The L. A. Dodger, page 2
Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Mr. Hopkins’s cell phone rang.
“Hang on for a minute,” Mr. Hopkins said. “I have to get this. It might be a work call.” He put the phone up to his ear and left the table. Mike and Kate crunched on their cookies.
“It sure sounds like someone’s following my dad!” Kate said. “I think we should help him keep an eye out for strangers.”
Mr. Hopkins returned to the table. His face was pale.
“Dad, what’s the matter?” Kate asked. “Is everything okay?”
Kate’s father slumped down into his seat. “I think my fortune cookie came true,” he said. “Someone just warned me to leave my job with the Dodgers. Or else there will be trouble!”
The Beach
The warm April sun woke Mike up before the alarm clock went off. He caught the smell of bacon and heard the murmur of voices coming from the kitchen. Mike rubbed his eyes and looked for Kate. The top bunk was empty. She must have gotten up even earlier.
“Hey, look who’s finally awake!” Kate said as Mike came out from Mr. Hopkins’s guest bedroom. “Just couldn’t keep away from the pancakes, eh?”
Mike sat down at the table. Mr. Hopkins placed a large plate of steaming pancakes in front of him. Mike poured himself a glass of orange juice and picked two pieces of bacon from a plate in the middle of the table. Kate was already halfway through her breakfast.
“Guess what Dad gave me,” Kate said. She held out a small black notebook. It was just like the one her father carried in his shirt pocket. “This is to replace the notebook I lost in the airport. I’ve already written down some of the things I want to see. We’re going to start with Dodger Stadium, right after breakfast.”
“Cool!” Mike said in between gulps of orange juice. “Hey, Uncle Steve, did you figure out who called you last night at the restaurant?”
“No. After you kids went to bed, I talked with the team’s manager,” Mr. Hopkins said. “He called the police. Dodgers security was also notified.”
“Who do you think is after you?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know, but whoever it is also stole a cell phone from our hitting coach yesterday,” Mr. Hopkins said. “Maybe it’s a San Francisco Giants fan, trying to cause some trouble. The Dodgers and the Giants have been huge rivals since both teams moved out here in 1958. Giants fans are mad we beat them last year, so maybe they’re looking for revenge.”
Mike nodded and finished off his pancakes. While Kate’s father cleaned up the dishes, Kate and Mike found their hats and filled water bottles for their day of sightseeing. On the way out, Mike grabbed a baseball from his luggage and put it in his sweatshirt pocket.
They started sightseeing across the street at Palisades Park. The park was a long ribbon of green grass nestled between the main street and a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Joggers ran by. Palm trees rustled in the morning breeze.
“This is pretty,” Kate said. She pulled out her camera and took a picture of the beach. “Look! A Ferris wheel!” She pointed to a wooden boardwalk that jutted out into the ocean.
“That’s the Santa Monica Pier,” her father said. “We can go down there another time.”
Kate snapped some more pictures of the ocean, the pier, and the palm trees. Then Mr. Hopkins went to get the car out of the garage.
“Are you on the lookout for strange people?” Mike asked Kate while they sat on the grass under a palm tree. “Maybe we can figure out who’s following Uncle Steve and why.”
When Mr. Hopkins pulled up, the kids hopped in the car, and they drove to Dodger Stadium.
They arrived just in time for the ten o’clock tour. It started on the concrete deck at the top of the stadium. Below the deck were rows of empty seats. Mike, Kate, and Mr. Hopkins wore baseball hats to shield their eyes from the bright California sun. The tour guide, a tall, thin man in a Dodgers baseball cap, stepped out of a nearby elevator.
“Hello, everyone,” he said as he collected tickets. “My name is Dan. Welcome to the beach!” Dan swung his outstretched arm across the view of the stadium behind him.
“Uh, Dan?” Mike piped up. “We’re not at the beach. We’re at Dodger Stadium.” The other fans in the tour group nodded.
Dan smiled. “That’s what you think!” he said. “Take a closer look at the colors of the seats in the stadium. The lowest section of seats is yellow. The next section up is gold. The section above that is light blue. And, finally, these seats near us at the top are dark blue. Anyone know why?”
