Two Hot Dogs With Everything

by Paul Haven

  Simply put, the city had caught Sluggers fever.

  College students vowed not to bathe until the team was in first place. Construction workers got watermelon red Sluggers tattoos etched into their arms. Restaurants concocted dishes they promised would bring good luck: chicken Thelonius, mashed potato Mazoo, and spaghetti à la Sid Canova, among others.

  All over the city, people held their heads higher. Their eyes were a little brighter, and their chests a bit fuller with pride. If losing was a disease, than the long-suffering Sluggers faithful had finally found the cure.

  Still, catching the Texas Tornadoes would take a miracle. The Sluggers were eleven games out of first place with only nineteen games left in the season. Even making the play-offs as a wild-card team would be next to impossible, with most of the league still ahead of them.

  Danny was sitting at the kitchen table reading the sports page and slurping down a bowl of cereal when the phone rang.

  It may have been a Day of Sluggabration, but it was also the last morning before the doors at John J. Barnibus would swing open on a new school year and slam shut on a summer of freedom. It was the last day before Danny, Molly, and Lucas would be tossed under the treads of the Sherman Tank.

  “What would you say if I told you I had tickets for the game against the Tornadoes tonight?” said the breathless voice on the other end of the phone.

  It was Molly.

  “I'd say, 'I'll kiss Mrs. Sherman on the lips and do your history homework for a year if you take me with you,'” Danny replied.

  “That would be amusing but unnecessary,” said Molly. “And I'm better than you at history anyway.”

  “This is true,” Danny admitted. “Okay, you name it, I'll do it.”

  “Actually, you don't have to do anything. Just help my father with an article he's writing,” Molly said. “He asked me who my most superstitious friend was, and of course I said you. He wants to interview you about the things you do to help the team, and he wants to do it from the press box. There's a pass for Lucas too.”

  “The press box!” Danny shouted. “That's the coolest thing ever.”

  “I told him about the hot dogs and the way you don't step on cracks in the sidewalk and all that stuff, and he's convinced you're even crazier than all the other people,” Molly said. “He just kept saying, ‘Perfect, perfect, perfect!’”

  “Really? He said that?” Danny asked. “Do you think he meant perfect good or perfect bad?”

  “I dunno,” Molly said. “He just said ‘perfect.'”

  “Hmmm,” Danny said. He wasn't sure whether to be flattered or insulted.

  “Hey, Mol, who's pitching for the Tornadoes?” Danny asked.

  “It's Ruffian,” Molly replied. “And he's promised he's going to crush the Sluggers tonight. Actually, he said it with a Swedish accent, so it didn't sound that menacing, but he seemed to really mean it.”

  Winning Streak Stadium

  There is something unspeakably beautiful about a big-league ball field, and the first glimpse is always the best. From the press box, Winning Streak Stadium stretched out before Danny like a painting, with its lush green grass, its rich brown base paths, and its vivid white foul lines. Danny was so close to the field that he could see the smile on Boom-Boom Bigersley's face as he joked with Sid Canova near the third baseline and hear Spanky Mazoo clear his throat before launching a giant wad of spit into short center field, as if fifty-five thousand people weren't piling into the stands to watch him.

  It was perfect.

  Ebenezer Gurkin, Danny's grandfather, had put it best when he took Danny to his first-ever Sluggers game at the age of three and a half.

  “A baseball stadium isn't real life,” Ebenezer had told Danny. “It's what real life should be.”

  Danny hadn't really understood what he meant at the time, partially because Grandpa Ebenezer's false teeth had fallen out in the middle of the sentence, and partially because Danny was so young. But he understood now.

  The press box was a wide gallery with three long rows of desks, each raised slightly higher than the one in front. At each desk, dozens of reporters sat talking into cell phones and tapping away at laptop computers.

  At the far end of the room was a table with five different types of soda, Gatorade, mineral water, piles of thick salami and tuna fish sandwiches, and bowls filled with enough peanuts, popcorn, and potato chips to feed an army.

  “Wow!” Lucas had said when they entered, making his way immediately for the food.

