Hanging Curve

by Troy Soos

  I then settled back to watch Urban Shocker, ace of the Browns’ pitching staff, take the mound against the White Sox. He and Faber were among only a dozen or so veteran pitchers permitted to use the recently banned spitball for the remainder of their careers. Shocker was a true master of the wet pitch; his spitter had helped him lead the league in wins with twenty-seven last year. Hopes were high that this season he would use it to lead St. Louis to a pennant.

  Many savvy baseball people favored the Browns to win the championship, in part because the teams most likely to challenge us were hurting. The White Sox, once the league’s powerhouse, had been decimated after the 1919 World Series scandal resulted in eight of their players, including Shoeless Joe Jackson, being expelled from baseball. Although a few of the untainted stars—Faber, Eddie Collins, Ray Schalk—remained, Chicago was no longer a pennant threat. The defending champion New York Yankees were expected to be our main competition, but here, too, we had an advantage. The Yankees, opening today in Washington, with President Harding throwing out the traditional first pitch, were temporarily without the services of Babe Ruth and Bob Meusel. Commissioner Landis had suspended them for the first month of the season because they’d gone on a barnstorming tour after last year’s World Series.

  In my view, the Browns didn’t have to rely on weakened opposition. They were one of the best clubs I’d ever seen, strong enough in every area to take on any challenger and prevail.

  I looked around the field, at my teammates in their positions. They might be the players who would take me to my first World Series. For a chance to play in the Fall Classic, I would willingly spend the regular season playing second string to Marty McManus. Besides, teaching the youngster might be good preparation for the coaching and managing I hoped to do when my playing days were over.

  After Shocker retired the White Sox in order, McManus trotted into the dugout and sat down next to me again. He nodded toward the mound, and asked, “What’s the best way to hit Faber?”

  “First off,” I said, “what do you smell?”

  “Huh?”

  “What’s the air smell like?”

  He lifted his head and inhaled deeply. A sour expression wrinkled his young face. “Like a latrine.”

  “That’s the stockyards,” I said. The infamous Union Stockyards were only a few blocks from Comiskey Park. “They’re behind home plate, so that means the wind is blowing out.”

  “Good. Means a fly ball will carry.”

  “You’ll get some more distance, yeah. But this is a big ballpark—you try hitting home runs here, and you’ll just fly out. It’s the pitcher who has the advantage when you smell the stockyards. Breaking balls will break sharper when he throws them against the wind.”

  “Huh.” McManus rubbed his nose. “So what do I do with Faber?”

  “Well, his best pitch is a spitter, and the wind will make it even better. He’s also got a helluva curve you got to watch for. I’d say hold up on the breaking stuff and wait for a fastball.”

  “What if he don’t throw me a fastball?”

  That had me stumped, but I wasn’t about to admit it to the kid. “Then close your eyes and swing, and hope the ball hits the bat.” Hell, if I really knew how to hit pitchers like Red Faber, I’d be in the starting lineup myself.

  I cast a wistful glance at my bat lying on the ground in front of the Browns’ dugout. Then I picked up my mitt and began absently toying with it. One hundred and fifty-four games would be an awful lot to watch from the bench, even if it did eventually lead to a World Series appearance. I wanted to use my bat and glove, to hit and catch and throw. As troubling as the experience in East St. Louis had been, at least I’d gotten to play.

  I looked to the pitcher’s mound, but Red Faber wasn’t the object of my attention. My thoughts kept drifting to little Cubs Park, and I imagined myself in the batter’s box, again facing Slip Crawford.

  I had tried to shake off the memory of that game as soon as Margie and I crossed to the St. Louis side of Eads Bridge. With packing for the road trip, and then leaving for Chicago the next day, I’d pretty much succeeded. Until now.

  What came to mind now was the fact that Crawford had beaten me every time I faced him. I’d gone 0-for-4, striking out three times. There had to be a way to hit him, I knew, but what the hell was it?

