Sugar House (9780991192519) (10 page)

Ojciec found their seats. Along the outfield
walls of the one-story ballpark were billboards for local
companies. "Hey there Rooters! Have you seen J.C. Hartz, Co. about
your clothing, hats, etc.? 52 Monroe Ave." "Fine Cigars Kept Fine,
M.A. LaFonde, Co." There was a funny painting of an old man with a
white beard dressed in a top hat with stars represented "Old Farm
Springs Whisky brought to you by the Grand Valley Distilling Co
Inc." and many others.

"Do you know why the Tigers have that long
rope tied along the outfield, Ojciec?" asked Joe pointing to a
heavy rope that was tied from one end of the stadium to the
other.

"I don't know, Joe," Ojciec said.

The man seated next to Joe on the other side
answered. "The rope keeps the standing room fans off the field. A
few years ago, when this was Bennett Field, a fan was walking
across the outfield to get to his section and ran into a player who
was running to catch a pop fly. They knocked heads so hard the
player was knocked out for five minutes and they had to delay the
game. It's not really a problem anymore with the new stadium but
the rope serves as a barrier and as the home run line."

Immediately to the left of the standing room
section, a set of rickety wooden bleachers had been erected,
complete with a sign that read "colored fans." The view from the
segregated section was less than optimal, but to Joe's perception
the fans did not appear to mind. Well-dressed Negro men of every
shade; from the lightest olive color to the darkest of night,
chatted and laughed as they waited for the start of the game.

The crowd cheered as the players took the
field. Joe frantically searched for the Tigers' most famous player
and began to worry when he couldn't spot him. Just then a loud
rumbling of voices and yells arose near the home team's dugout.
There he was, the Georgia Peach, tall and thin, baseball cap
slightly askew, running onto the field. The crowd stood on their
feet and applauded for several minutes. Cobb did not acknowledge
the praise as he began to warm up.

Joe watched as the team began their pre-game
drills. Bobby Veach and Sam "Wahoo" Crawford lobbed the ball back
and forth, then Bobby threw it to Cobb. The Detroit newspapers had
named the trio the Greatest Outfield of All Time that summer, and
the threesome continued to earn the title. Crawford was hitting
.300 and had driven in over a hundred runs. Veach was close to the
same, with 112 RBIs. Joe was a fan of all three, but his eyes never
left Cobb.

Joe stood with the rest of the stadium and
held his hat over his heart when a man walked to the mound and
began to sing the Star Spangled Banner. The song was not sung at
every game, but because this was the last game of the season, it
had been decided that it would be appropriate to finish the year
with the national anthem. Ojciec stood proudly next to Joe with his
hand over his heart. "Joe, will you teach me the words to America's
song?" he asked when the man finished. "I would like to learn my
new country's anthem."

"Sure Ojciec. I can teach you tonight after
supper. We had to learn all the words at school."

A Cleveland player walked up to home plate
and the crowd quieted, settling in for the game. A man in a navy
blue uniform walked down the aisle shouting, "Peanuts! Arachidi!
Földimogyoró! Orzeski ziemne!" The vendor was announcing his
product in different languages; English, Hungarian, Italian and
Polish. Ojciec bought a small brown bag of warm peanuts, and they
shared the bag, cracking the shells and throwing them on the
concrete floor. Ojciec left in the second inning to buy a beer and
came back with a Vernors Ginger Ale for Joe.

"Try it, Joe" he said. "It's made right here
in Detroit." Joe sipped the spicy smelling amber liquid. His tongue
was surprised by the bite of the flavor. As he drank more he began
to enjoy the taste.

The stadium was not filled to capacity as Joe
had thought. Approximately six thousand fans had come to watch the
final game of the season—many, perhaps, with the free tickets given
away by Mr. Ford. The day was sunny and the air crisp with the
promise of autumn. With no pressure to win the game, the crowd was
relaxed and the players seemed to be having a good time playing for
the fans.

That is, all the players but Cobb. He played
each inning as if the Tigers were in the World Series. He never let
up; catching each ball that neared him in the outfield and gunning
it back to the shortstop for an out or a double play. Joe watched
Cobb as he sat on the steps of the dugout. Cobb looked over angrily
at the Indians' bullpen, while he sharpened his cleats till they
were like dozens of tiny knives.

