Damned Yankee

And now his new teammates and the Trois Rivieres bus driver blinked at him, unaware of such terms as panic attack and posttraumatic stress disorder; in 1952 there were only lunatics and maniacs. "I need a church!" John panted.

"What're we here for?" the bussie grunted. "To play or pray?"

"Take him to a church!" growled Novosel. "When you can hit like him, we'll go where you want to go."

A few turns, a few blocks, and the most glorious sight in John's life appeared: Montreal's huge cathedral, St. Joseph's Oratory. Between games, for the rest of the season, he was at church, praying and holding holy oil over the candles he had lit and rubbing it where Grandma had. He hit .302 with 17 home runs and 90 RBIs that season. The fans loved him. One day he might be missing a sock, the next a belt, then a hat. He played without shoelaces. "My feet are tight," he told the skipper. Truth was, he couldn't concentrate enough to tie a bow.

Just before the team's last game, the manager pulled him aside. "The Yankees have allied you up for four days," said Novosel. "You probably won't get to play, but you'll get a taste of the big leagues. Then you're going to Venezuela for winter ball. Congratulations!"

"Skip, can't I stay here with you?"

"Are you crazy, son?"

******

The picture's a damn lie, and Bill Dickey knows it. Go back and look—you couldn't have caught it on the first glance or the second. Sure, Dickey's smiling, but it's only for form's sake. He's smiling at nothing. He isn't looking at the kid.

Dickey didn't care what Stengel or Cochrane thought, or how many four-baggers John hit. He didn't give a flip that John was fresh from two years in the Army, where he'd won a medal for saving a drowning soldier. He didn't give a damn that the glove on John's left hand was given to him four days earlier by Berra himself. Nobody with a head like Malangone's was going to inhabit the soil behind the plate that Dickey, for 17 years with the Yankees, had made holy.