My old nemesis, Will Craver, was kicked out of baseball permanently for crooked dealings. I couldn’t muster much sympathy.
In 1919, exactly half a century after the establishment of professional baseball, the Cincinnati Reds hosted the World Series opener at Redland Field. Matched against them were Chicago’s White Sox—soon the infamous Black Sox. Guests of honor were George Wright, Cal McVey, and Oak Taylor: the only surviving Stockings. I thought I could imagine some of what they must have felt that day, proud relics of another time.
And even then, fifty years later, the crowd had stood and roared for Captain Harry’s boys. . . .
Reading of their deaths devastated me.
Brainard went first, of pneumonia, in Denver, where he was a saloon keeper. He died in 1888—year of the Great Blizzard—only forty-seven.
Harry went in 1895, at age sixty, after a long illness; beloved and respected to the end, his passing prompted “Harry Wright Day” in ballparks across the nation.
Champion died within a month of Harry.
Waterman went in ’99.
And then Andy, in 1903, in Roxbury. I held a copy of his death certificate with trembling fingers. Gastric ulcer. Fifty-seven. A Boston Herald obit said he was survived by his wife and several grown children. There was a picture: I stared at a much older Andy, with full mustache, fleshy cheeks, receding hairline. My God.
Sweasy went in 1908.Allison in 1916.
Gould in 1917.
Mac in 1926.
George was the last, passing peacefully in Boston, August 21,1937. Ninety years old. In baseball, Joe DiMaggio was already in his sophomore season. My grandparents were still fairly young, my parents only teenagers. And George had still been living.
I rose and moved blindly toward the door.
“Something wrong?” asked the young assistant who had helped me find what I wanted.
“They’re all dead,” I blurted.
As I pushed through the door she said, “I’m sorry.”
For a long time I was bummed, preoccupied with death and dying. It got so bad that I went back to see Sjoberg. I really thought I was going off the deep end. He told me my morbid period was actually a sign of growing health. Grief represented a stage of acceptance and accommodation following disbelief and anger. I was getting in touch with myself.
And just what was I coming to accept? My friends’ deaths? No, he said, the distinction between that reality and this. His meaning was clear: I was finally distinguishing the here and now as opposed to my time-travel delusion.
What about Cait, then? Why hadn’t I chased down every trace of her?
Still protecting in some areas, he said. To be expected.
Protecting what?
Innocence, ideals, he suggested. The cherished idea of a pure and blameless mother. One I (conveniently) had not known and therefore found easier to love and protect. At a distance. As with Cait.
What the hell was I accepting, then, my father?
Yes, perhaps. Coming to terms with an indifferent universe in which innocents suffered neglect and abandonment—sometimes even violent death.
I told him I thought it was a crock of shit.
He may have been partly right, though. My perception was changing, but not the way he thought. With the passage of time I began to realize that, from this perspective, of course they would all have to be dead now. But it wasn’t from here that I had known them or existed with them. A simple realization. But it felt profound.
And something more dramatic was happening too. On several more occasions I mistook women for Cait. Each time the whitish light broke around me, and each time it seemed more accessible. Discovering it wasn’t Cait became less agonizing with the awareness that the line between that reality and this was blurring, becoming somehow navigable. I didn’t understand the process, but I felt that I was slowly gaining control of it.
What made me surer was seeing Clara Antonia. Not mistaking somebody for her. Seeing her. I was entering the Chronicle building one evening when I heard my name called. I turned and saw her waving to me from in front of the Old Mint. I recognized her instantly, even in conservative wool business suit and running shoes. She looked a bit thinner, though her face was still on the pudgy side and fringed with little ringlets. I grinned and returned her wave. When I took a step toward her she turned and walked around the corner. I didn’t try to follow.
A validation, I thought. And a promise.
As for baseball, I occasionally watched games on TV till I got too bored. Once I went out to Candlestick with guys from work, but the amplified sound bothered me. So did the slow pace, the players’ stylized posturings, the elaborate equipment, the succession of specialists. The professionalization of the sport—a process refined by Harry and Champion—had come too far in my view. Give me teams who sing as they ride to the ballpark in horse-drawn, pennant-bedecked wagons. Who play with spirit and sit down to banquets with opponents afterward.
I get more honest feeling for the sport at the diamonds in Golden Gate Park, where the field is banked like old-time grounds, and where the players show up out of love. I spend quite a bit of time there.
Where the Recreation Grounds stood, at Twenty-fifth and Folsom, is all residential grid. I went there once—and felt nothing. For me it’s mostly the carriages in the park, old St. Mary’s, and Chinatown. And every once in a while I go up to Coolbrith Park and stand in the spot where O’Donovan fell to his death, where Colm saved me. I feel the milky light close by and hear Cait whisper my name.
It’s been almost a year since I returned. I feel pretty good. The job’s okay—not exciting, but it’s enabled me to stash a fair amount of money in an account for Hope and Susy, with very specific legal instructions and protections. I’ve told Stephanie what to do should I vanish. She appreciates my attempt at responsibility. All the while
