by Paul Haven
“Now enjoy the game, everybody,” the mayor shouted. “And make sure to vote come November!”
As Danny and the mayor walked off the field, Fred Frompovich held Danny's hand in his own like a prizefighter's.
“Don't worry, kid,” the mayor muttered through his teeth. “We'll call Clyde later. He owes me a couple of favors.”
A Date with Destiny
If you hadn't been part of the suffering, you couldn't possibly have understood how it felt when the last pitch from Sid Canova flew past Ogres shortstop A. A. Perisho, clinching a 4–2 victory and the Sluggers first postseason appearance since early man began walking upright.
Well, practically that long.
Older fans looked to the skies, half expecting the snow to begin falling again. Many simply stared in disbelief. Some cried. Others danced into the wee hours.
Nobody who was alive remembered the Sluggers' first championship year, and many had gone to meet their maker without ever tasting the sweetness of a night like this.
But even death couldn't stop the celebration. Sluggers faithful shared the news of the team's play-off spot with loved ones in the hereafter, trekking to cemeteries across town to place copies of the Daily Bugler atop the tombs of those who had passed on.
The dead and the living alike took great pleasure in Jim Fitch's article in the morning edition:
BY JIM FITCH
WINNING STREAK STADIUM—The century that wouldn't end is over. After 108 long years, the Sluggers are in the play-offs. Let me write that again for those of you who still don't believe it.
The Sluggers are in the play-offs!
Try jotting that down on a notepad at home, or scribble it on the back of your hand, or stamp it with pride on your neighbor's forehead. If you write it enough times, you just might believe it.
Usually, sportswriters tell you about what has already happened, but unless you are living in a cave or have just returned from outer space, it's a pretty safe bet you already know about every single pitch that was thrown last night.
So instead, let me make a prediction: the Sluggers have a Date with Destiny.
Yes, there is the small matter of our best-of-five series against the Charleston Bruisers.
Puh-leeze!
And of course, the Tornadoes still have to annihilate the Minnesota Muckrakers.
Yawn.
But, my friends, make no mistake. The inevitable is hurtling toward us like an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
The fight for the pennant will soon be upon us.
Sluggers vs. Tornadoes. Grit vs. Greed. Good vs. Evil.
Somewhere out there, somewhere up there, a very large bubble-gum tycoon is smiling.
Never before had a newspaper article proved so prophetic. The Sluggers and the Tornadoes raced through the first round of the play-offs as if they were late for a movie. The Tornadoes beat Minnesota 7–0, 11–1, and 17–3, so humiliating the Muckrakers that the team considered moving to Florida and joining a senior citizens' softball league.
The victory was little comfort to Diamond Bob Honeysuckle IV, who barely watched a single pitch.
Like a king who had seen an oracle foretelling his downfall, he had become obsessed with Danny Gurkin. The boy was the first thing Diamond Bob thought about when he woke up in the morning and the last thing plaguing him when he went to bed each night.
More than anything, his mind raced back to an interview he'd done during spring training in which he'd vowed that if the woeful Sluggers ever made the play-offs, his team would merrily give up home-field advantage against them, and he would eat a heaping helping of super-hot Texas chili, right out of his beloved ten-gallon hat.
Why, oh why, had he been so boastful? Diamond Bob thought.
On the evening that the Sluggers completed their own first-round play-off sweep, crushing the Bruisers 14–4 behind the inspired pitching of Vince Spagu and some pretty nifty bubble-gum chewing by Danny, Diamond Bob awoke with a start. The oil tycoon's forehead was wet with perspiration and his eyes wide with fright.
He sat up in bed, and his mind flashed back across the decades to a warning his great-grandfather had given him from his hospital bed, when Diamond Bob was still just a boy.
“If you remember just one thing I tell you about life, let it be this,” his great-grandfather had said, his long, wrinkled fingers grabbing hold of young Diamond Bob's shirt. “When you've got a man down, you don't let him get up. You understand that, son?”
