Keeping Score (6 page)

And once, Mom had done the asking. When Dad got hurt.

Maggie opened her eyes. In the darkness there were darker shapes—the dresser, the chair with her robe on it.

She had never heard anyone ask for prayers for a sports team.

But just suppose that God didn't mind hearing
prayers for sports teams. Wouldn't Giants fans be praying to Him, too? Did God like one team more than another?

If that were true, then God had to be a Yankee fan.

For a moment, Maggie felt almost angry. But the anger was mixed up with confusion and, well, fear. You weren't supposed to get mad at God.

"Sorry," she whispered.

She felt a tiny bit better, but not any less confused.

If God
did
care about baseball, then it sure looked like He cared more about the Yankees than the Dodgers. And what about teams like the Pirates, who year after year lost more games than they won—a
lot
more. Didn't God care about the Pirates or their fans at all?

The morning of the first playoff game, Joey-Mick spent a good few minutes trying to figure out which shirts he had been wearing during the Dodgers' wins and losses; he wanted to throw the losingest one away. Mom rescued the green striped shirt as Joey-Mick was going out the door with it, headed for the garbage can back behind the house.

"I never heard such nonsense," she scolded. "That shirt cost good money—do you think your father works so hard just to have you make a fuss over a silly game!" She flapped the shirt angrily.

"I'm not wearing it ever again," Joey-Mick muttered.

Maggie left her mother and brother glowering at each other in the front hall and ran up the stairs to his
bedroom. She opened one of Joey-Mick's drawers in the bureau, found what she was looking for right on top, and took it downstairs.

"Here, Joey-Mick," she said, holding out a blue-and-white plaid. "You should wear this one." He had been wearing it the day before when the Dodgers beat the Phillies, 9–8, on an impossible, incredible, game-winning home run by none other than Jackie Robinson. It had taken the Bums fourteen innings to win—Maggie's score sheet covered four pages of the notebook instead of the usual two—and the victory had kept them in the race. If they had lost, the Giants would have won the title outright, without the need for the three-game playoff.

She handed Joey-Mick the shirt. "It's the right color too," she added. Dodger blue.

He took it and stomped off. Maggie sighed. They hadn't talked about Willie Mays since their argument, but she knew that Joey-Mick was still mad at her. The whole thing probably would have blown over if it hadn't been for the way the pennant race was going. Every time Red Barber announced another Giants win during the broadcast of a Dodgers game, Joey-Mick would glare at her and shake his head.

Usually Maggie ignored him. It was just a coincidence that she had picked Willie as her favorite player right as the Giants started winning like crazy. Her choice didn't make one bit of difference to the way they were playing—it wasn't like Willie
knew
she had picked him. Or that he'd play any better if he did know.

But sometimes she caught herself feeling a little guilty. Could picking Willie as her favorite player really have put a jinx on the Dodgers?

It was too late now anyway. Willie was her favorite, and there wasn't anything she could do to change the way she felt. If she had said that she was going back to Roy Campanella, it would have been a lie; inside, Willie would still be her favorite, and then she'd have the lie as well as the jinx on her conscience.

There was one thing she could do, though. During the playoffs, she planned to cheer for Brooklyn as hard as she possibly could. Willie had already had a great season. Three more games weren't going to change that.

She would cheer for the Dodgers, not for Willie. Every minute of every game.

Maggie ran home from school as fast as she could in an effort to catch at least the last inning. Treecie ran with her as far as the corner, then had to turn down the street to go home and look after her sisters. "
Go, Dodgers!
" Treecie shouted as Maggie raced away. Maggie waved over her shoulder.

At home she rushed into the living room. Mom was sitting on the sofa, knitting, and Joey-Mick was there, too. Not only that, but the game had just ended: The Dodgers had lost, 3–1. At Ebbets Field—their own home ground.

Joey-Mick yelled at Maggie that it had been a dumb idea for him to wear the blue plaid shirt. Maggie yelled back that she hadn't made him wear it; he could have worn something else. Joey-Mick ripped off the shirt so fast that two of the buttons popped. Then he threw it at Maggie. It didn't hurt, but she started to cry anyway, which made Mom put down her knitting.