  I pictured Crawford peering in for his sign, then going into that herky-jerky windup of his, and finally delivering the pitch—probably a dancing curveball.

  Okay, I told myself, all that flailing about during the windup is a distraction—just as Crawford intends. So don’t look at his limbs. Keep your eye on the bill of his cap until he releases the ball.

  I replayed the scenario a couple more times in my mind until I knew what to do about that darting curve of his: stay up in the batter’s box to hit the ball before it breaks. If he brushes me back, fine—it’s a called ball. And if he keeps doing it, eventually he’ll either walk me or have to put one over the plate. If he decides to simply plunk me with the pitch, that’s fine, too—it puts me on first base.

  As Urban Shocker and Red Faber went on with their duel in Comiskey Park, I continued to think about playing against Slip Crawford and his teammates in East St. Louis. I wanted to face the colored pitcher again. I wanted to beat him.

  Shocker got the win in this day’s game, 3—2, to get the Browns off to a good start on the season. Unfortunately, it was only a start. There were 153 games to go.

  We never even got to suit up on Friday. Twenty-five Browns’ players, the manager, and coaching staff, all sat around the visitors’ clubhouse of Comiskey Park for nearly four hours, waiting for the weather to clear. Some read The Sporting News and local papers, others played gin rummy. I spent the time polishing my spikes, honing my bat, and oiling my glove, even though all of them were already in perfect condition. The intermittent rains of morning grew heavier and more frequent, until finally the third scheduled game with the White Sox was postponed. At least it meant we would remain undefeated in the new season.

  When we returned to the Congress Hotel, I stopped at the front desk for my room key. The clerk reached into the pigeonhole behind him and handed me a note along with the key. It read:

  Miss Margie Turner telephoned.

  Asks that you return her call.

  The message didn’t say “urgent,” but it didn’t have to. I called Margie every day from the road, and she knew I’d phone again tonight. Something must have come up for her to call the hotel.

  I used the lobby telephone, and while the long-distance operator made the connection, I thought maybe there wasn’t anything wrong; perhaps Margie was just eager to talk with me again. It had been difficult leaving for this road trip; after being apart all spring training, we’d been together for only a few days before I had to hit the road again.

  Margie sounded surprised to hear from me so quickly. “Aren’t you at the game?” she asked.

  “Rained out. Is everything okay?”

  “Well ... no.” She promptly added, “I’m okay, don’t worry.” I heard her take a deep breath. “But something’s happened.”

  “What?”

  “The colored pitcher ... the one you played against in East St. Louis ...”

  “Slip Crawford? What about him?”

  “He’s dead.” Her voice cracked. “They hanged him.”

  “What? Who hanged him?”

  “It looks like the Klan. Maybe because he beat a white team.”

  “Nobody’s going to kill someone over a baseball game,” I said. As the words came out of my mouth, I knew I was saying them not out of confidence, but because I wanted to believe they were true.

  Margie continued in little more than a whisper, “He was found hanging from the backstop in Cubs Park Tuesday morning.”

  “Jeez.” I pictured the little ballpark where I’d played less than a week ago, and recoiled from the image of a body dangling above home plate. “Hey, you said Tuesday. It just made the papers now?”

 
; “I didn’t see anything in the newspaper. Karl called this morning and told me.”

  So my old friend Karl Landfors had heard about it in Boston. “How did he know Crawford was killed?”

  “From somebody in St. Louis. Anyway, Karl’s going to tell you all about it himself. He’s coming for a visit.”

  As much as I liked Karl, a visit from him was generally not something to look forward to. I turned back to the death of Slip Crawford. “Did they catch the guys who did it?”

  Margie didn’t answer, and I realized there was no need to “catch” them. If this killing was anything like what had been going on in the South in recent years, the perpetrators would be bragging about it, not trying to hide. Dozens of Negro men and boys were lynched every year with impunity—because lynching wasn’t considered a crime.

  “I’ll call you again tonight,” I said. “Are you going to be all right?”