“Not really, Great-granddaddy. What man do you mean?” the young Diamond Bob asked. His greatgrandfather might have been near death, but he still had the strength to yank the young boy toward him.
“Boy, don't you ever let them Sluggers get up!” his great-grandfather wheezed through a fit of coughing. “The second they get up, they'll get hope. And the second they get hope, we're in trouble.”
“Why do we hate the Sluggers so much?” the young Diamond Bob asked.
This time his great-grandfather's coughing got even worse—so bad, in fact, that a team of doctors rushed in to see what was the matter.
“Them Sluggers are cursed!” the old man hissed, his eyes bulging out of his head. “Lose to a cursed team and the curse will fall on you.”
Diamond Bob Honeysuckle IV scrunched up his bedcovers as he recollected the scene.
Then he picked up the phone.
“Truffaut. Wake up! And get Hickock up too,” he shouted. “I'm coming out there at once. I want to meet that kid.”
Molly Suspects
Molly Fitch was not a superstitious sort of girl. She had suggested her father do a story on Danny all those weeks before because she knew how crazy her friend was about eating hot dogs and crossing his fingers and toes, but she was far too practical to think that any of that stuff actually worked.
After all, Danny had been eating hot dogs and closing windows and encouraging his mother to do the dishes during games for as long as Molly could remember, but the Sluggers still always used to lose.
Not anymore.
Everything had changed, both in Danny and the once-hapless Sluggers, since they made their amazing trip out to the Boddlebrooks mansion, and it seemed impossible to chalk the transformation up entirely to coincidence.
Molly had replayed the adventure in her mind about a thousand times: the scary Mr. Sycamore, the hot-dog doors and the popcorn-popping room, the smelly bedroom made of sauerkraut. It was all so strange.
But one image stuck in her head more than any other.
It was the look on Danny's face as he rushed up to her, Lucas, and Mr. Sycamore in the grand hallway after escaping from Boddlebrooks's study. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were darting from side to side almost as fast as Mr. Sycamore's.
He looked as if he had seen … not a ghost, really, but something as weird as a ghost.
“Where have you been?” the old man had asked sharply, pounding his cane on the floor.
“Sorry, Mr. Sycamore. I had to run to the bathroom,” Danny had said quickly. “I guess it was that popcorn I ate before you warned me about it.”
The old man had huffed and looked Danny up and down, but he didn't challenge him.
There had definitely been something odd about Danny's behavior, Molly thought as she recollected the scene. He had avoided Mr. Sycamore's gaze, which was to be expected. But he hadn't looked Molly or Lucas in the eye either. Plus, Danny had kept his right hand in his pocket the entire time and wouldn't take it out even to shake Mr. Sycamore's hand when they left.
When they got to their bikes, Molly had meant to ask Danny about what he had seen, but in the rush to get home, she hadn't had a chance. Later, she figured Danny would tell her about it, but he never spoke of the study again.
As she walked home from school with Lucas the day after the Sluggers won their first-round play-off series—after their famous friend had yet again forgotten to meet up with them after school—Molly finally put into words what had been troubling her all along.
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��Why do you think Danny's never mentioned what happened in the study?” she asked, biting her thumbnail nervously.
“What study? You mean the one out at the mansion?” Lucas replied, and shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it just wasn't very interesting.”
“Come on, Lucas!” said Molly. “How could it not be interesting? Don't you remember how mad Mr. Sycamore got when Danny just put his hand on the doorknob?”
“I guess you're right,” Lucas said.
“And another thing I don't understand,” Molly began as they stepped down off the curb at the end of Wyatt Avenue. “How in the world did the old man not catch him?”
“That's a good question,” Lucas said. “Danny must have hidden somewhere really good. Yeah, you'd think he would have been bragging about that for weeks.”
Lucas kicked a crumpled newspaper that was lying in the street.
“Then there's the whole business of the black car he said was following him,” Molly said. “That was pretty weird too, huh?”
“Yeah. It is odd,” Lucas conceded.
They walked on for a bit, Molly scrunching her eyebrows and Lucas looking down at his feet. Suddenly, Lucas stopped and turned to Molly.
