Fenway Fever Read online

  FENWAY FEVER

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group. Published by The Penguin Group.

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.). Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England. Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd). Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd). Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India. Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd).

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa. Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.

  Copyright © 2012 by John H. Ritter. All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission

  in writing from the publisher, Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. Philomel Books, Reg. U.S. Pat.

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  Published simultaneously in Canada. Printed in the United States of America.

  Edited by Michael Green. Design by Amy Wu. Text set in 10.5-point Life LT Std.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ritter, John H., 1951– Fenway fever / John H. Ritter. p. cm.

  Summary: Twelve-year-old Alfredo “Stats” Pagano and Boston Red Sox pitcher

  Billee Orbitt work together to break a potential curse at Fenway Park. 1. Boston Red Sox (Baseball team)—Juvenile fiction. 2. Fenway Park (Boston, Mass.)—Juvenile fiction. [1. Boston Red Sox (Baseball team)—Fiction. 2. Fenway Park (Boston, Mass.)—Fiction. 3. Baseball—Fiction. 4. Blessing and cursing—Fiction. 5. Boston (Mass.)—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.R5148Fe 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011037113

  ISBN: 978-1-101-57198-9

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  FENWAY FEVER

  JOHN H. RITTER

  PHILOMEL BOOKS AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC.

  This one’s for my big sis,

  Dr. Carol Pierce,

  who altered her life to watch over, guide, and sacrifice

  for her three young brothers when our mother died.

  And she watches over still …

  with love, John

  And for Michael Green,

  longtime true believer

  my editor, anchor, brother, friend,

  and pilot once again

  without whom there would be no sky

  con gratitud infinita, juan

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I particularly wish to thank: Dr. Janis Flint-Ferguson of Gordon College and her husband, Rex, for my baptism long ago upon the oakwood seats of Fenway and for hosting many happy returns; Vanessa Crooks, for her expert assistance over the years in organizing my forays in and about New England; Tamra Tuller, a wise and vibrant editor with high patience and a keen eye; Anthony Wing for his thoughtful insights on an early draft; Marlie Allen for homemade ice cream and emotional support; Kannon Allen for his creative sparks and contagious can-do spirit; and most of all, I want to thank Cheryl, my bride of now forty years, who interprets the world for me in both concrete and angelic ways, as befits a teacher of both English and Yoga, beyond a doubt the Pegasus of my life.

  with love, John H. Ritter

  Spring of 2012

  “ONCE YOU HAVE TASTED FLIGHT,

  YOU WILL FOREVER WALK

  THE EARTH WITH YOUR EYES TURNED SKYWARD,

  FOR THERE YOU HAVE BEEN,

  AND THERE YOU WILL ALWAYS LONG TO RETURN.”

  —Leonardo da Vinci

  “THE GOAL OF LIFE IS TO MAKE YOUR HEARTBEAT

  MATCH THE BEAT OF THE UNIVERSE,

  TO MATCH YOUR NATURE WITH NATURE.”

  —Joseph Campbell

  “O! FOR A HORSE WITH WINGS!”

  —William Shakespeare, Cymbeline

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 0

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  CHAPTER 0

  It was the last of times, it was the first of times.

  It was the old ending. It was the new big inning.

  It was the magical year of 2012.

  And among the fens and bogs of Boston town, something was amiss …

  Let’s face it, baseball fans, no ballpark on earth holds as much legendary drama, karma, curses, heartbreak, and hope as Fenway Park at Number 4 Yawkey Way in Boston. Sure, you got your Wrigley Field in Chicago town with its ivy-covered walls or the old coliseum out Oakland way or the big blue sea of seats at Dodger Stadium in L.A. A lot of greats have passed through their gates, no doubt, but when it comes to legends, no ballyard anywhere holds a candlestick to the ol’ Fen.

  And no one knows that better than Alfredo Carl “Stats” Pagano, who’s spent half his life (that’s six out of twelve years or, more precisely, 73.5 out of 147 months or, expressed as a batting average, an even .500 of this baseball lover’s lifetime) gathering stats and data on the Boston Red Sox and their quirky hundred-year-old ballfield.

  And during Fenway Park’s hundredth anniversary, in that legendary year of 2012, the place went bonkers. Banners flapped from bridges. Billboards told the tale.

  100 YEARS OF CHEERS AND TEARS! they read. CATCH FENWAY FEVER! others proclaimed. IT’S A FAN-DEMIC!

  Old pros and Hollywood celebs alike recorded JumboTron testimonials recalling what the ballpark had meant to them. Centennial posters hung in bookstore windows, while “First Fen-tury” flags adorned the walls of sports bars everywhere.

  Ah, but deep beneath all the festivity and hooplicity, there crept the foreshadows of a calamity that no one in town, from the sea captains of Gloucester to the philosophers of Harvard University, seemed to notice.

