Welcome to the Show Read online

  ADDITIONAL PRAISE FOR WELCOME TO THE SHOW

  “A marvelous blending of baseball history and first-rate fiction. The perfect conclusion to an outstanding baseball saga.”

  —Howie Rose, sportscaster for the New York Mets

  “A masterful final chapter in the incredible life of a most compelling baseball legend. The Legend of Mickey Tussler series is a baseball trilogy destined to become the definitive work in the genre.”

  —David Satriano, New York Post

  “Frank Nappi’s Legend of Mickey Tussler series reminds us why sports, above all else, remain the great unifier, the great teacher, and why baseball remains our beloved national pastime. Mickey’s journey not only calls on our common ground as a people, but of the need to respect, appreciate, and understand those things that make us inherently individual and unique.”

  —John Valenti, Newsday

  “Bernard Malamud has the character of Roy Hobbs, and Frank Nappi has the intriguing character of Mickey Tussler. Through his award-winning series of three books, Nappi takes us on a journey through baseball life in the 1940s, as seen through the lens of autism. This is not a conventional baseball story, but one that lays out unique challenges and plot twists that differ from any series of baseball books that have come before.”

  —Bruce Markusen, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

  “Wonderfully written baseball series with an accurate depiction of life in the minor leagues. Frank Nappi weaves throughout these stories the age old human condition of prejudice and narrow mindedness, things we all are still working on in the present. I cannot wait for the next book to see what Mickey and Lester can accomplish in the show.”

  —Craig Swan, former New York Mets pitcher

  “It is refreshing to read a series of books that celebrate the extraordinary talent that a very special young man with autism possesses. These books also show the real challenges those touched by autism must endure. The saga of Mickey Tussler spoke to me as a former professional athlete and as also a parent of another special young man with autism.”

  —Olie Kolzig, former NHL goaltender

  “In the third novel in his heartwarming, unforgettable Mickey Tussler baseball series, Frank Nappi has surpassed himself. In this latest tale of a young autistic pitcher with a ‘golden arm,’ Nappi hits another one out of the park.”

  —Betty Dravis, author of Star Struck: Interviews with Dirty Harry and Other Hollywood Icons

  ALSO BY FRANK NAPPI

  The Legend of Mickey Tussler

  Sophomore Campaign

  Copyright © 2016 by Frank Nappi

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.skyponypress.com.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Sarah Brody

  Cover photo credit iStock

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-829-2

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-834-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Julia, Nick, and Anthony

  And for my father, Francis Nappi, whose undaunted spirit and love of the game continue to inspire me

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Note to baseball historians: certain artistic liberties have been taken with regard to names, timelines, and the chronology of other baseball occurrences in order to facilitate the telling of this story.

  “Baseball is an allegorical play about America, a poetic, complex, and subtle play of courage, fear, good luck, mistakes, patience about fate, and sober self-esteem.”

  —SAUL STEINBERG

  THE BEE HIVE—OCTOBER 1949

  The massive ballpark that stood on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston was a far cry from the quaint, intimate confines of Milwaukee’s Borchert Field. Braves Field, or “the Bee Hive” as some still liked to call it, was a cavernous playground, a forty-thousand-seat venue with a rolling expanse of fresh green grass and fences that stretched out some four hundred feet away from home plate, where prospective suitors clad in decorative flannel would sidle up to the pentagon-shaped dish to take their hacks, carrying with them only a carefully treated hunk of Louisville lumber and lofty visions of clearing the impossibly distant barrier. It was most certainly a pitcher’s paradise, the place where many a fly ball went to die, and in the organization’s estimation, the perfect place for a young man like Mickey Tussler to shine. Mickey had dominated for two years with the minor league affiliate Brewers, and despite his idiosyncrasies and slowness of mind—two things that engendered much talk about the quizzical farm boy turned baseball prodigy—he was ready for the next step.

  “Well, what do you think of your new home, Mick?” Murph asked, staring hypnotically at a thick ribbon of black smoke unfolding above the row of fir trees just beyond the center field fence.

  “Sure is big, Mr. Murphy,” the young man said, his heart racing. He was mesmerized by the sizable numbers on the sixty-eight-foot scoreboard towering over left field. Lester, who was standing next to Mickey with his hand on the boy’s shoulder, was equally impressed.

  “Mickey never saw such a big place. When do we move in?”

  Murph laughed. His heart was aflutter as well. It had taken the baseball lifer too many years to get back to the bigs. He had endured so much disappointment. A playing career cut short due to a freakish injury. A dozen consecutive seasons at the helm of the Brew Crew, all of which had resulted in the hapless band of baseball misfits finishing in the bowels of the standings. And most recently, two very productive seasons with the new-look Brewers, both which ended with unforgivable losses to the Rangers and their manager, Chip McNally, Murph’s nemesis. It looked as though he would never get back. But the Braves owner, James Gaffney, liked what Murph was doing. There was a fire in Murph’s eyes, an insatiable yearning for excellence and victory that few others possessed. Gaffney also knew that it was Murph, and only Murph, who could get the most out of their quirky sensation, Mickey, as well as his battery mate, the recently acquired Negro League standout, Lester Sledge.

