Alive on Opening Day

  Alive on Opening Day

  Adam Hughes

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2016 Adam Hughes

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, businesses, organizations, or persons — living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to fathers and sons, but especially to my father and my son.

  And to anyone who has ever loved baseball.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Baseball Card Shop

  Dan Hodges leaned over the display case and pointed to a spot right in the middle, careful not to touch the Plexiglass with his finger.

  “Can we see that Dave Parker rookie card?” he asked the chunky middle-aged man behind the counter.

  The shop owner took another bite of his hoagie and looked at Dan through slitted eyes. “Sure, I guess so,” he mumbled, spewing pastrami fumes into Dan’s nose.

  The fat man stood and set the sandwich on his chair, then rubbed his hands together to dust off the crumbs and grease from his meal. He slid out the lucite tray from the bottom of the case and picked up the 1974 Topps Parker card by the edges of its rigid plastic holder.

  “Here you go,” he said, holding out the card out for Dan to take. “You guys Reds fans?”

  He looked from Dan to Troy and back to Dan again. Chubby squinted and raised his chin, almost as if he were challenging Dan, who had seen this type of thing before.

  “Yep, dyed-in-the-wool, since the day we were born, right, Troy?”

  “That’s right, Dad,” Troy answered and cringed, mouthing a “sorry” in Dan’s direction.

  Dan cleared his throat and pretended to be studying the card, then sneaked a look at the guy behind the counter who was scrutinizing him even more closely than before.

  “But I don’t know WHY you wanted to see this card, Troy,” Dan said and turned toward his son. “Especially when there is a perfectly good Dan Driessen card over there in that box that you could have for a buck.”

  Dan pointed to a white box full of cards on a game table standing to Troy’s right.

  “Well,” Troy said, “for one thing, Dave Parker is still playing. For another, he’s actually a great player and is probably going to end up in the Hall of Fame. If the Reds hadn’t let him walk a couple of years ago, they’d have at least one World Series trophy by now.”

  Dan shook his head ruefully.

  “Just like Oakland last year,” Troy finished his thought. “And it’s only by a fluke of Kirk Gibson that they haven’t won two in a row.”

  The shop owner had picked up his sandwich and sat back down, watching the two Hodges lob verbal volleys between them like they were playing tennis.

  “Oh, Troy,” Dan said. “How many times do I have to tell you that there probably wouldn’t have been a Big Red Machine if it weren’t for Dan Driessen? He was the best of their young players in the middle 1970s and even when Sparky Anderson pushed him off to a utility role because he loved George Foster so much, Driessen was still a super sub. Heck, was a younger, cheaper Pete Rose who could play almost anywhere on the diamond. If the Reds had developed him the right way, he could have been the next Mike Schmidt.”

  Troy wasn’t sure if his father was joking or not. He knew Dan had always held Driessen in higher esteem than just about anyone else in the world did, but he also knew that Schmidt had been Dan’s favorite player since at least 1980. In either case, Troy didn’t really care what Dan thought about Parker and Driessen as long as he left Doug’s Dugout with the Parker card in his hot little mitts.

  “Maybe you’re right about Driessen, Dad,” he said. “I suppose he was pretty underrated.”

  Doug, the shop owner, stood up again and thrust his chin toward Dan. “Say, how does such a young guy know so much about the old-time Reds?” he asked.

  Dan touched his chest with his fingers, and raised his eyebrows. “Me?” he asked, and the fat man nodded. “Well, like I said, I’ve been a Reds fan since I was born, so I know pretty much everything about them.”

  Doug looked sideways and squinted again, sizing up both Dan and Troy, and Dan figured he’d better wrap up their transaction before the slob said something offensive.

  “Look,” Dan said to the shop owner. “Parker was a great player and even helped the Reds out when they were rebuilding a few years ago, but he’s at the end of the line and there’s no way he’s going to hold on long enough to make it to the Hall of Fame.”

  Doug shrugged and put both palms in front of him is if to say, “So?”.

  “So I’m thinking,” Dan went on, “that $20 is a bit high for his rookie card, especially seeing as how The Cobra is playing for another team. It’s got to be hard to sell ex-Reds around here, right?”

  The store owner didn’t answer Dan’s question but asked one of his own. “What’s it worth to you, then?”

  Dan rubbed his smooth chin and looked off to the side for a moment, then said, “How about $10?”

  Doug hissed a derisive laugh and said, “You’re dreamin’ buddy.”

  “Dad!” Troy whispered beside Dan, clearly embarrassed by his father’s haggling.