“Everything's changed since we went to that stupid mansion,” Lucas blurted. “Danny's never around. He's been a real jerk. And I can say that 'cause he's supposed to be my best friend.”
Lucas was right.
Danny had become more and more elusive since they got back from West Bubble. He didn't return phone calls. He rarely went to Quincy Park. He hardly said a word to them at school.
Molly thought part of it was that Danny was now famous, and part of it was that he had a bunch of annoying new friends like Briny Anderson. But there was something else too.
Danny had a secret, and Molly was determined to figure out what it was.
An Unexpected Visitor
Danny was lying on the floor in the living room, frantically trying to finish his latest homework assignment from Mrs. Sherman, a three-page essay on how America's founding fathers would have hated baseball had it been invented in the late eighteenth century, when the doorbell rang.
“My God,” Lydia Gurkin exclaimed when she opened the door, letting the magazine in her hand slip to the floor.
Danny looked up to see a weathered man in a Sluggers jersey and cap walk into the front hall.
It was Finchley Biggins!
“Mrs. Gurkin? Very pleased to meet you,” the Sluggers' manager said, removing his baseball cap and extending his hand. His bushy mustache bobbed up and down as he spoke.
“Uh, very pleased to meet you, Mr. Biggins,” Lydia said. “Come in.”
Danny's mother took the manager's coat and turned to hang it up, shooting Danny a glance of total disbelief.
“We're all big fans here,” Lydia said.
“Thanks, ma'am,” said the manager as she ushered him into the living room. “Actually, that's what I'm here to talk about with you and your boy.”
Finchley Biggins was a legend. He had been in the Sluggers organization for forty-six years, first as a player, then as a coach, and finally as the manager. Danny had caught a glimpse of him in the Sluggers' dugout when he threw out the first pitch at Winning Streak Stadium, but he had been way too nervous to actually approach him. It would have been like sauntering up to Gandhi or Einstein or George Washington.
“Can I get you some coffee or tea, Mr. Biggins?” Lydia asked. “Or how about something to eat?”
“No, thank you, ma'am,” said the manager, his voice gruff but kind. He sat down on the edge of one of the living room chairs, leaning forward slightly with his hands on his knees. “That's very nice of you, though.”
Danny took a seat on the couch, and his mother sat down next to him. In the past few weeks, he'd become used to the unexpected happening, but he still couldn't believe Finchley Biggins was sitting in his living room. “What could he possibly want?” Danny wondered.
Biggins clasped his hands and looked from Lydia to Danny. He had something important to say, and when Finchley Biggins had something important to say, he came right out with it.
“Son, we'd like you in the dugout for game one,” said the manager. “The boys feel like you're one of us.”
In the dugout!
Danny swallowed hard and looked at his mother, but the smile on her face made it clear this was not going to be a hard sell.
No Pumps
Calamity Truffaut and Mortimer Hickock rushed up to Diamond Bob as he stepped through the airport's sliding glass doors. Each man grabbed one of their boss's designer travel bags, then walked him briskly to the black car they had waiting for him.
Truffaut took the wheel and they headed into town.
Diamond Bob hated the city, with its narrow streets and tall buildings. He hated the mobs of people and the strange smells. He hated the noise and the chaos. He missed the comforting clank of his oil pumps.
“What kind of a place doesn't have oil pumps?” he muttered to himself, and as soon as he had formulated the thought, he realized the answer. “The kind of a place that produces a child like Danny Gurkin.”
Diamond Bob stared out the window of the backseat of the car for a minute before he spoke.
“Boys, you were dead right,” he said with a sigh. “That kid leaves it all on the field. Pure heart. Pure guts. It's downright … What's the word I'm looking for?”
“‘Inspirational'?” offered Truffaut, glancing back at his boss in the rearview mirror.
“No. I was thinking ‘sickening,'” Diamond Bob snapped. “Anyway, we have to deal with it. Is everything arranged?”
