4-3

A Baseball Parable

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real evens or people living or dead, is purely coincidental – though it would fulfills a number of ancient prophecies from various cultures.

It’s understandable that they’re all trying to forget I ever played baseball, I guess. Yeah, I hold a record that will never be broken; but it’s one of those stupid records no one was keeping track of before I came along. So I’m sorry to intrude, but I’d just like to tell the story one more time because, you know, it does mean a lot to me.

When I came up, I had it in my head that I was going to be one of those scrappy kind of ball players, getting my uniform dirty, always doing what had to be done to win. A right handed hitter, maybe my average wouldn’t be great, but all my hits would be big hits; I’d move the runners along, I’d hit well with two outs and men in scoring position. I picked an inventive nickname for myself, one that had never been used in baseball: Game. They’d call me “Game”. Short for “Game Winner”.

Anthony Skowron was our big star, a future Hall of Famer. He called me “Skippy”.

Skippy it is, to this day.

The third game of the year, the regular shortstop, Addison Kubek, hurt his ankle sliding into second trying to stretch a single into a double. I went in for the ninth inning of that game, and started at short the next day. I batted ninth in the lineup.

As I waited on deck for my first at bat, I swung a weighted bat, swung it about 100 times. You swing a weighted bat so that your own bat seems lighter by comparison. But it didn’t work. My bat felt like it weighed ten pounds. Maybe it’s the crowds, or the bigger parks, or just knowing this is the ultimate of my profession, and my future would always depend on the 90 seconds or so I got three or four times every day to show my stuff. It just seemed like I was swinging the weight of the world.

I got up in the second inning, with nobody on base and two out. Mordecai “Three Fingers” Wainwright was on the mound, and he zipped two fast balls by me before I even knew they were coming. After the second one, the catcher, Gabby Molina, said “You suck, Skippy.”

So I was waiting for the fastball, got a slow curve, and was so surprised I still swung late, and grounded weakly to the second baseman.

The second time up, I swung at the first pitch and did it again -- to the second baseman. The bat felt so heavy, I just couldn’t bring my swing around to pull the ball like I had in the minors.

The third time I was due up was in the seventh inning, with a man on second and no outs. I was called back to the dugout and lifted for a pinch hitter.

Now there was an interesting two minutes. I took a seat on the bench next to Skowron. As I was taking off my batting gloves he asked me, “You making any money, Skippy?”

“Minimum.”

He got up and went to the lip of the dugout to watch what was happening on the field. My pinch hitter had already bunted through the first pitch. Skowron said, without looking at me, “I made three times that much this morning signing a non-endorsement contract with Reebok.”

Ball one.

“What’s a ‘non-endorsement contract’?” I asked.

Skowron laughed and came back and sat down. Evidently he had seen enough. “Reebok pays me to not sign with Nike.”

“You couldn’t sign with Nike if you signed with Reeock anyway, could you?”.

“Yeah, but Reebok doesn’t want to use me for anything. They just want to make sure Nike doesn’t use me, either.”

The crowd gasped. The bunt was down, but it rolled foul.

“Shit,” Skowron said. I yelled “Let’s go!”

I forgot about the game. “Other companies do that too?”

“I got three. Reebok, Your Chicagoland Chevy dealers, and Fruit-of-the-Loom.”

“You make money doing nothing?”

“Ten million a year.”

The count was now three-and-two. Then a swing and a foul ball.

After two more foul balls, Skowron said, “You know how the government pays farmers to not grow something? That’s what I do.”

“Who’s your agent?”

Skowron laughed. “Out of your league, Skippy.”

We both looked up then, not at the field, but at our manager, Casey Maddon, who had uttered a loud obscenity. Then we looked to see what had happened. The third baseman was in the process of throwing to first for the out. The runner had to stay at second base.

