Hanging Curve

by Troy Soos

  “For the Browns it was. Tomorrow’s game is in East St. Louis.”

  She put the bowl on the table and turned to give me a quizzical look.

  “A fellow I played with on the Cubs, Tater Greene, came to see me. He’s with a semipro club now, and he offered me ten bucks to play for them tomorrow.”

  “Do you need ... ?”

  I shook my head. “No. In fact, Phil Ball gave us each a hundred-dollar bonus for beating the Cards.” The Browns’ owner wasn’t known for his generosity, so winning the city championship must have meant a lot to him. “It’s funny: I just got a hundred bucks from the Browns for doing nothing, but I really want to play with this semipro club.”

  “Why?”

  It wasn’t for the money, of course. Partly it was because Greene thought I could help his team win, and it was a refreshing change to be wanted. With the Browns, I was starting to feel like the kid who always gets picked last. “Just thought I could use an extra workout before the season starts,” I answered.

  Margie knew there was more to it than that, but didn’t prod. She ducked back into the kitchen and returned with a loaf of bread and a bowl of sauce. “The Browns will let you?” she asked.

  “They won’t know about it. This team’s bringing me in as a ringer; I’ll be playing under a different name.”

  She frowned. “I don’t know ... If you have to hide who you are, it can’t be right.”

  “Local clubs bring in ringers all the time—it’s almost expected.”

  She gave me a look that showed she didn’t think much of my argument.

  As we sat down to eat, I said, “The other team is colored. I guess that’s another reason I want to go. Some of them are damn good ballplayers, and I’ve been wanting a chance to play against them for a long time.”

  “Won’t it be a problem if the Browns find out?” Margie asked.

  I shrugged, but didn’t answer. It occurred to me that the Browns weren’t the only ones who might object. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, beginning his second year as commissioner of baseball, was quietly letting it be known that he didn’t approve of major leaguers appearing in games with Negroes. But he hadn’t issued any explicit restrictions, so I could always plead ignorance.

  “Well, think about it before you make up your mind,” she cautioned.

  I shrugged again and cut a slice of bread.

  Margie could tell that I’d already made my decision. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

  I remembered what Greene had said about possible fights. “That might not be a good idea,” I said. “There’s been some trouble between the teams in the past. Could be more of it tomorrow.”

  She smiled but said nothing. Her mind was made up also.

  “I’ll call Greene after we eat,” I said, “and tell him I‘ll—we’ll—be there.” At least Margie would have a rare opportunity to see me play. And against semipros, I was sure to have a great game.

  CHAPTER 2

  The rattling trolley felt too much like a roller coaster for my comfort. It wobbled its way eastward across Eads Bridge, carrying us from St. Louis, Missouri, to East St. Louis, Illinois, while horns and whistles of barges and steamboats echoed eerily from the Mississippi River below. Gusting winds buffeted the car, causing it to rock and shudder so much that I envisioned all of us being spilt into the water.

  Next to me, Margie, wearing a new spring dress of green silk with white embroidery, appeared as comfortable as if we were sitting in our parlor. Of course, considering some of the things she’d ridden in the past, she was unlikely to be perturbed by a trolley ride, no matter how turbulent. Back when she was a moving-picture actress, Marguerite Turner had specialized in action serials, riding elephants and camels, wrestling crocodiles, and taming lions and tigers. I wasn’t quite so adventurous; I didn’t play with any animal larger than a dog, and I liked solid ground beneath my feet.

  Staring out the trolley window, I watched the sun struggle to break through a swirling cloud cover. The fight was toughest on the East St. Louis side of the river, where the clouds were reinforced by a yellowish exhaust spewing from a forest of smokestacks.

  City boosters liked to call East St. Louis the Pittsburgh of the West, although it was more often referred to as the Hoboken of St. Louis. The city’s economy was based largely on providing a home to industries that St. Louis didn’t want on its side of the river: stockyards, packinghouses, chemical plants, and metal refineries, all of which contributed to a foul atmosphere and dreary landscape. This was my first visit to East St. Louis, and even before we touched Illinois ground, I was already hoping it would be my last.