  Luckily, one small and brilliant boy and one rather strange Red Sox pitcher saw the signs and decided to step up to the plate
and swing away.

  What happened next was out of this world.

  CHAPTER 1

  The pre-game street scene rivering past Papa Pagano’s Red Sox Red Hots hot dog stand, just outside the gates of Fenway Park, had grown loud and tense.

  A certain fear hung in the air.

  “No, no, I’m telling you,” one Red Sox fan bellowed at his buddy. “Orbitt should not be pitching. After four straight fiascos, why is he starting? He should be in the bull pen. And I mean the one down in Pawtucket.”

  “Like I said before, Mr. Beer-for-Brains, he’s had some weird luck, is all. The Spacebird is still the man. You’ll see.”

  “Weird is right. I got twenty bucks that says Billee Orbitt, the space cadet, won’t get out of the first inning.”

  “You’re on!”

  All afternoon, from his station at the back of the handcrafted wrought-iron hot dog stand on Yawkey Way, statistical whiz kid Alfredo “Stats” Pagano had taken these friendly quarrels in stride.

  Tonight’s match, the third of a four-game series pitting the Boston Red Sox against their archrivals, the New York Yankees, had the streets and bars around Fenway Park packed and punchy, even three hours before game time.

  “Hey, was that guy right?” asked Pops Pagano, a burly man with a husky voice. He plopped a fresh-grilled Smokey Joe wood-fired dog onto a toasted bun. “Billee’s on the hill tonight?”

  “Last I heard,” said Stats, who tended two steamy kettles next to Pops’s grill. “Unless they make another last-minute change.”

  And even though the Red Sox had dropped the first two games to the so-called Evil Empire from New York—or maybe because of it—Stats could hardly wait to head inside and catch the action.

  He took a second Smokey Joe from Pops and began to wrap them both. “They skipped over Billee last time around. So he should be up.”

  His older brother, Mark, who at fifteen towered head and elbows over Stats, called from the cash register up front, “Skipped over him? They sank him just because of a little bad luck.”

  “Ahh,” Pops growled as he slapped a half dozen more hot dogs onto the grill. “He’s a tough kid. He’ll bounce back.”

  Stats boxed the Smokey Joes and slid them forward.

  Mark caught the box and passed it to a shirtless fanatic everyone called Announcer Bouncer—a guy with a voice so loud you could hear it from home plate to the Green Monster seats high above left field. Rainbowing across his bouncing belly, he’d painted BILLEEZ BOYZ! in white, blue, and red.

  “Here you go, Bounce,” said Mark. “See you inside.”

  “I’ll put it on my calendar,” he barked.

  Mark shook his head, laughing. “Get outta here. Next!”

  Up stepped a white-haired man in a rumpled dark business suit, sans tie. “I’ll have two Teddy Ballgamers, kraut, no mustard, two Smokey Joes, mustard, no ketchup, three Chili Billees, and one foot-long Hit Dog with everything.”

  Pops, in his high-top chef’s hat, looked up from his grill. “Got it, buddy! Hey, is that for here or to go?”

  The man arched his eyebrows. “What?”

  Pops was always using that line on new customers, just to bust their chops. Here or to go? What could the guy say?

  Mark waved his hand. “I’ll take that as a ‘to go.’”

  Stats had already grabbed two Smokeys and set them aside, then he fished two regular dogs and a footer from his saltwater kettle. He put the regulars inside fresh Boston rolls atop blue paper sheets stamped “Teddy Ballgamer” and dropped the footer onto a soft steamed bun.

  Next, Stats sprinkled onions and diced tomatoes on the foot-long Hit Dog, which actually measured 12.5 inches, because, as the sign for this one promised, YOU GET MO FOR YOUR MONEY.

  He slid all five down the side counter to Mark, who dumped a ladle of sauerkraut on the Ballgamers, finished wrapping them, and started a box.

  “Waiting on the Billees,” called Stats.

  “Can’t rush magic,” said Pops.

  Stats knew that, as did all loyal Red Sox fans. Magic can take a long time.

  It had taken until 2004, in fact, for the Sox to win their first Major League World Series in eighty-six years. And they did so in magical Red Sox fashion, mounting a surge from three games down in the League Championship Series to stop the New York Yankees in seven (becoming the first team to ever do such a thing), then swept the St. Louis Cardinals in four to win the World Series and break baseball’s longest-running bad-luck streak, the legendary Curse of the Bambino.

  Sparked by the sale of Red Sox ace pitcher and long-ball hitter Babe Ruth, the Great Bambino, to the Yankees (of all teams!) way back in 1919, this phenomenal curse had spanned several generations, breaking millions of hearts along the way.

  But those days were long gone now, Stats felt sure.

