Calico Joe

Mid-morning Saturday, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn met with his executives in the offices of Major League Baseball in New York City. After reviewing the footage and talking to eyewitnesses, he suspended Razor Ruffin and Whitey Lockman for ten games, Warren Tracey for five, and eight other players for three games each. His office issued a banal statement wishing Joe Castle a speedy recovery.

Shea was sold out again for the Saturday game, with many more Cubs fans there and looking for trouble. A smoke bomb landed near home plate just after the first pitch was thrown by Tom Seaver. The game was delayed for fifteen minutes while the air cleared. The Mets fans booed, the Cubs fans cursed, the atmosphere in the park was tense. Security was beefed up considerably, and uniformed policemen stood almost shoulder to shoulder along the warning track. Joe had been hit by the third pitch thrown to the third batter in the third inning, and with perfect coordination a wave of smoke bombs rained down on the field as Tom Seaver threw the third pitch to Burt Hooton, the Cubs starter, in the top of the third inning. Fights broke out as Mets fans attacked the bombers. Arrests were made. The game was delayed for half an hour as warnings blared from the PA announcer. An ugly situation was getting worse.

I tried to watch the game but could not. I wanted to leave the house and hide at the Sabbatinis’ for a few hours, or a few days, but then my mother would have been by herself. So I stayed in my room, turned the radio on and off, and killed time.

When the Mets were in town and my father was home, I usually waited a couple of days before clipping articles from the sports page for my scrapbooks. But I was bored, and he wasn’t home, and I frankly did not care what he thought. Sitting at the kitchen table, I carefully cut out the stories from the Times, then went to my closet, where I kept a dozen scrapbooks, photo albums, and card collections. I maintained these in a meticulous order, and to my knowledge no one ever touched them but me. Because of the avalanche of stories and photos of Joe Castle and his historic debut, I had reassembled all of his material into his very own scrapbook. The only other players to be so honored were Tom Seaver, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Catfish Hunter. The rest of the scrapbooks were collections of memorabilia, articles, and photos dedicated to entire teams—the 1973 Mets, the 1972 Mets, the Big Red Machine, the 1972 Oakland A’s, and so on. Two years earlier, I had opened a scrapbook dedicated to my father, but there simply was not enough material to sustain it.

My Joe Castle scrapbook was missing. I searched every inch of my closet and my room, and when I was certain it was not there, I stretched out on my bed and stared at the ceiling. Jill was away at camp, and besides, she wouldn’t touch anything remotely related to baseball. Nor would my mother.

Our home had a basement with a small washroom, an even smaller utility room, and a large game room with a television and a pool table. From the game room, there was a door that led to the backyard. Coming home at all hours of the early morning, my father often crept into the game room and passed out on the narrow sofa. Sometimes he slept there when my parents were fighting. Sometimes they fought there, away from Jill and me. Often, on the days when he pitched, he would spend hours down there, alone, with the shades pulled and lights off, lost in his own world. He considered the game room to be his own private little territory, and that was fine with the rest of us. If he wanted it for himself, we were happy to stay away.

I eased down the stairs, flipping on lights. In the game room, I found my scrapbook on an end table next to the sofa. It was open to the eight-by-ten photograph, inscribed to me, “To Paul Tracey, with best wishes, Joe Castle.”

Next to the scrapbook was an orange Mets stadium cup, his cup, the only cup from which he would drink his banana milk shake precisely six hours before his first pitch. He had once flown into a rage and broken dishes in the kitchen when he couldn’t find the damned cup.

I froze when I realized what I had discovered. It was like walking into a crime scene and having a delayed reaction as the truth settled in. Alone and in the semidarkness, the criminal had quietly plotted his actions, then inadvertently left behind the evidence.

I backed away and went to find my mother.

We were both rattled, frightened, and tired, and we decided to leave. We packed our bags quickly, locked the house, and drove to Hagerstown, Maryland, to stay with her parents for a few days. Warren could have the house and the death threats and all the baggage and debris he so richly deserved. I didn’t realize it at the time, and I’m not sure my mother did either, but it was our first big step toward separation.