Was he a wild carder? If so, he was one of the lucky ones. He wasn’t one of those pathetic misfit jokers, but more like Golden Boy, and that Eagle guy, and Cyclone who had that cool uniform. And the Turtle, of course, but no one knew what he looked like. Maybe he was a creepy joker hiding in his shell, but he, Tommy, was a normal kid, maybe just a little smarter than the others.
Tommy was running over the possibilities in his head as he arrived at Ebbets Field and asked directions to the locker room. The gate attendants were skeptical that he was a reporter, but all he had to do was show his magic pass and they let him through.
As he walked through the bowels of Ebbets Field, heading to the locker room, his mind wasn’t on baseball. It was whirling with notions of him, Tommy Downs, actually being a wild carder, being-let’s face it-an ace, with the secret power to ferret out those infected with the virus.
God, he thought as he entered the locker room, that would be great. I wonder if I should get a cool uniform of some kind, like Cyclone’s?
He stood on the threshold of the locker room, looking over the scene of ball players undressing. They were legends, too. Some of them, anyway. Don Drysdale, Tom Seaver, Ed Kranepool. Others were just faces to Tommy, who was just a casual fan. Reporters wove in among them, chattering, asking questions, laughing, taking notes. Real reporters, from real newspapers. Not rags like The Weekly Gospel.
Tommy swelled with a sudden pride. He could do something the real reporters couldn’t. He could sniff out wild carders. Maybe.He took a deep breath, almost unconsciously, and, almost unconsciously, focused his nascent power. And in among the locker room odors of dirty uniforms and sweaty athletes and ointments and balms of a hundred acrid scents, he caught a weak whiff of what he thought of as the wild card smell, and stood there stunned as someone went by and said, “Hey, kid, don’t block the doorway.”
But he hardly heard him, hardly felt the man brush by. He didn’t even recognize him as Pete Reiser, Dodger manager.
All he was thinking was, There’s a secret ace on the Brooklyn Dodgers! Gee, what a story!
It had been quite a year for Pete Reiser. He’d received the call from Cooperstown in January telling him he’d been elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. It wasn’t unexpected because when he’d retired he’d had the most hits, most runs scored, and highest batting average in baseball history, but it was still a stunning achievement for a poor boy from the mid-west who’d wanted nothing more from life than to be a ball-player, who, throughout his twenty-one season career, played like his pants were on fire in every inning of every game, no matter the score, unafraid of opposing players, head-hunting pitchers, or outfield walls.
What was unexpected was that as the first-year manager of a team that hadn’t been out of the cellar since ’62 he was still managing in October, his team tied at one game apiece in the World Series. He could hardly hope for things to get any better, but he did. He longed with all his heart to win the Series, to bring the Dodgers back to the heights of glory that he knew with them in the 1950s.
And it just seemed possible that they might do it.
He stood inside the doorway to the clubhouse, watching his team unwind after a light workout. They were a loose bunch, mainly kids with a sprinkling of veterans, built around a solid core of young pitching and little else. Seaver, Koosman, Ryan, Gates, and Drysdale, the glowering veteran brought in to solidify the staff and, not incidentally, to teach how and when to throw inside, a lesson that Seaver, the young superstar, had learned quickly and well… Jerry Grote, great at handling a staff and calling a game, not so great at hitting… Tommy Agee, a gifted defensive center fielder… Ron Swoboda, a lousy defensive right fielder with occasional binges of power… Cleon Jones, their only.300 hitter… Al Weis, the hundred and sixty five pound infielder who couldn’t hit his weight… Donn Clendenon, bought from the expansion Expos to spell the grizzled Ed Kranepool (he was only twenty-five but had been with the Dodgers for eight seasons; that was enough to grizzle anyone) and provide some pop from the right side of the plate… Ed “The Glider” Charles, their oldest everyday player who could still pick it at third but whose bat had left him two seasons ago… they were an odd and motley crew, but they managed to win, somehow, with great but inconsistent pitching, timely hitting, and an often suspect defense.
