Painting the Corners Again

by Weintraub, Bob;

  The way the little world series was set up that year, the first two games were to be in Warren, Minnesota, at the Blue Beavers’ park. They had won their division easily. The next three were at Finderson Field, and then back to Warren if one or two more games were necessary for either team to reach four victories.

  Warren’s best pitcher—he was signed by the Cincinnati Reds the next year—had a whole week to rest before the first game, and he beat the Demons 8–1. It seemed like everyone in Devil’s Lake had the radio on that afternoon to hear the game, and I heard there was a caravan of cars that drove over to Warren in hopes of being able to buy tickets and get in. No player on the Demons did anything worth mentioning that day, including Marion who struck out three times. I went to the movies that night with my daughter who was feeling quite distressed, and I was surprised to see so many people there on a work night. But I guess that was the best way folks had of getting their minds off something that bothered them.

  The second game was a lot better. This time it was the Demons’ best pitcher’s turn to be the star, and he didn’t let the Beavers score any runs until the last inning. By that time our team had scored five runs and we won it 5–2. Our second baseman, who had one home run all season, hit one over the left field fence with two runners on base and that gave us the lead early in the game. Marion had no hits in the second game either, and struck out two more times, but no one cared about that as long as Devil’s Lake won the game. The team now had momentum, folks started saying, and all the talk was of winning at least two of the next three games at home.

  The weather for the third game, two days later, was absolutely beautiful. The sun was shining brightly, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the temperature was about ten degrees warmer than what you’d expect for the second week in September. My daughter had purchased two tickets for all the games at Finderson Field, and since my husband was too busy to attend, she insisted that I accompany her. It was one of those games where everyone felt that one run would probably make the difference. When it’s like that, I find more people expect the home team to lose than to win. If that’s true, then those folks came out on top because Devil’s Lake lost the game by a 4–3 score. We were ahead 3–2 after seven innings, but in the eighth inning Warren had two runners on base and they both scored when Marion lost a fly ball in the sun out in left field. The Demons couldn’t get that run back in their last two at-bats. You would have thought my daughter was responsible for what happened from the way she reacted. She didn’t speak a word to me on the way home from the ballpark, and not until she said “Good night” and went to bed.

  I thought the spirit in the grandstand for the fourth game was good, considering what had happened the day before. The same man was sitting next to me again and kept saying things like “Don’t worry, we’ll get them today,” and “Houston’s due for a big game. I can feel it.” The nine-year-old girl who sang The National Anthem was delightful, and Karl Ekland, who had earlier managed the Demons for ten years, had the honor of throwing out the first ball. He got a big round of applause from everyone there.

  It turned out to be an afternoon on which every player on the Devil’s Lake team had at least one hit, except for Marion. The big problem for the Demons was that whenever Marion came to bat, except for the first time, there were runners on base and two outs. In both the third and fifth innings, when the team had its chances to go ahead, he struck out with the bases loaded. And in the sixth inning, after the Demons scored four runs to answer the five runs that the Beavers had scored in the same inning, Marion popped out to the first baseman with the two tying runs on base. That’s as close as our team got for the rest of the game. We were five runs down by the time Marion batted again in the eighth, so even a three-run homer at the time wouldn’t have turned things around. Marion hit the ball back to the pitcher and was easily out at first. At that point the man sitting next to me said, “Houston’s a bum,” loud enough for everyone around us to hear. My daughter just glared at him as he stood up to leave and edged his way onto the stairway that was already crowded with people leaving the park.

  That meant, of course, that the Demons were down three games to one and the little world series would be over if they lost one more. As the saying goes, you could cut the tension with a knife at Finderson Field that day. The crowd was quiet, even before the game began, knowing that the Blue Beavers’ best pitcher would be facing the Demons again. In that morning’s Prairie Times the Demons manager was quoted as saying that the most important thing was for his club not to fall behind early, but to stay in the game with the Beavers and try to make something good happen at the end. The players spoke of how “their backs were to the wall,” and how important it was “to focus on winning one game at a time.” We all hoped they would win and avoid the embarrassment of losing three straight at home.

  For eight innings, things went just the way the Demons manager had hoped. The Beavers twice took a one-run lead but the Demons tied it each time. In the last half of the ninth inning Marion was on first base with two outs. The next batter hit a ball to right field and it landed just fair, down the line. You could see the white chalk flying in the air when the ball hit the ground. Marion was racing around the bases with the winning run as the right fielder retrieved the ball and threw it toward home plate. Everyone in the stands was on their feet, waving their arms and urging Marion on with their shouts, confident that he would score. And there was no doubt he would have beaten the throw to the catcher had he not tripped just a few steps beyond third base. He fell hard to the ground and rolled over several times before he could bring himself under control and get up again. But by then he found himself trapped between third and home and was tagged out in a rundown.

  You could feel the crowd’s enthusiasm totally collapse, like air rushing out of a balloon. The Prairie Times wrote the next day that fate was sending us a message at that moment that the Demons were dead and that Marion was digging their grave. Before the Devil’s Lake fans were emotionally ready for it, the tenth inning got under way. And I guess the players felt the same way because before the Demons came to bat again in their half of the inning, they were three runs behind. No one reached base, and the series ended with a 5–2 defeat.