  The evening had begun an hour earlier with a pregame pilgrimage to Willie's cart, where Jim Fitch, Molly's father, did his best to get his head around the ins and outs of Danny's hot-dog rule book.

  “Does it matter if any of the sauerkraut or the onion goop falls on the ground?” Mr. Fitch asked.

  “Well, clearly, that wouldn't be good,” Danny answered between bites.

  “I see,” said Mr. Fitch, scratching in his notebook. He was a bear of a man, well over six feet tall, with an athlete's build but an accountant's sense of precision, and he stared intently at Danny as he belted out his questions.

  “What if you came here one day and, say, Willie wasn't around. Would you just go somewhere else for your hot dogs?” said Mr. Fitch, waving his pen in the air.

  Danny thought for a minute.

  “Willie's always here,” he replied.

  “I am always here,” Willie concurred.

  “Uh-huh,” Mr. Fitch said. “Okay, last question. What kind of dogs are we talking about here? All-beef? Have you ever tried a blood sausage or a bratwurst? How about veggie franks?”

  “I never thought about any of that, to be honest,” Danny said. “But I'd guess anything in the hot-dog family would help the team, as long as Willie was the one serving it.”

  “Great,” Mr. Fitch said, sticking the notebook in his back pocket. “We're done here.”

  Now that they were at the stadium, Mr. Fitch had a million more things he wanted to get cleared up. He watched Danny intently as Sluggers left-hander Vince Spagu took the mound and delivered the first pitch. Danny had never been asked so many questions in his life.

  “Do you cross your feet right over left or left over right? Is there any remedy if you do step on a crack in the sidewalk by mistake? Have you ever passed out from holding your breath too long?”

  It was relentless, and it made it impossible for Danny to sneak the piece of Kosmic Kranberry he had brought into his mouth. Danny still hadn't told anybody about what he'd found in the secret room, and he certainly wasn't going to start with a newspaperman like Mr. Fitch.

  While Danny answered Mr. Fitch's questions, Molly and Lucas leaned out over the waist-high railing that overlooked the field, cheering for the Sluggers and screaming abuse at the Tornadoes.

  “Hey, Magnus!” Lucas yelled down when Ruffian came out in the bottom of the first inning. “Du stinka!”

  “That's Swedish for ‘You stink!'” he explained to Molly when she gave him a quizzical look. “I learned it on the Internet.”

  Spagu mowed down the Tornadoes in the first three innings without giving up a run. Unfortunately, Ruffian was doing the same thing to the Sluggers.

  Danny showed Mr. Fitch each of his superstitions, sucking in his stomach to get the Sluggers out of a bases-loaded jam in the fourth inning, crossing his toes when Boom-Boom Bigersley tried to bunt for a base hit in the sixth, holding his breath to help Spanky Mazoo stay alive with two strikes on him in the seventh.

  As he went through his repertoire, a small crowd of journalists gathered around him.

  “You do all that every game?” one of the writers asked.

  “Well, yeah, and then there are some things I can only do at home,” Danny explained, describing how he sat upside down on the couch, closed the windows tight when Sid Canova pitched, fought with his brother, and helped his mother wash dishes in the kitchen.

  By the bottom of the eighth there was still no score, and the crowd was growing restless.

&nb
sp; No matter what Danny did—standing on one foot, holding his breath, crossing his fingers—the Sluggers couldn't get a rally going.

  The only reason they were in the game at all was Spagu, a forty-one-year-old former supermarket clerk who had discovered a mean knuckleball while throwing produce around with some coworkers. Nobody had ever seen a guava bob and weave the way it did when it left Spagu's hand, and the desperate Sluggers had signed him up.

  It wasn't until Mr. Fitch got up to take a call from his editors in the top of the ninth inning that Danny had a chance to stick the Kosmic Kranberry into his mouth.

  A moment later, Spagu sent the last Tornado batter, Mungo McBust, down on strikes. The Sluggers had one more chance to win the game before it went into extra innings.

  All around Danny, sportswriters were typing furiously, trying to figure out how to write their stories and calling their editors to tell them they might have to hold the newspapers because the night could go long. Nobody seemed to have time to actually watch the game.

