“What do you play, second?” I asked him.
“I could,” he said, “but center field’s my position. With my speed I can catch most everything that’s hit out there unless it’s in the stands.”
“How about stealing bases?” I asked. “I know you’ve got a couple since you’ve been here.”
“Four,” he corrected me. “Four for four, so far. And in Toronto I had 53 out of 58 before they called me up.”
I think I whistled when he told me those numbers. “What happened those other five times?” I asked, but I sort of just meant it as a joke.
“Bad umpiring,” he said, and shook his head back and forth as if he was picturing each of those occasions.
In the seventh inning we were down by a run to the White Sox. Speedy moved a little closer to me and spoke in a low voice, “I hope you get a chance to hit today. I read that story about you in the paper. It’s a shame the manager hasn’t already played you so you could try to reach .300.”
“He may not even know about it,” I answered. “Most managers don’t bother reading the sports pages because the beat writers are always second-guessing them. They don’t want to look like they’re making moves on the field because some writer said that’s what he should do.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” he said. “I want to see you hit one out and get to three hundred both ways.”
I told him I appreciated how he felt. “But listen, we’re just one down,” I said. “Early Wynn’s one smart pitcher. You’d better start watching him carefully because you may be running for one of the guys before this one’s over.”
“I’ve been watching him all game,” Speedy replied. “I always do. That’s one reason I’m so good at stealing bases. Wynn’s got a routine with men on. He always throws over to first before his second pitch to the plate. If the manager puts me out there and wants me to steal, it should be on the first pitch. And I’ll make it to second easy.”
Someone got a hit off Wynn in the seventh and someone else drew his only walk of the game in the eighth. In both those innings I watched Wynn closely when the runner was on first. Just like Speedy had said, each of Wynn’s pickoff throws to first, to hold the runner close, came before his second pitch to the plate. We didn’t score in either inning, but neither did the Sox, so it came to the ninth inning with our club needing one run to tie and two to go ahead.
I can still see that inning like it happened yesterday. Woodie Held, a clutch hitter for us all season, led off. He hit one on the ground ticketed for center field, but Aparicio caught up with it, whirled around, and threw him out by half a step. Vic Power was up next and hit a long drive to left field on the first pitch. When the ball left his bat, we all hustled up to the top step of the dugout, thinking it might leave the park, but Minoso raced back to the fence, leapt up at the last second and pulled it down.
That’s when Dykes called my name and told me to get a bat. “If Keough gets on, you hit for Phillips,” he said.
“Why in hell doesn’t he have you hit for Keough?” Speedy whispered. “I don’t believe what I’m seeing. What’s wrong with this guy?”
I grabbed a bat and went out to the on-deck circle to get loose. My one chance to get the hit I needed depended on a teammate with a .240 average getting on base.
We were down to our last out, and to our last strike after Keough fouled off a couple, but then he came through with a looper to center that fell in for a hit. Dykes hollered for Speedy to go in and run for Keough. Speedy was out of the dugout in a flash, and as he ran past me, he wished me luck. “Make it happen, old man,” he said. “Just think of that number three hundred and make it happen. I prayed for you to get the chance, so don’t let me down.”
I was announced as a pinch hitter, took a few more swings, and walked to the plate. For a minute or so, it was like old home week. The umpire, Joe Paparella, had been in the League almost as long as me, and knew he wouldn’t see me again. He wished me luck and then reminded me of the time he threw me out of a crucial ball game against the Yankees when I argued about a called third strike. I had used a few choice words back then in making my point. “Maybe, as I think about it now, that pitch you complained about was a little low,” he said, grinning at me.
“Thanks, Joe,” I answered. “You were always one to admit your mistakes.”
The White Sox catcher, Sherm Lollar, had gone out to the mound after I was announced. When he got back behind the plate, he said, “Early’s going to give you a retirement present, a fastball on the first pitch, right down the middle.”
I knew that was just to get me thinking, to wonder if he really meant it, so that I might be sitting on a fastball while he came in with a slider or a slow curve. “Sherm,” I said, looking down at him, “you tell that SOB pitcher of yours I’ll never forget him for being so nice to me today.” Early Wynn had been my roommate for three years during the time he pitched for Cleveland. Now he was moving in on winning 300 games, and I knew he’d do anything to get there. He’d make me look like a fool up there if he could.
I rubbed some dirt on my hands, took one last practice swing, and stepped into the batter’s box. As usual, Wynn had the brim of his cap pulled down low so that most of his face was in shadow. I took a long look at the third base coach to see if there was anything on. Dykes wasn’t telling Speedy to steal second on the first pitch, but he was giving him the green light to go if Speedy thought he could get a good jump. I knew he’d take off as soon as that first pitch was thrown. Wynn put his right foot on the rubber and Speedy took his lead off from first. Wynn bent forward and stared into the plate for a long time to get the sign from Lollar. Speedy lengthened his lead, inches at a time, as Wynn raised his arms and got set to pitch. It seemed like forever to me, wagging the bat back and forth, before Wynn moved again; and as he did I could see Speedy, out of the corner of my eye, turn toward second and start running. But Wynn wasn’t pitching to the plate; he had thrown to first and had Speedy picked off cleanly. Roy Sievers, their first baseman, fired the ball to Aparicio at second and Luis tagged him out as Speedy went sliding into the base. The game was over, and so was my career in the major leagues. For eternity I would be a lifetime .299 hitter with 299 home runs.