  There were eight days between the end of the baseball season for the Demons and the Devil’s Lake primary election. And four days after the primary, Marion was in his Chevrolet heading back to Texas.

  The mayor had kept up on all the details of the games played in the little world series. He wanted Devil’s Lake to win, of course, and had made a much-publicized bet with the mayor of Warren that involved the movement of certain farm products from the loser to the winner. But as the losses mounted, he could not help feeling some comfort in the fact that Marion was playing so poorly. He fully realized at the start of the series that if Marion continued to perform as he had against the team from Grand Forks, and led the Demons to victory over Warren, his popularity could win him the primary in a town enamored with its success. But as he told Marion several weeks earlier, the opposite was also true, and he knew that Marion’s vote-getting ability was diminishing with every game. For his part, Marion didn’t have to be told—or read in the Prairie Times—that he was the “goat” of the series. So it came as no surprise to either man that the mayor received sixty-eight percent of the vote cast in the Democratic primary.

  Marion and Gail sat at a small table in Reinlander’s ice cream parlor on Main Street the night after the primary. They had shared a hot fudge sundae without much conversation, and were now beginning to unwind and discuss the decisions they had to make.

  “I’ve thought about it, Gail, and I want to play one more year with the Demons. They’ve already told me they’ll give me a contract. I don’t want to give up baseball with the kind of series I just had. It would haunt me the rest of my life.”

  “What about after next year?” she asked.

  “I want to get into TV,” he said. “It’s going to grow bigger and bigger and there’
ll be room for a lot of people. Announcing sports on TV is what interests me the most. I know I’d be good at it, and I can still get in on the ground floor. But when we get married, we’ll probably have to leave here and go live in a big city like Chicago or New York or Los Angeles. That’s where most of the jobs are going to be.”

  “Marion, you’re overlooking the fact that there’s still the matter of getting my father’s blessing.”

  “I don’t know what to say about that,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders. “He didn’t like me before I ran for mayor and was pretty upset when I told him I wouldn’t withdraw. He’s your father. What do you think I should do?”

  “I think you should meet with him again. Now that he’s won the primary and is pretty certain he’ll be reelected, he’s more relaxed. I’m sure it will be easier for him to accept you. He took the rest of this week as vacation, so why don’t you come to the house tomorrow afternoon, about three o’clock, and I’ll let him know you’ll be there.”

  “Congratulations, mayor,” Marion said as soon as they were alone together in the mayor’s small office off the living room.

  “Thank you,” the mayor answered. “Frankly, I expected to hear that from you Tuesday night after they counted the votes.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry about that. My only excuse is that I went to bed early that night. I knew I didn’t have a chance so there was no point staying up and waiting for the results.”

  “What do you intend to do now, Mr. Houston?”

  Marion’s gut told him that the “Mr. Houston” greeting on this occasion was not a good sign. “I’m going to Texas the day after tomorrow and I’ll be back here in May for one more season with the Demons. I just signed my new contract this morning. In the meantime I’m going to look into TV announcing and take any speaking or writing courses that would be helpful to me. I’ve made up my mind to go for a career in television.”

  The mayor seemed to be thinking about what Marion had just said. He was biting his lower lip and had tilted his head to one side.

  Marion spoke again. “I want to marry Gail next year, after she finishes college and when the baseball season is over. We love each other, and it’s important for her to have your blessing.” He hesitated, then added, “And it’s important for me, too.”

  “You may recall, Mr. Houston, that I offered to give you my blessing several weeks ago, and you rejected it. You did so as a matter of principle, you told me. I could never fault you for that, but matters of principle are a two-way street. And for me, now, that means I’m not going to do something for which I earlier asked something in return but got nothing. I hope you can understand that. That also is a matter of principle.”

  The fact is that just after Marion had gone in to meet with the mayor, I opened the door a crack to listen in to what was being said. And when I heard those last words, that was too much for me. I went into the room and walked straight over to where they were sitting, the mayor in his padded rocking chair and Marion on the short sofa, across from him.

  “Frederick,” I said, “this has gone far enough. I think you’ve forgotten what it was like to be young. Your daughter and this fine man are in love with each other. They’re making plans to get married, and what a wonderful thing it is in this day and age that they’re asking you for your blessing. They want to become engaged right now, even though they know they won’t be able to see much of each other before next May. I’m all for it, Frederick. Our daughter knows she has my blessing, and the only matter of principle is that unless you want to start finding out what a very unhappy wife can be like, I suggest you tell Marion right now that we are thrilled and anxious to have him become part of our family.”

  The mayor looked at me in silence for several seconds, his mouth hanging half open while he probably was remembering how stubborn I could be about things that upset me. Then he gave me one of his best election campaign smiles and I knew everything was going to be fine.

