he made his way to the door. “I should have torn this place down long ago.”
Skidmore grabbed hold of one of the enormous S-shaped knockers and banged impatiently. He wanted to get this over with.
He stood and waited.
He looked at his watch.
“Who is it?” said a voice from an upstairs window. “Do you have an appointment?”
“I say! This is Skidmore Boddlebrooks. Open this door at once,” Skidmore huffed, leaning an arm on the wood frame and rapping his walking stick against the ground.
When the door didn't open immediately, Skidmore knocked again.
“Yes, yes. Hold your horses,” said the voice, but it was several minutes before the door creaked open, and Skidmore found himself standing once again face to face with the stooped old gentleman. He looked the same, except this time he was chewing a stick of extremely smelly gum.
Skidmore scrunched up his nose in disgust. He couldn't help noting that their roles had reversed, with the old man standing inside the doorway of the great house looking out at him. It was not a feeling Skidmore appreciated, especially since he'd never actually given the man the job of caretaker. How had this happened? Skidmore thought.
“I've been expecting you,” said the old man, looking his visitor up and down disapprovingly. “What took you so long?”
Skidmore almost fell backward. He had promised himself that he would not allow this strange little man to get the better of him.
“You are a mustard millionaire. You are a man of consequence. What are you afraid of?” Skidmore had asked himself in the mirror that very morning as a servant buffed and polished his mustard yellow shoes.
But standing eyeball to eyeball with the man, Skid-more again found it hard to stand firm.
“Sir, this is my mansion, after all,” Skidmore said. “I can come and go as I please, don't you think?”
“It's Manchester Boddlebrooks's mansion,” said the old man flatly.
The impertinence! Skidmore was of half a mind to chuck the old man out, but he couldn't get the words out of his mouth. They stuck in his throat in a way that was most unbecoming of a man of such vast wealth.
“Well, Mr…. What did you say your name was?” Skidmore asked. It was all he could manage.
“I didn't,” said the man.
“Well, what is your name?” Skidmore said impatiently.
The man lifted his head as high as he could, so that for the first time he was staring directly into Skidmore's eyes. He was actually quite tall when he uncoiled his body, and not nearly as old as he appeared when bent over. He might even have been younger than Skidmore himself, but there was a long history written in the lines of the man's forehead, and some unknowable story in the glint of his one good eye.
“My name? Errrr … well, that would be, ah … um,” said the man, his wandering eye scanning the line of trees on the edge of the driveway behind Skidmore, who was so mesmerized by the man's face that he was barely listening.
“The name's
Sycamore,” the caretaker said finally. “Seymour Sycamore.”
On a Roll
After the game against the Bruisers, the Sluggers went on a roll the likes of which had not been seen in seventy-two years. They flew out west and swept the Oakland Ogres 11–2, 15–3, and 8–0, then destroyed the Minnesota Muckrakers 12–4, 8–1, and 17–0.
Danny had been a superstitious fan long enough to know that you don't mess with success. Something he was doing was working, and Danny made sure he stuck with it. He wore his grimy EL SID shirt, avoided stepping on a single crack in the sidewalk, kept up his regimen of two hot dogs with everything, and started chewing the Kosmic Kranberry for every pitch.
The Sluggers climbed out of last place that Saturday evening, or as it was better known in the Gurkin household, the Night Before the Day Before School Starts.
The next day was promptly declared a Day of Sluggabration by Mayor Fred Frompovich. The mayor ordered all police, bus drivers, and firemen to wear Sluggers caps instead of their normal headgear, and reserved the highest flagpole at City Hall for a thirty-foot-high replica of the Sluggers' only World Series banner. That last bit had been Danny's idea, and he was thrilled when his father suggested it to the mayor.
“In this city, Danny, a politician can never be too big a Sluggers fan,” Harold Gurkin said with a sly smile.
Frompovich's opponent tried to get in on the act, swearing that as mayor he would build a new stadium and attend every game in it, but he couldn't match the mayor's enthusiasm. With less than two months to go until election day, Frompovich was now slightly ahead in the polls, and most of his advisers said it was due entirely to the Sluggers.
Danny wasn't alone in thinking his superstitions were behind the Sluggers' success. As the team won, people all over town started to come forward to claim that they had something to do with it.
A grandmother on Drew Street said she had started knitting a scarf on the day the winning streak started and wouldn't stop until the Sluggers won the World Series. A dentist on Park Way claimed the team had only begun playing well after he decided to fill cavities on the left sides of people's mouths on game days and make those with right-sided cavities wait until off days. A university professor swore the secret was his simultaneous translation of all Sluggers broadcasts into a little-known dialect of Cantonese.