Detroit scored five runs in the first three
innings. Cobb had one run batted in. Covelskie was pitching, and
the Indians could not get a run in. The Tigers looked unstoppable
until the fourth inning. Covelskie threw a few fastballs by the
first batter for the strikeout, but it was downhill from there. The
Indians batted in four runs, and the Tigers were only up by one.
The shortstop caught the final out, and the Tigers were up to bat.
George "Tioga" Burns was up first. Cobb was on deck. Cobb grabbed
three bats and swung over and over again in the batter's circle.
Joe stared at Cobb's arms.

"He swings three at once so his bat feels
light when he is up," Joe told Ojciec. The boys at school had told
Joe that Cobb was the first player to warm up like that, though
many players now copied his style. Tioga struck out, and Cobb
walked up to the plate. The pitcher seemed nervous as he watched
Cobb swing a couple of practice swings. Cobb gave the pitcher an
evil stare. He choked up on the bat. The pitcher threw two balls
and then Cobb nabbed his first hit of the game, with a ball into
right field. He took first base unchallenged, and Veach was up.

Cobb stood ten feet out from first base,
taunting the pitcher to throw him out. Turning his back on the
Georgia Peach, the pitcher began his delivery. Before the ball left
the pitcher's hand Cobb was barreling toward second. The pitch was
outside, and the catcher threw to second. Cobb slid into the base
with his cleats in the air. The second baseman took a small step
back to avoid the sharp blades of his spikes. The umpire called,
"Safe!" The crowd stood and applauded. Cobb had just stolen his
ninety-sixth base of the season, beating the 1912 record of
eighty-eight held by Clyde Milan of the Washington Nationals.

Veach struck out. Harry "Slug'" Heilman hit a
pop fly, leaving Cobb stranded on second to end the inning. The
next three innings did not produce any runs on the scoreboard.
Oldham took the mound in the top of the eighth for the Tigers. The
score was tied up, with the Indians good for two hits and the
Tigers providing an error in the infield. Burns and Young got to
third and second on two singles and a Cleveland error. Dubuc was
sent in to bat for Oldham, and he hit a long fly that allowed Burns
to score. Dubuc pitched the ninth inning, with three successive
strikeouts. The Tigers won the game.

Ojciec and Joe followed the crowd down the
aisle onto the baseball field after the game. Joe couldn't believe
he was standing right where the Georgia Peach had stood.

"Just a minute, Ojciec, please?" he said. His
father nodded his approval as Joe walked to first base. Mimicking
Cobb, Joe stood ten feet out and stared at the pitcher'' mound.
Taking off, he slid into second. Ojciec clapped loudly.

"Safe! Jopolowski steals his ninety-sixth
base of the year, tying the Georgia Peach!" Ojciec teased Joe.
"Matka won't be happy about the dirt, son, but sometimes a boy has
got to be a boy. Let's go."

They headed across the grass to the right
field wall, where they exited onto Trumbull.

"Guess you're ready to play at the church
baseball game now, huh, Ojciec?"

"Don't know how I couldn't be after watching
that fine performance. Don't know if I will be stealing bases like
old Cobb, but you never know. I think my catching is getting a lot
better. Hopefully I don't embarrass myself when I am up to
bat."

"You'll do great; just try to aim the ball
where no one is standing. That's how Cobb gets most of his runs. He
doesn't hit for the stands, just tries to hit where the other
players can't reach it to throw him out."

"Well, I know I can't hit like the Georgia
Peach but I'll give it my best."

After the electric streetcar ride and the
short walk home, Joe and Ojciec told Matka all about the exciting
game over supper. Joe retrieved water from the pump in the backyard
and helped Matka with the dishes. Ojciec read Saturday's
,
Dziennik Polski
, the Polish newspaper that served twenty-five
percent of Detroit's population.

"Maybe, it's time for Joe to get a job as a
paperboy," said Ojciec, looking up from his paper. "I helped my
father with the fishing before I was his age. I scaled and deboned
them when he came in from the sea every night after school."

"Maybe next summer, Mikołaj. He's still young
yet. Let him concentrate on his schoolwork for now," Matka
replied.

