This was inspired by a story that Trachsel told. It was just some over flowery fan letters he received but we thought it was an interesting base.
The Opening Day Mystery
By Steph and Karen Nelson
The Bob-Whites of the Glen had been invited back to Chicago by the Cubs to participate in opening day festivities to thank them for their help with Kerry Wood’s poisoning the summer before and Kevin Tapani’s kidnapping at the convention. It was during spring break from their schools so they could stay the entire week. Trixie was given the honor of throwing out the first pitch.
On the day before the game, they arrived in Chicago and stayed again at the Chicago Hilton and Towers where, when they checked in, there was a message waiting. It was from Cubs pitcher Steve Trachsel who asked them to meet him for breakfast at the hotel the next morning because he had something he needed help with. They sent a message back saying they would see him at 8:00 a.m.
Trixie said, "It all sounds very mysterious," as the others groaned.
Jim, at her side as always, kissed her cheek and said, "We’re here for fun. No mysteries. Maybe he just is a lonely major leaguer and is bored."
Honey said, "I think a single, handsome Cubs player who signed a five million dollar contract wouldn’t be bored or without companionship. I’m sure there are a lot of women who would volunteer to keep him company."
Brian kissed her and said, "You better not be on that list."
Trixie and Jim both grinned at Brian and Honey’s newfound happiness. He had proclaimed his love for her on Valentine’s Day and she had said it was mutual. They admitted that seeing Trixie and Jim so deeply in love and so happy was an inspiration. Now all they had to do was convince Mart and Di that it was time for them to follow suit.
They headed out to dinner and then to their rooms. Trixie was a little nervous about throwing out the first pitch but before everyone parted to go to bed, Jim kissed Trixie and said, "You know I always have faith in you and I think you’ll knock them dead. We certainly practiced enough when I was home for weekends."
She kissed him back and said, "As long as you’re with me, I have all the confidence I need."
The next morning they headed down for breakfast where they found Steve Trachsel signing autographs, posing for pictures and waiting for them. He stood up when they arrived and said, "I want to thank you all for coming. I’m trying to keep this quiet because the press might have a field day with this."
After they all sat down, Trixie said, "We’re glad to help and we won’t talk to the media or anything. We understand you wanting to keep something out of the press. We’re here all week to help. What’s wrong?"
Steve said, "Thank you all very much. I don’t have much time because I have my day before start routine to go through. Kerry is pitching today and me tomorrow. What’s going on is this: I’ve been getting these little love notes and cards delivered to my apartment in Arizona during the off-season and then in spring training at the complex. Then when we arrived in Houston for our first game of the season, there were flowers for me at the hotel. Then again, the same thing in Pittsburgh over the weekend. There’s nothing dangerous but I worry that someone might be obsessed or something. It’s different from simple fan letters. This woman has been offering to have my baby and everything".
He showed them a box he had everything in and they went through it. The letters were a little personal and had some personal details in them. Steve said, "That stuff is hardly public knowledge, like stuff about my divorce and my family. My first wife and I divorced very quietly 3 years ago. It barely even got mentioned in the paper. I wasn’t really a name at that point. I don’t think she would have anything to do with it. Last I heard, she’s remarried and lives in California."
After brunch, Steve went off to the ballpark and the Bob-Whites all sat and talked over what he had told them. Trixie said, "This sounds really strange that a woman would start sending him these letters out of the blue. We do have that lunch at the executive offices today before the game, maybe we can discover something there."
They headed over to the ballpark, arriving at around 11 am to find a bustling neighborhood full of excited fans. Vendors hawked all sorts of merchandise, scalpers sold their tickets, the smell of hot dogs and organ music in the air and a perfect spring day, the high around seventy-five with not a cloud in the sky.
While walking into the park, they saw Lucy, one of the women they had met at the convention and waved. She came over and said, "I read in the paper that you were throwing out the first pitch, Trixie. That’s fantastic. Warning though – this place can grab a hold of you fast especially on opening day." She shook all their hands and then a tall man came over and she introduced her fiancé, Jon, and then they were off.
The Bob-Whites went inside and were led to the executive offices where the President, Andy MacPhail, a short John Denver look-alike and the General Manager, Ed Lynch, a tall, young looking forty-five year-old dynamo, who had the same name as Diana’s father, greeted them and led them to the dining room.
There they talked about the new season and what had happened before. Ed said, "There are no problems that we know of so far. Kerry Wood’s early spring training illness was a scare, but otherwise everything is fine. We do have a couple of new employees, including Laura Spanier, a young woman who started as my secretary at the end of last season who will give you a tour of the offices."
Andy and Ed had to go and Laura arrived, a petite girl with medium length brown hair who took them around the offices and then gave them a tour of the inside of the ballpark. Finally, she said, "Forty-five minutes until the first pitch. Trixie, you need to be at the dugout entrance at five after one so we can get you ready."
They headed up to the stands and noticed a holiday atmosphere in the air. Their seats were directly behind the Cubs dugout. They noticed how everyone seemed to know each other, friends lost over the grim Chicago winter and found again with the first pitch. People introduced themselves to them, some recognizing them from the newspaper reports about the poisoning and the kidnapping.