“Move the runner! Just gotta move the runner to third! How basic is that? Move the runner! Man on second, nobody out, you just gotta get him to third. Hit to the right side. Is that hard? Skippy does it all the time! Goddam.” Casey was having a fit. But I was glad he still remembered my name.

We lost, in ten innings, five to nothing. My replacement at shortstop made an error, and that was followed by a walk, two singles, and then two doubles. We went out one-two-three in the bottom of the tenth.

We won the next day, with me in the lineup. I went oh-for-four. You wouldn’t believe it, but I grounded out to the second baseman four times. I did get on base once, and scored a run, because they tried to turn a double play on my third grounder, but I beat the throw to first and, and our designated hitter, Bob Schwarber, hit a home run. Got the big “FC” -- a Fielder’s Choice. Boy, was I proud.

People were hitting home runs, and I had grounded weakly to second six times in two games.

I didn’t start the next game. It went on forever, lots of pitches, lots of rallies, lots of men left on base. It started at 1:30; at 6:30 we were tied nine to nine, and in the sixteenth inning. The batting order was a mess, because of all the substitutions, relief pitchers, pinch hitters and runners, pinch hitters for pinch hitters. “Lead off”, “clean-up”, bottom of the order” -- all meaningless by now.

Cletus Bryant was due up second in the bottom of the sixteenth, but when he jumped into the dugout he slipped on his cleats – ironic! – and slid into the water cooler; he seemed okay, but his nose was bleeding profusely. I was the last reserve left on the bench. Casey told me, “We’re out of pitchers, Skippy. Gotta win now. Make me proud.”

The bat weighed about thirty pounds. The other team was out of pitchers too, though; their starter from yesterday was pitching in relief.

He didn’t seem to have that zip, and our first guy up, Roger Heyward, hammered a liner into the right field corner. I thought he might get a triple out of it, but the relay throw was good and you don’t want to take a chance on the first out being made at third base, so he played it safe and stopped at second.

All I had to do was get just a little pop single somewhere and we’d win and I’d be the hero. And, my lifetime batting average would rise 140 points.

The fans were probably thinking Casey had been terribly out-managed if all he had in this crucial situation was me. They sat silently, when they should have been yelling and screaming. Actually, there were only a couple of hundred people left in the stands; the place was like a tomb.

I got those folks excited, though, when I took the first two. The second one almost got by the catcher, but he blocked it and I held up my hand to hold Heyward at second.

They didn’t want to walk me -- Skowron was up next, and he was good, someone who might actually get a hit. I figured they wanted to get me out so they could walk him and set up a double play.

Therefore, I figured, there would be no more curves. A fastball was coming, and I was gonna smack it.

I swung, and damn that bat was heavy. My mother told me she thought I was trying to check my swing. I wasn’t -- that was my best swing at that moment.

It resulted in . . . a weak ground ball to the second baseman. I never ran so fast in my life to try to beat the throw to first, but I was out by a step. My momentum carried me way past first, and I just wanted to keep going. The fans were cheering now, and that made sense -- Skowron was coming up. But as I turned to go back across the field to the dugout, I saw that they were cheering for me.

The first base coach yelled out “Way to go, Skip”, and as I reached the dugout steps all the guys were standing, waiting to shake my hand. Maddon came over and said “Way to move the runner.” I smiled like that’s what I meant to do. “Fundamentals, buys,” he called to everyone. “Skippy’s got it.”

I had moved the runner to third with only one out. A fly ball would score him! I had deftly executed one of the most basic basics of the game!

They walked Skowron, but the next guy hit a fly ball, and we won.

I was benched the next few games; Kubek was back in the lineup.

It wasn’t until a game in St. Louis that I was called on again. We were down five to three in the seventh inning, with a man on third and one out. Casey told me to drive him in. I did, but guess how -- with a weak grounder to second base.

Kubek hit a home run to lead off the ninth inning to tie the score, and we won it in the tenth. The next day, in Houston, I pinch hit again, this time with a man on second and no outs. I grounded to second, he moved to third and scored later on a wild pitch.