And excellent coaching, of course, Reiser thought.
One of the excellent coaches, the pitching coach, was conversing with rookie Jeff Gates at the youngster’s locker. Gates and most of the pitchers called him “Sir,” Drysdale and Reiser and a few of the older players still called him El Hacon, The Hawk. He’d gotten the name as a youngster, partly for the great blade of his nose, partly for his sharp, black eyes. Campy had hung it on him in the spring of 1950 when he’d been traded to the Dodgers from the Washington Senators. He’d pitched for the Dodgers for fifteen seasons, many of them great, some of them awful, and finished his career with four years with the powerhouse Washington Senators. Reiser had watched him save the last game of the ’68 Series for the Senators, throwing with guile and guts and nothing else. He could see that there was nothing left in the Hawk’s arm but pain. Reiser knew that if he was going to make anything out of the mess that had become the Dodgers, he needed El Hacon. Not for this arm anymore, but for his sharp brain which had absorbed so much knowledge over his twenty year major league career. The one thing the Dodgers had was some good young throwers. He needed a pitching coach who could turn them into pitchers, and he knew that Fidel Castro was the man for the job.
He caught Castro’s eye across the room, and Castro acknowledged him with a slight nod, offered a few more words of wisdom to the young rookie, patted him on the ass, and made his way slowly across the room, dropping a word here and there for Seaver and Drysdale and Grote.
“What’s your thoughts about tomorrow, amigo?” Reiser asked his pitching coach in a low voice.
Castro’s eyes were dark and earnest. His voice was that of a prophet supplying wisdom to his high priest. “We’re one and one. Plenty of games left to play. Go with the Drysdale tomorrow, then we can come back with Seaver on three day’s rest for Wednesday. Keep Gates in the bullpen, with Ryan, just in case. But Drysdale, he is ready.”
Reiser nodded thoughtfully. “I believe you’re right, Hawk.” His gaze suddenly narrowed as he looked across the locker room. “Who’s that kid talking to Agee? Should he be here?”
Castro looked, shrugged. “Who knows, jefe? Maybe a new club-house boy.”
Reiser shrugged as well. He had more important things to do than worry about stray clubhouse boys. He had a World Series to win.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1969: GAME 3
The next day Tommy decided to forego school entirely. If he didn’t show up they couldn’t stop him from leaving early, and he had something more important to do than waste his time on phys ed, algebra, and Great Expectations. He was on the trail of a real honest-to-Jesus story. An exclusive about the Dodgers’ secret ace. This was a story a real paper would be glad to print, and maybe even pay big bucks for.
He arrived at Ebbets Field early, and his press pass again got him past skeptical security guards at the gate. The stadium was empty and eerily quiet. Tommy thought it downright spooky as he wandered around, trying to find the manager’s office. He got lost almost immediately, and probably would have stayed lost until game time if he hadn’t run into a clubhouse attendant wheeling a cart of freshly washed uniforms to the home locker room. The attendant dropped Tommy off at the door of the manager’s office while on his way to the adjacent locker room, and left him there standing nervously in front of the closed door.
Tommy was not a huge baseball fan, but every boy who grew up in New York and had an atom of interest knew who Pete Reiser was. Besides Babe Ruth, maybe, he was simply the greatest player ever. Ruth held the career home run record, but Reiser had set marks in many other offensive categories while playing a stellar center field. He’d done most of that with the Dodgers, though hi
s last four years he’d spent with the Yankees as a part-time outfield and pinch-hitter. He was a baseball god, and Tommy was reluctant to disturb him in his sanctuary.
But, Tommy thought, disturbing a god was a small price to pay for a good story. He made himself knock on the door. There was an instantaneous reply of “Come in,” and Tommy did.
The office was a lot smaller than he’d imagined. The walls were covered with black and white photos of old Dodgers, going back to the real old days. There was a rickety bookcase across the back wall crammed with notebooks and thick manilla folders and across the opposite wall an old leather sofa with cracked upholstery. The room needed painting. Reiser was seated behind his desk, pen in hand, scowling down at a blank line-up card on his neat desktop. He transferred the scowl to Tommy. “No autographs now, son. I’m busy,” he said, then looked back down at the card.