  Once off the bridge, the trolley crawled through a maze of tracks and sidings. An enormous billboard welcomed visitors to the city and boasted that More trunk line railroads pass through East St. Louis than through any other town of its size in America!—proving that, with a little effort, every city can find something to brag about.

  Next we entered the downtown area. Or what was left of it, anyway.

  “Jeez,” I said, pointing out the window, “would you look at that.”

  Margie leaned over and followed my gaze. “Is this from ... ?”

  “Must be.” Scorched brick shells of gutted shops and offices were surrounded by vast rubbish-filled lots once occupied by wood-frame homes. “So this is where it happened.”

  Five years earlier, in the summer of 1917, a mob of white townspeople decided to drive out the colored population. They did it by burning entire blocks and shooting the Negroes as they fled.

  “This looks like some of the villages I saw in France,” I muttered. But unlike what I’d seen during the Great War, this destruction hadn’t been caused by an invading army. These scars were self-inflicted; the city’s own residents had destroyed part of their hometown and murdered scores of their neighbors.

  There was another difference between the war in Europe and the massacre that had taken place here. No Armistice had been declared in the racial battles. Every summer since 1917, riots had erupted in cities across America—Chicago, Tulsa, Detroit, Washington. East St. Louis still had the distinction, though, of being the site of the worst race riot in the nation’s history.

  I turned from the window, the same way people avert their eyes from maimed veterans. There are wounds you don’t stare at too closely. And horrors you try not to think about.

  Cubs Park, home of the colored East St. Louis Cubs baseball team, was located more than a mile from the area of destruction. The quaint wooden ballpark at the corner of Broadway and Twenty-second Street occupied an entire block in a mixed neighborhood of single-family homes and small businesses.

  A yellow, two-story clapboard building housed the park’s ticket office and concession stands. I paid the ticket clerk fifty cents for Margie’s admission, and told him I was a player, holding up my bat, glove, and spikes to support the claim. There was no need to ask which team I was with; he simply pointed out the gate to the field, and said, “Third-base side.”

  Margie gave me a good-luck kiss and went to get a seat, while I headed for the third-base dugout, which turned out to be just a bench.

  My new teammates wore gray uniforms with ENOCH’S ELCARS in red block letters on the jerseys. They were in the early stages of loosening up, tossing baseballs around and running sprints in the outfield. On the first-base side, the Cubs, wearing white flannels with navy trim and lettering, were similarly occupied. Not one player strayed onto the other team’s half of the diamond. It was as if an invisible barrier stretched from home plate all the way out to the center-field flagpole.

  I spotted Tater Greene engaged in a four-way game of catch. “Hey, Tater!” I called. “Where’s the clubhouse?”

  He left the others and walked over to me. “Clubhouse? Where the hell you think you are—the Polo Grounds?” He spit a stream of tobacco juice. “Lucky to have a bench in this dump.”

  The field was actually better maintained than most minor-league diamonds I’d seen. The earth was smooth and c
lear of rocks, the grass neatly trimmed, and the fences in good repair. “Then why not play at your park?” I asked.

  Greene spit again. “Ain’t got one.” He touched my arm with his mitt. “Come on, Ed’s got your uniform.”

  I was led to a short, potbellied man who bore a striking resemblance to Giants’ manager John McGraw. He’d even adopted the Little Napoleon’s aggressive stance; he stood with his arms akimbo, surveying the players.

  Greene said to him, “Ed, this is Rawlings, the one I told you about.”

  The Elcars’ manager stuck out a hand. “Ed Moss.” From his crushing grip, I could tell he wanted no doubts that he was in charge. “Glad you could join us. What name you gonna use?”

  “Welch,” I answered. Since I’d been christened “Mickey” after the old New York Giants’ star Mickey Welch, it seemed fitting to borrow his last name, too.