The next day, in the same situation, they walked me intentionally. We didn’t score, but I had actually gotten on base without recording an out or suffering injury. Fortunately, my mother taped that game. I got an intentional walk - something to show my grandchildren.

Back in Chicago, against the Brewers, I was sent up with a man on third and one out. They walked me again. The next guy hit into a double play.

Casey kept looking at me. He knew something, and evidently the rest of the league knew something. I didn’t know anything. I just wanted a chance to play. I wanted a shot before I got sent back down to the minors.

During that homestand we pulled off a blockbuster deal, getting Aroldis Mantle, one of the most feared home run hitters in baseball, for a bunch of minor leaguers. Much to my relief, I wasn’t one of them.

It was kind of a weird deal, because Mantle played first base, which is where Skowron played. Mantle had been an outfielder, but because of a leg injury a few years ago he could barely run any more. All he could do was hit home runs. Though about 40 years old now, he had hit 32 the year before and already, just a few weeks into this season and playing part time, had four.

Mantle was going to meet us in San Diego. When we got to our hotel there, Maddon pulled me aside in the lobby.

“Skippy, you’re the best player I got.” He whispered this. I don’t know why.

As he formulated his next thought, I thought I’d better say something. “Huh?” I said.

“You’re the only one who understands the game. Everyone else just wants statistics. Well, that’s okay, if it helps the team. But you – you think of the team before the stats. You know that an oh-for-one is all right if it helps the team win. You like going oh-for-one and winning.”

I think my mouth was open. It was really dry, I know for sure. The first word out of it was more of a rasp than a word. I wiggled my tongue to try to dig up some saliva. “I don’t even have a hit.”

“Right! And I appreciate it -- the fans appreciate it! I got about a hundred letters about how special you are. I’ll show you someday.”

“Wouldn’t it help more if I got a hit?”

“Don’t go gettin’ crazy on me now. You just keep doin’ what you’re doin’.”

“Grounding out?”

“Movin’ those runners! Okay! Go on and unpack. I gotta talk to Mantle.”

The next night it was a real close game, nip-and-tuck, back and forth. We were ahead five to four when Bryant led off the eighth inning with a double. Skowron, who was sitting to my left somewhere, yelled out “Skippy time!”, and sure enough, Casey pointed at me. “Go do it,” he said.

I got up and went to the on-deck circle to swing the weighted bat. Mantle moved to the top of the dugout, and when I strode into the batter’s box, he went into the on-deck circle.

The San Diego pitcher looked into his dugout, his manager looked over towards our dugout, made some sort of sign, and the catcher crouched behind me. They were not going to walk me –they were going to pitch to me.

Suddenly, it hit me! Mantle was protecting me -- they wouldn’t walk me with him coming up next. Casey wanted me to ground out to second and move the runner to third, didn’t expect anything else from me. He thought I was doing it on purpose!

Damn it, I was going to get a hit! The first pitch was a change-of-pace, on the inside corner. Strike one. The next pitch was a change-of-pace, just an inch more inside than the first. Ball one. They were making it easy for me -- slow stuff, inside. Anyone could get the bat around for a hit to left field.

I grounded to second.

The runner moved to third, Mantle went back into the dugout without even being announced, Lawrence Peter Contreras, our catcher, batted for himself and lay down a perfect bunt on a suicide squeeze, and we led by two runs. San Diego scored jst once in the bottom of the ninth. We won.

That was our longest road trip of the year, twelve games, and we won nine of them. I batted in four of those wins, each time in situations similar to the one in San Diego. Each time I grounded out to second and moved a runner up a base. Each time Mantle was in the on-deck circle while I batted. He actually came to bat on two of those occasions.

He batted in other situations, too, of course. They didn’t acquire one of the greatest hitters in baseball history just to stand in the on deck circle. I think he hit three home runs on that road trip.