Everyone looked at the seats in the different levels of the stadium. “Maybe it was cheaper to buy different-color seats,” a woman in a Yankees shirt joked.
“No, I’ll tell you why,” Dan said. “Remember, the Dodgers built this stadium when they moved to California from New York. They wanted the stadium to remind people of a California beach. The yellow seats are the sun. The gold seats are the sand. The light blue ones are the color of shallow water. And the dark blue seats are the deep blue sea or the sky.”
“That’s so cool!” Mike said.
“That’s not all,” Dan added. “See the pavilion seats in the outfield?” Everyone nodded. “Look at the roof of those seats. What shape is it?”
“It’s wavy,” said a man in a cowboy hat.
“Exactly,” Dan said. “It’s like waves crashing on the beach! What could be more California than that? Come on. Let’s take a look at the rest of the stadium.”
Dan led the group through the ballpark. Along the way, he told them that Dodger Stadium was the third-oldest major-league ballpark. Only Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago were older.
One of the first stops on the tour was the pressroom. Everyone took a seat at the rows of long desks. In front of them were large, open windows that overlooked home plate. Behind them was a private dining room for the sports reporters. Dan pointed out the free ice cream machine in the corner.
“Wow! No wonder your mom likes being a reporter!” Mike whispered to Kate.
After spending fifteen minutes telling them about Dodger history, Dan led the tour group to the Dugout Club. The Dugout Club was a special restaurant under the seats behind home plate. It also had trophy cases with signed bats, a home plate from Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, World Series trophies, and other special items.
The group fanned out across the room. Mike and Kate admired the trophies and cases of valuable souvenirs. Then they walked over to the far wall. It was covered with pictures of famous Dodgers.
“Hey—what’s Babe Ruth doing in a Dodgers uniform?” Mike asked. He pointed to a framed photograph halfway up the wall. It showed Babe Ruth in a Dodgers shirt and a cap with a B on it. “I thought he only played for the Red Sox and the Yankees!”
“He also played one season for the Boston Braves, at the end of his career,” Dan said. “But he always wanted to be a manager. The Brooklyn Dodgers hired him as a first-base coach in 1938. He only coached for one summer.”
Dan led them up to the Dodgers dugout, on the third-base side of the field. They weren’t allowed on the infield grass, but Dan said they could explore the dugout. Mike and Kate scrambled over to the players’ benches and took pictures. Mike snapped a picture of Kate picking up the telephone that hung on the wall and pretending to call the bull pen for a new pitcher.
When the tour ended, Dan led the group back to the top deck. Mike, Kate, and Mr. Hopkins stayed behind. Mr. Hopkins wanted to talk with one of the Dodgers’ coaches. He had spotted the coach over by first base.
“You kids wait here while I talk with Tommy,” Mr. Hopkins said. “Then we’ll do some more sightseeing.”
Mike and Kate waited by the infield railing. They pretended to manage a game and make baseball signs for imaginary hitters. Kate’s first batter hit a line drive double. Mike’s batter had three balls and two strikes before he hit a ball high into the left-field stands. Mike followed the imaginary ball with his eyes. It flew into the upper deck of the stadium. “Home run!” Mike yelled as he pumped his fist. “Yeah!”
As he watched the ball, something caught his attention. “Hey, what’s that?” Mike asked Kate. He pointed to a man near the dark blue seats at the top of the stadium. The man wore a white polo shirt, tan pants, and a blue Boston Red Sox baseball cap. A black backpack hung over his shoulder, and he held a pair of binoculars up to his eyes. The binoculars were directed toward Mr. Hopkins and the Dodgers coach.
Kate gasped. “He’s spying on my father!” she said. “Maybe he’s the one who called last night!”
“Quick, follow him,” Mike said. “Before he gets away!”
Pictures of
a Stranger
Kate and Mike tore up the concrete stairs to the main concourse. They ran to the elevator they had taken earlier with the tour group. Mike pushed the white UP button and waited. Nothing happened. He pushed it again. Still nothing.
