Wings and a Prayer
Steve vigorously shook the dark thoughts from his head. "It's hard to believe the Dodgers left Brooklyn," he said plaintively.
"Politics," Leslie shrugged. "The fans blamed O'Malley, of course. There was a joke. If you gave a Brooklyn fan a gun with two bullets and put him in a room with O'Malley, Hitler and Stalin, who would he shoot? O'Malley, twice."
Steve snorted.
"Not everybody in L.A. supported the move, either. My dad was never a fan. He thought there was political hanky-panky getting the property at Chavez Ravine to build Dodger Stadium. But for the most part, the Dodgers move was validation of Los Angeles as a major city. The mayor said, 'Now we're Big League in every way.'"
Leslie's phone buzzed. The man at the front desk reported that Carlos was on his way up with the pizzas.
Steve fetched the stack of boxes from the concierge and spread them out on the kitchen counter, opening each box to find classic pepperoni, even more classic pizza margherita with basil and mozzarella, and a possibly subversive Hawaiian pizza with ham and pineapple.
There was another container about the size of a shoebox that Steve opened curiously to find ...
"Chicken wings?" He looked askance at Leslie. "Ma usually put them in the soup pot." Then he tipped his head thoughtfully. "Sometimes the deli where Bucky worked gave him the wings and other scraps. We did get a little meat off them," he allowed.
"They're a thing now," Leslie said. "The story is, a restaurant owner's son and some friends asked for snack after hours. The mom had a bunch of leftover chicken wings, so she friend them and tossed them with butter and hot sauce, then served them with blue cheese dressing for dipping. Word got around. People started asking for them and then every bar had to serve them. They're called Buffalo wings, because the restaurant was in Buffalo. At first they were made with Tabasco or something like it, but lately they've been getting hotter and hotter. People keep finding newer, hotter chili peppers and making crazy hot sauces. At the moment, the Naga Viper is the hottest chili pepper I've heard of."
Leslie read the warning that came with the Volcano Sauce. Yes, it was so hot it came with a warning!
"This sauce is made with ghost peppers, habaneros and jalapenos. I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole," Leslie said honestly. "Jalapenos are the mildest of those three, and that's about as hot as I like. That's why I got them to make us plain wings and send the sauce separately. If you don't like it, we can just use the honey barbecue sauce."
Steve took the lid off the Volcano Sauce. His eyes began to water immediately. He turned his head away. "Why do people eat this?" he asked.
"It burns the throat. It makes them sweat and makes their eyes water. It could upset your stomach," Leslie said. "But people say it gives them a rush. It pumps up their endorphins, the hormones that the body puts out to fight pain. They make you feel good. As good as sex, some people say," she added dryly.
"Is it polite to eat them in mixed company?" Steve joked.
"I'll survive," Leslie answered. She got out a glass of milk. "Dairy products are the best thing to kill the burn," she said. "Do you want to try the hot sauce? I don't mind if you don't. This is a judgment free zone."
"I'm always willing to try new foods," Steve said bravely, though he still side-eyed the screaming red sauce, because the fumes were making his eyes water from arm's length.
Leslie put two wings and a teaspoon of sauce in a plastic bag and shook them up to coat the wings. "That's more like the way they're usually served, and less sauce than dipping."
Holding his breath because of the fumes, Steve bit into a Volcano wing. The reaction was instantaneous. His face went tomato red, sweat beaded on his face and tears poured from his eyes. His lips began to swell. He dropped the wing on the table and grabbed for the milk.
Leslie ran to the refrigerator and pulled out the first yogurt container she could find, thinking that would soothe his lips — though she couldn't imagine how Key Lime would taste with Volcano sauce.
The reaction had flared up like a cartoon character's, and subsided just as quickly. Before she could open the yogurt, Steve's color had faded to sweaty pink and his lips had returned to normal. Tear tracks marked his cheeks, but his eyes no longer streamed.
"OK," he said hoarsely. "I didn't like that."
"No, that was scary," Leslie said, shaken. "You looked like ... you looked like the Red Skull," she realized.
Steve shuddered at the thought. "That was like an allergic reaction," he said. He'd had enough of them in his younger days.
"Yes, your body rejected it. I guess your super senses are super sensitive to peppers. Was there any good feeling afterward? Any mild euphoria?"
Steve made a face. "Not that I noticed. Alcohol and drugs don't work on me any more. If there was any 'rush,' it was too brief to feel it."
