In my comedy/science fiction series featuring cosmic bike rider Jack Miller, I created a number of singular Heavens, called Afterwards. Jack visited his favorite singer, Harry Chapin, in the Rock and Roll Afterward, his beloved German shepherd, Barney, in the Doggie Afterward, even his parents in the Mom and Dad Afterward. Since Jack, who happens to be my alter ego, loves baseball, it seemed a foregone conclusion in my latest book, Perils of the Bike Path (A Jack Miller Senior Moment, Book Five), that he would meet his heroes, Mickey Mantle and Tony Gwynn, in the Baseball Hall of Fame Afterward. Here is part of the scene, which takes place just after Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb strolled by.

Hey, this time I didn’t flip upside-down when I let go of (the Doorkeeper’s) sleeve, and I didn’t feel any angst. Guess I still had the hang of it. Maybe knowing that I wasn’t about to see my parents, or my dog Barney, made it easier…

“Hello, Jack,” a pair of voices called as the Doorkeeper winked out of existence without a parting word. And that’s when I did flip upside-down as I spotted the welcoming guys as they emerged from the blackness: Tony Gwynn and Mickey Mantle! Oh myyy.

“The Mick”

I spun around and willed my feet to touch the ground in front of the smiling pair. Tony—Mr. Padre—looked much like he did in his early years with the Padres: slim, mustachioed, a speedster who could steal, thirty, forty, even fifty-plus bases in a season, not the heavy-set guy with the bad knees in the waning years of his career. Mickey—The Mick—also chose his younger form, the smiling teenager from Oklahoma, before a ton of injuries plagued his otherwise brilliant career with the Yankees. It is hard to believe that he played most of that career with a torn ACL.

My jaw had dropped to the floor, but I pulled it up and set it back into place before shaking hands with my two baseball idols. Yeah, I finally figured it out: I’d been thinking about them on the mhuva lun gallee, remember? No problem here, but in the future, I probably should be careful what—or who—I wish for, ya think?

On the other hand, there couldn’t be a Serial Killers Afterward, or a Genocidal Dictators Afterward, or a Politicians Afterward, could there? Assholes like that would doubtless wind up in Hell’s Entryway #1. So, not to worry…

You’re right, my brain is rambling, which probably had to do with standing in the presence of baseball royalty. Mickey and Tony, for sure reading my mind, looked at each other and grinned.

“Jack ol’ buddy, we appreciate your likin’ us so much,” The Mick said in his Okie drawl.

“That’s why we wanted to meet you,” Tony added.

“Uh, that’s great,” I managed to stammer out.

“Mr. Padre”

Mickey pointed behind him, into the darkness. “You got us right in the middle of a game. We’re always playing a game here. Hey, why don’t you join us? You can watch.”

“We know you can’t stay long,” Tony added, “but at least you can see some of the other fellas.”

Heck yeah! I nodded. “Lead the way!”

With Tony Gwynn on my left side, Mickey Mantle on my right (wow!), we entered the blackness from which they had appeared. Almost immediately we walked along this wide tunnel toward a light not too far away. Did I say walked? I actually staggered a bit on wobbly legs, given the situation. I mean, wouldn’t you? Just glad I didn’t float upside down or anything dumb like that.

A few seconds later we emerged from the tunnel and, as Phil Rizzuto used to cry out in his high-pitched voice, “Holy cow!” This was a replica of old Yankee Stadium, I’m sure it was…been there enough times. Old monuments in center field and everything. A crowd so huge that the dead silence of the place seemed really odd. At first I found it hard to look around, because, as Moonlight Graham told Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, I had “…to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it.”

Then, after I could see, I felt another holy cow coming on. Just like young Archie Graham the first time he stood on Ray Kinsella’s Iowa field, I recognized many of the players both at their positions and in the dugouts. OMG, Hank Greenberg and Bob Gibson and Joe Morgan and Yogi Berra and Roberto Clemente and Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio and Bob Feller and Roy Campanella and Jackie Robinson and…

Okay, I gotta stop, because I was on the verge of hyperventilating, and my feet left the ground, which meant I was about to flip upside down. But The Mick and Mr. Padre, both smiling, straightened me out. They led me to the third base dugout—oh man, Stan Musial and Satchel Paige and Ralph Kiner and Ernie Banks and—where we sat on the bench. Good, because I couldn’t stop my legs from shaking.

The Bambino visits with Shoeless Joe Jackson.

“Wha-what’s the score?” I managed to blurt out as the pitcher, Whitey Ford, got Al Kaline to fly out.

“Who the heck knows?” Mickey replied. “We just go on a-playin’. Don’t even know what inning it is.”

“We change ballparks every so often,” Tony added. “Kind of fun!” And he laughed his infectious laugh, one that I’d heard a million times.

Then, this team’s manager—Casey Stengel—pointed a bony finger our way and said, “Gwynn, stop yappin’ and grab a bat! Yer up. Mantle, get on deck.”

As Tony and Mickey complied, the Old Professor looked at me and tipped his cap. A bird flew out. He’d pulled that same stunt at Ebbets Field against the Dodgers. “Nice to see ya, Jack,” he said in a gravelly voice. I tipped my Padres cap. Nothing flew out.

Tony now reached home plate and settled into the left-hand batter’s box. He pointed into the dugout. “This one’s for you, Jack.”

Whitey Ford threw a curveball. Tony smacked it through the five-point-five hole for a single. Oh myyy!

Mickey took up residence in the right-hand batter’s box. Like Tony, he pointed into the dugout, and tossed me his signature grin. “This one’s for you too, Jack.”

Whitey threw a slider to his teammate. Mickey swung, and this time the silent crowd came to deafening life as the baseball disappeared into the sky on its way to Neptune. Oh myyy!

Jackie Robinson

The pair arrived at the dugout. I stood to high-five them, which is when I started shimmering. Crap! Still, I managed to slap palms as I said, “You don’t know how much this means to me, guys.”

“No, Jack,” Tony replied, “you don’t know how much it means to us that you keep us alive in your thoughts.”

“And in your heart, buddy,” Mickey added.

Then, Yankee Stadium winked out, and all of the other players winked out, and Casey Stengel morphed into the Doorkeeper, and he took my arm as Tony Gwynn and Mickey Mantle, with a final wave, winked out, and everything turned dark for a moment.

And then I stood by myself in the waiting area of the Baseball Hall of Fame Afterward.