  Seeing Mark take the customer’s money, Stats started his mental stopwatch—a game he often played while waiting on Pops. Mark punched the register, scratched out the change from his coin bins, added a few bills, and handed it all over. Then, using his hip, he clanged the cash drawer shut and pulled the food box close, shot a thick river of mustard on both Smokeys, spooned a scoop of relish on the footer, added ketchup and mustard, and folded each into their wrappers.

  All in nine seconds! Not a record, thought Stats, but still remarkable by any measure.

  Being younger, and a bit less coordinated in the hand-and-eye department, Stats never begrudged Mark his dexterity and athleticism. Having been born with a damaged heart, Stats had long ago resigned himself to the world of mental gymnastics. The only thing that really irked him was when people would note that he was “rather small” for a boy his age.

  Well, maybe he was, which any boy born with a balky heart might be. Still, he regarded such comments as “rather rude” and had learned to respond politely, but firmly.

  “Actually, I’m not small for my age,” he would say. “The truth is, I’m rather old for my height.”

  This, he found, usually shut the errant observers rather up.

  He gave each of his kettles a stir. In one, he boiled several kinds of hot dogs in saltwater brine. In the other, he stewed fresh organic chili, which he ladled onto the all-veggie Chili Billee dogs, filling them FULL OF BEANS, as promised, JUST LIKE THEIR NAMESAKE.

  Resting his stainless steel ladle against the black kettle rim, Stats slipped his hand into his front pocket and anxiously fingered his two game day tickets. Still there. His heart boomed.

  These, you see, were not your ordinary everyday baseball passes. These were family heirloom tickets—season tickets—seats his grandfather, Papa Pagano, founder of the Red Sox Red Hots stand, first purchased for himself and his new American bride seventy-two years ago. Front-row, field-level seats, just past third base on the edge of the outfield grass.

  “Heaven on earth,” Stats liked to call them.

  Some days, Pops might pass the tickets along to various associates of the family hot dog stand, and sometimes they might end up in the offering plate at St. Francis of Assisi’s or dropped through the mail slot of a homeless shelter in Southie. But today, the seats belonged to him and Mark.

  And on such days, as soon as they heard “The Star-Spangled Banner” from their stations at the sidewalk stand in the shadow of the ruddy brick walls of Fenway, they’d slip off their long white aprons, wipe the mustard from their hands, sing out, “See ya, Pops,” and dash inside.

  Needless to say, Stats and Mark Pagano were, by all decent and acceptable standards, the luckiest boys on planet earth.

  This, however, was about to change.

  CHAPTER 2

  As the afternoon wore on, Stats tended his kettles while Pops did his best to hustle up customers from the throng moving down the street.

  “Get-cha Red Sox Red Hots right hee-ya!”

  Pops Pagano sang his Bostonian-laden incantation loud and strong, as if he were a priest calling to his flock.

  “Hey, getcha Red Hots, now.”

  In fac
t, Stats often thought that if Father McNamara would hire Pops on Sundays to stand in the St. Francis bell tower calling the parishioners to Holy Communion, the church would be packed at every service. Although, knowing Pops, the call would be more like, “Getcha red wine hee-ya! Hey, now, fresh white wayfahs hee-ya!”

  That approach would, most likely, garner a few complaints at St. Francis, but it was perfect for Papa Pagano’s.

  And business at the sidewalk stand was booming.

  “Here’s four more,” said Pops, depositing four Chili Billees on toasted buns onto the workspace in front of Stats, who, in turn, smothered them in chili, wrapped them into their green paper sheets, and sent them sliding toward the front.

  Mark stuffed the order into a box. “Put a jalapeño in it?” he asked.

  “Go ahead,” said the man, who stuck a five-dollar tip into an old pickle jar, which was guarded by a stubble-bearded Kevin Youkilis bobble-head doll.

  “Thanks!” called Mark. “Next!”

  “Hit me with your best shot, Stat Man.”

  That order did not come from the front of the line, but from a curly-headed young man standing just outside the booth next to Stats. He was wearing aviator sunglasses, a white cowboy hat with a Red Sox logo, a blue Red Sox hoodie with the hood up, purplish tie-dyed drawstring pants, and white moccasins. To Stats, the guy appeared to be a cross between a ’78 “Buffalo Head” and an ’04 curse-breaking “Idiot”—two of the more colorful eras of Red Sox players.

  However, beneath this way-out attire stood Boston’s number three starting pitcher and their number one star attraction. Although, as far as Stats was concerned, this goofball lefty’s biggest claim to fame was that he, Billee Orbitt, was the only active Red Sox player to have a Papa Pagano’s hot dog named in his honor.

  “My best shot,” said Stats, “has your name written all over it.” He snagged two red-hot freshly charred veggie dogs off of Pops’s grill.

  “What the heck are you doing out here on a game day, Billee? Aren’t you starting?”