Maggie flung herself at Mom and held on, sobbing.

"For shame, Joseph Michael, making her cry so," Mom said as she patted Maggie's back with one hand and moved her knitting out of the way with the other.

"I didn't do nothin'! She's just a big baby."

"It's not him," Maggie choked out. She took a second out from crying to scowl at her brother. Then she turned back to Mom, and the tears started up again. "They lost—s-so they'll have to play the next two games at—at the stupid Polo Grounds, with all the—the stupid Giants' fans there—it's not f-fair—"

"Ah, for the love of Kerry," Mom said, "it's only a game, what are you in such a stew about?"

Maggie only cried harder. She was crying because the Dodgers had lost; because they had blown such a huge lead in the standings; because not listening to the Giants' games and getting a new notebook and picking the right shirt hadn't helped. But most of all she was crying because her mother just didn't understand.

"It's not fair," she said again, her words muffled in Mom's blouse.

After a few moments, Maggie's sobs slowed a little.

"Now, then," Mom said crisply, "enough of that. It's that fine young Mr. Labine pitching tomorrow. I
like the way he's been throwing. So stop your bellyaching and leave go of me. I've work to do."

Maggie had indeed stopped crying. She was staring up at Mom's face with her mouth and eyes wide open. Mom gave her shoulder a quick pat-slap and went back to her knitting.

Maggie and Joey-Mick looked at each other in silent amazement.

Mom knew
a lot
about the Dodgers. Clem Labine was a rookie; he had pitched in only a dozen or so games that year. You'd have had to be paying pretty good attention to know about him.

Something fell into place in Maggie's head as neatly as the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Dad was a Yankee fan. But as far back as Maggie could remember, when she and Joey-Mick were barely more than babies, it had been the
Dodgers'
games that sounded from the radio. And with Dad away at work all day, that could mean only one thing.

Mom was a Dodger fan.

She doesn't make a lot of noise about it, the way the rest of us do,
Maggie thought.
That's just her way.... I wonder who her favorite player is.

On the day of the second playoff game, Maggie and Joey-Mick arrived home at the same time and found the radio on full blast, Mom hanging wet laundry out back as she listened to the broadcast through the open window. The yard behind the house was just a patch of cement with a revolving clothesline planted in the middle, which Dad always called their tree
because there was no other tree in the yard. The clothesline did have a center pole for a trunk and supports for branches, with the laundry like big leaves flapping in the breeze. "Hey, Maggie-o, pick a shirt off the tree for me," he would say.

There wasn't even time for Maggie to get her scorebook; the game was almost over. Maggie already knew that the Dodgers were winning. As usual, she had been able to hear the broadcast from radios all along the street during her run home from school.

The final out! Joey-Mick jumped to his feet and they danced around the room together, shouting and laughing, and then out the door into the yard, where he grabbed hold of a pair of Dad's dungarees pinned to the line and flung them so that the whole revolving clothesline started spinning madly, and he and Maggie ran in circles around it.

"Joseph Michael!" Mom yelled. Then she had to duck out of the way as the wet dungarees sailed toward her head, and finally she was laughing too. When they had all calmed down a little and were picking up the socks that had whirled off the line, Mom shook a finger at them and said, "Mr. Labine. Did I not tell you?"

Clem Labine's beautiful pitching and a barrage of hits by his teammates had added up to a 10–0 victory over the Giants, Brooklyn piling up run after run as if they would never stop scoring. Game 2 to the Dodgers! The winner of Game 3 would be league champion and go on to play in the World Series!

***

The morning of the third game, Maggie and Joey-Mick grinned at each other as they left for school. They had just emerged in triumph after a fierce discussion with Mom about staying home from school after lunch so they could listen to the game. "Oh, suit yourselves, then!" Mom snapped in the end, but Maggie had the feeling she wasn't nearly as cross as she sounded.

The radio was turned up loud enough so Mom could hear it in the kitchen. Maggie sat in the green armchair as usual, busy with score sheet and pencil. Joey-Mick lounged on the rug and plunked the ball into his glove,
thunk—thunk—thunk.
Maggie was so used to the sound that she hardly heard it. But whenever Joey-Mick stopped during an exciting play so he could concentrate on listening, she always noticed the gap in that steady beat.