  “Yes.” She sniffled, then whispered, “Hurry back. I miss you.”

  “Miss you, too.”

  After hanging up, I walked in a stupor across the lobby and sank into an overstuffed wing chair.

  Mental images jumped before me like a kaleidoscope. I pictured the living Slip Crawford going into his windup and throwing me one of his tricky curveballs. Then I saw him hanging dead in the same ballpark. And I thought of the hooded Klansmen who’d shown up at the game and imagined them standing around Crawford’s body as if they’d bagged a trophy. Then Karl Landfors came to mind, and I wondered what his interest in Crawford’s death could be.

  It was the death of a different baseball player that had the attention of the Saturday crowd at Comiskey Park. The game was briefly delayed as tributes were paid to legendary slugger Cap Anson, who had died the day before at age seventy. Anson’s remarkable career had spanned most of nineteenth-century baseball, including twenty-two seasons with the National League Chicago White Stockings.

  When the game began, the American League White Sox played like they’d had the life taken from them, too. We romped all over them for a 14—0 win and a sweep of the series. I even got into the game—after we had a ten-run lead—and hit a solid single in my first time at bat.

  My teammates were jubilant at the victory and left for the hotel vowing that the upcoming Cleveland series would be equally successful. I was unable to share their joy and didn’t return to the hotel with them. Instead, I wandered the South Side streets near Comiskey Park, alone with my thoughts.

  I had walked these same blocks three summers ago, in August of 1919. More accurately, I’d patrolled them.

  I was back from the war in Europe that summer, discharged early by the army, and playing baseball again with the Chicago Cubs. But then, on July 27, the city exploded in a race war.

  A melee started on the beach near the foot of Twenty-ninth Street, and spread to the city streets with so much violence that it looked like the death toll would exceed that of the 1917 East St. Louis riot. For days, white and colored mobs battled each other as buildings burned. The governor belatedly sent in six thousand troops, including reactivated veterans like me, to restore order.

  For one week, in full combat uniform and Springfield rifle at the ready, I patrolled the streets near the stockyards. It was like being back at war, but a civil war. My greatest fear was that I would have to use my weapon on a fellow citizen.

  It came as a great relief that I didn’t have to. The conflicts eventually subsided, and the troops were sent home. Some newspapers printed the death counts like they were game scores, the final one reading: 15 White, 23 Colored. The white population of Chicago called that a victory.

  After that experience, I tried to ignore the annual race riots. Every summer they would flare up in a few cities across the country, and then they would die out until the next year. I couldn’t fathom the hatred behind them, and didn’t want to think about it enough to gain such an understanding.

  I suddenly realized that I’d been walking for a while and checked my watch. I’d barely have enough time to get back to the Congress Hotel and pack before joining the team at the train station.

  After hailing a cab, I once again found myself dwelling on questions I preferred not to ponder: What makes someone want to burn a family out of its home? Or drive around in hoods and sheets, terrorizing a neighborhood? Or kill a colored baseball player for beating a white team?

  Was that really why Slip Crawford had been lynched? I hoped not. I didn’t want to believe that a man could be murdered because he had a good curveball.

  As the taxi neared the hotel, I looked off in the direction of Lake Michigan and recalled the incident that set off those two weeks of terror in 1919. A colored boy named Eugene Williams had fallen asleep while floating in a tube. When he drifted over to a section of the beach traditionally off-limits to Negroes, white bathers woke him up by throwing stones at him. Then they continued to stone him until he was dead.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Cleveland Indians put an end to our winning streak, easily taking the first two games of the series in League Park. One of them was a 17—2 thrashing that served to remind us that we needed to concentrate on winning in April instead of making World Series plans for October. We came back strong in the finale this afternoon, and exacted some measure of revenge by pounding five Cleveland pitchers in a 15—1 romp.

