Calico Joe (14 page)

As we return to Main Street, Clarence agrees to approach Charlie and Red and explore the idea of a meeting. I repeat the obvious: Warren does not have long to live. There is no time to waste.

We stop by the
Calico Rock Record
, where I find a cup of coffee. It takes a while to say good-bye. We have enjoyed our time together and sincerely hope we meet again soon. Leaving the town, I have no idea if I will ever return.

Four hours later, I am in Memphis. I fly through Atlanta on my way to Tampa, where I rent another car and drive east, toward Winter Haven.

L
ong after the police officer left, my mother and I sat in the den and watched westerns. The doors were bolted; the shades were drawn; every light in the house was on; the officer promised to patrol our street; and we were still afraid. Perhaps we should have dismissed the call as a prank by an irate Cubs fan who found our number in the phone book, but it felt much more serious than that. We had never received such a threat, and given the trauma and emotions of the night, we were unable to shrug it off and go to sleep.

During a commercial, my mother asked, “How did you know he was going to hit Joe Castle?” She was on one end of the sofa, I was on the other, both of us were still dressed.

“Because that’s the way he plays baseball,” I replied.

“Why do they allow beanballs?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never heard a good reason.”

“Such a stupid sport,” she said.

I didn’t argue. We were also afraid that Warren might
stagger home and cause trouble. He had been forced off the field with a bloody nose, so he wasn’t badly injured in the brawl. But if he wasn’t home by 3:00 a.m., he wasn’t coming home. He was probably in a bar, showing off his bruises, bragging about his skills as a beanball artist, and no doubt taking credit for the Mets win.

I dozed off, but at 6:00 a.m. my mother nudged me and said, “Here’s the news.” Channel 4 out of Manhattan began the day at 6:00 a.m. with news, weather, and sports, and they didn’t waste time getting to the story. “A wild night at Shea,” the reporter gushed as the footage rolled. From a camera somewhere near the Mets dugout, the tape showed the beanball and Joe going down. Again, in slow motion, and again as the reporter described it in detail. He said that Joe was in serious condition at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

At least he was alive.

Next up was the brawl, and just as in real time it seemed to go on forever. Having been an eyewitness, I had seen enough. The entire episode made me sick and depressed, and as I realized later, it would turn me against the sport.

When the sun was up, I walked to the end of the driveway and retrieved the
New York Times
. I glanced up and down the street to make sure everything was safe but at the time did not realize I would be looking over my shoulder for many months to come.

My mother sipped coffee and flipped through section A. I, of course, read every word about the game and all of its
related issues. The front page of the sports section had two large photos. The first was Joe on the ground seconds after being hit and before the trainers crowded around him. The second was a beautiful shot of Razor Ruffin flattening my father with a bruising tackle. Ruffin had no comment after the game, nor did Warren Tracey, Yogi Berra, Whitey Lockman, or any other player or coach. There was little doubt, though, that the fighting was far from over. The two teams squared off again at 2:00 p.m. that afternoon. The doctors at Mount Sinai weren’t saying much, but Joe was unconscious and in serious condition.

The phone rang, and we both stared at it for a second. I was closer, so I slowly lifted the receiver. “Hello.”

An agitated voice yelled, “Warren Tracey is a dead man!”

My mother quickly unplugged the phones.

The Chicago newspapers were outraged. “Beaned!” screamed the headline in the
Sun-Times
, just above a photo of Joe Castle on the ground, his helmet nearby. The
Tribune
was somewhat more restrained. Its headline read, “Mets Find Way to Stop Castle.”

Mid-morning Saturday, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn met with his executives in the offices of Major League Baseball in New York City. After reviewing the footage and talking to eyewitnesses, he suspended Razor Ruffin and Whitey Lockman for ten games, Warren Tracey for five, and eight other
players for three games each. His office issued a banal statement wishing Joe Castle a speedy recovery.

Shea was sold out again for the Saturday game, with many more Cubs fans there and looking for trouble. A smoke bomb landed near home plate just after the first pitch was thrown by Tom Seaver. The game was delayed for fifteen minutes while the air cleared. The Mets fans booed, the Cubs fans cursed, the atmosphere in the park was tense. Security was beefed up considerably, and uniformed policemen stood almost shoulder to shoulder along the warning track. Joe had been hit by the third pitch thrown to the third batter in the third inning, and with perfect coordination a wave of smoke bombs rained down on the field as Tom Seaver threw the third pitch to Burt Hooton, the Cubs starter, in the top of the third inning. Fights broke out as Mets fans attacked the bombers. Arrests were made. The game was delayed for half an hour as warnings blared from the PA announcer. An ugly situation was getting worse.