By the middle of May the fans in Chicago started calling my name whenever someone got into scoring position with less than two out. In one game, against New York, we were behind by one run in the ninth inning when Contreras led off with a double. Immediately, someone hung a banner from the window of a house across the street, which could be clearly seen from all over the ballpark.

“IT’S SKIPPY TIME!”

I was sent up and I grounded out to second. Mantle followed with a sacrifice fly. The next day, I went up with a man on third and one out. The banner went down, and the fans in the park started chanting:

“Skippy! Four-three! Skippy! Four-three!”

“4-3”: that’s how a ground out to the second baseman is recorded on official scorecards. The second baseman is “four”, the first baseman “three”.

I grounded out, four-three, and the run scored. The fans went wild.

By the end of May, we were in third place, two games behind Pittsburgh, four behind Milwaukee in the Central Division. Pittsburgh was in town for a weekend series. Three games.

“Sweep these bastards or I’m gettin’ rid of all of you!” Casey told us before the first game.

Before the Friday night game, I was the guest on the radio pre-game show with the team’s legendary announcer, Harry Barber.

“No one’s ever kept the statistic of most consecutive times grounding out to second, Skippy. You have 23.”

Idiot. “That’s probably the record, huh?” I said weakly.

“Same as Ernie Jordan’s number. You remember him?” Ernie “Sweetness” Jordan is the most beloved athlete in history in Chicago.

“Uh, I’d like to be a winner like he was.” Could Harry Barber be crazy?

“You don’t look anything like him.”

“You know, I’m trying to get a hit, like everyone else. I’d like to get ahold of on and hit it across the street.” I was getting a little peeved.

“You are? Are you crazy?”

It went on like that, and when it was over someone gave me a certificate for dinner somewhere, and fans were pushing against the railing and waving things at me to autograph. They were chanting:

“Skip - pee! Four - three! Skip - pee! Four - three!”

I signed a few autographs, then joined the team in the clubhouse.

We won the first two games to tie Pittsburgh for second. The Sunday night game was on ESPN.

I came up to bat comparatively early in that game, in the sixth inning. But it was “my” situation: lead-off double, weak hitter (not as weak as me, of course) due up, scoreless game.

“Skip - pee! Four - three! Skip - pee! Four - three!”

You would think that just one time, even if I was going to hit it towards the second baseman, I would hit it so weakly that I could beat it out. Or that maybe it would just miss the second baseman and dribble into right field for a hit. Or that I would hit it in the air, maybe over the second baseman’s head. Or it would go through the second baseman’s legs. Twenty-three times in a row! What were the odds of that?

They were flashing it on the scoreboard.

“Skippy’s streak of consecutive ground outs to 2B has reached 23, a major league record.” I guess someone had looked it up.

The banner was unrolled from the window across the street, the chant continued -- and I grounded out to second base. The runner moved to third.

We batted around, so I came up again. 4 - 3. But we won.

So now we were in second place, two games behind Milwaukee.

A lot of stuff started happening off the field around that time. After that ESPN game, it seemed like the whole country became aware that I was chasing history. Time to cash in!

I had already picked up a few minor endorsements, mostly for local businesses like Stan’s Carpet Repair. But now the big folk wanted me. The first was Turf Builder.

“The lawn takes a lot of punishment when I’m up,” they had me say. Then there was a close-up of baseball after baseball being hammered into the grass. “But it still looks good,” I continued. Then an announcer wrapped it up said “Must be Turf Builder.”

I got $25,000 for that. My agent said it was all I could expect at this stage in my career. I asked him about a non-endorsement contract. He didn’t know what I was talking about. But he contacted Reebok about an “anti-endorsement contract, requiring me to wear Nike shoes in public. They turned him down.

So when, after that last Houston game, Anthony Skowron introduced me to Phineas Ovits, I was interested. “Best agent in sports,” Skowron said.

