1 TRIPLE PLAY 2 3 TRIPLE PLAY Three Exciting Baseball Adventures Jonathon Donahue 4 For Merelyn. TRIPLE PLAY. Copyright ©2010 by Jonathon M. Donahue. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews, and short excerpts for educational purposes. FIRST EDITION Published by Jonathon Donahue. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Donahue, Jonathon. Triple play: three exciting baseball adventures / written by Jonathon Donahue. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-615-42840-6 1. Baseball - fiction. 2. Baseball stories, American. I. Title. PS648.B37 2010 813.0108355 – dc22 [796.357 – dc22] Library of Congress Control Number: 2010918798 Printed in the United States of America. v5 Contents Introduction.......................................................7 The Magic Baseball....................................9 My name is Jimmy Johnson............................11 First job...........................................................15 Pants on fire.....................................................19 Up to bat..........................................................23 Big Apple........................................................27 Cooperstown...................................................39 The Russian Baseball...............................45 A News Story..................................................47 Philadelphia, 1957...........................................49 The Cathedral..................................................53 Four Friends....................................................55 A New Game...................................................59 A Dark and Stormy Night...............................63 A Secret Plan...................................................69 The Crimson Room.........................................73 Home Again....................................................77 Take Me Out To The Ballgame.......................81 A Last Letter....................................................85 vi6 32 Years Later..................................................89 The Last Tsar...................................................93 The Lakeshore.................................................97 To the High Tower.........................................101 The Akagi Baseball................................105 A War Story...................................................107 Midway..........................................................111 Hana..............................................................115 San Francisco................................................121 Berkeley........................................................125 Honolulu........................................................137 Clipper...........................................................147 Sword............................................................153 Meiji Jingu....................................................157 Kyojin Yakyu.................................................163 Contact..........................................................175 East Wind, Rain.............................................183 B-25...............................................................191 Hiroshima......................................................199 Red Castle.....................................................213 Fire On The Sea............................................221 End Game......................................................231 Afterword..........................................................237 Introduction 7 Introduction “My name is Jimmy Johnson,” says a boy at the start of each of these three stories. The first, The Magic Baseball, solves the riddle of how Don Larsen pitched a perfect game in the 1956 World Series... a baseball secret unknown until now! The second story, The Russian Baseball, is about Jimmy Johnson's grandfather, Jack Johnson. At the age of ten, Jack finds himself in Czarist Russia, returning in 1914 with a gift from the Tsarevitch Alexei that holds the key to the future of Russia itself. The Akagi Baseball is a story told by Jimmy Johnson's father, John Johnson. How when he was in the Navy in World War II, his ship rescued a young Japanese sailor – who has his own tale to tell about baseball in Dai Nippon, espionage, and the battle of Midway. Each story has a 'what if' – what would have happened if – if only Jimmy Johnson hadn't forgotten to – but I'm getting ahead of myself! Read the stories and enjoy. Jon Donahue San Diego, November 2010 8 Introduction Introduction 9 The Magic Baseball 10 The Magic Baseball The Magic Baseball 11 "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra My name is Jimmy Johnson When I was eight I did something that changed baseball history. This is the first time I have ever told anyone about what I did. See, when I was eight, it was 1956, and I guess I can finally tell what happened, now that it's fifty years later. What I'm going to tell you, some would say it's magic, but you judge for yourself. That summer, we moved to the country, to a little frame house near the old steel mill. I missed my old neighborhood in the city. When I started school that September, I went for walks by myself because I didn't have any friends yet. Up past the mill, the Delaware river ran wide and smooth, under the large leafy green overhanging trees. Days were still warm, and I walked along a path by the bank, pushing through the end-of-summer brambles and branches. That's where I first saw the mud man. He was an old man with 12 The Magic Baseball white hair, crouched down by the water's edge, washing something in the river. "What are you doing?" I asked. I've been curious about people all my life, which is mostly good, but now and then, like that day when I was eight, I probably should've kept my mouth shut. "Washing baseballs," said the old man. "Washing baseballs?" I laughed. "That's funny!" Well, that was the wrongest thing he could've said, because I knew a lot about baseball, even back when I was eight. So I told him all about how I went to see the Senators play, when we lived in Washington, and how it looked like the Yankees and the Dodgers would be in the Series again in October. "Shows what you know, kid," he said. "You don't know much about baseball, do you?" "And I really hate the Yankees," I said. "Even if they do have the best team." The old man nodded his head. They're good," he said. "Hard to get past Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle. You live around here?" "On the other side of the mill. We just moved in." He looked at me, considering. "My name's Russell Blackburne. They call me ‘Lena’. You want a real job for two weeks?" he asked. "I've got a whole lot of baseballs to fix up fast. You get twenty-five cents a day, show up here after school, work 'til about five." A real job! "What do I have to do?" I asked. My name is Jimmy Johnson 13 "Same thing I do," he said. "You take a brand-new baseball, like this --" he reached into a large flat gray box, and held up a shiny white ball with bright red stitching. "Then you smear mud all over it, like this --" and he picked up a handfull of wet gooey brown mud and smeared it all over the ball. "Then, you wash it off in the river." He swished the ball to and fro in the water, and held it up. "It's not shiny anymore," I said. "Exactly!" he exclaimed. "Kid, that's what it's all about. The mud scuffs up that shiny new cowhide. Matter of fact, you can't play this game 'til that ball's been scuffed up good with mud. Not just any mud, either! Only mud that works is from right here, from this very spot." "But why?" I asked. "It doesn't look good anymore." "But it plays good after it's been rubbed with the mud. See, kid, this goes way back, to 1920, when Carl Mays beaned Ray Chapman, and Chapman died a day later. After that, the umpires started spitting tobacco juice on the ball, to rough it up. If you don't scuff up that new cowhide, you have no idea where that ball's gonna go! Might go high! Might go low! Or it might hit the batter, like poor Ray Chapman! So I heard the umpires complain. All the time, they really hated having to spit tobacco juice on the balls--" "You were in the big leagues?" I asked in awe. "Yeah, sure was. And back in the 1930s, I was coachin' for Connie Mack and the Athletics, and one day it hit me that I lived near this river, and maybe the mud might work as well as the tobacco juice. Been sellin' it ever since, every year, regular as rain." 14 The Magic Baseball "Do you have to wash all the baseballs?" I asked. "No," he said. "During the season, I just send 'em mud. Team'll go through three-four pounds of it, each year. But for the Series, they want me to wash all the balls myself. That way it's fair. I do 'em all the same color, to keep it fair. Else one team would probably keep washing them 'til they get dark brown, which makes it harder on the hitters." "Only one thing," he went on. "This spot's secret. You can't ever tell anyone else about it." Out on the river, the sun was getting low and you could see the fish jumping here and there to catch bugs. I had to get home before it got dark. "I'll keep the secret," I said. "Cross my heart and hope to die. When can I start?" "Tomorrow, after school," said 'Lena' Blackburne. "If'n it's OK with your folks." First job 15 "If people don't want to come out to the ball park, nobody's gonna stop 'em." Yogi Berra First job "You met Lena Blackburne?" said my Dad. "You bet you can