  “Yes, it’s big, Mick,” Murph replied. “That’s the idea, kiddo—ain’t a player been born yet that’s gonna hurt you in this ballpark.”

  Lester nodded, marginally considering the implications that the new layout would have on his own game. “You ain’t just whistling ‘Dixie,’ Murph,” he said. “And with them stiff winds whipping in off the Charles River, it’d be nothing short of a miracle if anything got anywhere near our boys out there.”

  It was quite a place. All three men meandered deliberately about the park, mouths agape, in awe—as if treading on hallowed ground. They walked the base paths in dramatic pantomime, attaching each step to some fantastic moment that had already unfurled with breathless wonder in their minds’ eyes.

  The outfield was also vast and awesome, and each man dragged his feet across the lush green carpet that stretched from one foul pole to the other, savoring every step as if somehow it was to be his last. After listening to the sacred voices of the past that continued to whisper excitement and
endless possibilities from every corner, they finally came together on the meticulously manicured bump that stood sixty feet, six inches from home plate and sighed in unison.

  “Is there anything closer to heaven, fellas, than a ballpark?” Murph asked.

  Having satisfied their hunger for the diamond aesthetics, the trio made their way from the pitcher’s mound to the home dugout. They descended the steps, taking one final look at the cavernous park from their new vantage point before finally finding their way into the locker room. Once inside, Murph felt himself leaving his feet, as though buoyed by some mystical force. It was certainly surreal. His entire life had been a quest for this very moment—the chance to manage a big league club. After all these years, his chance had arrived.

  “Welcome to the show, fellas,” he beamed, arms outstretched in a most public display of effusive rapture. “It don’t get any better than this.”

  Mickey was equally captivated. Sure, he was wondering what was happening back home—where his mom was and what she was doing. He calculated to the best of his ability how many carrots remained for Duncan and Daphney, his beloved rabbits. He also tried to determine, based on the harvest moon that had shone so brightly, the degree of life that remained in the leaves of the trees just outside his window—brilliant bursts of burnt orange clinging desperately to the branches of the towering sycamores along the gravel drive as the car pulled away just days before. There was so much to think about, most which eventually faded as he perused the nameplates on the gray metal doors in the October afternoon light that faintly lit the concrete walls of the moribund locker room.

  MARSHALL—BICKFORD—ELLIOT—HOLMES

  He ran his hand across each nameplate, tracing the letters with the tip of his finger.

  CHIPMAN—OZMORE—SPAHN—SAIN

  As he continued to outline each letter in almost surgical fashion, he couldn’t help but think of Boxcar, and how the burly catcher—the team’s leader and his mentor—would have loved to have seen it all. He had told Mickey on so many occasions that all he wanted to do was get some Boston dirt on his cleats before he hung them up for good.

  “That’s why we’re all still here, Mick,” he explained one afternoon after pratcice. They were both sitting in front of Boxcar’s locker, Mickey prattling on about how he just could not understand how old some of the guys on the team were. He scratched his head and peppered the fiery backstop with all sorts of questions while Boxcar sat relatively quiet, staring blankly into the cold metal box as if it were some sort of a magical window to the future.

  “It’ll happen, Mick,” he whispered with clear determination. “Yup. You’ll see. One day, old number fifteen will be sitting in the bean town locker room, with all those other important muckity mucks.”

  Mickey moved from locker to locker, frowning as he recalled Boxcar’s proclamation. His mood worsened as he considered that his good friend had never realized his dream. It had been cancer, whatever that was. That’s what they told him. Mickey still could not understand how something could destroy such a strong body—and why doctors could not “fix” him.

  “But why can’t the doctor make Boxcar better with some medicine?” he had kept asking Molly and Murph after the secret was out. He must have asked them that same question a thousand times during Boxcar’s silent battle before surrendering briefly to the devastating reality of what he was told. But when it was all over, and the Brewer icon had finally been laid to rest, Mickey resumed his incessant barrage of questions, as if somehow asking would eventually bring back his beloved friend.

  Boxcar’s death had been the darkest hour of Mickey’s life. It was the first time he had ever experienced such a loss and it really threw him for a loop. He couldn’t eat, was restless at night, and even lost his desire to be with his animals. Mickey struggled on the mound as well, as did the entire team. Both the loss of Boxcar and Mickey’s subsequent tailspin seemed to infect them all.

  It was only after Lester Sledge began to make his mark on a league that did not want him that the young phenom regained his old form. The chiseled African American came to the Brew Crew under a firestorm of controversy, spawned by Murph’s unpopular decision to replace Boxcar, who was a Milwaukee icon, with a player from the Negro Leagues.