In late June I taped a Verizon spot (“More cities than I have ground outs.”), a Playtex Push-em-up bra ad, and deal for the You Win Betting (with a lot of other “celebrities”, each saying one line. Mine was “Four-three, that’s a lucky seven!”)

Then Ovits called me at home one night.

“Jackpot, kid.”

“Say what?”

“Reebok’s got a big campaign to lock up athletes so they won’t do Nike.”

“Non-endorsement?”

“Yeah. And guess what? Nike heard from somewhere that Reebok’s planning a new line of footwear called the ‘4-3’.”

“They are?”

“No, but Nike thinks so. So Nike wants to lock you out of Reebok.”

“Who’s offering more?”

“Nike.”

“Then let’s take Nike.”

“No, we can take ‘em both. Both contracts say you can’t get into bed with the other one. But they don’t say you get into bed with the other one to agree not to get into bed with the other one to not do an endorsement for the other one.” Strange as it may seem, I followed that. “So you can take ‘em both.”

“But then what shoes can I wear?”

“There’s always Puma.”

“Will they pay me?”

“No”

Nike paid me $100,000 to stay away from Reebok, and Reebok paid me $80,000 to stay away from Nike.

“That’s pretty good, kid,” Skowron told me when he heard the news from Ovits. “I just got five hundred thousand to take over your Stan’s Carpets Repair endorsement.”

I went home during the All Star break to see my folks. Mom had invited the relatives over Sunday night to watch videotaped highlights of her son’s major league career. They still had a VCR, and she happily popped the tape into it, and there was -- Ernie “Sweetness” Jordan winning a slam dunk contest from the Classic Sports Network. Dad had taped over me. So we watched My Fair Lady on Netflix.

My Dad’s opinion of my great contribution to the team was the same as mine – it’s embarrassing. “I ain’t showin’ it to other people,” he scowled. “I mean – Jordan didn’t shoot air balls so other people would look good.” The relatives all nodded, looked pityingly at me, averted their eyes when I looked back.

One humiliation after another. I couldn’t wait for the stupid All Star break to end, so I hopped a plane that evening for New York, where we had our next series. I don’t know how they knew -- maybe someone saw me at the airport – but Tuesday morning I got a call at the hotel from the Stephen Colbert Show. They wanted me Wednesday night. In uniform.

I showed up. Waited. Got bumped – Jon Stewart was another guest and he and Colbert just kept on talking.

I had been “prepped”, however – told what questions I might be asked. One was “I imagine it’s hard seeing women throw themselves at everyone but you?”

Not true! Women were sending me their pictures, or yelling come-ons from the stands. A few guys’, too. Kubek told me to go for it, that it was fun, but Clete Bryant, a fundamentalist Christian, wanted their names so he could publicly condemn their depravities.

Girls were waiting for me outside the ballpark, by my car when we were at home, in the hotel lobbies when we were on the road. I had my pick.

I was kind of new at this. I had slept with girls before, of course, but never three at once. Never in an elevator (not technically “sleeping”). Never involving sour cream. Never with Bryant’s wife.

I didn’t feel too bad about that. Casey had told me not to give him any woman’s names. “He doesn’t want to lecture ‘em. He wants to nail ‘em,”

I didn’t believe it, but a few days later Bryant and I were running along the left-field warning track before a game when we heard a female voice moan “Hmmmm, you two.” We both looked up at the same time, and there as this girl fondling her breasts. We stopped. “My two favorite guys,” she said.

Bryant told her that her behavior would condemn her to hell, and I laughed and resumed my sprints while he talked to her. After the game, I saw her get into his car and give him a long kiss.

And it turned out his wife knew about his screwing around, so when he and I spoke at a Little League banquet in a grade school gym in Berwyn in late August, she jumped me, in the Boys Bathroom.