  I got to play in both of the high-scoring games, replacing Wally Gerber at shortstop when we were behind by a dozen runs, and filling in for third baseman Frank Ellerbe after we were ahead by ten. Apparently, Lee Fohl would only risk allowing me onto the field when my presence couldn’t affect the final outcome.

  The long game meant that we had to take a later train out of Cleveland, and we didn’t pull into St. Louis until after midnight. It was another half hour for a cabby to drive me to Union Boulevard.

  I unlocked the door as quietly as I could and stepped softly into the parlor. Margie, wrapped in a red floral kimono, was nestled in a corner of the sofa, fast asleep. She’d let down her hair, which curled about her shoulders and flowed down almost to her waist. A chintz throw pillow was tucked under her chin; she hugged it like a little girl cuddling a teddy bear.

  Tired as I was, I didn’t want to go to bed yet. Instead, I eased into the Morris chair across from the sofa and simply watched Margie sleep for a while.

  Before we started living together, the best thing about coming back from a road trip was checking the mail that had accumulated. Now I had Margie, who always tried, and usually failed, to wait up for me. Knowing she’d be there when I got home almost made the long separations tolerable.

  Before the sound of her rhythmic breathing could lull me to sleep, I got up and walked over to the sofa.

  The kiss I planted on Margie’s forehead failed to wake her, and the subsequent ones on her cheek were no more effective. It took a couple on the lips before she stirred and looked up at me, her brown eyes foggy. “Mmm,” she purred. “That was nice. If I pretend I’m still asleep, will you do it some more?”

  I kissed her again, long and deep enough to show there was no need for her to feign sleep. “Let’s go to bed,” I said.

  She stretched. “Okaaay.” The word turned into a yawn. “Oh, I kept some supper for you in the icebox. Want me to heat it up?” Her puffy eyelids slipped down a notch.

  “No, I ate on the train. Thanks, though.” I put my arm around her waist and steered her toward the bedroom. “All I want is a pillow.”

  We were almost to the door when Margie said, “By the way, Karl got in tonight.”

  “He’s here?” The mere thought of Karl’s presence took a lot of the joy out of the homecoming.

  Margie smiled at my reaction. “No, he called. He’s staying with another friend—a writer, I think he said.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. “Did he say when he wants to get together?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll bring him to the game, and we’ll have dinner afterward.”

  “Okay. I’ll leave a couple passes for you at the gate.” I was so tire
d, I didn’t even want to think about the fact that we had another game in about twelve hours. But I felt better when I remembered there was little likelihood that I’d have to play in it.

  I woke with a start in the dark of night, not sure where I was. It was a common sensation for me, a result of all the travel I did as a ballplayer. Whenever I awoke, it took me a while to determine whether I was in a Pullman berth or a hotel room or at home. Another challenge was to figure out what city I was in.

  There was no rumble of the rails, so I knew I wasn’t on a train. After a few moments, I got my bearings and realized I was in my own bed. Our own bed. Margie murmured in her sleep and shifted her head, pressing it heavier on my shoulder. Her movements were probably what had awakened me.

  I made no effort to slip out from under her. With my eyes wide-open, staring into the darkness, I savored the feel of having her next to me. Despite a slight numbness that started to work its way through my arm, I wanted to remain like this all night.

  For the first time in my life, the thought struck me that I could give up playing baseball if I should ever have to. But I wanted to keep Margie Turner forever.

  That idea stayed with me until dawn started to paint the room in warm shades of orange. By the time it brightened to yellow, I was again contentedly asleep.

  CHAPTER 5

  The teams were the same, but the roles were reversed. This time it was the Browns’ home opener, and the Chicago White Sox were the visiting club.

  Sportsman’s Park was festooned with all the decorations traditional for the occasion, and a shrill marching band paraded around the outfield, displaying little sense of rhythm in either its music or its footwork.

  American League president Ban Johnson, a close friend of Browns’ owner Phil Ball, was in attendance, seated in Ball’s private box. Dozens of local politicians were also on hand, eager to be seen by prospective voters as fans of the National Pastime.