  “All right, Welch, you’ll be playing second base.” Moss pointed to a satchel on the bench. “Got your uniform there.” As we walked over to get it, he added, “You get your ten bucks after the game.”

  “Don’t want it,” I said.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “If the Browns find out I played today, I want to be able to tell them it was just for practice.”

  Moss shrugged. “Fine by me. I don’t care why you play, as long as you help us win.” He opened the bag and handed me a uniform and cap, both of which were stained with dirt and sweat.

  I ran a fingertip over the lettering on the jersey, and read aloud, “Enoch’s Elcars.” An Elcar, I knew, was a boxy automobile manufactured in Elkhart, Indiana.

  “Automobile dealer,” Moss explained. He pointed to a dapper, gray-haired gentleman in the front row of the stands. “That’s the man you’re playing for: Roy Enoch. He sponsors the team.”

  Tater Greene spoke up, “Most of us work at his car lot.”

  “Hey, you better suit up,” Moss said.

  “Where?”

  “Either the men’s toilet or the back of a car.”

  I opted for the former, a tiny room with bad ventilation next to the concession stand. Knowing that I was going to have to change at the park, I’d dressed casually in old duck trousers and a soft-collar shirt. I quickly swapped those for the Elcars’ uniform, cinching my belt tightly because the pants were a couple of sizes too large. The cap was too small, but I preferred it that way—it looks dramatic to have your cap fly off when you’re making a play.

  When I returned to the field, the Cubs had taken over the diamond for batting practice. The Elcars milled about in foul territory, impatiently awaiting their turn. While I stashed my street clothes under the bench, Tater Greene introduced me to some of the other players, giving my last name as “Welch.”

  I paced around, getting used to the new uniform and letting my cleats get a feel for the turf. As I did, a sense of familiarity began to course through me. I had spent most of my teenage years traipsing around the country playing for company teams like the Elcars. Although there’s a grandeur to major-league ballparks, and donning a big-league uniform is like wearing the robes of royalty, I still had a fondness for small-town baseball. There’s something special about intimate parks like this one, and local teams made up of working people. It’s closer to the roots of the game, the one we all played on sandlots as kids.

  I stopped for a few minutes to watch the Cubs practice, and thought that if we were still kids, on a vacant lot somewhere with no one looking, maybe we’d even choose teams the way it was supposed to be done: in order of ability. Here everything was strictly by skin color, for both the players and the fans.

  Open, single-deck bleachers ran along either side of the diamond, with wire fences separating the seats from the playing field. Behind first base, the crowd was all colored; behind third base, all white. Both stands were already filled, and altogether there were at least two or three thousand people on hand.

  One similarity between the black and white crowds was that they were almost all male. It was easy for me to spot Margie seated among a dozen or so other women behind our bench. She was looking in my direction, so I touched the bill of my cap, and she waved back.

  Looking over the rest of the crowd, I noticed a number of armed men in khaki police uniforms positioned on the white side of the park. Their eyes were directed across the field, and the way they carried their shotguns they looked like sentries defending a fort against attack.

  The Cubs left the field, and Ed Moss yelled for us to take fielding practice.

  I grabbed my mitt and trotted alongside Tater Greene. “Looks like somebody’s expecting a war to break out. What’s going on?”

  Greene answered, “I told you there might be trouble.”

  “Yeah, but why?”

  “It’s been bad ever since the riot. Didn’t play each other at all for two years afterward. And when we did play again, every close pitch and hard slide was an excuse to throw punches.” His mouth cracked open in a homely smile. “So watch yourself.”

  It was my fellow infielders that I watched during practice, trying to familiarize myself with their ranges and moves. Tater Greene, older, slower, and about thirty pounds heavier than when he was a major-league third baseman, now played first base—the place where elephants go to die. At third was J. D. Whalen, a powerfully built man with short legs and a cannon for an arm; he liked to show it off, delaying his throws to first to make the plays close. The shortstop, Brian Padgett, was a wiry, freckle-faced youngster with terrific range and a deft glove that was almost big-league caliber.