  Dan handed the card back across the counter. “Alrighty then,” he said. “We have to get going because the game starts in a couple of hours and we want to catch batting practice.” Turning to Troy, he said, “We can use that $10 toward one of those Sabo jerseys you’re always harping about.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Doug said as he scampered to his feet again. “You guys seem like real solid Reds fans, so how about we meet halfway: $15?”

  Dan was guiding Troy out the door and called over his shoulder, “Have a nice day.”

  “Sheesh,” Doug said. “Fine! Fine! Ten bucks.”

  Dan stopped and turned, smiling at Doug. “Throw in the Driessen rookie and you’ve got a deal.”

  “You’re killing me!” the shop owner complained, but he stuck a greasy paw into the box holding the Driessen card and pulled out Dan’s prize.

  The next part made Dan nervous, but he hadn’t brought enough cash to get them into Riverfront Stadium and buy concessions and splurge for the two 1974 cards. “Will you take a check?” he asked.

  Doug grunted and pursed his lips. “I don’t suppose you got any ID, do ya?”

  “Sure I do,” Dan said. “How do you think we got here?” He took his wallet from his pants pocket and fished out his driver’s license.

  “Uh huh,” Doug said. “I figured you were from Indiana — nobody from the city would be still be so hung up on Dan Driessen, of all players.”

  Doug lay Dan’s license on the counter in front of him, then leaned in close to read the details, finally looked at Dan. He glanced back to the license and again to Dan, held the license up to the light, and squinted his eyes.

  “Say, what are you trying to pull here, son?” he asked, glowering at Dan.

  “What do you mean?” Dan asked in reply, though he knew what was coming.

  “This ‘license’ says you were born in 1954!” Doug was getting agitated.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Dan said, fighting to stay calm.

  “Son, if you’re 35, then I’m 100!” the shop owner exclaimed. “This is the worst fake ID I’ve ever seen. I’ll bet you’re not even legal, are y
ou?”

  “Yessir,” Dan said. “I’m a legal 35-year-old man. Now, are you going to sell me those cards or not?”

  Dan had his arm around Troy’s shoulder, and he could feel his son growing more tense as the conversation unfolded. They had been in these types of situations before, and they always ran the risk of running into a bad character, or worse, some sort of vigilante who might cause real trouble. Dan thought Doug was just a blowhard, but he couldn’t be sure.

  He had already written the check and slid it across the counter to Doug, who picked it up and compared it with the driver’s license. Apparently satisfied that at least the addresses and names matched, he huffed and pushed the two cards in Dan’s direction.

  “Guess I’m a darn fool who just wants to give his cards away,” he said. “You boys go on and get out of here now, and I don’t want you coming back in my shop again, you hear me?”

  “Loud and clear,” Dan answered as he guided Troy through the front door.

  On the sidewalk, Dan could see Troy was shaken, but he didn’t want to let the card shop incident ruin their outing. After all, he never really knew how many days there would be before … well, before there weren’t any more. He decided the best way to cut the tension was to talk about baseball.

  Most of life’s problems could be lessened by talking about baseball, Dan had found.

  He held up the Driessen card for Troy to see. “There it is,” he said. “The rookie card of one Cincinnati’s great unsung heroes. Why, I knew from the first time I laid eyes on Dan Driessen that he was going to be a superstar.”

  Troy still looked shocked, but he managed to groan as Dan started talking about his old-time Reds again.

  “It was the spring of 1973, and …”

  CHAPTER TWO

  On the Line

  It was the spring of 1973, and Dan Hodges was fighting for his baseball life. He was a star third baseman with a powerful bat, quick feet, and a rock-solid glove, but at just five-feet-nine-inches tall and 160 pounds, he was no one’s idea of an imposing figure. He knew no scout would ever sign him to a contract right out of high school, so his dream of making it to the Major Leagues hinged on his college career.

  But as the son of factory department manager in central Indiana, there was no way Dan could afford to go to college unless someone else paid the bills, and his only hope of that happening was to land a baseball scholarship. So, no matter how Dan looked at his life, success and happiness revolved around the baseball diamond and on this one game in particular. All the big schools had sent assistant coaches to watch him play during the season, and the smaller schools had sent their head coaches, but all of them ended up telling him a variation of the same thing: they were set at third base for the next two or three years, and he was too diminutive to hit well in college, anyway.