  “Danny, I notice you've started chewing that bubble gum pretty hard,” Mr. Fitch said, sliding his cell phone into his jacket pocket. “Sure smells strange, that gum. Is that another one of your superstitions?”

  Danny paused.

  “Bubble gum?” he said.

  The truth was, Danny had developed a full range of gum superstitions, shifting the Kosmic Kranberry from the right side of his mouth for right-handed batters to the left side for lefties. Sticking the gum on the end of his tongue when a switch-hitter came to the plate.

  “Uh, well, it's good to chew gum,” Danny said, and added quickly: “But it doesn't matter what kind or anything.”

  “Oh, right,” said Mr. Fitch, mouthing the words as he wrote them in his notepad. “Any … kind … of … gum.”

  Just as Danny was wondering if Molly's dad could possibly have any more questions, Mr. Fitch snapped his notebook shut and waved down to the front of the room where Lucas and Molly were sitting.

  “Thanks, Danny, that was great,” he said. “Hey, Mol, Lucas, want to see the television booth?”

  Danny and Lucas looked at each other and gasped as Mr. Fitch led them to a door on the far side of the press box that had the words ON AIR lit up in red above it. He put his head around the door and they all piled in. Sitting there in front of them staring out at the field were Bullet Santana and Wally Mandelberg, the guys Danny watched on television every night.

  “This is unbelievable,” Lucas whispered, grabbing an extra-chunky super-fudge brownie from the food table. “Un-be-liev-able!”

  Danny nodded and poked Molly in the arm.

  As Santana did the play-by-play, Mandelberg turned around to shake Mr. Fitch's hand.

  “Let me interrupt you there, Bullet. Folks, we've got the Daily Bugler's Jim Fitch and three of his friends in the booth with us for the bottom of the ninth inning,” Mandelberg said.

  “I bet you kids would like to see the Sluggers win this one, huh?” said Santana, thrusting a microphone under Danny's chin.

  “Yes, sir,” whispered Danny nervously. His voice was going out on the air! His parents and every kid he knew would be watching this. Max was probably at that very moment falling off the living room chair and convulsing on the floor in a fit of jealousy.

  “Wally, Bullet, this here is Danny Gurkin, one of the biggest Sluggers fans I know. And this is my daughter, Molly Fitch, and her friend Lucas Masterly,” Mr. Fitch said, leaning into the mike. “Danny's got about a million superstitions he's hoping will help the team.”

  “Ah, don't we all,” said Bullet Santana, holding up two crossed fingers. “Well, the Sluggers could use some help. You got any ideas, kid?”

  Danny was dead nervous, but looking around the booth, he did spot a couple of obvious problems.

  “Well, Mr. Santana, you might want to turn your baseball cap around, especially with a righty like Tito Calagara coming to the plate,” Danny said. “Uh, and I don't want to be rude, but you should never leave two unfinished hot dogs on the table.”

  “There you have it, folks,” Mandelberg said, picking up the two half-eaten hot dogs with a chuckle. “Well, I'm gobbling up these dogs right now.”

  Calagara lined a sharp single up the middle.

  “Holy cow! That's a base hit,” said Santana into the microphone as Molly, Lucas, and Danny cheered behind him.

  “Good going, kid,” said Mandelberg.

  Ruffian slammed the ball into his glove and stared in at the next Sluggers batter, Bruce Minsky. Danny pressed the Kosmic Kranberry up against the roof of his mouth.

  “You know, Wally, Calagara is not exactly a cheetah at first base,” said Santana.

  “You got that right, Bullet,” Mandelberg agreed. “Watching Calagara run the bases is like trying to follow the hour hand on your wristwatch. It takes time.”

  As Mandelberg chewed the last bit of his second hot dog, Danny crossed his fingers and arms and stood on one leg. He cut the wad of gum in half with his tongue.

  “Two pieces must be better than one,” Danny thought. He closed his eyes and chewed on both sides of his mouth as Ruffian delivered.

  Minsky smashed the ball through the gap in right-center field, the deepest part of the stadium.

  “That's going to roll all the way to the wall!” Santana yelled. “Look at Calagara go! He's running like a man possessed. He's rounding third….”

