by Wes Tooke
“Let’s go,” he said. “I told Mr. Churchill we’d be there at eight.”
Nick felt elated as he put away the broom. He didn’t know where they were going or what they would be doing, but anything was better than staying at the cabin all day. His father was already walking toward the street, and Nick had to half hop on his good leg to catch him.
“I’ll carry your bag,” Nick said.
His father gave him a long look. That had been their routine before Nick went to the hospital—he would carry the duffel to the park so his father wouldn’t wear down his legs before the game. It had started when Nick was young enough that the bag was practically as big as him, but now . . .
“It’s fine,” Nick said. “It’s not like I’m going to break or something.”
After another agonizing moment his father grunted and dropped the bag on the dirt driveway. “Just keep up,” he said.
Nick couldn’t tell if his father was moving faster than usual or if he just had longer legs than Emma, but the walk to the ballpark was brutal. His brace was rubbing his skin raw and the strap of the duffel cut into his shoulder and his lower back felt like it had been beaten with a baseball bat. But there was no way he was going to slow down—not after the look his father had given him—so he just gritted his teeth and pretended he was a soldier on a long march. The last hundred paces were pure torture—his shoulder was on fire—and when his father finally stopped next to a little shack near the entrance to the grandstand, Nick gratefully slung the bag to the ground.
“Where’s Mr. Churchill?” Nick asked when he got his breath.
His father just pointed down the road. A billowing cloud of dust was moving toward them, and as it got closer Nick realized that it was the same strange-looking brown Chrysler that he and his father had driven back from the hospital. It slowed to a stop in front of the shack, and Mr. Churchill opened the door and rolled himself out of the car. He was wearing a pink shirt with a blue bow tie, black pants, and yellow suspenders.
“Morning, Ben,” he said to Nick’s father. As his pale blue eyes moved to Nick, the corners of his round mouth turned up in a smile. “Glad to see you up and about,” he said. “Feeling better?”
“Yes, sir,” Nick said. “Much better.”
“That’s good. Your pops was real worried about you. Weren’t you, Ben?”
“Yup,” Nick’s father said.
Mr. Churchill smiled again. “Always a big talker.” He came around the car and clapped Nick on the shoulder. “I hear you’re going to be my new ace employee this summer. I was thinking you could handle my payroll. Maybe do my taxes. What do you think of that?”
Nick knew it was a joke, but he also knew Mr. Churchill liked it when people played along with him. “I don’t know much about taxes,” Nick said. “But I’m pretty good at sweeping and cleaning and stuff.”
Mr. Churchill threw back his head and laughed, his cheeks rippling like sheets in the wind. Nick didn’t know why it was funny, but he also remembered that Mr. Churchill didn’t need much of an excuse to laugh.
“I’ll bet you’re a champion sweeper,” Mr. Churchill said when he caught his breath. “But we’ll find something more interesting for you to do. At least this first day.”
None of the other players had arrived yet, and Nick’s father went to the field, where he did his usual morning routine of sit-ups and push-ups, while Nick helped Mr. Churchill carry a cardboard box from the trunk of his convertible into the small shack that served as the team’s office. When they were inside, Mr. Churchill tore open the box and then stared inside, shaking his head. Nick peeked around him and saw more than a dozen baseball mitts.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Mr. Churchill said. “I told the Rawlings people I’d get every player on our team to use their stuff, but trying to get a player to switch gloves is like trying to get a cat to swim backstroke.”
“It’s hard to break in a glove,” Nick said.
“That’s true, but it’s also superstition. Baseball players are afraid of change.” Mr. Churchill picked up one of the gloves and gave it a trial squeeze. “But maybe you’re right. Maybe if we break in these gloves before we give them to the guys, there’s a chance they’ll actually wear them. What do you think?”
Nick felt a warm glow in his stomach—he liked that Mr. Churchill had asked for his opinion. “Yeah, that might help,” he said.