As I was walking toward the dugout, still holding my bat, Wynn shouted over to me. “Hey, hitman,” he said, using the name he always called me. “I wanted to pitch to you, but that kid runner had ‘pick me off’ written all over him. I really was going to throw you that meatball. I bet you would have mashed it.” I tell you, Andrew, I’m sure he didn’t mean it, but I wish he hadn’t said a word to get me thinking.
That’s all for now. Love to you from me and your aunt Honey. Let us hear from you again soon.
Uncle George
WIVES AND LOVERS
Dedicated to the Memory of Robert S. Fuchs
“Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It’s staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in.”
—Casey Stengel
IT ALL STARTED on a beautiful July Fourth afternoon, during the Great Depression, just after an eleven-inning game between the visiting club from Scranton and the home team Harrisburg Senators in the New York-Penn League. Before the extra innings began, the crowd in Island Park had been treated to a full fifteen-minute fireworks display in case the game ran too late to celebrate the holiday within the Sunday curfew restrictions. Mickey Doolin had fallen hard for Lenore McHugh a long time before, but watching her in the first row of boxes all afternoon from his position at first base had pushed him over the edge. He wanted her desperately. Lenore was his ideal woman, and had been for the season and a half he had played for the Harrisburg Senators. The problem was that she was married to Davey McHugh, the club’s center fielder.
Doolin felt motivated and inspired by her appearance at the park that day, an infrequent one, and had, in fact, secured the victory for his team with the hit that drove in the winning run, one of three he had that day. On his way to the dugout, s
urrounded by several of his happy teammates, he winked at Lenore and received a wave and smile in return. “Take me, I’m yours,” the smile said to him. It promised everything he was certain he wanted.
As soon as he had showered and dressed, Doolin walked over to McHugh’s locker. “Can we talk a minute, Davey?” he asked.
McHugh grinned at his friend. “I thought you’d be hurrying outside to give the scribes an interview. You’re today’s hero. They deserve it. And it never hurts to get written up on a good day.”
“This is more important, Davey.” Doolin reached for the stool in front of the adjoining locker and sat down. “It’s about your wife.”
Davey McHugh was the last player to leave the Harrisburg locker room that afternoon. He had sat and listened quietly while Doolin told him how sure he was that he loved Lenore and had to be with her. His attraction to her and their flirtation with each other had begun during the prior baseball season, Doolin said. “Whenever the four of us were together, Davey, I always wished I was going home with Lenore, not Estelle.” And his desire had been growing by leaps and bounds since spring training brought them all together again. “All winter I was looking forward to baseball again, not for the game but just to see Lenore.”
When Doolin finished describing all the details of what he considered his “love affair,” he took a deep breath and exhaled it loudly. “I hate to be saying what I’m saying to a teammate and a good friend, Davey, but I can’t help it. I’ve been attracted to her like a moth to a streetlight.”
At first, McHugh felt his blood boiling inside him and was sure his face was flushed with the same scarlet color. If it had been anyone but Doolin talking to him, he would have already struck the first blow. But as Doolin’s confession continued, McHugh reminded himself that his marriage to Lenore had not been ideal. In fact, his understanding of what made her content—what she revealed of herself when he courted her—had been totally jarred by her current need to be “doing something” or “going somewhere” a good deal of the time. She was no longer the stay-at-home wife he thought he married, and their differences had given rise to frequent arguments.
Now, calmed down, McHugh tried to look sympathetic. If Doolin thought Lenore was the woman for him, it might benefit McHugh in the long run. “I understand, Mickey, I understand. We’ve all been there,” he said. Then, after a long pause, “Have you told Lenore how you feel?”
“No, not yet, but I know she’s waiting for you outside and I’m going to let her know as soon as I leave here.”
“And what about your wife, Mickey? Does Estelle have any idea what’s going on?”
Doolin didn’t speak, but he bit his lip and shook his head from side to side.
“So how do you figure to handle it?” McHugh asked, again as amiably as he could. Anyone passing by and hearing just those words and the tone in which they were spoken might have assumed that one player was telling the other about the rent that had gone unpaid.
Doolin’s silence continued a while longer. Finally, rising from the stool and kicking it over on purpose, he replied, “We’ve got no kids, Davey, so it’s not like I’ll be leaving her in a big hole or anything. She’s still a good looking broad. She can find another guy.”
It was at that precise moment that Davey McHugh realized how much he had always liked Estelle Doolin. And in a flash it occurred to him that if he were looking for a bride for the first time and could choose between the two women they were discussing, he would propose to Estelle. But events were moving too quickly and he needed time to gather his thoughts and his feelings.