"We'll count this experiment a failure," Leslie agreed. She carefully closed the baggie and dropped the remaining Volcano wing in the trash. "Are you willing to try another, less potent version?"
"What did you have in mind?" Even when he was undersized, Steve Rogers had always been up for a challenge. And his healing factor had brought him almost back to normal.
Leslie melted some butter in the microwave, then put it in another bag with Tabasco sauce, a shake of garlic powder and a shake of Worcestershire sauce. She shook up two wings and took one herself.
"Without looking up a recipe, this is closer to 'Buffalo' wings," she said. She nibbled off the meat, then took a swallow of milk. "I still don't like the burn, but this is edible."
Emboldened by her example, Steve tried the wing and pronounced it good. "I would eat these if someone served them, but I wouldn't order them," he decided.
With the wing experiment out of the way, they dove into the pizzas. Leslie took one slice of pepperoni and one of margherita and left the rest for Steve. He wasn't sure about pineapple on pizza, but ate half the pie anyway, then half of each of the others, saving pepperoni for the last bite. The two also finished off the order of wings, using the honey barbecue sauce, which Steve was enthusiastic about.
"When I was on the USO tour, we went to a lot of barbecue places across the country. All the sauces were different, but I liked them all."
"These days you'll have to keep an eye out for the hot sauces, but there's plenty to choose from after that," Leslie said.
While they ate, they watched the official MLB DVD of the 1955 World Series. Leslie thought Steve deserved a reward after the wings fiasco.
He enjoyed again watching Brooklyn win the World Series for the first and only time. When it was done, he asked for more information about the Los Angeles team.
"The Dodgers played their first games at the Los Angeles Coliseum, while Dodger Stadium was being built," Leslie said.
"Where the Olympics were held?" Steve asked.
Leslie agreed. "The Olympics have been played there twice, in 1932, the one that you remember, and in 1984. I went to those opening ceremonies. Anyway, though it was an odd shape for playing baseball, the Dodgers made it work. They played there with some success, winning the World Series in 1959 — against the White Sox. No Yankees that year."
Steve cheered derisively.
"Dodgers Stadium was completed in time for Opening Day 1962. It is now the third oldest stadium in the major leagues after Fenway Park and Wrigley Field."
"Not Yankee Stadium?" Steve was shocked. And he didn't even like the Yankees.
"No, they tore down the House that Ruth Built three years ago and built the New Yankee Stadium in basically the same place. Sometimes they call it the House that Jeter Built. He's an amazing Yankees player."
"Huh. No Yankee Stadium. That's another thing I wouldn't have expected. So, go on. Have the Los Angeles Dodgers been any good?" The name "Los Angeles Dodgers" stuck on Steve's tongue like peanut butter.
"They won the World Series the second year they were in Los Angeles," Leslie said. "Which you could say was a carryover from the great Brooklyn team. The Dodgers won a bunch of pennants in the 1960s and won the 1963 and '65 Series. The '65 series was interesting. Game one fell on Yom Kippur and the Dodgers ace pitcher Sandy Koufax, whois Jewish, declined to play. The Dodgers lost the first two games, but rebounded and Koufaz pitched shutouts in games 5 and 7 — with only two days rest between. He was named the World Series MVP. At his peak, Sandy was almost unhittable. There were jokes about batters complaining to the umpire, 'that pitch sounded high.' And one story said a batter started out of the dugout and told his teammate, 'Back in a minute.'"
Steve chuckled.
"Sadly, Koufax had to retire young because of arthritis in his elbow. Then the team floundered for a few years until a new crowd of young players came up from the farm system and 23-year manager Walter Alston gave way to larger-than-life Tommy Lasorda, who's still the Dodgers biggest booster. He had a saying, 'I bleed Dodger blue.'"
Leslie told Steve the Dodgers went to the World Series three times in the '60s, winning twice. They went three times in the 1970s, and lost all three.
"Then they went to the World Series twice in the 1980s and won both times," Leslie said. "That 1981 team, that's when I started following them. I went home for a while after I got out of the army and everyone seemed to have Dodger fever. I caught it then and never recovered," she joked. "Those young players that were coming up in the '70s became the longest running infield in baseball. Four guys, Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey playing together for more than eight years. And never won a World Series — until 1981. After a kind of crazy season, broken in half by a players' strike, the Dodgers won a ninth-inning thriller against the Montreal Expos to win the National League Championship."