Mr. Churchill clapped his shoulder. “Then that’s your first assignment. Break in these gloves for me.”
A moment later Mr. Churchill went out to the field to inspect the grandstand, and Nick’s heart sank. Breaking in just one glove was a major undertaking, and there were fifteen gloves in the box. They were all the new Rawlings model with the special deep well pocket, the leather so stiff that in order to fold the mitt around the ball you had to squeeze your hand as hard as possible—and sometimes the ball would still roll out.
But Nick wasn’t going to give up on his first assignment, so he took a big bottle of linseed oil that he found in the corner of the office and started working on the gloves the way his father had taught him. First, he rubbed them with the oil until the leather was supple to the touch, then he threw a ball into the webbing as hard as possible at least thirty times, and finally he shoved the ball deep into the pocket and tied up the mitt with a towel.
He had just finished the last one and was wondering what he should do next when Mr. Churchill came back into the office and glanced at the large pile of towel-wrapped gloves, one eyebrow raised.
“You’ve done all that since I’ve been gone?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Nick said. “I’ll unwrap them tomorrow. They won’t be totally broken in, but they should be better.”
Mr. Churchill shook his head. “You’re an industrious little guy.” He picked up a clipboard and a pen from his desk. “Since you did so well with the gloves, here’s something more fun. I’m putting together the roster cards, and I need the full names and birthdays of everyone on the team.”
Nick stared at the clipboard, his eyes widening. “I get to talk to the players?”
“Of course,” Mr. Churchill said. “I mean, you were practically our mascot before . . .”
His voice trailed off, but Nick knew what he meant. Before Nick got sick he had always come to the team’s home games, and sometimes he had even warmed up with his father on the field. But maybe things were different now—he certainly wasn’t going to be tossing a ball with his father anytime soon.
“Okay,” Nick said. “How many players are there?”
“Twenty,” Mr. Churchill said. “So if you count any more than that, you should get your eyes checked because you’re seeing double.”
Nick smiled and then picked up the clipboard and walked out to the field. It looked smaller without the crowd. The team was in the midst of batting practice, and most of the players were scattered around the outfield, but Satch and a few of the other veterans were sitting in the dugout. Nick took a deep breath and then marched over to them. He had met Satch once during his previous season in town two years earlier—his father had introduced him after a game—but Nick had been so overwhelmed that he was unable to utter a single word.
Satch was in the middle of a story when Nick reached the dugout, his long arms flapping as he reached the climax.
“Yeah, I pitched against that kid DiMaggio. He was playing for the Seals out of that Pacific Coast League, and he came up to me before the game and said that scouts from the Yankees were watching so I should take it easy on him. He got a single off me, but I struck him out twice and popped him up once. I heard that after the game those scouts sent a telegram back to New York that said, ‘Joe got a hit off Satch so he’s ready for the bigs.’ And now they say he’s going to start next season in Yankee Stadium. Just because he got a little single off old Satch.”
As the story ended, Satch looked at Nick. His eyes dropped to the metal brace, and Nick suddenly wished he hadn’t worn shorts. “Hey, kid,” he said. “What’s the matter wi
th your leg?”
“I had polio,” Nick said.
“And you can’t walk without that bear trap?”
“Not without a big limp.”
Satch shook his head. “Well, I saw you walking over here and you had a limp anyway. So what’s the difference?”
“The doctor said I should wear it.”
“I’ll tell you something about doctors,” Satch said, one long finger wagging. “They don’t know nothing about nothing.”
Nick didn’t know how to respond, so he held up the clipboard. “I’m supposed to get everyone’s name and birthday. For the roster cards.”
One of the other players in the dugout glanced at Satch and then rolled his eyes. “Oh, this will be good.”
Satch leaned forward, a twinkle in his eye. “Listen, kid. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?”
Nick squinted his eyes, puzzled. “Is that a riddle or something?”
“Maybe,” Satch said. “Or maybe an answer.”
“You don’t know your birthday?”