“You go speak to Lenore,” he told Doolin. “I’ll still be a while getting dressed. If you two are gone when I leave here, I’ll understand that Lenore feels the same way about you that you do about her. Tell her I’ll take a bus back to the apartment and talk to her later.”
Doolin was obviously relieved. He had no idea what he would have said or done if McHugh had warned him to stay away from his wife. “You’re being a real teammate here, Davey. I wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”
“These things happen, Mick. Life plays funny tricks on you, especially when you’re not expecting it. Go see how Lenore feels. Maybe she thinks she’ll be happier with you or maybe we’re just wasting a lot of breath right now.”
A simple “thanks” would have been called for, but Doolin grabbed McHugh’s hand and shook it vigorously. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said.
Lenore McHugh was tingling. She felt that her big smile at Mickey Doolin that afternoon, along with a wave of her hand, had sent a message. He excited her, and she wanted to be with him.
Lenore had become bored with her marriage to Davey McHugh. She admired him for the man he was—kind, considerate, and protective of her—but what she wanted out of life ran counter to his nature and style. In the magazines she read, beautiful women went to parties and had fun. They dressed well, danced a lot, and were always seen laughing over something with their husbands or friends. Lenore knew she was beautiful also, but her life with Davey was very different from what she discovered in her reading.
She was almost twenty-one when they married after a two year courtship. Both were from a small town in Missouri and met at a YMCA function there. He never swept her off her feet, but she had realized that McHugh was her best ticket if she was serious about getting out of that town. Davey had proposed to her just after he signed a contract with the Braves to play in a Class C league in Florida. Anticipating the proposal, she had thought of making him wait overnight for an answer, but decided that the risk involved would make the wait more difficult for her than for him. The wedding took place three months later.
Lenore had enjoyed being a new bride in Florida. McHugh’s team played its games in a park just south of Miami, and she had enjoyed sitting in the stands, knowing that fans around her were aware she was the center fielder’s wife. The apartment they rented, though small, had had an ocean view, and the sound of waves breaking on the beach under a moonlit sky helped Lenore feel some romance in the moment. One of Davey’s teammates who was also married had owned a car, and the two couples found much to enjoy in the area.
Although she didn’t say anything at first, Lenore was disappointed when McHugh had gotten promoted to play in Harrisburg. For her, it was as if she had been brought back to Missouri, being in the middle of nowhere with nothing exciting to do. She had come to realize that Davey relished what she saw as monotony, that his life was the five hours a day he spent at the ballpark, and that staying home at night was both restful and pleasant for him. Her own restlessness, however, had led to arguments between them when he consistently balked at going to the movies, to a restaurant, or to a local theatre production as often as she liked. The disagreements had intensified on days when weather forced the cancellation of a game and Davey used the conditions as an excuse not to make the drive to Baltimore or even Lancaster where some event that Lenore was interested in was taking place.
When they returned to Harrisburg for the next baseball season, Lenore had begun to feel trapped in the life she was living. She knew that something had to change, and that’s when she had begun going out to the Senators’ ballpark to watch the players. It wasn’t long before she made eye contact with Mickey Doolin, whose position at first base put him closest to the spectators sitting on that side of the field.
Lenore had spoken to Doolin at other times when the couples bumped into each other after one of the team’s games or met by chance while shopping in Harrisburg’s main business district. She had recalled his fondness for telling jokes and his friendliness in general, but had never regarded him as a potential romantic interest. After she had caught him glancing her way enough times during the games to convince Lenore he was attracted to her, she appeared at the park less frequently, intending to arouse Doolin’s passion for her by her absence. In watching Doolin, she saw a man with a big smile for whom baseball always seemed to be fun. Lenore had felt she could count on his wanting to have fun her way also, and she ha
d intended to speed up the process of determining whether he was seriously interested in her or not. That day she had had a strong feeling that what she was looking for had arrived.
At home that evening, McHugh had no trouble remaining calm as he and Lenore discussed the unfolding situation. He had actually returned to their apartment before she did, even though he had stopped for a drink and some quiet contemplation on the way.
Seeing that Lenore was not waiting for him outside the ballpark, he assumed that Doolin’s pleas had won her over and that she might even be anxious to talk about a divorce. But now, having honestly considered their three plus years of marriage and the direction in which he felt it was going, he was just as anxious to discuss their permanent separation.
“Mickey doesn’t want to get a divorce right now because he can’t afford it,” Lenore told him, while drying dishes at the sink. “He just wants to move in with me, and he says you’ve already agreed to move out.”
McHugh was momentarily startled by his wife’s words, but realized that he hadn’t given any thought to the cost of a divorce. Doolin was right, he told himself. The way conditions were, and with the little they were paid to play baseball, this was hardly the time to be spending money on anything that wasn’t essential.
“Yeah, that’s about it,” he answered. “We don’t have money for a lawyer either.”
“And Mickey said you could stay at his place tonight, that he’ll tell Estelle everything and she’ll understand.”
“What’s the rush?” McHugh asked. “I could get my things together on Wednesday. We don’t have a game that day. It’s not like I had a month’s notice from the landlord. Mickey just hit me with this a few hours ago.”
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