"Montreal? Canada?" Steve said in surprise.
"Yes, we've had two Canadian teams. The Blue Jays still play in Toronto, but the Expos moved to Washington D.C. and changed their name to the Nationals," Leslie explained.
"Not the Senators?" Steve asked.
"No, maybe they thought that name was unlucky. There have been two different teams by that name and both left D.C."
"Actually, the Senators were named the Nationals in my day, but everyone called them the Senators," Steve said.
"I didn't know that," Leslie said.
Steve remembered something Leslie had said earlier. "And what did you mean by National League Championship?"
"Right. I said that baseball hasn't changed," Leslie said. "Well, the rules and the play are basically the same. You won't have any trouble following the game, but the game has gotten bigger. How many teams played before the war?"
"Sixteen teams, eight in each league," Steve said promptly.
"Now there are 30 teams, 15 in each league." If asked, Leslie would have admitted that she'd had to look up all these stats and dates. But Steve didn't ask. "Some teams have moved and there have been several rounds of expansion and I can't name all the teams," she said frankly, "But they're spread clear across the country with teams in California, Washington (state and D.C.), Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Texas, Georgia, as well as your familiar East Coast and Midwest cities. I do know the 1960s brought the National League back to New York when the Mets were formed. The colors of the new team were Dodger blue and Giants orange, to pay tribute to the past."
Steve gave a tiny smile.
"With all those teams, they went to a playoff system. In 1969, they split the two leagues into East and West divisions. The top teams in the divisions played for the league championship and then the winner went to the World Series, which was and is still National League vs. American League. In 1995, they went to three divisions, adding a Central Division to each league and adding a wildcard team — the best team of the non-winners, to make another round of playoffs."
"Sounds confusing," Steve said, scratching his head.
"It makes it pretty exciting when there are several teams within striking distance of a playoff berth," Leslie said. "With that in mind, the Dodgers have been to the playoffs several times without winning the National League. They've won the west four times and the wildcard twice since the 1990s, but they haven't been to the World Series since 1988." Leslie grinned. "That was my dream year. The first and only time I've followed the Dodgers from Opening Day clear to the World Series. And along the way I saw a great pitcher Orel Hershiser set a record for consecutive scoreless innings that stands to today. And I saw the most amazing World Series win against the heavily favored Oakland A's."
"A's?"
"Athletics, but no one calls them that. Just like no one calls the Mets the Metropolitans and everyone called your Washington Nationals the Senators." She shrugged. "It's baseball! Anyway, let me tell you about the 1988 World Series. One at bat changed the whole series." She shook her head in remembered wonder. "And it was only the first game! Let me tell you about what's been voted the most memorable moment in L.A. sports history — Kirk Gibson's home run. The Dodger outfielder was new to the team that year, coming from the Detroit Tigers, where he'd won a Series. He was a fiery competitor and he got the team fired up. But he got hurt during the playoffs and was limping on two bad knees. He didn't start the game, but he came up in the bottom of the ninth, two outs, one run down, one man on base. Facing one of the most dominant relief pitchers in the game, Gibson fouled off pitch after pitch and, finally, miraculously, hit a two-run home run for a come from behind win. And he hobbled around the bases pumping his fist while one announcer said, 'I don't believe what I just saw!' and Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers, said, "In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.' That Hollywood ending took the wind out of the sails of the A's. Then Hershiser pitched a shut out the next day and, well, the A's only won one game in the Series. '88 was a great year," Leslie reminisced.
"But they haven't been back to the World Series since?"
"No," Leslie said sadly.
"That's 24 years," Steve said. He began to smile. "Maybe I can support this Los Angeles team. It took 70 years for Brooklyn to win a World Series."
"Oh, well if you like futility, the Cubs still haven't won a World Series. It's been 100 years," Leslie teased.
"Root for Chicago? That would be worse than rooting for Los Angeles. At least the L.A. team is called the Dodgers," Steve protested.
"That's the spirit," Leslie said and she pulled out her DVD of the 1988 World Series, so Steve could see what he'd missed.
A/N: Remember, this is 2012. Since then the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 and the Dodgers went back, but lost, this year. I'll try to move on to something besides baseball next time. This may be choppy because I don't have time to reread it. On my way to see Thor in 5 minutes.