Saturday morning, we took the train into the city. It was a beautiful fall day; the leaves were turning and blowing in the breeze as we strolled through Central Park. When we entered the hospital from Fifth Avenue, a hand-painted sign read JOE CASTLE WALL, and an arrow pointed to the left. We found the wall and tacked our letters side by side as close to his photo as possible. A volunteer explained that the letters, cards, and gifts were collected every two or three days and would be given to Mr. Castle at some convenient time in the future. She thanked us for coming.
"Where is he?" I asked.
She looked up and said, "Fourth floor, but I'm afraid you can't go there."
"How's he doing today?"
"I've heard he's improving," she said, and she was right. According to the newspapers, he was slowly making progress, but a dramatic comeback seemed doubtful. We hung around for a few minutes, looking at the assortment of letters, cards, and gifts. I glanced up and down the wide corridors in the distance, all busy with the typical hospital foot traffic. I was tempted to drift away, find the elevators, and somehow make my way to the fourth floor, where I could cleverly sneak into Joe's room for a private chat. But good judgment prevailed.
Mr. Sabbatini grew up on the Lower East Side and knew the city like a cabdriver. He was also a Yankees fan, a pleasant one. He had tickets, and we rode the subway to the Bronx, to The House That Ruth Built, and spent that beautiful afternoon watching the Yankees, with Thurman Munson, Graig Nettles, and Bobby Murcer, play the Orioles, with Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell, and Paul Blair.
Tom and I decided that we had been narrow-minded in the selection of the National League as our only potential home. We discussed the possibility of also playing for a team in the American League. Mr. Sabbatini agreed that this was wise on our part.
Something was different, though. My dreams were not as clear and exciting. My love for the game was not as deep. I joked along with Tom as we discussed which American League teams would be acceptable. We evaluated the important factors - uniform colors, stadium size, winning tradition, great players from the past, and so on - but it was not as much fun as it had been a month earlier.
Mr. Sabbatini listened and laughed and offered his advice. He was an exceptionally nice person, generous with his time and always kind with his comments. He seemed especially concerned about me. He understood the earthquakes and aftershocks that were rattling my world, and he wanted me to know that he was in my corner.
Chapter Seventeen
I walk into Wink's Waffles at 8:30 and ask for a table by the window. The place is full of seniors consuming far too many calories thanks to the latest coupon scheme devised to attract those over sixty-five. The hostess is reluctant to seat me where I want to be seated, so I inform her that I'm expecting at least three others. This works and I get my table, which, as I recall, is very near the one we had four years ago, when my girls met their paternal grandfather for the first and last time. I drink coffee, read the newspaper, and watch the parking lot.
At 8:55, a golf cart appears from the path next to the restaurant. It's Warren, alone. He parks in a row of other carts, stands slowly and stretches his back, then walks with the careful movements you would expect of a man who is recuperating from a nasty surgery. Sick as he is, there is still the unmistakable walk of an old man who was once a great athlete. Head high, chest up, a trace of a swagger. He's holding sheets of paper, no doubt my little memoir about his beanball.
I wave him over, and he joins me; no handshake, no smile. His eyes are red and puffy, as if sleep eluded him. He opens with a pleasant "You can't print this piece of shit."
"Well, good morning, Warren. Sleep well?"
"You heard me."
"I can and will, Warren. Why the crude language? Hit a bit too close to home? Surely you're not calling it a pack of lies?"
"It's a pack of lies."
The waitress appears, and he orders coffee. When she's gone, he says, "What are you trying to prove?"
"Nothing. What I'm trying to do is force you to face the consequences, for one of the few times in your life."
"Aren't you the wise one?"
"I'm not trying to be wise, Warren. You have a lot of unfinished business in your life, and this is one loose end you can wrap up before you're gone."
"I'm not going anywhere. I'm fighting this thing tooth and nail, and my doctors know a hell of a lot more than you do."
I am not going to argue about whether he is dying. If he thinks he is in the lucky 5 percent who will live for five years, I am in no position to say otherwise. His coffee arrives, and the waitress asks about the others who might be joining us.
"It's just the two of us," I say.
"Are you ready to order?"
"Sure. I guess I should have a waffle. Blueberry, with sausage."
"Nothing for me," he says gruffly, waving her away.
"Who do you think will print this crap?" he asks.
"Do you read Sports Illustrated?"
"No."
"There's a senior writer there named Jerry Kilpatrick. Baseball is his favorite beat. A Chicago guy, my age. I've talked to him twice, and he's interested in the story, and the truth. Joe Castle will never be forgotten in Chicago, and Kilpatrick thinks the story would be great. Especially after you're gone."
"You don't know the truth," he growls.
"We both know it, Warren."
He sips his coffee and gazes out the window. Finally, he says, "You have no idea what you're talking about. You don't know the game."
"Are you talking about the code, Warren? The little unwritten rules of baseball, one of which says that beanballs must be used to, number one, get guys off the plate, or, number two, retaliate when one of your players gets hit, or, number three, put a guy in his place if he shows up the pitcher. I can't remember numbers four and five. Is that what you're talking about, Warren? Because if it is, then you're dead wrong because Joe didn't crowd the plate, nobody was throwing at your hitters, and Joe did nothing to show you up. You wanted to hit him in the head because you envied his success, and you liked to hit players and start trouble, and, well, I don't know, Warren, what was your reason for the beanball? You used it so often. Maybe you realized you couldn't get him out, so you hit him in the head. Was that it, Warren?"
"You're clueless."
"Okay, then explain things to me, Warren. Why do you have no regrets about intentionally hitting Joe Castle in the face?"
"It's part of the game, sort of like the football player who breaks his neck or blows out a knee, never to play again. The boxer with brain damage. The race car driver who's killed in a crash. The skier who falls off a mountain. It's sports, okay? Bad things happen, and when they do, you don't run around crying and apologizing and trying to make everything okay. That's not the game as I knew it."
I will not bicker. I could blow holes in his twisted logic for the next hour and gain nothing. We take a break and listen to the chatter around us. Alone, the two of us, for the first time in decades. In fact, I can't remember the last time I was alone with my father. I've seen him half a dozen times since he abandoned us, and only a couple of those little meetings were his idea. There is so much I would like to say, none of it pleasant, and I battle the urge to unload a lifetime's worth of debris. But I promised myself I would not beat him up. Given his attitude at the moment, I doubt if Warren Tracey would sit still during a round of verbal abuse. He's still a fighter.