Kid from Tomkinsville

by John R. Tunis

  Now the yelling drowned his voice. It lasted for what seemed eternity to Grandma. She understood perfectly what had happened. Roy was tired. He should have had a good rest, a week at home with good cooking, not the hotel stuff he had to eat. Imagine. A boy like him trying to pitch baseball games twice a week through a hot summer. It was outrageous.

  “... and... yes... yes... there he goes... yep, Gabby is beckoning old Fat Stuff Foster from the bullpen, and Fat Stuff is pretending not to see him and throwing a couple of fast ones, ’cause he was caught a little short there, no one expected the Kid to be yanked like this. Guess the boy is overworked...” here Grandma raised her head quickly in approval... “he’s going to the showers now and the crowd is giving him a great hand, hear ’em...” The roar was enormous, it kept rising louder and louder and she could hardly hear the voice of the announcer. “... seems to be rubbing his elbow... crowd still cheering... they’re all disappointed he came so close to the record without making it... Draper and Cassidy, the coaches, are running up, Draper has his arm round him, asking him something... now Fat Stuff is coming into the box, Fat Stuff Foster, No. 6, taking the place of Roy Tucker, No. 56, in the box for Brooklyn, the score four to nothing... correction... five to nothing for Boston in the first inning, no one out and a man on first....”

  Grandma leaned over and snapped off the radio. She knew, or felt she knew, what had happened. Too much. He’d been given too much work. There was silence in the room, yet still through the kitchen window came the eternal click-click, click-click, click-click of the mower in the meadow below the house. Then another noise, a kind of hissing sound from the kitchen. The water was boiling. Grandma jumped up. In her lean body and the way she yanked the kettle from the stove were the same lines and the same gesture of a boy who walked across a sunswept diamond and threw his glove with a jerk into the dugout.

  14

  DOZENS OF CHILDREN stood or sat on wooden benches with their parents waiting for their turn to be called. It was hardly a cheerful spot. Most of them were on crutches, had splints on legs or arms, or worse still, wore iron braces. He passed quickly through the big room used as a clinic. In the corridors cool nurses looked at him curiously, and orderlies walking by glanced at his tanned face; a face now familiar to readers of the sports pages. And to everyone connected with the hospital because they all knew about the Kid from Tomkinsville and his injury.

  Down the corridor round a corner he came to a room which had the words “X RAY” on the door.

  Stripping to the waist, he was placed on a cold table while a murderous-looking machine suspended on an iron arm was poised above his shoulder. It pointed like a huge gun at his heart. Two silent nurses hovered about, twisting and turning the gun, and from time to time an intern popped in to watch proceedings.

  “Now then,” she said briskly. “Please hold your breath... ready....” A light flashed somewhere, and the machine whirred and buzzed. They photoed him on his back and on his face. They snapped him from every angle, high and low; they took pictures from both sides. The Kid lay there, patiently obeying orders, wondering when they would ever have enough but willing to go on as long as necessary if only he could get his arm back in shape.

  Funny thing, it felt all right, even when he pitched. He could throw his curve as well as ever, but the moment he tried to bear down, the second he attempted to shoot his fast one in, there was a stinging pain above the elbow which slowed up his delivery. Moreover, the longer he pitched, the worse the pain became. A week’s rest did no good, and even after ten days his arm was in the same condition when he went out to pitch to the batters.

  Meanwhile his injury hurt the club. With the Kid useless, with Razzle still out, the other pitchers were overworked and soon felt the effect of too much pitching. Gabby, who was a hard loser, began to get plenty of practice. From first place the team slipped down to second and then third. The strain was telling all round. Roommates suddenly burst into anger because the man with them used their toothbrush by mistake. Fights broke out; gradually the team morale, which had been buoyed and sustained by the tenseness of their drive for the pennant, cracked. Gabby stormed and raged against the other teams, he harried the umpires more incessantly than ever, he prodded and pricked the men on the squad continually. All to no good purpose. They kept dropping.