By the middle of September the eyes of the baseball world were on our race with the Brewers. The other divisions were all pretty much wrapped up, and the National League wild card teams were going to be from the East and West Divisions – the only post season team from the Central would be the Division winner. Only the American League wild card race between the White Sox and Devil Rays could match the National League Central Division.

I was up to 60 consecutive “4 -3s”. The papers were running a “Skippy Watch”. The Sun Times discovered that we were 33 - 9 in games I batted once and grounded out to second (and 9 -9 in games I batted twice and grounded out to second), while the Brewers were just 18 -16 when their big star Harmon McGuire homered. The Tribune’s chart compared me to corporate layoffs: it seemed that the more people a company fired, the higher the price of its stock rose. The more I failed as a batter, the better the Cubs did.

Sports Illustrated had a guy follow me around for a weekend. All I told him was that I wanted a hit, I didn’t care what the situation called for, or what the manager wanted – I was trying to get a hit. Ovits told me to quit saying that, and somehow talked the Cubs into a “4 -3” promotion – anyone whose birthday was April 3^rd qualified for a drawing for skybox seats for out last home series of the regular season.

That was a two game series against Milwaukee. We were both 83 - 77, tied for first place.

All the distractions might have ruined the concentration of a lesser man. But what did I have to be distracted from? My job was to help the team by failing miserably.

Before the first game of the last series of the season, Casey told a reporter, “It’s too early to call any one series ‘crucial’. We’re just gonna play ‘em one game at a time.” That got us all laughing, so we were real loose.

We had to sweep them to win the division outright, had to at least split to force a play-off game, which would be held in Chicago on Monday night.

I won’t keep you in suspense -- we swept them, and I played a crucial role in the first game. We were down by a run in the sixth inning, when Berra singled and went to second on a wild pitch while another pinch-hitter was batting. The crowd immediately started up, and the banner across the street came out.

Skippy! Four three! Skippy! Four three!

Casey put me in, and of course I was thinking how I’d be an even greater hero, and could get everyone really excited, by getting a hit. But I didn’t -- score it “4 -3”. The crowd went nuts.

Berra scored on another wild pitch, the game was tied, and we won it on a Kubek bases-loaded deep fly in the tenth.

We won the second game with little suspense, 9 - 2, to clinch the Division by two games.

Philadelphia beat us 17 - 0 in the first Wild Card Round game. They kept hitting and hitting and pitching and pitching -- really pouring it on, as if sending us a message along the lines of “Why don’t you just go home now?”

Well, nobody intimidates the Chicago Cubs! It was a best of three series, and we won the next two. I batted twice – and you know the outcome of that.

The Divisional Series against the Mets was a best-of-five game format: two games in New York, two in Chicago, the final (if necessary) back in New York.

I batted twice through the first four games, grounding out to second both times. But I contributed nothing: the Mets had figured me out.

The Skippy Shift.

With Berra on second and no outs in the eighth inning of Game 1, I was sent up. The Met third baseman went over and stood on third. Their first baseman positioned himself a few feet off the line and even with the bag. The second baseman played in on the grass, halfway between first and second. And the shortstop moved over to second base, also in on the grass.

I was thinking “Suckers! All I have to do is dribble the ball between second and third! My first hit! No one’s playing there!”

I grounded to the second baseman. Berra had to hold at second, and we lost the game.

They did it again in Game 3, in Chicago, and we lost that game, too.

But those were the only games we lost. We won the series, with some non-Skippy related drama.

We managed to win Game Two , with a little help from our rookie pitcher Kyle Stafford, who threw the third no-hitter in post-season history.

On the flight back to Chicago, Skowron stood up to go to the can, the plane hit some turbulence, the seat belt sign came on, and Skowron, trying to get backto his seat. stumbled and twisted his ankle

Ernie “Swetness” Jordan came to visit us before the third game, to give us a pep talk. “Here’s a man I want to meet,” he said, and came over to me. He hoisted me to my feet and gave his speech with his arm draped around my shoulders.