Joe was simultaneously disappointed and
relieved. Many of his classmates sold papers in the morning before
school to help contribute to their family's income and gain a
little pocket change. But Joe had also noted how tired the boys
were in school and how the nuns continually rapped them on the back
of the head when they fell asleep in class.

The kitchen clean, Joe sat down at the table
with Ojciec to teach him the Star-Spangled Banner. First, Joe wrote
the words out in Polish and then in English underneath, helping his
father with the pronunciation of some of the more difficult words.
Ojciec learned quickly.

"There are three more verses, but no one
sings them," Joe told Ojciec.

"Why not?"

"Not sure. I don't know them either. The nuns
just teach us the first one."

***

"And he slid into the second baseman, almost stabbing
him with his cleats!" Joe was regaling the story of the Tigers game
to four of his classmates on the steps of the school the following
morning.

"I heard Ty Cobb beat up a man who had no
hands a couple of years ago," volunteered an older boy named
Paul.

"Uh Uh."

"No way."

The boys argued at once.

Paul said, "Yeah, my father told me. Three
years ago there was this fan in the crowd heckling Cobb while he
was in the outfield, see? Well, Cobb gets mad as a hornet and jumps
the wall and starts waling on the guy. The guy's friends yell,
'He's only got two fingers! Don't hit him.' The loudmouth fan was
missing a hand and had only two fingers on the other!" Paul had the
undivided attention of the group. "So Cobb stops for a second,
looks at the guy and punches him square in the jaw again and says
'I don't care if he has no feet!'"

"No way!"

"My dad says he is off his rocker!"

"Best man that ever played the game though."
Everyone agreed with that sentiment.

The chiming of the church bells interrupted
the conversation. The boys grabbed their lunch pails and books and
headed for the school door. They left their belongings in the
classroom and lined up in the hall to walk to morning Mass. Sister
Mary Monica roughly pulled Joe aside as he found his place in
line.

"Are you planning on running in Our Father's
holy church this morning, Joseph? Disrespecting the Lord your God?
Maybe defiling a sacred statue of a saint or washing up in the Holy
Water Fount?" she whispered viciously under her breath.

"No Sister," Joe replied, startled and scared
at the sudden attack.

"I saw you running down the aisle after Mass
yesterday like you were in a race against the devil. I will address
you after Mass, Joseph."

Joe's little hands trembled as he held them
together in prayer at Mass. He ferociously prayed to the Blessed
Mother to watch over him and to keep Sister Mary Monica from doling
out a severe punishment. But he knew his prayers would likely be in
vain. The nuns were not known for their kindnesses on a good day.
Running in church would likely mean a paddling in front of the
class or worse.

"Go straight to Father Gatowski's office,
Joseph. He is expecting you," Sister Mary Monica commanded when the
class had returned to their room.

Joe dragged his feet down the small, dark
hallway toward the priest's office. Portraits of saints stared down
at him in an accusing manner from the walls. He didn't know which
saint was the patron of children, and wished he had paid more
attention to Sister Mary Monica's lessons so he could pray to him
now. Reaching the wooden door at the end of the hallway, Joe held
his hand up and knocked lightly.

"Come in!" thundered a deep voice from
within. Joe turned the large brass doorknob slowly and opened the
door. Peering in around the doorframe, he could see the priest
standing at the window looking out onto the construction of the new
school.

"Sir, Father… It's Joe Jopolowski. Sister
Mary Monica sent me to see you," Joe whispered.

"Close the door, Joe."

Joe closed the door softly and turned to face
the priest. Father Gatowski walked over to his large wooden desk
and sat down behind it.

"Come Joe, stand before me," Father said
sternly.

Joe walked to the desk and stood before the
priest. He stood on his tiptoes hoping the priest would not notice
that he could barely see above the desk. The priest attempted to
hide a smirk as the young boy tried to balance his weight on his
toes.

"What transgression has brought you to my
office, Joe?" asked Father Gatowski.

"Running in church, Father."

"I didn't see you run in church today, son.
All the boys and girls filed out very quietly as I recall," he
stated.

"Not today, Father, it was yesterday, after
Mass," Joe replied, looking down at his feet.