  “Y’see, it’s like this, Mac.” He was sitting with his feet against MacManus’s large mahogany desk one morning toward the end of August. “There’s one thing a first-division club must have, and that’s a pitcher who can go in there and stop a losing streak. If the team is going badly and has lost three or four games in a row, and you have a guy like Sweeney of the Red Sox or Buck Temple of the Yanks, or Razzle, for instance, who can jump in and stop it—well, you aren’t going to be hurt much. It’s that losing streak we fell into after Tucker got hurt that did the damage.”

  “Right. I sure wish we could get Tucker back. Now an operation...”

  Gabby snorted. “Operations! Once those babies get hold of you all bets are off. When the surgeons start putting a knife to a pitcher’s arm you can count on its taking him a year to come round at the very least. If he does then. Look at Jack Sampson, look at Spike Hallahan, look at... Why, there’s dozens I’ve seen. Myself, I think it’s a chipped bone, that’s all; it interferes with the locking of the joint like this, see....” He flexed his arm. “Lots of pitchers have chipped bones that heal up and don’t hurt ’em. Tony Krause of the Reds had one last year and all he did was win seventeen games.”

  “Hope you’re right. A chipped bone inside the hinge mechanism means an operation, but I believe they can straighten it out. He’ll be okay next year. I’m only afraid it isn’t that. Anyhow we’ll soon know. I was supposed to call the Doc this morning.” He took off the receiver. “Miss Swan, get me Doctor Jackson at the Ruptured and Crippled Hospital.

  “Yeah. Doctor Jackson... MacManus speaking... oh, good morning, Doctor. Yessir, yessir, pretty good, how’re you? That’s fine. Have you seen those X rays of young Tucker yet? You have.... How’s it look to you?” He fiddled with his eyeglasses on the table as he talked. Gabby listened, watching his face. “Yep... I see....” A slight frown came over his freckled countenance. The natural cheery look faded. “I see. Oh, you don’t.... You don’t think so....” The frown deepened. “An operation won’t... won’t do the trick, hey?” Now the frown became a scowl. “Well, yes, I should think so.” There was perspiration on his forehead and he passed the back of his hand quickly across it. “All right, I’ll come down and talk things over.” He reached for his desk calendar. “Say tomorrow at three... at two-thirty then. Fine. Thanks.” He rang off with a gesture.

  For just a moment he looked out the window, hating to see that anxious, nervous face before him.

  “Gabby, I know you can take it all right; only hope the Kid can. I’m afraid you mustn’t count on him, you’ll have to carry on... he’ll never pitch again.”

  There was a moment’s silence. But Gabby was a fighter. “Whaddya mean he’ll never pitch again! Mac, you don’t mean to take it from those medicos, do you? Why, they always make mistakes. I remember when I was on the Cards we had two men...”

  “No, I don’t. We’ll check on this. He’ll go down to Johns Hopkins tomorrow. But this man knows his stuff. Just what I was afraid; it isn’t as easy as a chipped bone. An operation might cure that. But it’s what he calls epicondylitis. Well, that’s his term. Means there’s a sort of calcification of the muscles. I have a letter here about it all. He says it’s caused by... ‘a pulling of the external epicondyle,’ whatever that is. They took over fifty pictures from special oblique rays which show the whole darn thing. He thinks the Kid won’t ever be any good again in the box. The Doc is a fan, too.”

  Gabby was unconvinced. He knew doctors and still hoped. The Kid hoped also. Cracking like that in one game meant nothing, especially after such a long winning streak. Why, all freshman pitchers felt the effects of trying to keep up their victories; look at Rice of the Y
anks and Rogerson of the Cards. When they finally lost, the result was a slump, always. Naturally. That crack on the elbow, he was sure, had nothing at all to do with it. This was the way he reasoned in Johns Hopkins where he stayed over a week and got what he needed most of all, a rest, a change from the grind of baseball.

  In between X rays and consultations they worked on the Kid’s arm twice a day. First they baked it for thirty minutes under a powerful lamp, and then a Swedish masseur spent an hour on it, gently and soothingly at first, more vigorously every time. The little man knew his business. Within two days the Kid noticed a difference. The rest, or the baking, or the treatment, or all three together, made him feel able to jump in and pitch a nineteen-inning game. So he told the doctor-in-chief, for he wanted to return to the boys. But the man in the long white coat shook his head.