“Yes, sir, we're ready to move when you say the word,” Hickock said, twisting around in his seat.
“Excellent.”
They would wait until after the first two games at Winning Streak Stadium, just in case the whole distasteful operation proved unnecessary. If the Tornadoes could earn even a split, Diamond Bob had many cheaper ways to ensure victory once they got back home. There was no sense wasting resources, even if you could afford to.
The billionaire tapped his fingers against the leather briefcase on his lap and mused over how many times he had done this before, though always in a quest to sign up top-ranked ballplayers, not hot-dog-eating kids.
Inside the briefcase was a five-page business contract drawn up by his general manager in the middle of the night—a contract that would make Danny Gurkin rich beyond his wildest dreams.
Time for Baseball
It is a well-known fact that the universe is expanding, that billions of stars are rushing away from each other at unimaginable speeds. But if you were a Sluggers fan in the final hours before the first game of the league championship series against the Texas Tornadoes, you would have had the exact opposite impression.
The Sluggers' universe had narrowed to a single point—Winning Streak Stadium—and a single moment: when rookie Sid Canova would deliver the first pitch.
The rest of the cosmos was a meaningless blur.
NOW OR NEVER! screamed the back page of the Morning News.
DO IT FOR MANCHESTER! implored the headline in the Herald Times.
¿CREE USTED EN MILAGROS? read the back page of El Tiempo, the Spanish-language newspaper Mr. Uribe brought into class that morning. Do You Believe in Miracles?
Danny did.
What else but a miracle could explain the fact that as game one began, he was sitting in the Sluggers' dugout with Finchley Biggins hunched over on his left and Boom-Boom Bigersley humming nervously on his right?
Diamond Bob's preseason boast meant the Sluggers would play four out of seven games at home, even though they hadn't had as good a record as the team from Texas.
In the dugout, just ten feet from Danny, Chico Medley was strapping on his catcher's gear like a Titan getting ready for battle. Down at the end of the dugout, Tito Calagara and P. J. Planter were popping sunflower seeds into their mouths, spitting out the shells on the steps in front of them.
; Danny ran his fingers over the stitching of the official Sluggers uniform he had been given in the locker room just fifteen minutes earlier. It had the name GURKIN stenciled between the shoulders, just like for the big leaguers. The Sluggers had issued Danny the number eleven, and the team decided to make each of the ones look like a heaping hot dog standing on its head.
Danny slipped the fourth-to-last piece of Kosmic Kranberry into his mouth as Vincenzo Tagliatelle, the famous opera star, sang the national anthem; then he carefully folded up the wrapper and slipped it into his pants pocket.
“This is what it's all about.” Bullet Santana's voice gushed out of the small television set in the corner of the dugout. “The winner goes to the World Series!”
“Never mind the World Series, Bullet,” Wally Mandelberg chimed in. “For these fans, it's all about beating the Tornadoes. This is the team that has wiped the floor with the Sluggers for the better part of a century.”
“That's too true,” Santana said as the Sluggers trotted onto the field. “And here comes Canova to the mound.”
Canova ground the ball against his uniform as Tornadoes leadoff hitter Gus Schlays circled the plate.
“Finish that second hot dog up fast, Wally,” Santana told Mandelberg. “The game's about to begin.”
Winning Streak Stadium rose to its feet as the young rookie delivered.
“A strike at the knees!” Mandelberg whispered. “And the league championship series is under way.”
Canova had brought his best stuff. He dispatched Schlays, Tucker Riesling, and Rocco Barnworthy without breaking a sweat.
The giant screen out past center field flashed a cartoon of a knight armed with a baseball bat, charging forward on horseback.
“El Sid! El Sid! El Sid!” the crowd chanted.
“A great start,” said Mandelberg.
“With Ruffian on the mound for the Tornadoes, this is going to be a barn burner,” Santana said.
Unfortunately for the Sluggers, Ruffian was at his ferocious best. The crowd cheered hopefully as each Sluggers player advanced to the plate, and they groaned collectively as each was sent back to the dugout empty-handed.
