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Chapter 2: Heinzy's Father






     "Want to play a trick on Heinzy?" snickers Jamesy Budnick on the walk from our west end neighborhood to Codrington Park where we're about to have our first JV baseball game. "It will definitely make him laugh!"

"Why not?" I reply, trusting my childhood friend to get me into the good graces of Anthony D'stefano, one of those big and tough guys trying out for catcher. He's also the red-headed leader of the feared Longwood Avenue gang. 

"Tell him 'Hi there, I'm Heinzy's father' when you see him at the field."




     What I didn't know about Heinzy was that he really wanted to be a starting pitcher when he wasn't catching. After the last practice the pitchers and catchers had stayed late for a little extra work before the opening game. Coach Martin was behind pitcher's mound evaluating Jamesy Budnick's pitches when a muddy builder's truck pulled up. A massive man stumbled out and ambled onto the infield yanking up sagging pants and shouting "Hi there, I'm Heinzy's father!" before huddling over the diminutive coach.

     The only other pitcher who wanted the starting spot as badly as Heinzy was Jim Budnick, as he now preferred to be called. He was a tall and skinny left-hander who desperately wanted to follow in his own big brother's footsteps. The family had moved to town from the coal mines of Shamokin, Pennsylvania in the late 1950s when the blond boys were children and the Hanken Road subdivision was new. Before long Johnny Budnick had grown into a strapping teenager and the whole neighborhood could hear the thwack of fastballs into Mr. Budnick's catcher's mitt as they practiced a hundred pitches every evening in their small yard tucked behind the Brook Park Inn.

     Johnny became an intimidating pitcher for the same high school team that my brother had played shortstop for. He was so hard-throwing that he was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics, where he promptly blew out his shoulder after a season in the minor leagues. Jamesy, determined to pick up where his brother left off, would apparently stop at nothing to get an edge on the position, though I didn't know that on our walk to the first game.




     "Hi there..." I blurt from behind three sophomore girls still in their winter sweaters on the the old iron bleachers where I'm waiting for the starting lineup to be announced by Coach Martin.

"What did you say?" Heinzy growls, diving over three rows of hard benches and gripping me by the neck.

Eek is all I can squeak looking back from his murderous eyes into the crystal blue sky of springtime as he bends my head over the top rail of a chain link fence behind the bleacher.





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