Chapter 6

It took quite a while for Leonardo to materialize. I was almost ready to give up when I saw a vaporous swirling cloud gradually take the shape of Mickey Mantle, in his classic batting stance.

“You’re thinking about baseball?” he inquired, incredulously. “I thought that all you ever thought about was sex, and more sex. Oh, I get it, you’ve reached the jaded stage. All my clients get there sometime. But I must admit, you’re close to the record! What can I do for you?”

“I am considering a do-over for something that happened to me when I was a teenager. I feel like it was a turning point in my life and hundreds, maybe thousands of times over the years, I’ve wondered if it had happened differently, would my life have gone on a different and perhaps better path?”

“Yeah, this almost always comes up ... the ‘what if’ or ‘if only’ this or that happened, I would have been a lot happier and more successful in life scenario. To be honest, and you’ve probably already considered this, it doesn’t always make things better and sometimes they’re worse. But I can see by your thoughts, as he changed into my teenager self crying, that you are very focused and still sad about this moment in your life.”

“We’ve talked about this several times. You know the risks. Sometimes, if we alter the past several times, it can kind of be like Stephen King’s ‘11-12-63’, when the past doesn’t want to be or can’t be changed. By the way, I gave him the idea for that. I entered his body for a few seconds and planted it when he was thinking about adding conflict and drawing a blank.”

“You can do that?”

“Sure, why not. You would be very surprised to find out the number of suggestions I have placed in authors, painters, musicians etc. minds and afterwards they have produced some of their best works.”

“Wow, that’s incredible!” I said, thinking about all the books in my book store, wondering which one’s he’d influenced.

“I do have some trepidation but I’d like to give it a try. If it doesn’t work out, so be it.”

“Okay it’s your life!” he said, slowly disappearing.

I retrieved my journal for the year 2002. I knew exactly what day it was, but I wanted to check on the details. Okay, here it is - June 17th: My life is over, I totally fucked up today. But it so unfair, I made this incredible throw and got the guy out, then the next batter came up, I misjudged a fly ball, it dropped, and we ended up losing the fucking game. I can never face my friends or family again.

So here’s how it played out ... top of the seventh inning, score 0-0, one out, guy on second base. I’m in right field when a hard hit ball came racing towards me. I fielded it cleanly, and knew what I had to do to preserve the tie. I threw it as hard as I could. It bounced several times, our catcher picked it up and tagged the guy out just as he reached home plate. I was a fucking hero, the grandstand erupted, all my teammates were grinning at me and giving thumbs up. Best day of my life.

Okay, so two out now, the previous batter had made it to second base. Same situation, I’m ready to do it all again if a ball comes my way. Suddenly there’s a fly ball, headed in my direction, I started running back, looked like it was hit hard. Oh fuck no, I can’t believe it, it dropped about ten feet in front of me. After I reached it and threw it in, the runner had already scored. 1-0. Next guy struck out. We didn’t score in the bottom of the seventh, game over. Worst day of my life.

It’s like in the movie City Slickers, when Ed and Phil are talking around the campfire:

‘Ed: And he made like he was gonna hit me, but I didn’t budge. And he turned around and he left. He never bothered us again. Well, I took care of my mother and my sister from that day on. That’s my best day.
Phil: What was your worst day?
Ed: Same day.’

It was so unfair. It was like my initial heroic play to get the guy out was totally forgotten. All that will be remembered for eternity is how I misjudged my second chance. I often think about the Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner, whose miscue gave the win to the Mets in the sixth game of the 1986 World Series. The Mets won the seventh game to take the series. It’s not like Bill played it over only in his mind for ever more. He probably did be he didn’t have to as it was and is still shown on TV, whenever the subject of the worst baseball plays in history come up. Other than that play, he had a stellar career, but most people only remember his one major screw up. Poor guy, poor me!

I started up the timepiece, pressed the buttons in sequence and then toggled the white lever until it showed 1 pm on June 17, 2002, an hour before the game started. I materialized near the marina. Not much had changed there in close to twenty years. It was about a half hour walk to the old ball park, that doesn’t exist anymore, a shopping mall took its place. I really enjoyed walking through the town, seeing all the neighbors, some of whom are dead now. When I arrived, the two teams were in the field practicing, nice to see all the guys. Many had moved away, I only had contact with a couple of them, Josh being one of them, and that was mostly just to wave from the car or say hi when we passed in the street.

I saw myself out in right field, exchanging grounders and flies with the other outfielders. I checked out the stands and there she was, my most ardent fan, my mom. She was jabbering with some of the other moms, smoking a cigarette between bites of a hot dog and gulps of her favourite drink, cream soda. I didn’t see my dad. He was working out of town back then and only got to a few of my games each season.