Read Online Still Pitching by Michael Steinberg - Free Book Online

with a note of awe in his voice.
    He was positively wild-eyed when he told me about the hazing that the Belle Harbor kids had to endure. “If they pick you out,” he said, “they’ll hang you upside down on the hand rails and turn your pockets inside out till your lunch money spills out.”
    I was chewing on that image when Ira broke in.
    â€œThat’s not the worst,” he said. “Just pray they don’t cut off your belt and pull your pants down.”
    â€œYeah, I saw it happen to Sandy Dorfman,” Billy chimed in. “Right in front of all the girls.”
    They had these big smirks on their faces. It was all a prerehearsed act. A little bit of one-upmanship—payback for all the times I’d accused them being such irreverent, uninformed Dodger fans.
    If I wasn’t already spooked, Ira made certain to warn me about “Big Tom” Sullivan, the Phys Ed and Hygiene teacher.
    â€œSullivan’s got it in for Belle Harbor Jews,” he said. “In Hygiene, he called Eliot Reiss and Danny Klein ‘candy ass sugar babies.’”
    â€œAnd you’d better watch your own ass when you do the rope climb in Gym,” Billy said.
    â€œRight, if you’re too slow” Ira added, “Big Tom’ll whack you across the butt with his paddle.”
    Ira forged on, describing in detail the notched wooden paddle that Sullivan kept in his office just for such occasions. Even if I could get out of Hygiene and Gym, there was no avoiding Sullivan. Not if I wanted to play baseball. He coached the VFW summer team.
    The Sullivan stories weren’t the first time I’d encountered anti-Semitism. Over Easter break Mike Rubin and I tried to get into a pickup basketball game at the St. Francis De Sales playground. As soon as we were inside the gate, Larry Keeley and three other Irish Catholic kids descended on us. All four were scruffy looking urchins with holes in their shirts and sneakers. They reminded me of the orphans in Oliver Twist .
    Larry was a short, scrawny kid with a legendary mean streak. We’d all heard the stories about his gang—how they liked to lay in wait for the school bus on 129th and Newport and then terrorize the Jewish kids who got off there.
    â€œCan’t you boys read the sign?” Larry said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
    He was the ringleader. When he spoke, everyone stopped playing.
    â€œNo Jews allowed,” he said. His three toadies laughed on cue.
    We were too scared to respond.
    â€œEveryone knows that Jews can’t read,” one of them said. More laughs. No one went back to playing ball. They were all waiting to see what was going to happen. If we didn’t get out of there fast, we were in for it.
    Keeley motioned with his left hand, and the four of them began pelting us with small stones that they’d fished out of their jacket pockets. I started running, with Mike trailing right behind. We sprinted through the front gate and up the block while they chased after us, still throwing stones and yelling, “Chicken-shit Jew boys,” and “the Jews killed Christ, the Jews killed Christ.”
    We were lucky to get out of there without a fight. But when I got home, I was angry at myself for not having the nerve to stand up to them. How could I ever tell my father? Every time Billy Creelman from down the block would beat me up, my father told me, “The only way you’ll get any respect from a bully is to stand up to him.”
    It’s the same story almost every father tells his son. What he neglected to inform me of, however, was how to stand up to four of them at once.
    All summer, I continued to follow the Dodgers’ fortunes. Few of even their most loyal fans believed that the team could live down the disgrace of the previous season’s disaster. But I didn’t share that view. I was confident they’d make a comeback.
    They did it, as usual, the hard way. Despite an