CHAPTER 8
The Stickball Game

America hadn’t turned out to be as grand as Sammy thought.

“I don’t like it here,” he said at supper one hot August night. “People make fun of us because we are new, and I don’t have any friends.”

“There are so many children in the neighborhood,” Malka said. “You will make friends when you start school. What about the Baldanis? Two of the boys are about your age.”

“They have their own group.” One thing Sammy had learned right away was that the Italian kids and the Jewish kids only hung out with their own gangs. He wasn’t part of either. As for Maria, he had seen her coming and going, but they hadn’t said more than hello since the first night on the fire escape.

“I’m a greenie,” Sammy grumbled.

Papa looked up from his bowl of cabbage soup with boiled potatoes. “Everyone starts that way. Soon you will become an American citizen.”

“When will that be, Papa?”

“You will become a citizen when I become a citizen. But first, I must pass a test. You, Sammy, will go to school to learn English. You will help me learn English.” He laughed, and his beard, more white than black, bobbed up and down. “We will study together. You, Malka, and I will all become Americans together.”

Malka cleared the dishes and brought out glasses of tea. Papa took a cube from the sugar bowl and stuck it between his teeth. He took a long sip of tea through the sugar. “So,” he said, setting the tea glass on the table, “tomorrow we will start.”

After supper, Sammy and his sister sat on the front stoop. It was a steamy night and the whole neighborhood was out on the street. Water spurted from a fire hydrant and children laughed and shouted while they played in the cooling spray.

“Malka, I want to work.”

“Again with the work! You heard Papa. Going to school will be your job.”

“But we need money.” Sammy pulled his lucky stone from his pocket and cradled it in his palm. The cool, smooth surface was reassuring, as if he had brought a piece of Poland with him to this strange new country.

“I want to buy ice cream,” he complained.

Malka put an arm around his shoulder. “Every week I will give you a nickel, all for yourself. To earn it, you must study for all of us.”

Study for all of them? It would be hard enough to learn English for himself. Besides, it wasn’t knowledge that Sammy wanted. It was power! And that, he knew from his wanderings around the Lower East Side, was not found in a schoolroom. It was found on the streets.

Sammy was learning how New York worked. Everything happened on the street. In addition to the boys, groups of girls hung out together. The girls played mostly sidewalk games like tossing beanbags—cloth containers filled with cherry pits. They also played potsy, a game where they drew chalk lines and boxes on the sidewalk and, pushing a tin can or other marker, hopped from one box to another.

The boys never played with the girls; and if a girl tried to get into one of the boys’ games, she was chased away. Boys played marbles and hide-and-seek, but the most popular boys’ street game was stickball. To play, you needed a wooden broom handle—usually red, blue, or green—with the straw removed, several manhole covers, and a rubber ball. The Orchard Street game had four players on each side. Home plate and first base were manhole covers, usually stolen from Stanton or Hester Street. Second base was the fire hydrant in front of Schwartz’s Bakery, and third base was Mr. Gershom’s pushcart.

Sammy got into the game by accident. He was watching Simba dance on his leash, holding out his cap for pennies from people passing by.

“Hi, Simba,” Sammy said, handing him a banana that he’d brought from home. Bananas were the strangest new food Sammy had eaten in America, but Simba loved stripping off the rubbery peel and stuffing the sweet mushy fruit into his mouth.

“He likes you,” Yichel said, and he ground out a tune on his organ. The organ sat on a long stick that reached the ground. Yichel held it up with his left hand and turned the crank, which made the music, with his right. As Sammy handed Simba the banana, the stickball batter hit the ball right at him.

Sammy reached up, caught the ball, and tossed it back to the pitcher.

“Hey, you!” The pitcher waved at him. Even though he was speaking English, Sammy could tell the boy wanted him to come over.

“You throw a mean ball,” he said when Sammy joined him.

“Mean?” He knew a few words of English by then. “Why the ball is mean?”

Everyone laughed. “A greenie, huh?”

The boy hooked his thumbs in his suspenders. All the boys wore caps, and his was pushed back. A shock of sandy hair stood up on his forehead like a brush.

“We need another player,” he said, switching to Yiddish. You wanna play?”

Did he want to play? Did birds want to fly?

“Sure,” Sammy said, using an English word he had picked up from Cousin Joshua.

The pitcher held out his hand. “I’m Herschel and that’s Moishe.” Herschel pointed to a boy so thin he reminded Sammy of one of Malka’s noodles.

“And that’s Tommy.” Tommy smiled, and Sammy saw that he had two teeth missing from the right side of his mouth. He doubted that Tommy had lost them eating candy.

“Our team is called the Orchard Street Sluggers. Those guys” —he pointed to the team waiting to bat— “are the Delancy Sliders. We’re out in the field now. You can play third base.”

Third base meant standing in front of Mr. Gershom’s pushcart. Sammy swallowed hard. “Sure,” he said again and ran over to his spot, ignoring the evil glare Mr. Gershom shot his way.

“We’re ready,” Herschel shouted to the Sliders. “Play ball.”

Stickball was an easy game to learn. The pitcher pitched a one-bounce ball, and the batter was allowed one swing. If he missed, he was out. If he split the ball in half, which happened a lot, or his ball landed in a sewer or drainpipe or was caught as a fly ball, he was out. After three outs, the teams changed places. During Sammy’s first game, he caught two fly balls, and when it was his turn at bat, he hit the ball all the way to the corner of Orchard and Delancy Streets, without splitting it.

“Holy cow!” Herschel waved his cap in the air. “You’re another Babe,” he gloated, pounding Sammy on the back.

“Baby? I am not a baby.”

Herschel laughed. “That’s a compliment, Greenie. Babe Ruth’s the greatest baseball player ever. Someone calls you the Babe, you say thank you.”

“Thank you,” Sammy grinned, and the game continued— until Moishe hit the ball into Mr. Gershom’s pushcart. Mr. Gershom grabbed it and threw it down the sewer drain. Herschel stomped over, snatched a tomato, and threw it at Mr. Gershom, who shouted so loud a policeman ran over and told the boys to “put back your manhole covers and stop causing trouble.”

“So, you never played stickball before?” Herschel asked.

Sammy laughed. “Play stickball in Poland? We were too busy trying to stay alive to play much of anything.”

“You like the game, huh, Babe?” Herschel pounded Sammy’s shoulder as they carried the last manhole cover to Hester Street.

“My name is Sammy, not Babe.”

“Welcome, Sammy. Here,” Herschel stopped and motioned for him to lower the cover onto the open hole. “Whew,” he said when they had rolled it into place. “Thanks for the help. Okay, Sammy boy. From now on, you’re a permanent part of the Orchard Street Sluggers. Welcome to the team, Babe.”