“Best Shibe Park memory ever?” Lola asks a few minutes later, as she scribbles in her journal. Ralph and Matty have headed home to grab dinner before the fair. I’m still staring at the field.
“One of them.” I shrug my shoulders. “There are too many to pick just one.” I start rattling off other Shibe Park memories. Great plays made in the field by Lou Gehrig or Ty Cobb. Long home runs that we watched bounce off a rooftop to a collection of waiting kids below.
Lola continues to write as I describe the crisp October day when right-fielder Bing Miller looked up to me and gave me a wave and a big goofy grin.
“And don’t you know, he hit a double right off the scoreboard to win the game that day!” I continue, now realizing that most of the remaining folks on the rooftop are listening.
“It sure is something special,” Mr. Fletcher says, looking across the street. “It will indeed be a sad day when they block this view.”
I crinkle my forehead, and Lola stops in her tracks.
“I think it’s time you tell him,” he says to Pop. They shake hands as everyone says their goodbyes and makes their way down.
Ma lingers in the corner. Pop looks nervous.
“What?” I ask. Ten more questions come out of my mouth before Lola sits next to me and squeezes my arm to tell me to stop. We exchange worried looks as Ma and Pop wave for Mr. Sheridan to come from his roof to ours.
“You want to tell them, Jack?” Pop looks at Lola’s father, who shakes his head.
“Nah, it’s all yours.”
Ma comes over and holds Pop’s hand, taking over. “It looks like they are going to build a wall—one that is tall enough to block our view,” she says.
The news hits me slowly, like they are talking through some sort of tunnel. I look toward Shibe Park.
I see the grooves and rope that Lola and I use to sneak in. That’s got to be one big wall, I think to myself. It’s hard to even picture. My mind wanders to the last time I saw Babe Ruth, a few weeks ago. I can swear he looked toward my roof and nodded his head.
Lola nudges me, and I snap back to Pop, who is now talking. Lola is writing fast, and Ma sits next to me. Nina is standing near the corner with her arms crossed. Even she looks white as a ghost.
“I can’t sit through this again,” she says and goes down the skylight.
“Again? Does Nina already know? Does everyone?” I bark.
“We told Nina this morning. She’ll have to …”
“Jimmy, remember The Rules,” Ma cuts Pop off and gently rubs my back. Of course, she’s not talking about my rules. She doesn’t even know about the book of rules that Lola and I have created.
She’s talking about the original rules, Rules 1–10. The Life’s Little Rules page that she cut out of Ladies’ Home Journal, put in a frame, and hung on our bathroom wall. I guess she thought we would be sitting down an awful lot and could read the rules over and over. And she was right.
Ma is probably referring to Rule #2: Things always happen for a reason. But she could also be referring to Rule #6: Don’t expect life to be fair. I know she’s not referring to Rule #9: Treat others the way you want to be treated, because the folks that want to block our view sure aren’t treating us well.
I focus again on what Pop is saying.
“John Shibe and Connie Mack are arguing that there are not enough people filling the stands, and they think we are to blame.”
“They don’t think we are to blame, dear,” Ma interjects. “We’re just one part of the problem.”
“But nobody who watches the games from here can afford to buy a real ticket!” I exclaim, my voice cracking. “Not this year! What do we have? Ten? Twelve people each game?”
“Twenty today. Back in ’29, we squeezed in eighty per roof,” Pop chimes in, and Ma gives him a that’s-not-helping look.
“But they always say things like this. It never happens,” Lola says.
“Yes, well this time is more serious,” Mr. Sheridan says. “They’ve already asked the courts to make us take down the bleachers, and the courts sided with us. So now they think the only option is to build a wall to block our view.”
Ma picks it up from there. “You remember that when we originally built these stands, we agreed to sell seats only if the ballpark was sold out. That’s not happening anymore, and John Shibe has never been happy with this arrangement.”
I look down the rows of bleachers on each roof, with the last few happy spectators slowly leaving for their own homes. Mrs. Carson is sitting alone, watching the ballpark empty out. Without people up here watching the games, these rooftop bleachers will be an ugly reminder of something that once was great.
“How can the games sell out if they are trading away all the good players?” Lola interjects.
“I agree,” Pop says. “Mack creates a dynasty, and then sells it off. Who wants to see second-rate players lose to the men who used to be our very own all-stars? What a pill.” Pop shakes his head.
“The Depression has hurt Shibe Park attendance, just as it’s hurt us,” Ma says, much calmer. “Every spectator that they see on the rooftop could have been a paying customer inside of Shibe Park. It’s created some bad feelings.”
Mr. Sheridan chimes back in. “In April, they caught Mr. O’Connor convincing people in the ticket line to come to his roof instead. That made them angry, taking good money-paying folks right out from under their noses. What a fool.” He shakes his head. “And last night, Mr. Donahue told us they got a new hot-shot lawyer on their side, Richardson Dilworth.” He looks at me. “They still promise you batboy next season?”
“Yes,” I reply, straightening up a bit.
“Good.” Mr. Sheridan kneels by my seat. “Now don’t go and do anything to mess that up. That may be the only way you actually get to see them play.”