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.
The Mets won the second game of the series that Saturday, and did so without having to fight for it. Two pitchers were ejected for throwing at batters, and both teams were itching for another brawl. But with so many players suspended, the issue of winning games became more important than winning beanball wars.
Baseball waited for Joe to wake up, to snap out of it, put some ice on his wounds, return to the stadium, and continue to dazzle and set records, but as of Sunday morning he was still in a coma.
The Mets won Sunday, and on Monday night completed a four-game sweep. The Cubs had roared into New York with a ten-game lead, and they limped out of town reeling and already feeling the pressure of another late-season collapse. They had won twenty-eight of the thirty-eight games in which Joe had played, but they were obviously a different team without him.
On August 30, Warren Tracey started at Shea against the Pirates. He gave up a single to the leadoff hitter, then walked the next two. With the bases loaded, he hit Willie Stargell in the ribs. It was not intentional, but nonetheless Stargell didn't appreciate being hit, especially by a pitcher who was by then the most notorious headhunter in the game. He said something to my father as he slowly walked to first base, and for a moment things were tense. The umpires, on high alert, jumped in and prevented trouble. His next pitch was a fastball down the middle, and Richie Hebner hit it four hundred feet for a grand slam. By the time Yogi could get him out of the game, the Pirates were up 7 - 0 with no outs.
Four days later, on September 3, Labor Day, my father walked to the mound at Busch Stadium in St. Louis and was met with a thunderous round of boos and hisses. He lasted two innings, walked four, struck out none, hit no one, gave up five runs, and was rapidly pitching himself out of the rotation. The New York sportswriters were howling for his replacement.
With Joe Castle still unconscious in a New York hospital, Warren Tracey was hated everywhere he went. His name was toxic. His pitching was a disaster. His teammates were winning, but they were also tired of the distractions he brought to the game. It was obvious he wasn't worth the trouble he was causing.
Chapter Fifteen
After his first two or three wives, Warren began marrying for money instead of looks and lust. One of his later ones, Florence, died from heatstroke and left him with a nice home and some cash in the bank. He isn't rich, but comfortable enough to avoid work and spend his days at the club playing gin rummy and golf and drinking. When he was about fifty-five, roughly ten years ago, his then wife, Karen, I believe, convinced him to sober up and stop smoking. To his credit, he did, though the damage to his body had been done. Poor Karen. She soon realized he was far more agreeable on the sauce than off. They divorced, and, never solo for long, he took up with Agnes, the current wife.
They live in one of those typical Florida gated communities, with rows of low-slung modern houses tucked along fairways and ponds and around putting greens. Everyone is over sixty and drives a golf cart.
On the subject of golf. As soon as his baseball career ended, Warren plunged headlong into what he hoped would be a new career on the tour. He hooked up with a pro somewhere near Sarasota and played and practiced for hours every day. He was thirty-five and the odds were against him, but he felt as though he had nothing to lose. He qualified for the Citrus Circuit, a low-budget south Florida tour, sort of like Class B minor-league baseball. He won his second tournament and got his name in the fine print of the Miami Herald. Someone saw it. That someone told others, and a rough plan came together. At the next tournament, just as Warren was about to hit his first tee shot, a pack of Cubs diehards began jeering and cursing him. He stepped away, exchanged words, and waited for an official to intervene. Such tournaments, though, are not heavily secured or supervised, and the hooligans refused to go away. When his first tee shot landed in a small lake, the Cubs fans cheered and howled. They followed him from hole to hole on the front nine, and he fell to pieces.
The concentration of a golfer is fragile - witness the strict rules regarding fan behavior at a PGA event. Warren, though, was far from the PGA, and the Citrus Circuit could do little to control what few fans showed up. They stalked Warren Tracey, and wherever he played, they waited in ambush. In one tournament, he birdied the first three holes, in silence, then was verbally assaulted by several large, belligerent young men as he approached the tee box on number four. His scores continued to rise, along with his blood pressure, and when he shot an 88 in the second round of his fifth tournament, he quit.
Evidently, there are a lot of Cubs fans in Florida, and over the years Warren had a number of run-ins with them on golf courses. He also had fights in bars, stores, and airports, and for a long time he traded in cash and avoided credit cards. He once got screwed out of $40,000 in a condo deal by two men who were Cubs fans and deliberately suckered him into the transaction. The surname Tracey is not that common, and for years after the beaning it meant trouble for Warren.
The ancient security guard clears me through the gate. It is early evening, and couples are biking and walking for exercise along the footpaths next to the winding street. The golf course is deserted. Everything is green and well-groomed.
According to my research, the home was appraised at $650,000 and had been purchased by Warren and Agnes five years earlier. I didn't keep records, but it must be the fifteenth place he has lived in Florida in the past thirty years. I suppose Warren is the restless type; he tires quickly of wives and homes.