  “Not just yet. We haven’t quite finished examinations yet. We need a few more pictures of the arm, and then I’d like to have you take a couple more treatments... if you feel they do you good.”

  “They sure do. The old whip feels just fine, Doc. As loose as ashes.”

  The older man shook his head queerly and said nothing. Instead he took the arm in his hands, holding it by the wrist and the elbow, moving it slowly round in a circle, bending it forward, pulling it out straight. Then he held it carefully and looked closely at it, and after that went through the same motions, bending, turning, straightening. Always the same questions.

  “That hurt... that... or that... any pain?...”

  No, there was no pain, no soreness, no stiffness whatever. The Kid wondered why the doctor stood looking at the arm with such a puzzled expression.

  It was ten days before they let him go and he was able to rejoin the team in Chicago. Around the lobby of the Congress that morning were half a dozen of the boys who descended upon him with delight, glad to have him back because the Dodgers were now in third and only a game and a half from fourth. Gabby came across the lobby with quick, nervous steps, eager for news, beaming when reassured that the arm had healed.

  “Why sure. It was just a whack on the bone, needs rest, that’s all. I’ve seen lots of ’em. Pitchers take worse than that and come back; I told Mac so at home last week. Look at Grove, look at Hubbell, look at Rowe.... Why, they’re all pitching good ball, ain’t they? Of course....”

  When they took the field a few days later, the Kid grinned at Gabby’s admonition to take it easy. Never had he felt more anxious to pitch, and it was not easy to watch Jake and Fat Stuff and Rats, all overworked and fine, go out to the mound when he was in such trim. Maybe he’d get in a few innings as a relief pitcher if one was needed. If not, they’d surely pitch him in turn tomorrow or the next day.

  “Easy, now, Kid,” warned Gabby again.

  He grinned back. It was wonderful to be with them all again, to hear Gabby’s familiar bark: “All right gang; le’s go”... to feel the sun on the back of his neck, to stand in the bullpen between Jake and Fat Stuff. A small knot of spectators collected close by to watch him pitch. Well, they’d see something.

  The arm was never better. He started carefully by warming up gently, tossing in a few idle balls. Then came ten or fifteen minutes of slow balls, after which he shoved his glove under his left armpit and massaged his other arm the way they did in the hospital. The afternoon was hot and he felt no soreness or stiffness of any kind, so after several more medium pitches he let his wrist go limp and snapped in his fast one. It took a beautiful hop, that hop which made his old fast ball so effective. The old stuff was there.

  Around and from both sides his watching teammates exclaimed.

  “That’s the old stuff, Roy....”

  “That’s burning it in, Kid.”

  “Right in the slot, Roy. Any pain?”

  Gabby’s approval had a questioning tone. Pain? No, not a trace. Not a bit of feeling anywhere. He threw over a couple more medium pitches and then his curve. But something happened. The ball refused to break. He tried it quickly again with the same result. His slider was all right. The hop was there on his fast one. But his curve...

  Suddenly he became panicky and, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, he noticed he was sweating violently. That curve now, funny thing about his curve. He wound up slowly and put everything he had on the ball. No good, it just wasn’t there.

  Then the pain came. For the first time he felt a twinge, a distinct catch as he tried to throw the curve. The twinge deepened the more he pitched until even Gabby noticed it. In five minutes the twinge had become a sullen, growing pain. Still he couldn’t get any snap to the number 2.

  No use. He was finished. Tossing his glove to the ground he walked to the dugout. Gabby clapped him on the back and said something about more rest, but as the Kid slumped in despair on the bench he knew. His curve was gone. He was through. Without a curve he was half a pitcher, or rather no pitcher at all. By this time the rest of the boys knew it, too. The fielders paused for a moment by the bullpen to speak to the other pitchers. He could tell by their sudden warm concern when they came back to the water cooler for a drink, or stopped to grab a bat from the rack just in front of his seat. There was something in the way they looked into his eyes, wondering how he’d take it, which convinced him.

  It was possible, it was likely, he’d never pitch again.