“Sometimes,” he said, “the only way to win is to will yourself to win. How do you explain somebody grounding out to second every time he bats, 100 times over the course of a year? He wills it to happen, because it’s for the good of the team. You will yourself to do what you have to do, and you win. If each of you can be like Skippy here” -- he gave me a little punch in the arm -- “then Chicago will have another championship team!”

Everything he said about me was wrong, of course, but if it inspired the guys to win, that was okay.

What a game! It was a true classic, from start to finish. But going into the top of the ninth, the Mets led 3 -2.

Three outs from oblivion. Three outs from being just another team that finished second. Or third – whatever. Three outs from a season of my “giving myself up for the team” becoming just an unsurpassed record of incompetence. Because if we didn’t “win”, what was the point?

The Mets brought in their closer, Grover Cleveland Eckersly. In a total of two and two-thirds innings in this series, he had struck out seven batters.

He struck out the first two in the ninth inning. But Mantle, playing on place of Skowron, hit the first pitch he saw, oh, I don’t know, about 3,000 feet. Eckersley fell to his knees at the crack of the bat, none of the fielders moved, the Mets fans gasped and fell silent. It was the longest home run I had ever seen.

Louis Chapman, our closer, shut them down in the bottom of the ninth, and Hector Zobrist, our left fielder, started the 10^th with a double. My situation, of course, but since I had been useless aganst the shift, I was shocked when Casey called on me to bat. With the second baseman in, there was no way Zobrist could advance on my weak grounder. But on the way to the plate, I had a flash of brilliance: a weaker grounder. I bunted the first pitch, deliberately toward “4”. He had to charge, almost collided with his pitcher, was off balance as he fielded it. He had to chance to get Zobrist, threw to first. Scored a sacrifice, and no at bat!

We won, of course, and on to the World Series!

We played the Colorado Rockies for the National League pennant and a trip to the World Series. As they were a Wild Card team and we were a Division Champ, we had home field advantage for the series.

I batted four times in the first six games, contributing to four crucial rins scoring by going oh-for-four; you know how. Each of those games was decided by two runs or less: it was an exciting and tense six games, and we each won three.

But the seventh and deciding game was the tensest of all. I don’t think I ever wanted anything so badly as I wanted to win, and I don’t think I was ever so nervous about the possibility of losing. My stomach felt like it was constantly being punched; I kept jumping off the bench, sitting back down, getting up again and pacing – until Casey told me to sit still or he’d pants me.

Seventh game. Greatest even in all sports. And this was a classic, trading leads, heroic pitching, unending clutch hitting. They led 7-6 as we came up in the bottom of the ninth.

Within minutes, we had two outs and nobody on base. Doom awaited. Skovron, back in the lineup, was our last hope. He swung at the first pitch and skied it down the right field line, heading for the stands.

Skowron must have listened closely to Jordan, because there’s no way to explain what happened next except that someone willed it to happen.

Wrigley Field itself came to life, and did what it does best. The Rockies fielders – three of them – gave perfunctory chase, but saw it was way out of play and started back to their positions as the ball arced over the seats,

I was watching the ball, saw it was out of play – but then it curved back towards the field an instant before I felt a blast of southerly wind in my face. A gale had kicked up, out of nowhere, and it was as if the ball had been batted out of the upper deck, so quickly did it loop back and shoot toward the field. Too late, the fielders resumed their pursuit, and the second baseman dove for it, managing only to nudge it with the tip of his glove as the ball kicked up chalk from the baseline and dribbled back towards the stands.

For some reason he never did explain, Skowron never had any doubt it would wind up a fair ball, and was out of the batter’s box on contact. He got up to full speed on that bad ankle and never stopped. The place was bedlam, the crowd suddenly on its feet and screaming, the players in the punching their own thighs with their caps and gloves, the coach waving his arms madly like he was trying to achieve lift-off. But he suddenly switched gears planting his feet and pushing the air with his hands – “Stop! Stop! Stop!” One of the Rockies -- I didn’t see who -- had retrieved the ball and it was on its way to home plate.