“I have a lot of birthdays. If you asked the government, I’m born in September or August or February of 1908. Depending.”
“What if I asked your mother?”
Satch shrugged. “My mother would say that baseball is an almighty sin, so I don’t pay her no mind.”
Nick thought for a second and then picked up his pen. “I’m going to put down August 15, 1908. If that’s okay with you.”
“I know you’ve got a job to do,” Satch said. “But I can’t let you lie on that form. So I think you should put down a question mark.”
“Why?”
Satch leaned forward again, but this time his voice dropped. “Because mystery is good, kid. And because I want to be the only man in the world that nobody knows nothing about . . . except that I’m the greatest pitcher ever to pick up a ball.”
Nick gave him a last look and then carefully wrote in the ledger: “Satchel Paige—???” Satch stood so he could see the paper and then smiled.
“Thanks, Hopalong,” he said.
Nick gave him a confused look. “Hopalong?”
“Because of your brace. You kind of hop along. And I was always partial to those stories about that cowboy Hopalong Cassidy.” Satch paused, a satisfied grin spreading across his face. “I’ve given enough nicknames in my life to know a winner. And I do believe that one’s a guaranteed champ.”
Nick finished gathering the information from the other players in the early afternoon—everybody else gave him their birthdays without any trouble—and Mr. Churchill said that he was finished for the day. His father was still working with a few of the younger pitchers, so Nick walked home alone. When he turned down the driveway, he saw Emma standing in the yard. She was wearing a baseball mitt and tossing a ball onto the slanted roof of the cabin and then catching it when it rolled off.
“Hey,” Nick said. “What are you doing?”
Emma shrugged, her eyes focused on the lip of the roof as she waited for the ball to drop. “Playing catch.”
“With a cabin?”
“Well, boys around here won’t play catch with a girl, and the girls all like hopscotch and those other stupid games. And I used to throw with my dad, but he ran off. So now I play with the cabin.”
“Oh.” Nick paused. He hadn’t played a real game of catch since before he got sick—a month earlier one of the orderlies at the hospital had taken him outside with a glove and a ball, but a doctor had caught them and sent them back upstairs before they could actually throw. Part of Nick was scared; he didn’t want to find out that he was so bad that he’d never be able to pitch again. But the other part missed playing baseball so much that it felt like a constant, dull ache in his stomach.
“I’ll play catch with you,” Nick finally said. “But only if we don’t talk.”
She gave him a funny look. “Why can’t we talk?”
“It’s just a rule we have,” Nick said. “Me and my dad.”
“Okay,” she said.
Nick went inside the cabin and got his glove out of the bottom of his duffel. Emma was standing in the middle of the yard when Nick returned, and they stood about fifteen feet apart. Nick carefully set his feet at an angle so he wouldn’t have to move his bad leg to catch and throw. Although Nick expected her to throw him a lollipop—that was his father’s word for a soft toss—she whipped her arm forward and gunned it right into his chest.
“Good throw,” Nick said.
“I thought we weren’t talking,” she said.
Nick smiled and then threw the ball back. It felt weird not to move his feet, but the ball snapped off his fingers the way he remembered and cracked into her glove. After a few more tosses, Nick began to settle into the rhythm. This was why he and his dad didn’t like to talk when playing catch; after a while the motion would become automatic and your mind would wander to a quiet, relaxing place. Sometimes the simple act of throwing a ball could make all the stress and clamor of the world disappear.
After fifteen or twenty minutes both of their throws started getting a little erratic, and Nick realized that they were getting tired.
“Thanks,” he said to Emma as he flipped the ball to her a final time.
“You want to go get ice cream?” she asked. “My mom gave me a dime.”
“My dad doesn’t want me to leave the cabin,” Nick said.
She wrinkled her brow. “That’s what you said yesterday. But you left anyway and we had fun, right?”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “But he was really mad.”
“Come on. It will be fun.”