  Never pitch again! Never have that feeling of sweet fatigue at the end of a tough victory, no, never sniff again the smell of the locker room, that peculiar smell of sweat-ridden garments and men’s perspiring bodies mixed with the ointments and unguents from the rubbing table, never see the familiar black tin trunks with the red bands and the big letters in red on the top: BROOKLYN BASEBALL CLUB. Never see the boys: Gabby and Fat Stuff and Razzle and Red Allen and the others. Why, say, these men were his friends. In the papers they were just names in the line-up: Davis 2b, Scudder lf, Swanson cf, Strong 3b, Nugent pitcher. But to him they were individuals: Jerry who always insisted on carrying his own heavy bag, Razzle who never ate breakfast, Rats Doyle who wouldn’t ride in a taxi before he pitched. They were comrades by what they had gone through, and more, they were men who’d saved him in tight places, who had suddenly come up with a doubleplay ball from nowhere, who had crashed into the fences of St. Louis and Pittsburgh and Chicago to pull him out of bad holes, who had risked spiking or worse to get a man when every out counted double at critical moments. Now he was leaving them. Leaving these men, his friends.

  It couldn’t be true. Something would be done, surely something could be done, some sort of an operation. Mac had promised, Mac had told him he would spend as much money as necessary to get the best medical attention. He’d have it out with Gabby that evening and learn how things were and where they stood. Gabby would know. But Gabby for some reason didn’t show up for dinner, and later someone remarked they’d seen him drive off alone in his big blue cabriolet, a habit of his when he was worried and things weren’t breaking right. He liked to think out his problems alone on the road. No, Gabby wasn’t in a good mood, but he’d have to be tackled even though the Dodgers had just lost their fourth straight game and were in fifth place that evening. Gabby, too, had plenty to worry over.

  Desolate and lonely, the Kid wandered into a movie. The picture meant nothing; he couldn’t watch it and, leaving the theater, he returned to the hotel at nine-thirty. Razzle was standing in the doorway conversing with Swanny, and he paused as they asked for news of his condition. The pitchers, like everyone else, were anxious to see him back on the mound.

  “How’re you feeling, Kid?” said Razzle. He tried to be cheerful.

  “Oh, I’m feeling kinder non-careless, as Pepper Martin would say.”

  Razzle started to speak. Then there was a roar, a screeching of brakes, and a taxi stopped. The door opened and Casey, hatless, disheveled, redder of face than ever, jumped out. He nearly knocked them over rushing into the lobby as rapidly as his chunky body permitted.

  Razzle looked at Swanny and Swanny looked at the Kid. “What’s bitin
g Casey?” The taxi stood like a sweating horse, puffing at the curb.

  “Aw, he’s nuts, that bum. Said I was in a batting slump, and the afternoon they ran the piece I smacked out a double and two singles,” interjected the center fielder, neglecting to mention that he had then gone hitless for three games in a row.

  “Tell yuh what’s the trouble with them sportswriters, they all think...”

  Razzle stopped. He stopped because he saw the other two were not listening. They were watching the excited face of Casey burst through the door, jump with a leap into the taxi, and shout to the driver:

  “Lenox Hill. Lenox Hill Hospital, fast as you can!”

  To the Kid the astonishing thing about the sportswriters was their ability always to pop up from nowhere when something happened. Late at night, long after the club was abed, early in the morning before they had risen, in St. Louis or Cincinnati, among the sand dunes of Florida, in hotels or trains, in busses or locker rooms, no matter where the club was, they were always on the job when something happened. How they found out trouble was afoot he never knew. But they always did. He was not, therefore, surprised to see Rex King of the Times jump from another taxi, followed shortly after by Sandy Martin of the Post who appeared from the subway exit.

  “What’s up? The boys look kinda worried.” Neither man stopped to speak as usual, but ran into the hotel. While the three players stood speculating, Fat Stuff Foster sauntered out from the lobby.

  “Hey, what’s eating Casey? He nearly knocked me down a piece back there trying to make the door.”

  They didn’t know. No one knew, and they were about to go in and question them when the two reporters reappeared, talking rapidly.