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field, the applause shifted into a chant, “Ed-die, Ed-die,” and grew in volume when Eddie Kasko, the Red Sox manager, hopped out of the dugout and jogged to the mound. Fisk walked out, his mask tucked under his arm, and the three of them talked for a moment. From where I sat I could see them smiling. Eddie nodded his head vigorously, and then Kasko slapped him on his ass and walked back into the dugout.
    When the next Chicago batter came to the plate, the noise in the park suddenly stopped. It was Dick Allen, a fearsome slugger in those days, and destined to be the American League’s Most Valuable Player that year. One by one the fans sat down to watch the confrontation.
    But there was no drama. Allen hit Eddie’s first pitch high into the misty Boston night, over the left field wall, over the screen atop the wall, and the ball was still rising on the ascending arc of its big parabola when I last saw it. I turned to look at Eddie. His body was still facing the plate, his legs planted in his follow-through, but his head had swiveled around to follow the flight of the ball, and his finger was the barrel of a gun pointed at his temple.
    The silence in the ballpark was as awesome, in its way, as the applause of a few minutes earlier had been. Then a guy sitting somewhere behind me yelled, “At’s okay, Eddie-boy. At’s okay.” And the chant built again, “Ed-die, Ed-die,” as Kasko climbed out of the dugout and moved slowly toward the mound. Eddie started to walk toward him, and they met by the third-base line. I could see the back of Kasko’s neck redden as he thrust his jaw at Eddie. I couldn’t tell what the manager said to him, but Eddie’s chin sagged onto his chest, and he trudged slowly into the dugout and out of sight without looking up or acknowledging the cheers.
    Later that evening we all met at Sam’s house. Sam kept pounding Eddie on the back telling him what a great game he pitched, and Eddie grinned shyly and didn’t say much of anything, and Jan hugged his arm. Josie kept running in and out of the kitchen where she had a vat of pasta bubbling.
    “Tough one to lose,” I said to Eddie, when I found myself momentarily alone with him.
    “Man, I was stylin’, when all of a sudden that Allen went ding-dong. Took me to the bridge.” Eddie took a big gulp from his Budweiser.
    I smiled. “What did Kasko say when he came to take you out? He didn’t look too happy.”
    “He said, ‘When I come out to get you, you wait for me. You wait right there on the mound ’til I get there. Don’t you ever make me look bad again.’”
    “What’d you say?”
    Eddie flashed his Huck Finn grin. “I told him not to sweat it, he wouldn’t have to get me any more.”
    “And what’d he say to that?”
    “He said if I was in Pawtucket it wouldn’t be a problem.”
    Eddie didn’t go back to Pawtucket. He took his spot in the Red Sox pitching rotation, and when the season ended he had won six games, lost only that first one, and the Red Sox lost the pennant to Detroit by a single game. Even though he had played only half the season, Eddie got several votes for Rookie of the Year, which his teammate Fisk won. He had the city of Boston, as Sam liked to say, “by the short hairs.” Everywhere he went he was recognized, welcomed, loved. The Red Sox sent him to visit sick kids at Children’s Hospital. He did publicity for the Jimmy Fund. He spoke at Little League banquets and Rotary Club meetings in places like Andover and Bridgewater. I got him some easy endorsement money from a Somerville Pontiac dealer, and we signed a five-year exclusive contract with Rawlings, who wanted to manufacture a full line of Eddie Donagan sporting equipment.
    Eddie started off the 1973 season about where he had left off—and it wasn’t until sometime in June when I first became aware of the change. It didn’t even seem important, because Eddie was still winning, and the sportswriters loved his ingenuous antics and inventive