As the bottom of the ninth inning approached, Maggie and Joey-Mick were both fidgeting to contain their joy. The Dodgers had scored three runs in the eighth inning to take the lead, 4–1. Just three more outs and the pennant would be theirs.

The Giants started the inning with two straight hits, followed by an out and a double that drove in a run. But just one; the Dodgers were still ahead, 4–2. Only two outs to go.

With two men on base, Bobby Thomson would be the next batter. Pitcher Ralph Branca came in to relieve starter Don Newcombe.

"Branca?" Joey-Mick exclaimed.

"It'll be okay," Maggie said immediately. She knew what Joey-Mick was thinking: In Game 1 of the playoffs, Thomson had faced Branca and hit a two-run homer. "It'll never happen twice in a row." Joey-Mick nodded.

But if Thomson did manage to get on base, the next batter would be ... Willie Mays. When Red Barber announced that Willie was on deck, Joey-Mick glared at Maggie so fiercely that she could feel the heat of it on the back of her neck when she bent her head down to her score sheet again.

First pitch to Thomson, a strike. Maggie recorded it dutifully. She wrote a backward'S very, very slowly:
If I write it slow enough and the next pitch comes before I finish, it'll be another strike.
The whole game had been filled with thoughts like that:
If I wait one more batter to get a drink of water, the Dodgers will get him out.... If I don't change positions until the end of the inning, the Dodgers will score a run.

She had to cheat and add a tiny extra curl to the tail of the'S so she wouldn't lift the pencil until the next pitch. Then she looked up at the radio.

"
Branca pumps ... delivers ... a curve ball. A deep fly to left field—it is ... a home run! And the New York Giants win the National League pennant, and the crowd goes wild...
"

Red Barber said nothing more for what felt like ages. All Maggie could hear was the crowd's roar, so loud and incessant that it sounded almost like static, as if the radio was stuck between stations, the noise a perfect match for the buzzing numbness inside her head.

The Polo Grounds had the shortest left-field fence in all of baseball. If the game had been at Ebbets Field—if it had been
anywhere
else—that hit would never have been a home run. Andy Pafko would have caught it easy as pie.

But it
was
the Polo Grounds. Game over: Giants 5, Dodgers 4.

Later, Maggie would learn that the Giants' announcer Russ Hodges had screamed over and over, "THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!"—four times altogether, at the top of his lungs. She would also hear that Jackie Robinson had refused to leave the field until Thomson touched all four bases; if he hadn't, the fifth run wouldn't have counted. Jackie was a fighter, that was for sure. Right to the end, and even after the end.

But for now, she sat frozen, pencil in hand, unable to score the final play of the game.
If I don't write it down, maybe it didn't happen.
The shock had paralyzed Joey-Mick too; neither of them could move enough to turn off the radio.

A ridiculous thought came to Maggie through the numbness. Willie Mays hadn't been involved at all, hadn't come to bat during that awful, horrible, terrible, dreadful inning. Suppose Willie had ended up being the hero instead of Bobby Thomson—what would she have done then?

On second thought, she probably wouldn't have had time to worry about it. Joey-Mick would have killed her first.

***

Dazed, Maggie closed her notebook without scoring Thomson's home run. Joey-Mick jumped to his feet and went upstairs without a word. As he left the room, his face was white and stony, as if it was about to break into a million pieces. Although she couldn't hear him, Maggie was sure he was crying. Probably lying on his bed with the pillow over his head.

She couldn't remember the last time he had cried about anything.

Maggie sat there for a while thinking about her prayers. They hadn't worked for the first game, so she had almost decided not to pray for the Dodgers the night before the second game. But at the last minute she had changed her mind. She had done it once, and if she didn't do it again, maybe God would think she hadn't meant it the first time.

The Dodgers had won the second game! So Maggie had prayed again before the third game.

And look what happened.

It hadn't worked.

It
really
hadn't worked. Ahead until the last swing of the bat and then losing—that was maybe the hardest way of all to lose.