“It’s not even lighting up,” Kate said, pacing near the elevator door. She pointed to the small metal lock below the elevator button. “I think you need a key to open it.”
Mike gave Kate’s elbow a tug. “Come on, let’s look for the stairs,” he said. Down the hall, they found a stairway. Mike and Kate hustled up the stairs until they came to the next level.
Mike took off to the right, on the third-base side. He was halfway down the hall when he heard Kate call out, “Wait! We’re on the wrong floor!”
Mike stopped and turned around. Kate was pointing to the rows of seats on their right side. “Look at the color of those seats. They’re light blue. We need to go up another level to the dark blue seats!”
They took the steps two at a time until they reached the top level. They shot out of the stairway and along the top deck of the stadium to the aisle where they had seen the man.
Kate skidded to a stop. “He’s gone!” she panted. Mike pulled up right next to her. He looked down the aisle to the railing overlooking the field. All the seats were empty. No one was standing in the aisle. The man with the binoculars had vanished.
“We missed him,” Kate said. She stamped her foot on the concrete step. “Drat! I thought we had him. Let’s get down to the field before my father notices we’re gone. Don’t say anything about this to him. I don’t want him to worry.”
Mike and Kate made it back to the dugout just as Kate’s dad and Tommy were finishing their conversation.
“There you two are,” Mr. Hopkins said. “What do you say we do some sightseeing? I know a good place to start—Hollywood.”
Kate and Mike exchanged a glance. Obviously her father hadn’t noticed the man with the binoculars.
“That sounds great,” Kate said. “Hollywood. We can look for movie stars.”
After leaving the ballpark, they drove for about twenty minutes to Hollywood Boulevard. Mr. Hopkins parked the car on the street, and they walked to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
The building was shaped like a large Chinese pagoda. “What’s so special about Grauman’s?” Mike asked. “Do they show only Chinese films or something?”
“Maybe if you had read my guidebook instead of that baseball book, you’d know,” Kate said with a smile. “It’s actually just a movie theater from the 1920s. They built it in a Chinese style to make it seem special. But what’s really important is the sidewalk. Look.”
Kate pointed to the ground. Underneath their feet were slabs of gray cement.
Mike wasn’t sure what he was supposed to see. And then he noticed handprints and footprints pressed into the cement. All around them were names scrawled in concrete.
“There’s Darth Vader from Star Wars,” Mike cried. “And Donald Duck!”
Soon, Mike and Kate were both running around the courtyard, reading off the names of famous movie stars. Kate took pictures of Mike placing his hands into the handprints of Tom Hanks. Mike took pictures of Kate testing her shoe size against Julie Andrews’s footprints. Then he took a picture of Kate and her father in front of the theater.
After they had checked out all the prints, Mr. Hopkins drove them to nearby Griffith Park.
“There’s a hiking trail that leads up to the Griffith Park Observatory,” he said as they got out of the car. “At night you can see the planets through the observatory’s telescope. But during the day it has a great view of L.A.”
Leaving the parking lot, Mike, Kate, and Mr. Hopkins hiked across a small stream and followed a dirt trail uphill. The trail wound past trees, rocks, and picnic areas.
“Okay, kids, I’ve got a riddle about the Dodgers,” Mr. Hopkins said while they walked. “What’s something that only the Dodgers once had, but now all major-league teams have, too?”
“The dugout!” Mike shouted.
“No, not quite,” Kate’s dad replied.
Kate loved trivia questions. She bit her lip and tried to recall the ballpark tour that morning.
Mike pulled the baseball from his sweatshirt pocket. He tossed it in the air with his right hand while he thought. Then he remembered seeing retired numbers under the roof of the outfield seats.
“Forty-two!” Mike shouted.
“What?” Kate said. “Forty-two?”
Mr. Hopkins smiled. “That’s right, Mike! You got it. Number forty-two was Jackie Robinson’s number. He was the first African American player in the major leagues. He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers starting in 1947. The Dodgers retired his number in 1972. In 1997, all the other major-league teams retired it, too, to honor him.”