  The one exception was Ralph Harris, head coach of the Indiana Western University Red Hawks in nearby Terre Haute. Harris had been one of the first to come see Dan play at South Pickens High School, dropping in at the beginning of the school’s second-ever season in March of 1971, when Dan was a sophomore. At that time, Harris was an assistant and had heard good things about the runt who led the Eagles in hitting in 1970, and the big, burly man struck up a friendship with Dan’s father, David. As much as Harris had become a fixture in the Wabash Valley and around the local high school circuit, though, and as much as he liked the Hodges and thought Dan was a fine ballplayer, Harris had just taken the helm at IWU in 1973 and needed to make a splash to satisfy the school’s fans and donors.

  The good news for Dan was that the Red Hawks did need a new third baseman, because both Tom Rumpke and Eddie Watson were graduating in June. The bad news was that Harris’ choice for the last scholarship slot had come down to Dan and Elmer Deskins, from Melville.

  As luck — or the baseball Gods — would have it, the Eagles were hosting the Warriors on the third Monday in May, just five days before Dan was set to graduate from high school. By eight o’clock that evening, the two teams had battled to a 2-2 tie going into the bottom of the seventh inning in the first game of the sectionals.

  The first two Eagles batters of the frame struck out against big Jim Jackson, Melville’s fire-balling righty, and then leadoff man and second baseman Brent Wilson managed to slap a single to right field. Center fielder Mike Carter worked Jackson to a full count, then fouling off a couple of pitches before taking ball four, a close-call breaking pitch just off the outside corner of the plate.

  Dan had watched Carter’s epic plate appearance unfold from the on-deck circle and said a little prayer with each practice swing and each pitch from Jackson. As Carter trotted to first and Wilson ran to second, Dan looked into the stands to find his parents, sitting behind home plate, and Gabbie, positioned next to third. The two women smiled and blew him kisses, while his father greeted him with a steely gaze and a single, solemn nod.

  You can do this, the old man was telling his only son.

  The game, the whole season, and Dan’s entire baseball career had come down to this one at-bat. Both he and Elmer had collected a single hit on the night, neither one scoring or driving in a run. Elmer had handled one liner smashed in his direction, but Dan had chased down a high fly ball that nearly landed in Gabbie’s lap before he snatched it from in front of her. It was as even a matchup as Dan could have imagined, but he had one last chance to differentiate himself. His college hopes were on the line.

  He strode to the plate and pawed at the dirt with his cleats, then stepped into the box to set his feet. He took a couple of practice swings, steadied his body, and stared out toward the mound, where Jackson stood looking like a bull ready to charge. Behind Dan, catcher Jason Fisher moved slightly, and Jackson nodded his agreement with the sign. He reared back and unleashed a searing fastball that popped into the catcher’s mitt seemingly before it had even left the pitcher’s hand.

  Strike one.

  Dan stepped out of the box and adjusted his helmet. “Come on, Danny!” Gabbie called from behind third. He stepped back up to the plate and looked out toward Jackson again.

  This time, the big hurler did not even wait for the sign but uncorked another flaming heater. Dan was more prepared, but still couldn’t catch up to the scorching fastball, and he swung behind it.

  Strike two.

  Dan stepped out again and took a few hacks, trying to ratchet up his bat speed to match what Jackson was offering.

  “Look for the change!” coach Croft called from the bench.

  “You can do it, Dan!” his mother yelled.

  Once more, Dan stepped into the box, his coach’s words still echoing. The next pitch should be off-speed, and it might be Dan’s best chance of the whole at-bat to make contact. The catcher gave his sign, Jackson nodded, and the ball came tumbling toward home plate. Dan recognized the pitch almost immediately as a change-up but his muscles were still charged from the heat of the previous two pitches and he swung too early. The ball bounded toward third base and bounced once inside the line before angling across the chalk. Dan sprinted toward first base and was within 20 feet of the bag when the third-base umpire called it: “Foul ball!”

  Dan trotted back toward home plate and caught Coach Croft waving to him out of the corner of his eye. Dan stopped and bent toward the dugout, trying to hear what his coach had to say. Croft put his hands on either side of his mouth to shield his lips and mouthed, “Curveball.” Dan nodded, but he didn’t think his coach was right about this one. Jackson would be eager to end the game, and he’d want to do it in style if he could.

  With all due respect to Coach Croft, Dan settled into the box with his pitch radar set on dead red: it would be a fastball down the center of the plate, and Dan was going to smash it.

  He adjusted his jersey, took one half swing, and crouched into his stance, staring straight into Jackson’s eyes. The right-hander didn’t even look at his catcher, returning Dan’s stare instead, and adding a smirk for good measure. “C’mon, you big oaf,” Dan thought. “Put
it right in here.”