Nick thought for one more second and then tossed his glove on the porch. Maybe he was going to get in trouble again, but he was still upset from the night before—and technically his father hadn’t said anything about staying at the cabin before he left the ballpark.
“I think ice cream is my favorite food,” Emma abruptly said, breaking Nick’s train of thought.
“It’s not really a food,” Nick said. “It’s dessert.”
“Then it’s my favorite dessert. What about you?”
Nick thought for a moment. “I like ice cream in the summer. Chocolate cake in the winter.”
“My mom makes the best chocolate cake,” Emma said. “She’s a good cook. You should come over for dinner sometime.”
“I’ll have to ask my dad,” Nick said.
They were silent for a dozen steps. Emma glanced at Nick out of the corner of her eye. “What’s he like?”
“Who? My dad?”
“He used to be my favorite player on the team. I like catchers.”
“He’s a great catcher,” Nick said. “But it’s hard when you get older. My dad says it’s like owning a car. . . . No matter how fast it is, eventually the shocks will wear out and the engine will start to sputter.”
“You think he’s going to be a starter this year? Or is Double Duty going to take his job?”
Nick shrugged. He didn’t really want to talk about that—or even think about it—so he changed the subject. “I got to talk to Satch today.”
Emma grabbed his arm. “You did not!”
“I did. Mr. Churchill told me to get the birthday of everyone on the team, and Satch wouldn’t tell me. I think he likes being mysterious.”
The words tumbled out of her mouth. “What was he like? Were his hands big? Did he say anything funny?”
“He was . . . different.” Nick paused. “He gave me a nickname.”
“Really? What?”
“Hopalong.”
“Like the cowboy from the comics?”
“Yeah. Because of the way I walk with my brace.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “That’s kind of mean.”
“It’s just baseball,” Nick said. “Guys are called Fats and Stumpy and Goofy. There’s even a guy who played for the Tigers called Stinky.”
“Stinky?” She was quiet for a moment. “I wish Satch would give me a nickname.”
Nick just smiled.
A minute later they reached Bismarck’s small downtown. The ice-cream parlor was on the first block of Main Street that had stores, and they went inside and peered through the foggy glass at the assortment of flavors. After a long bout of deliberation Emma got chocolate and Nick chose strawberry. When she finished paying, they went outside and sat on the curb, frantically licking so the ice cream wouldn’t melt and run down onto their hands.
“Thanks,” Nick said when he was down to just the bottom half of his cone. “They had ice cream at the hospital, but it was really bad.”
Emma looked at him, puzzled. “How can ice cream be bad?”
“It tasted sour. And there was something wrong with the freezer because it always had this icy fuzz on the top.”
As Emma wrinkled her nose, a pair of kids emerged from the general store across the street. Nick recognized them immediately—it was Tom and Nate, two of his old friends from school.
“I’ve got to get home,” Nick said. “If I’m not there when my dad gets back, he’ll kill me.”
He stood, popped the last bit of his cone in his mouth, and then hobbled as fast as he could back down Main Street. Emma caught up to him after a few steps. She was practically skipping to keep up with his pace.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Nick said.
“Was it those kids?”
“Nope. I just can’t be late. Not two days in a row.”
Emma stopped. “I’m supposed to meet my mom down here.”
“Okay,” Nick said over his shoulder. “Thanks again for the ice cream.”
Although Nick could feel Emma’s eyes on his back as he continued walking away, he resisted the urge to turn around. She was right. Nick hadn’t realized it until the moment he saw Tom and Nate, but he wasn’t ready to see any of his old friends from school. They would stare at his brace and ask him questions about the hospital and whether or not he could pitch again—it would be a reminder of how much his life had changed since that fateful day when he woke up with a fever. And Nick wasn’t ready to deal with that. Not yet.
When Nick was halfway home, he noticed a state police car pulled over on the side of the road behind a silver convertible. As he got closer he realized that Satch was sitting on the curb as a sour-looking policeman tore through the convertible’s glove box.