  After batting practice, Ed Moss called the team in and gave us the starting lineup. He read name after name without getting to “Welch,” then finally announced, “Batting eighth: Welch, second base.”

  I couldn’t believe that this semipro team had me so far down in the order. Why the hell would they bring in a major leaguer and bat him eighth? I grumbled to Greene about it, and he explained, “Ed has to live with these guys every week. He’s not going to piss them off by letting an outsider bat ahead of them.”

  Still seething, I looked around at the crowd while Moss launched into a pep talk. Spectators had overflowed both stands and were lining up along the fence all the way to the outfield. There were also many more police officers, shotguns at the ready, obviously expecting violence.

  So was Ed Moss. He concluded his remarks by saying, “We’re gonna win this game, goddammit! And we’re gonna stand up for ourselves. Any of them Cubs gets out of line, any of them starts trouble, you give it right back to him. We don’t take no crap, and we give back double.” He pointed to the bats laid out in front of the bench. “And if worse comes to worst, grab yourself one of those.”

  Through the first two innings, all was peaceful as the pitchers dominated the action, providing few opportunities for conflict between the other players.

  Tater Greene was the game’s only base runner; he’d gotten on board in the second with a bloop single, and was left stranded there when Cubs’ hurler Slip Crawford struck out the next three batters in a row. For us, Leo South was almost as impressive; the hard-throwing righty gave up only a bunt single and two walks to the Cubs while striking out four.

  I got my first shot at Crawford when I led off the top of the third. From the coach’s box, Ed Moss hollered, “Let’s go, Welch! Get it started!”

  As usual with a pitcher I’d never seen before, I intended to use his first pitch more as a learning experience than a hitting opportunity. I wanted to pick up the rhythm of his motion, and see what kind of pace and movement he put on the ball.

  Crawford’s cap was tilted back on his head, leaving his chocolate brown face wide-open for study. But I could detect nothing helpful from the lanky left-hander’s placid expression. His eyes, almost hidden behind high cheekbones, looked sleepy, and his wide mouth was partly agape. He appeared as relaxed as if he was throwing batting practice. I wondered if part of the reason I couldn’t get a read on him was that I’d never faced a colored pitcher before.

>   His delivery was equally mystifying. Crawford went into a slow, elaborate windmill windup, his long rubbery limbs appearing to move in every possible direction. Just before sending the ball to the plate, he hesitated, leaving me completely off-balance and unable to do anything but watch it go by.

  Even if I could have recovered in time, I couldn’t have hit the ball. Crawford’s hesitation move would have been a perfect setup for a fastball, which is what I expected. Instead, the pitch was a slow curve that floated up high before taking a downward dip.

  “Strike one!” barked the plate ump.

  The second pitch was right where I like them: knee-high on the outside corner. I stepped into it and swung hard to drive the ball into right field. I was sure I’d have a double at least, maybe a triple. But at the moment when I should have felt the impact of ash on horsehide, all I ended up with was a disheartening swish. The damned ball must have wiggled its way around the bat barrel.

  “Just get a piece of it!” Moss yelled.

  With a two-strike count, Crawford should be wasting the third pitch, but by now I knew I had to be ready for anything. He served up another slow pitch like the first, high and slightly off the plate. I held back until the last possible instant. Determined not to let him sneak another one into the strike zone, I lashed out, wanting only to make contact. This time the ball twisted away from me, and I almost threw my back out reaching for it. Strike three.

  It was a long walk back to the bench under the glares of my teammates. Ed Moss, contempt visible on his ruddy face, let loose with some profanities that would have made John McGraw proud.

  The Elcars who followed me to the batter’s box were also mowed down by Crawford, but that was no consolation. I was a major-league baseball player, and to be fanned so easily by a sandlot pitcher was humiliating.

  The game was still scoreless when the Cubs came to bat in the bottom of the fourth. The cries from both bleachers were becoming more raucous as the fans tried to stir their teams, but they remained shouts of support with little heckling of the opposing nine.