“Shoot,” said Kate, who hated to lose any competition. She kicked a small stone off the path. “That wasn’t fair. Mike read that entire book about the Dodgers.”
“But you took the tour this morning,” Mr. Hopkins said. “The guide talked about Jackie Robinson and number forty-two, so you knew the answer as well. Mike was just faster.”
“Well, let’s do another question,” Kate insisted. “Double or nothing, Mike!”
“Not right now,” Mr. Hopkins said. “Maybe we can have round two another time.”
About halfway up, the trail to the observatory split. To the left was a steep, rocky shortcut that wound through some scrubs. To the right was a smoother, easier trail. Taking the lead to prove she could beat Mike, Kate scrambled up the steep trail. Mike made it up a minute later, huffing and puffing. Kate’s father followed. All three stopped at the top to catch their breath. Kate was about to pull out her camera and take a picture when she heard rocks go tumbling down the trail.
“What was that?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know,” Kate’s father said. “I don’t see anyone.”
“It could be a mountain lion,” Kate said. “I read about them in the guidebook. There are loads of them in the hills around L.A.!”
“Mountain lions?” Mike asked. “Here?” He bared his teeth and snarled at Kate. Then he reached out and made a pawing motion at her. “Rrrrrrrrrrrr …”
Kate swatted him away. “Oh, stop kidding around,” she said.
Another short hike took them to the green grass in front of the Griffith Observatory. From there they could see the craggy green and brown folds of the Hollywood Hills.
“There’s the famous Hollywood sign!” Kate called out. She pointed to the left. Large white letters, as tall as a house, stood on the hill. They spelled HOLLYWOOD.
Mike took a picture of Kate and her father, with the sign in the background. Then he hung out on the grass while Kate took a few more pictures. Her father went to get a drink from the water fountain near the snack bar.
Kate flopped down on the grass next to Mike. She turned over her digital camera and started reviewing the pictures they’d taken that day.
After a minute, she nudged Mike. “You’ll never believe this,” she said. “That man we saw this morning with the binoculars is in a bunch of our pictures!”
The Dodger
Mike leaned over to study Kate’s pictures.
“Look in the back, behind the palm tree,” Kate said, showing Mike a picture from the park that morning. “See the man in the blue baseball cap? The guy turning sideways? It looks like he’s trying to hide his face!”
Kate went to a shot from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. It was a photo of Mike. But behind him was a man in a white shirt bending down.
Kate pushed the forward button on the camera again. She came to a picture that Mike had taken just a few minutes ago. The picture showed Kate and her father with the Hollywood sign. In the background, Mike could see a figure dressed in tan pants, a white shirt, and a blue baseball cap. He was ducking out of the picture.
“Hey! We saw him at the airport, too, remember?” Mike said.
“You’re right, when we were looking for movie stars!” Kate said. “That was just before my notebook was stolen. I’ll bet he took it!”
“He sure looks suspicious. He’s always trying to dodge out of the picture,” Mike said.
“Dodging out of the way. Ha! That’s it! He’s the L.A. Dodger!” Kate cried. “I bet he’s the one causing problems for my dad. Maybe he’s still here.”
Mike and Kate looked around for the Dodger. Families picnicked on the grass. Couples walked toward the parking lot. But there was no sign of a man in a white shirt and tan pants.
“I don’t see him,” Kate said. “He must be here somewhere, though. He’s been following us all day.”
“What do you think he wants?” Mike asked.
“It’s got to be Dad’s scouting notebook,” Kate said. “The Dodger must be trying to hurt the team for some reason. He probably stole the notebooks and cell phone from the coaches. And he told my father to leave his job. Without my dad, the Dodgers might not be able to sign any good new players.”
Mike put his finger up to his lips. Kate’s dad was returning. Mike and Kate jumped up and headed back to the car with Mr. Hopkins. Along the trail to the car, Kate and Mike looked for signs of the L.A. Dodger. But they didn’t see any. On the way back to Mr. Hopkins’s apartment, Mike stared out the back window. He was hoping to spot a car following them. But again, he saw nothing.