One lady explained, "For us that are part of the charming, although admittedly quite goofy branch, of mankind known as Cubs fans, opening day is the most wonderful day of the year. Every year holds that hope that this is the year and the team looks mighty good, a perfect 6-0 start so far this season and we got the kid, Kerry Wood going to the hill today."
At five after one, amid good look wishes from her friends and the others around them, Trixie headed over to the dugout where she was seated next to the manager, Jim Riggleman, who was giving his team an opening day rally talk as they prepared for the festivities.
First the visiting team, the Reds was introduced and then the Cubs were introduced starting with the starting lineup to earth shattering cheers from the crowd and then the other players and then the anthem was sung by Chicago’s golden singing couple, Wayne and Kathleen Messmer and then it was Trixie’s turn.
After she was introduced, she took the mound to resounding cheers from the crowd and she saw her friends all give her a thumbs up sign, and she took a deep breath and threw a ball to the designated catcher, relief pitcher Terry Adams and got it in the general vicinity of the strike zone and where he was standing as the crowd cheered and Trixie headed to her seat as along the way, she passed through the team and they slapped her on the back and said, "Good job!"
She sat down next to Jim and said, "Wow, they even cheered me. What a great crowd. This is fun." They joined in the cheering as the Cubs took the field as the organist played the Cubs song "Glory Days" led by Kerry Wood, who looked healthy and strong despite his severe illness in February.
The game was a lot of fun, especially since the Cubs won on a shutout by Wood and homeruns by Sammy Sosa and Mark Grace.
After the game, they went down to the clubhouse where they noticed that Laura was with Steve and the trainer and looking at Steve adoringly. They walked over and said hello to them and Steve invited them to join him for dinner that night.
Trixie couldn’t help but be a little suspicious of Laura but Steve told her, "She’s married and has a two year-old baby. I don’t think it could be her. The writing is also unlike hers. I’ve seen her writing on many communications I received from the front office."
The next morning the Bob-Whites went up to Evanston to Northwestern University, where Honey was considering going and Brian was considering for medical school, for a campus tour. Trixie was immediately taken by the beautiful lakefront campus just north of Chicago, a town she was falling in love with. She knew that she had pretty much decided to go to school in New York where Jim was, but found he seemed to love the campus also.
That afternoon they went to see Steve pitch and he did great, winning 4-2, even hitting a homerun to help his own cause. When they ran into Laura after the game she invited them to go to dinner with her and they accepted. Trixie was still a little suspicious even with what Steve had said.
During their dinner, Laura excused herself to use the washroom and Trixie followed a minute later and stood off to the side in shadows when she saw Laura was on a pay phone. "Rick," Laura was saying, "I’ll be home in a little while! I want to spend some time with some new friends I made from New York. Yes I’ll take down that information," and she wrote something down with her left hand.
Later when they got the bill, Laura insisted on treating and Trixie almost dropped her dessert fork when she saw Laura sign the credit card receipt with her right hand. She said, "I was wondering if you were ambidextrous like one of our other friends because I swear I saw you do something left-handed the other day."
"Yes, I am," replied Laura.
Trixie said, "Our friend writes totally different with his right and left hands. I’d be curious to see if you do the same."
Laura said she would be glad to let them see her try and she wrote the sentence "The small brown cow jumped over the lazy moon" with both hands and Trixie noticed the difference and asked if she could have the paper to show her friend back home and Laura agreed.
When the Bob-Whites returned to their hotel they called Steve and asked him to hurry over with some of the stuff he had received.
He arrived a little while later and they showed him Laura’s handwriting in the two different sentences and Steve said "You know I always see her write right-handed and that left-handed writing looks like the one on these notes. Look at this."
They completely agreed with him and then had to decide what to do. Steve said, "She seems harmless enough. I think I should just talk to her and take it from there"
They said that they wanted to be with him because she might get mad and dangerous so they went with him to his apartment in Wrigleyville, about two blocks from the ballpark. It was surprisingly small but he explained that he only lived there during the season and was gone half the time and without a wife or kids it seemed silly to have a huge place.
Laura arrived a little after he called and seemed to know the jig was up when she saw them all there and remembered Trixie was a detective. She confessed to sending all the notes and explained that she had fallen for Steve when he was really nice to her when she was hired and she was having a lot of problems in her marriage and he was also one of the only single guys on the team.
They asked her how she got the information and she said she had just asked around with the other people in the office who thought she was just curious because she had been careful to cover up her little obsession by asking about the other players, too.
Steve said he understood and wouldn’t report her to the management or police unless she didn’t stop.
She said that she and her husband had had a long talk and they were going to move away with their two year-old to get a fresh start but thanked him for his understanding and left, saying she was going to quit the next day.
They had a wonderful rest of the week in Chicago seeing everything again that they had seen before and also some new things. They went back to Northwestern University and Trixie basically decided to apply there when the time came next year when she was a senior, although she was worried that it might cause problems with Jim unless he decided to transfer to NU too.
The End
Yes we’re hinting big time with the Northwestern thing for future story. We’re both alumni. Go Cats (oh oh I just realized what I said I should say go Wildcats!) Unfortunately also the Kerry Wood illness is for real. As of this writing he’s in the hospital so everyone knock on wood (no pun intended) but so far it’s just precautionary.