Skowron was on third with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, the tying run in the final game of the Championship Series. And still flush with hysteria Casey whirled toward the team and barked what was, at that moment, to me, the most dreaded word in the English language: “Skippy!”

Not my situation! Not a “Skippy”! Berra is up -- he should bat! The crowd always tells you when I should bat, “Skippy, four-three”, you know? They’re not saying that! They’re waiting for Berra to knock in that run!

“Come on, Skippy, knock in that run,” Casey said, smiling, clapping is my direction. I hated Casey Maddon with every fiber of my being. He had made a national phenomenon of my inability to do the one thing I wanted more than anything -- to get a hit. Now, when only a hit would do, he was sending me up, having spent the whole season demonstrating his utter confidence that I couldn’t get one.

I wasn’t the only one who thought Casey was nuts. Kubek said “What?” and Bryant shook his head and started collecting his things. Berra was called back from the on-deck circle. He couldn’t believe it. I hopped up the steps, and when they saw me, the crowd sat down in stunned silence.

“Take a couple, maybe he’ll throw a wild one,” Casey shouted as I took my swings in the circle. I could feel the heat in my face. That’s some damn encouragement, Case -- “maybe he’ll throw a wild one.” I would kill Casey Maddon as soon as this farce was over.

I didn’t walk to the batter’s box -- I stomped. The Rockies put on the shift, the catcher said “Try to hit it to the shortstop this time”, Eckersley chuckled, went into his stretch, hesitated a second, threw, and I could barely sense the presence of the ball as I stepped into the pitch. I was thinking more of Maddon than of the moment – he had set me up to be the one to cost the Cubs the championship, to be the most hated person in Chicago – maybe in Chicago history.

I don’t remember what happened then, until I was twirling Casey around and kissing him and bawling like a baby.

Mom taped it, of course. Here’s what Harry Barber said:

“I don’t know, I just don’t know. Guy hasn’t had a hit all year and he sends him up to bat for the league leader in doubles. I’ve never seen such a . . . I don’t know. Well, here we go. Eckersley’s laughing, I think. He stretches, the pitch. . . AH! AH! AH! AH! AH! HOLY SHIT! WHA, WHA, AH! AH! AH! AH! WHAT THE HELL?”

They hadn’t bothered with the “Skippy” banner, but if they had, the ball would have hit it. Instead it cleared the bleachers, crashed through a window across the street, skipped though the living room of a Mr. Iago Bacon, bounced into his kitchen and dented his dishwasher, which he sold at an auction for $15,000. The ball itself netted $40,000 and was purchased, it turned out later, by Luke Longley.

I had hit a home run. We won the game. We won the Series.

The crowd was just -- well, you can imagine. V-E Day. Armageddon. Cubs win pennant. World is saved from everything bad, and when you least expect it.

Within a few minutes I had been interviewed by Fox, ESPN, WGN, KOA, WMAQ, WBBM, CBS radio, ESPN radio, CNN and, for some reason, TMZ. All I could say was, “Nothing’s made sense all year.” And “Don’t ask me.”

We won the World Series, sweeping the White Sox in four games. I wasn’t there, though. After the home run, as I was getting into my car, a girl jumped me to try to kiss me. Instead she knocked me over and I broke my arm.

And that was that. I was released during Spring Training the next year, and that was for the best. Ernie “Sweetness” Jordan and I had become fast friends, and when he decided he wanted to become a big-time Hollywood producer, his first project was a sequel: My Fairer Lady. I begged him for a small part, and ended up playing Young General Pickering in flashbacks. I got to sing the show-stopping “Eliza, Stop, You’re Hurting My Arm”, and won the first of my three Oscars as Best Supporting Actor.

And that’s all I wanted to be – the best supporting actor.