  That was quite a while ago. I hope you can understand why we’re so proud of Marion now that the CBS network has made him the head of all sports on television. And even though he doesn’t walk so well, the mayor—everyone still calls him that around here after twenty-four years in office—always insists on our getting on a plane to New York each year on our anniversary so we can visit with the grandkids. With him, it’s a matter of principle.

  JUST ONE TO GO

  “You don’t save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it may rain.”

  —Leo Durocher

  DEAR ANDREW,

  Thank you for your letter, nephew. I wish you didn’t live all the way across the country so I could see you more often, but maybe your Mom will let you come here to Florida during one of your school vacations and spend a little time with Honey and me.

  Sure, I still have a bunch of those glossy photographs showing me swinging the bat, and I’ll toss a few in with this letter. Once in a while some fan who remembers me gets my address from the Indians’ front office and asks for a picture. If they say something nice about me in a letter and throw in a stamp, I’ll send them one, but not if it’s just a “hello, send me a picture, goodbye.”

  The statistics you got out of that baseball encyclopedia are right. In thirteen years with the Indians—that was my whole career—I could always be counted on to have a batting average somewhere around .300 and to hit twenty to twenty-five balls out of the park. I’ve been retired now seventeen years, Andrew, and it still bothers me to see and talk about how those two stats ended up. There’s a story behind it which I’ll tell you now in case your Mom never did. Of course, she only knew part of it anyway.

  My last year with the Indians was 1960, the same year that Ted Williams called it quits with the Red Sox. He was the best hitter I ever saw, Andrew, the absolute best. And that includes all the “M” guys they compared him with, May, Mantle, Maris, and Musial. My rookie year with the club—1948—was a real fun time. We won the pennant in the American League and beat the Braves in six games in the World Series. The Braves were in Boston back then. I didn’t get much playing time, but I learned a lot sitting on the bench, listening to Lou Boudreau, our player manager, and the coaches. The worst time for the Indians while I was there was 1954, but only when we got to the World Series again. We had the greatest pitching staff going that year and won something like 110 games. Everyone figured we’d stomp the Giants in the Series, but Willie Mays made a catch off Vic Wertz in the first game that seemed to take the life out of us; and a pinch hitter named Dusty Rhodes just killed us every time he came to bat. We got swept in four games and couldn’t pack our bags and get out of Cleveland fast enough. As that encyclopedia would tell you, I got only three hits and no home runs in those four games.

  But back to 1960. That was a crazy year for the team because of everything that was happening. Rocky Colavito got traded to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn, and Norm Cash was sent to the Tigers too, just a week into the season. Both of those deals worked out better for Detroit. But the wackiest thing was in August when our club and the Tigers traded managers. Joe Gordon went over there and Jimmy Dykes took his place with the Indians. I don’t know if anything like that ever happened before, and I’m pretty sure it’s never happened since. But Dykes couldn’t get us to play any better than Gordon, and when we got to the last game of the season we were 76 and 77, one game under five hundred. Don’t forget that back then we played a 154-game schedule, eight games less than today. Before that last one with the White Sox at Comiskey Park, Dykes called a meeting in the clubhouse. He told us how important it was to him and the ownership to win so that we didn’t finish with a losing record. Either way we were going to end up in fourth place. Some of the guys thought Dykes was pleading for his own job, figuring he wouldn’t be back next year if we didn’t win as many as we lost.

  Dykes didn’t particularly like me. Or at least he never had much to say to me. Once in a while he let me start in the outfield, or even, to give Vic Power a day off, at first base; but he knew I was reti
ring at the end of the season and I usually had to pinch hit to get a bat in my hands. Gordon had put me in the lineup more often, sometimes in left or right field, depending on the park we were playing in. He respected the fact that I could still hit. I’m pretty sure I had about eighteen home runs that year.

  Before we left Cleveland to end the year with three games in Chicago, some reporter at the Plain Dealer did a story on me. He showed how my lifetime batting average right up to the minute was .299 and that I had 299 career home runs. That meant I needed just one more hit to get to .300, and that I’d have three hundred homers if I could put one more over the fence. I didn’t know if Dykes had seen the story or not, but I figured he hadn’t when I got to sit on the bench for the first two games of that series.

  Now we had a guy on that club named “Speedy” Juniper. His first name was Jim or Joe or something simple like that, but everyone called him Speedy because he could run like a deer. He was a kid at the time, maybe twenty years old, tall and wiry, like he was held together with hinges. He’d been called up to the Indians from the AAA Toronto club in September so they could take a look at him and see if he was ready for the big leagues. He got to play only when it was a tight ball game and Dykes needed a pinch runner for one of the regulars who got on base in a late inning.

  It happened that Speedy and I were sitting next to each other in the dugout for that last game of the season, and we were talking back and forth as the game moved along. He asked me what I’d be doing when I was out of baseball, which was really going to start the next day.

  “I’ll go back to Texas and work my ranch for about ten years,” I told him. “Then I’ll take the wife and move to Florida somewhere. Probably near Orlando. I like that area.” It occurred to me while we were talking that I had no idea what position this kid played. He’d never been out on the field when the other team was at bat, and I guess he just hadn’t caught my eye in practice.