As expected, this is not well received. For thirty years, I have often hesitated when giving my last name. Usually, it does not get a reaction, but there have been enough uncomfortable moments to render me gun- shy.
He puffs hard for a while, glaring at me, and finally says, “You could get shot around here.”
“I didn’t come here to get shot, Mr. Rook.”
“Why are you here, son?”
“My father is dying of pancreatic cancer. He’ll be gone in a few months.”
Another puff, another cloud. “I’m sorry,” he says, but only to be polite.
“I doubt if this news will cause too much anguish here in Calico Rock,” I say.
He nodded and said, “You’re right about that. Most folks in these parts would enjoy watching Warren Tracey burn at the stake. And slowly.”
“I realize that.”
“Does anyone else know you’re here?”
“No sir. Only you.”
He takes a deep breath and stares at a table lamp, trying to collect his thoughts. A clock on his wall gives him the time as 5:10. I wait, somewhat nervously. He’ll either order me out of his office or decide to chat a bit longer. I’m betting on the latter because he is, after all, a reporter and naturally curious.
“Where is your father these days?” he asks.
“Florida. He left the family when I was twelve, and we’ve had little contact over the years. We’re not close, never have been.”
“Did he send you here?”
“No sir. He doesn’t know.”
“May I ask, then, what, exactly, are you doing here?”
“I want to talk to Joe Castle, and I’m hoping that you know the family pretty well.”
“Indeed I do, and I know them well enough to tell you that Joe doesn’t talk to strangers, and he sure as hell won’t talk to the son of Warren Tracey.”
6
Sunday, July 15, 1973. Wrigley Field was once again packed with forty-one thousand fanatics. Another crowd, estimated at ten thousand, mingled outside the stadium looking for tickets, drinking beer, listening to the radio, and in general getting as close as possible to baseball history. Adding to the excitement was the fact that Juan Marichal was starting for the Giants, and his road games generally increased the gate. Though his better years were behind him, Marichal could still beat any team on any day. With his high-kicking windup, superb control, intimidating tactics, and dogged competitiveness, Marichal was colorful and always dangerous. In the previous thirteen years, he had pitched many games at Wrigley, and he had won far more than he had lost.
He wasted no time in causing trouble. When Joe dug in in the bottom of the first, Marichal’s first pitch was aimed directly at his shoulder. Joe hit the ground and barely missed being maimed, and Wrigley almost exploded. From the Cubs dugout, there were shouts, threats, lots of cursing at the mound, where Marichal rubbed the baseball, smiled, and considered the next pitch. As a rookie in his fourth game, Joe knew it was not the moment to charge the mound. He had to earn that right, and it would happen soon enough. Keep your cool, his brother Red had advised him. They’ll start throwing at you before long.
The next pitch was a fastball, and Joe, swinging from the left side, ripped it down the right field foul line, a screaming bullet that froze the defense and stunned the crowd. The ball was clearly foul, but it kept rising and rising until it landed high in the upper deck. The pitch had been outside by six inches and was traveling at something close to ninety-five miles an hour, and Joe had easily yanked it foul. Marichal was impressed. Willie McCovey took a step back at first, and Joe noticed this. The third pitch was a fastball inside. Joe broke with the delivery, his bat trailing. Marichal was at the end of his theatrical delivery and in no position to field a bunt. McCovey got a bad jump. Tito Fuentes raced to cover first, but to no avail. The ball rolled through the baseline chalk for forty feet, then bounced slightly to the left. When McCovey picked it up, Joe Castle was sprinting past first base, now fourteen for fourteen.
McCovey said nothing to the kid. When the crowd settled down, Marichal stepped onto the rubber and looked at Dave Rader behind the plate. He went into his stretch, kicked high, as always, and Joe was halfway to second by the time Marichal released the ball. Rader’s throw to Fuentes was perfect, but much too late. After a leisurely slide into second, Joe bounced to his feet, looked at Marichal, shrugged, smiled, and spread his arms as if to say, “You throw at me, I’ll make you pay.”
Two pitches later, he stole third, then scored on a passed ball.
In the bottom of the fourth, he blooped a single to shallow center for his fifteenth consecutive hit. Marichal then caught him leaning and picked him off first.
As Joe had predicted, they eventually got him out. In his sixteenth at bat, in the bottom of the seventh inning, Joe crushed a ball to deep center, and for a second it looked as if it were gone. But the center fielder, Garry Maddox, drifted back and back until he was on the warning track, then back some more until he was almost touching the ivy. Three hundred ninety-nine feet from home plate, Maddox caught the ball, and the streak was over.
Joe was at second base, jogging, watching Maddox, and when the out was final, he turned and headed to the dugout. The crowd rose again in thunderous applause, and Joe took his time leaving the field.
After the game, the Cubs announced that his jersey would be changed. Number 42 was set aside, and for the