“I-” Tommy’s voice caught, then he took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “I’m not looking for an autograph. I’m on a story.”
“What?” Reiser asked, looking up again.
Tommy took a step into the room, suddenly confident. “Yeah, I’m a reporter. See.”
He took the press pass from the pocket of his Sanguis Christi uniform jacket and held it out for Reiser to see.
Reiser frowned. “Christ, I can’t read that from here. Come on in.”
Tommy advanced into the room until he stood across Reiser’s desk. Reiser studied the pass, frowning. “You sure you didn’t steal that from your father?”
“No, sir. I’m Tommy Downs. I represent The Weekly Gospel.”
Reiser grunted. He seemed to notice Tommy’s Sanguis Christi uniform for the first time. “Catholic boy, huh?”
Actually, he wasn’t. Tommy’s father just didn’t want him in public school, and the really private private schools were just a little too pricey. Sanguis Christi fit the family budget, barely. But Tommy saw no sense into going into all that. He could discern approval radiating from Reiser when he eyed the uniform. He simply nodded vigorously to Reiser’s question.
“Well, I guess I can spare you a couple of minutes. Sit down.”
Tommy took the chair across the desk, and slipped the note-book out of his pocket. He opened it and poised his pen over the first page, and said, “Ummmm.” He realized that he didn’t know what to ask Reiser. He couldn’t just ask him if there was a secret ace on the Dodgers. Tommy suddenly had an awful thought. What if Pete Reiser were the secret ace?
What if all season long he’d been manipulating a lousy Dodger team, nudging things here and there with the awesome power of his mind, making a ball go through the infield here, making a batter strike out there, clouding a base runner’s mind so that he tried to go on to third where he was easily thrown out?
Tommy surreptitiously took a long, shallow breath.
He smelled nothing unusual, discounting the stale odors seeping from the locker room next door. Still, he was uncertain in this ability. It was new to him. He wasn’t sure how reliable-
Suddenly he realized that Reiser was frowning.
“Have I seen you before?” Reiser asked.
“I was in the locker room yesterday,” Tommy said, “getting background for my story.”
“Yeah, I remember you now,” Reiser said. “So, what’s this story you’re talking about?”
“Story?” Tommy repeated. “Sure. I was just wondering. Wondering if, ummm, anything strange has happened this season? Anything unusual?”
Reiser laughed. “Unusual? Hell, son, the Dodgers were in last place last year. This year we won the pennant. I’d say the whole damned season was pretty damned unusual. Um-” Reiser hesitated. “Don’t say ‘damned’ in your article. Say ‘darned.’”
“Yes, I understand. But what I’m getting at… what I mean…”
Reiser waited patiently. Tommy realized that the only way he could think of saying it, was just by saying it. “What I wonder is if you suspect that maybe someone on the team has some kind of power or ability that he used to help win ball games, like, maybe a secret ace or something?”
Reiser stared at him. “A secret ace? You think someone on the Dodgers is an ace?”
Tommy nodded. Reiser suddenly turned cold.
“Using an unnatural ability to win a ball game would be cheating,” Reiser said flatly. “What makes you think someone on my team would cheat like that?”
“I can-” Tommy shut his mouth. He was about to say, “I can smell him,” and then he realized how unbelievably dorky that sounded. Smell him.
Reiser just looked at him.
“I can-I can read their minds.”
“Really?” Reiser asked, apparently unconvinced. “Can you read my mind?”
Tommy shook his head. “No. Only the minds of wild carders. I can tell that they’re different than normal people. But, I’m, uh, I’m kind of new at it. I’m just learning how, so, especially in crowds, it’s hard to tell who’s who.” That much, anyway, was true.
Reiser nodded. “Okay. Well. I’ll tell you what. You’ve got your press pass. Hang around. Check things out. And come back to me first thing,” he emphasized, “when you discover who the secret ace is. Because I want to know, first thing, when you uncover him. All right?”
