Where Have You Gone, Joe Dimaggio? - Part I

Long before anyone ever dreamed of today's Rotisserie Baseball leagues, there was the World Famous, All American, All Star Professional Baseball Players League, the WFAAASPBPL for short. We just called it the Waffle League. Hundreds of the sweetest summer days ever dreamed of were spent at the official Waffle League stadium, the vacant lot between our house and Old Doc Schumacher's place. Mickey Mantle played there. So did my favorite, Lou Gehrig. And Yaz, The Big Train, The Bambino. All of the greats. And we loved it. "Come on, are you going to pitch the ball or what?" cried Bob, my best friend. He was the world's greatest living expert, a veritable knowledge bank on just about any subject. He knew the names of all the kings and queens of England since the days of King Arthur. He could recite the Declaration of Independence from memory. And he could show you every constellation in the sky and tell you the legends behind them. Nothing escaped him. Unless, that is, you're talking about my slider. "Strike three! You're out!" "What do you mean, strike three?" he protested. "It wasn't even close!" Bob hated getting struck out more than just about anything. He hated taking a bath on Saturday evening, he hated broccoli, and he hated Karen Staggle. But hated striking out more than all of them combined. And he hated it even more when he was pretending to be Roberto Clemente. "You must be blind or something!" My kid brother was serving as the umpire that day, and even though he wore glasses, he wasn't blind. He could still see the difference between a ball and a ball thrown right down the pipe. "It was a strike, Roberto," he said with utter calmness. "Now take your seat before I give you the boot." Bob was three years older than my brother, and if he had wanted to he could have knocked him into the next zip code. But there was something sacred about being an umpire. They were ok to yell at and give all sorts of grief to, but you never touched them, even if they were what you considered "a little puke". So, with epithets under his breath, Clemente took his seat at the end of the bench. "Next up, Joe DiMaggio!" I've always been a die-hard Yankee fan, but I loved striking out Joe DiMaggio more than anyone. I liked it partly because he was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. But I also liked it because his real name was Roger Lewis. No one in school really liked Roger. He was so different from the rest of us. He had everything: a huge house, a new bicycle, tons of money, and something else that none of the rest of us would ever think of having - drugs. Roger was the biggest doper in school. As a matter of fact, he was the only one I ever really knew growing up. "I'm taking this one downtown, Whitey," he said with a strange look in his eye. I'd seen that look before, but only after I'd been punched in the nose by Jimmy Dills. It was kind of like seeing stars. "No, you're not, Joe!" I replied. "You're not even going to see it going by." I was cocky if not good. The first pitch was a curve, just outside. "Ain't you got nothing better than that?" he cried. I gritted my teeth. Slider, in on the hands. "Ball two," cried the ump. "You'll never get me out with that garbage." Screwball, a little low, but my brother called it a strike. Lucky. Now, set him up with the fastball and then drop him with a change up a little inside. It worked every time. Except this one. He crushed my fastball into the upper deck of the Waffle League stadium where an adoring DiMaggio fan caught it. Actually, it landed in Mrs. Lucha's garden, but even in defeat we liked to pretend. "I told you I'd kill it," Roger taunted as he rounded the bases, laughing. "I've got your number, chump!" There are several things I hated more in this world than being laughed at by someone who had just hit a homerun off of me. But I can't think of any. When the dust cleared, I had a chipped tooth, a black eye, and a torn shirt. Roger had a bruised fist. "There are more than 15,000 species of ants in the world today. Some can live as long as 15 years." Mr. Zaleski's science class was never a boy's favorite class. He spoke with a voice that was a cross between Jack Benny and a monotone Tiny Tim. "You playing today?" whispered Bob. "Yea, sure," I replied. Even with a black eye, Bob knew good and well that I never missed an opportunity to play baseball, but he had to ask every day anyway. "Even after yesterday?" "Yup," I said. "I'll be there." "Roger's going to be there, too." "Good!" I said, a little too loud. Mr. Zaleski looked my way, but kept right on boring the class with his mindless ant facts. "Let him come," I said a little softer. "It's a free country." For the rest of the school day I dreamed of the awful things I was going to do to Roger Lewis. And I came up with a plan that I thought would take care of the issue once and for all. I'd hit him in the wig with the baseball.