“Because he has three fingers?” I ventured, grinning when my father ruffled my hair.

“Smart kid,” he praised. “He lost part of two fingers on his right hand in an accident with farm machines when he was a kid. Instead of moping around and feeling sorry for himself, he perfected his curve ball. Look at him now. If he’d had a hard time learning English like you are, do you think he would’ve acted out in school? Or do you think he’d have tried harder?”

“I’ll do better this year,” I promised, and I did. I began school a few days later with a better attitude than I’d had in past years and something to talk to the other kids about that didn’t make me feel like such an outcast.

Things had shifted between my father and me that day too. I realized I had the capacity to make him proud when all I thought I had been capable of prior was disappointing him. It started a pattern of pleasing that I still prioritize at present. When my father told me I should join the outfit, I joined. When he insisted that I continue to live with the family, even when I made enough money to branch out, I stayed. It was better that way in the end, I guess.

Mordecai Brown retired after that game in 1916, but fourteen years later, I still thought of him every time I entered Wrigley Field, and I remembered that fateful day with my father, the day everything had changed.

“Do you think we’ll be heading back to the World Series this year?” Maksim asked as we side stepped our way to our seats for the Cubs home opener against the St. Louis Cardinals.

“It’s too early to talk about that,” I chided, still reeling from the ass-spanking my team had suffered at the hands of the Philadelphia Athletics in the Series the year before. “It depends on Hornsby. If he comes out and plays the way he did last season …” I clicked my tongue, trying not to get ahead of myself. “Anything could happen.”

Maks grinned. “I love the start of things The beginning is always full of possibility, isn’t it? It’s untarnished by time or the cycles of reality.”

“Your optimism exhausts me,” I teased, lighting a fag and taking a deep inhale.

“I could say the same for your pessimism,” my cousin pointed out. “Between you and Ig, I’m tired.”

I sighed at the mention of my brother. “I think he’s lost it. Everything is doom and gloom. He rants like we’re facing the end of days rather than a financial hiccup. My guys in Towertown aren’t worried, so I’m not either.”

“Shit’s still good over there, huh?” Maks asked, raising a bushy eyebrow. “Are you looking to take on a protégé? Things aren’t going quite so well elsewhere on the North Side.”