I tried to watch the game but could not. I wanted to leave the house and hide at the Sabbatinis’ for a few hours, or a few days, but then my mother would have been by herself. So I stayed in my room, turned the radio on and off, and killed time.

When the Mets were in town and my father was home, I usually waited a couple of days before clipping articles from
the sports page for my scrapbooks. But I was bored, and he wasn’t home, and I frankly did not care what he thought. Sitting at the kitchen table, I carefully cut out the stories from the
Times
, then went to my closet, where I kept a dozen scrapbooks, photo albums, and card collections. I maintained these in a meticulous order, and to my knowledge no one ever touched them but me. Because of the avalanche of stories and photos of Joe Castle and his historic debut, I had reassembled all of his material into his very own scrapbook. The only other players to be so honored were Tom Seaver, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Catfish Hunter. The rest of the scrapbooks were collections of memorabilia, articles, and photos dedicated to entire teams—the 1973 Mets, the 1972 Mets, the Big Red Machine, the 1972 Oakland A’s, and so on. Two years earlier, I had opened a scrapbook dedicated to my father, but there simply was not enough material to sustain it.

My Joe Castle scrapbook was missing. I searched every inch of my closet and my room, and when I was certain it was not there, I stretched out on my bed and stared at the ceiling. Jill was away at camp, and besides, she wouldn’t touch anything remotely related to baseball. Nor would my mother.

Our home had a basement with a small washroom, an even smaller utility room, and a large game room with a television and a pool table. From the game room, there was a door that led to the backyard. Coming home at all hours of the early morning, my father often crept into the game room and passed out on the narrow sofa. Sometimes he slept there
when my parents were fighting. Sometimes they fought there, away from Jill and me. Often, on the days when he pitched, he would spend hours down there, alone, with the shades pulled and lights off, lost in his own world. He considered the game room to be his own private little territory, and that was fine with the rest of us. If he wanted it for himself, we were happy to stay away.

I eased down the stairs, flipping on lights. In the game room, I found my scrapbook on an end table next to the sofa. It was open to the eight-by-ten photograph, inscribed to me, “To Paul Tracey, with best wishes, Joe Castle.”

Next to the scrapbook was an orange Mets stadium cup, his cup, the only cup from which he would drink his banana milk shake precisely six hours before his first pitch. He had once flown into a rage and broken dishes in the kitchen when he couldn’t find the damned cup.

I froze when I realized what I had discovered. It was like walking into a crime scene and having a delayed reaction as the truth settled in. Alone and in the semidarkness, the criminal had quietly plotted his actions, then inadvertently left behind the evidence.

I backed away and went to find my mother.

We were both rattled, frightened, and tired, and we decided to leave. We packed our bags quickly, locked the house, and drove to Hagerstown, Maryland, to stay with her parents for a few days. Warren could have the house and the death threats and all the baggage and debris he so richly deserved. I didn’t
realize it at the time, and I’m not sure my mother did either, but it was our first big step toward separation.

The Mets won the second game of the series that Saturday, and did so without having to fight for it. Two pitchers were ejected for throwing at batters, and both teams were itching for another brawl. But with so many players suspended, the issue of winning games became more important than winning beanball wars.

Baseball waited for Joe to wake up, to snap out of it, put some ice on his wounds, return to the stadium, and continue to dazzle and set records, but as of Sunday morning he was still in a coma.

The Mets won Sunday, and on Monday night completed a four-game sweep. The Cubs had roared into New York with a ten-game lead, and they limped out of town reeling and already feeling the pressure of another late-season collapse. They had won twenty-eight of the thirty-eight games in which Joe had played, but they were obviously a different team without him.

On August 30, Warren Tracey started at Shea against the Pirates. He gave up a single to the leadoff hitter, then walked the next two. With the bases loaded, he hit Willie Stargell in the ribs. It was not intentional, but nonetheless Stargell didn’t appreciate being hit, especially by a pitcher who was by then the most notorious headhunter in the game. He said
something to my father as he slowly walked to first base, and for a moment things were tense. The umpires, on high alert, jumped in and prevented trouble. His next pitch was a fastball down the middle, and Richie Hebner hit it four hundred feet for a grand slam. By the time Yogi could get him out of the game, the Pirates were up 7–0 with no outs.