  Despite Lester’s success on the field, the catcher’s early days with the Brewers was marred by many incidents of violence and hatred, some of which threatened to destroy the entire season. Mickey struggled to understand. Why did some people hate Lester so much and want to hurt him—just because his skin was a little darker than theirs? It made Mickey sick and he had trouble getting past it. Murph and Molly spent many nights explaining prejudice to Mickey and had actually made some headway. But when Mickey made the horrifying discovery that one of their own—pitcher Gabby Hooper—was involved in a planned attack on Lester, Murph and Molly were at a loss for words.

  Despite all the threats, Lester persevered and eventually won over most of his early critics. He managed to make believers out of even the most staunch cynics and was rewarded for his outstanding efforts with a major league contract with the Boston Braves. The same was true for Mickey, whose spirit was instantly buoyed by his new battery mate’s personal resolve and on-field exploits; he soon began to dominate the pitcher’s mound again, and turned in a most magical season, one that saw the young fireballer shatter all sorts of minor league records en route to his call up to the big club.

  That was all just months before, although now it seemed like a lifetime ago. As Mickey continued to peruse the row of lockers, he couldn’t help but feel a little off, as if he were somehow betraying Boxcar. It made him sad—so sad that the swell of tears that had begun to form behind his eyes would have rushed to the surface, revealing themselves to his new world with explosive clatter had he not noticed something truly incredible—something so indescribable that he could scarcely contain his enthusiasm. In between the gray metal doors that read JETHROE and SLEDGE were the familiar letters that until now had always spelled nothing but trouble. It was certainly not easy being him. He could still hear his father’s caustic words as if the surly farmer was standing right next to him.

  “Ain’t nothin’ right about you, boy,” his father always ranted. “I’ll be damned if I can figger out where such a numbskull like you come from. I gots a reputation to hold here boy. And yer babbling and stupid shenanigans are pinching me. Damn sin that yer walking ’round with the name Tussler, that’s for shit sure. Hell if I can figger it.” He was free from Clarence now—thanks to Molly—who, with the help of Murph, managed to muster the strength to leave her husband and start a new life for her and Mickey. Yes, Mickey was free, but the memories lingered and were brought into focus again each time he met somebody new; there were always the same stares, the side commentary, and of course, the laughter. There was always laughter.

  It used to upset him more when he was younger, but with time, he had come to accept the fact that he was “different” or “special,” as Molly always told him, and that he would be treated as such. That’s why the nameplate that bore his identity was such a wonderful sight; it was just like everyone else’s. He was mesmerized by the letters, using both hands now to touch them as if doubting their existence—like if he did not press his fingers against each letter and hold them there, they would just disappear.

  He marveled at how white they were and was pleased that they were arranged so neatly and in capitals: TUSSLER. He always liked capitals—the way they looked like blocks, each one occupying equal space. When Molly first taught him to write, she carefully explained the difference between upper- and lowercase letters. She even used his favorite poem, “Silver,” as a model. He understood what she was saying and tried to use both lower- and uppercase whenever he practiced. He accomplished this for a while, but he found that his thoughts flowed much more freely when he blocked out each line with all capitals—exactly the way his name read now on his locker. He was smiling at the fabulous letters when Murph walked up behind him.

 
“Whatcha doing there, Mick?” he asked.

  The young man turned his head slightly and looked over his shoulder, but his hands remained affixed to the awesome sight.

  “Mickey is just looking around,” he answered. “Looking around.”

  Murph laughed. “That’s quite a locker there, huh? It sure is,” he continued. “It’s all pretty incredible. The whole place. Far cry from what we’ve been living with at Borchert Field, right?”

  Mickey nodded. He felt all funny inside, like little fish were swimming inside his stomach. Murph placed his hand on Mickey’s shoulder and patted gently.

  “Listen, while Lester is busy with all of his stuff, why don’t you take a walk with me and check out my new office, Mick?” Murph said, guiding the young man away from his present fixation. “Sure could use a hand getting things set up before the other guys start rolling in.”

  Mickey, still spellbound, was wondering now about the faces that would soon be attached to all the names he had read. The thought turned his mood a little; he felt a bit uneasy, like he had to wait right where he was—right there—for the others. But Murph convinced him with words and gentle prodding, and soon enough—with Mickey looking over his shoulder once or twice—the two of them were walking side by side down the runway to Murph’s new digs.

  Murph and Mickey spent the better part of the next hour cleaning up, moving things around, and organizing the big mahogany desk that now bore the name ARTHUR MURPHY—MANAGER. Mickey was only too glad to help, delighting in the orderly arrangement of all the implements germane to Murph’s new venture. Mickey looked at the desktop as though it were a jigsaw puzzle—and began arranging everything Murph could possibly need with that same surgical precision. Rolodex and stapler were placed on the left, along with a tiny penknife and a neat row of rubber erasers. On the right rested two caramel-colored wooden rulers, a stack of lineup cards, and three rolls of transparent tape. And directly in the center, placed equidistant from the crystal paperweight Molly had given him for good luck and a decorative tin filled with paper clips, was a Milwaukee Brewers beer stein equipped with an arsenal of freshly sharpened pencils. When it was all finished, Mickey looked at his masterpiece and smiled.