  Danny opened his eyes as Tito Calagara crossed the plate with the winning run, then collapsed into the arms of his teammates. Mandelberg and Santana weren't looking at the field. They were both staring at Danny.

  “We win!” Molly shouted, jumping in the air to give Lucas a double high five. “One to nothing! One to nothing!”

  “You really are good luck!” gushed Mandelberg. “What did you say your name was?”

  Before Danny could stutter a reply, Mr. Fitch leaned into the microphone.

  “Wally, Bullet, you can read all about Danny Gurkin and his amazing superstitions in the Daily Bugler tomorrow. It's a must-read.”

  Sleepless Night

  Danny stared up at the ceiling. It was two a.m., but his eyes were as big as baseballs. He still had the Kosmic Kranberry from the game in his mouth. He was too afraid to stop chewing.

  Danny had spent a lifetime ordering just the right kinds of hot dogs, avoiding cracks in the sidewalk, holding his breath, and crossing every possible part of his body in an effort to help the Sluggers win.

  Now finally something was working!

  Danny remembered the hidden passageway in Manchester Boddlebrooks's study. He remembered the old-fashioned beakers and jars in the secret baseball-bat tower. He remembered the dusty old books on the table where he had found the gum.

  The Sluggers had won every game since that night!

  Something more than run-of-the-mill Gurkin superstition was at play here.

  Danny reached under the bed and grabbed the three packets of gum, holding them up to the moonlight of his bedroom window. The constellations on the wrappers glittered in the blue light.

  Danny stuck the wad of chewed gum under his bedside table. Then he turned over, slipped the three packets under his pillow, and drifted off to sleep, dreaming of a very large bubble-gum tycoon and his quest for the championship.

  Far away in the shadows of a musty mansion, another pair of eyes was open wide, one wandering up into the moonlit night, the other squinting down at a small packet of extremely old gum.

  The Kid Who Makes the Sluggers Win

  When he got to the kitchen the next morning, Danny found a note from his mother on the table.

  “Go, Sluggers! Good luck at school!” said the note. Lydia Gurkin always left the house forty-five minutes before Danny on school days because she needed time to prepare for class, and because Danny had made it clear that eleven-year-olds don't walk to school with their mothers, even if they are unfortunate enough to attend the same school where their mother teaches.

  Danny's mother had waited eagerly the ni
ght before to congratulate Danny on his television debut. Harold Gurkin had been stuck at the Frompovich campaign until way past midnight, and Danny wondered if his father had even watched.

  Danny heard the slap of the newspaper being delivered outside the front door and ran to pick it up. As he walked back into the kitchen with the Daily Bugler in hand, Danny scanned the sports page for the article by Jim Fitch.

  There it was, to the left of the main story, under the headline SCHOOLBOY REVEALS AMAZING SUPERSTITION SECRETS.

  Danny started reading:

  BY JIM FITCH

  WINNING STREAK STADIUM—Put away your lucky beads. Drop your knitting needles. Take a bath. Get to work. And for God's sake, stop translating games into Cantonese!

  Superstitious Sluggers fans: your services are no longer needed.

  That's because there is a boy out there who has superstition down to a science, who has more good vibes in his pinkie than all of you put together. There is a boy who roots so hard he's got all of our backs.

  His name is Daniel Gurkin, he's eleven years old, and if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. For the first time ever, the Kid Who Makes the Sluggers Win has revealed his secrets in this Daily Bugler exclusive.

  So what are Gurkin's secrets? What does the wise one say we have to do to turn the Sluggers' nine-game winning streak into their first World Championship in 108 years?

  Hot dogs. Lots of hot dogs …

  The article said where to find Willie's cart, gave instructions for breath holding and bubble-gum chewing, and stressed the importance of avoiding cracks in the sidewalk at all costs. Mr. Fitch had remembered everything Danny told him.

  The story ended:

  Think the Sluggers got lucky last night? Think Tito Calagara normally runs like a gazelle that's just won the lottery, or that Bruce Minsky just happened to come through in the clutch against the most ferocious pitcher in baseball? WELL, THINK AGAIN!