“Okay.” Tommy stood. There was no sense in questioning Reiser any longer. Reiser didn’t know anything, and couldn’t help the investigation. Tommy was sure of that.
“Remember,” Reiser told him. “You come to me first with the name.”
“I will.”
“Fine. Good luck, Tommy.”
“Thanks.”
Tommy trudged from the office, half-discouraged, half-angry. Not only hadn’t he advanced his investigation, he’d made himself look like a fool. Because he could tell, he just knew, that Reiser was patronizing him. He didn’t believe Tommy for one second. He didn’t believe there was a secret ace on the Dodgers, not at all.
Just another day in the dugout, Reiser thought, but of course, it wasn’t. Ebbets hadn’t seen a day like this since 1957.
The old park was jammed to over-flowing and the fans had cheered themselves hoarse before the first pitch was thrown. All the regular Dodger fanatics were present; the five-piece band known as the Dodger Symphony that played loud but almost unrecognizable tunes as they marched around the park, the guy on the third base line known as Sign Man, who could cause letters to appear on his blank piece of white cardboard, and all the thousands of normal (and abnormal) fans who’d experienced one of the great rides in baseball history as the ’69 Dodgers fought their way to the National League pennant.
Reiser, returned from the pregame conference at home plate with the umpires and Baltimore manager Earl Weaver, plopped down next to Fidel Castro in the Dodger dugout. “How’d he look warming up?”
“Drysdale? Caliente, boss.”
“He better be caliente,” Reiser said. “We need this one.”
Drysdale was one of the old Dodgers come home, probably to finish his career. He had started with the Dodgers in 1956 and put up some decent numbers for a fading team, as well as garnering a reputation as one of the meanest sons of bitches to toe the rubber. In one of the disastrous trades that marked the end of his general managerialship, Branch Rickey had traded him in 1960 to the Yankees for Marv Throneberry, Jerry Lumpe, and pitching legend Don Larsen who had thrown a perfect game in the 1956 World Series, then squandered his career on booze and broads. Drysdale had put up near Hall of Fame numbers with the Yankees, while only Throneberry had proved marginally useful to the Dodgers. When the Yankees disintegrated in the mid-1960’s, Drysdale went on to have some good years for the Cardinals. The Dodgers had bought him back in ’69 to help anchor the fine young pitching staff they were assembling.
He sauntered in from the bullpen, a towel wrapped around his neck to soak up the sweat he’d already broken. He was a tall, lean, big-jawed man with a ruthless disposition and will to win. He was one of Reiser’s favorites. Reiser knew better than to pep-talk him or pat his ass. T
hat would just annoy him, take him out of the zone he carefully crafted where every ounce of concentration, every erg of energy, was geared toward one thing: throwing the ball where he wanted to throw it. That done, everything else would simply take care of itself.
Drysdale sat off to one side in his own world. The rest of the dugout was full of chatter, young men pretending they believed they belonged in the Series, veterans just enjoying their Christmas in October and hoping that it would last a few more days. Their energy was nearly palpable. Reiser thought that if you’d stick wires in their asses they’d light up the whole city.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,” the P.A. system blared, “please direct your attention to right field, where the first pitch will be thrown by a very unusual special guest. It will be caught by our own Roy Campanella, first base coach and Hall of Fame catcher from Dodger glory days!”
The cheers started again as Campy, gone from stocky to just plain plump, strode out to a position midway between home and the pitcher’s mound. The fans’ ovation dwindled into murmured puzzlement as Campy, wearing his old, battered catcher’s mitt, faced the outfield wall.
An armored shell swooped over the rightfield bleachers into the outfield and came to rest over the pitcher’s mound. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the P.A. announcer blared again, “we present The Great and Powerful Turtle!”
There was a murmur of surprise that quickly grew into an appreciative outpouring of welcome as the Dodger faithful greeted the city’s great new, unknown hero. All over the stands people turned to one another and said, “I knew he was a Dodger fan. I just knew it.”
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