by Matt Musson
Since a nearby lightning strike could follow the water lines, we had to wait until the electrical storm passed to shower. The storm knocked out power to the stadium. So, we huddled together in the clubhouse just waiting in the shadows.
Suddenly, Shine starts laughing like a muddy little hyena.
“What are you cackling about?” I asked.
“Look at us!” he laughed pointing to the fellows around him. “Every player on the team is colored!”
I looked around the darkened room and sure enough, a layer of mud left everyone a gleaming reddish brown. A stranger would be hard pressed to tell who was white and who was not.
For a half hour, we stood there like chocolate soldiers, until the lights came back on and the storm settled down to a soaking rain. With the lightning gone, we finally moved into the showers where we used plenty of soap and water to scrub off as much brown color as possible.
But later, as I made my way home through the continuing rain, I wondered how I would feel if my temporary tint had not washed off.
Would I be a different person if the mud dyed me brown forever?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Chapter Thirteen – When is a Cuban not a Cuban?
On August 10th we played Morganton at home and got a chance to see their new Cuban pitcher, Jimenez Cuervo. We had been hearing about this hotshot and how he threw fire, had pin point accuracy and how his curve would break clear across the strike zone. We really did not want to play against him, but we were looking forward to seeing him pitch. We wanted to see if he really had the juice that everyone said he did.
Bob Pugh started against this Cuban wonder and thanks to some good defense by the Rocks infield; we managed to stay at 0-0 through four complete innings.
Old Jimenez was everything they said he was, plus some more besides!
He was making our batters look like little leaguers. They were so turned around they were swinging at trash and watching strike after strike go by.
It was painful to watch, but I could not help admiring Cuervo. I knew this was one Cuban who was headed for the majors!
In the bottom of the fifth, I watched as Jimenez lowered the boom on our second baseman Deacon Thorp. Poor old Deacon just did not know which way was up!
“That's one heck of a pitcher isn't it?” asked Big Bubba.
“I swear he could pitch a perfect game, and it would only take him six innings to do it,” I replied.
“I saw him pitch a no hitter, once,” Bubba remarked. “He was throwing more heat in the ninth than in the first. “
“You've seen him pitch before?” Shine asked.
“Yep,” replied Bubba. “He was on the team when I played for Asheville.”
I was surprised.
“You had Cubans playing for Asheville?”
“He ain't no more Cuban than any other Georgia farm boy.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“That's Shoofly Brown from Savannah,” Bubba explained. “He's had his hair straightened and grown a mustache. But, he's no more Cuban than I am.”
“I thought I recognized that wind up,” Chopper chimed in. “I saw Shoofly pitch a two years back against the Raleigh Tigers in the Negro League playoffs. He threw fourteen strikeouts that day.”
I was confused.
“You mean he's not really from Cuba?” I asked.
“No,” Bubba confirmed.
“But that's not fair!” I said emphatically. “He can't just pretend to be Cuban. That's against the rules.”
“You've read the rule book, Bobby,” Chopper said smiling. “Which rule is it that says a player can't pretend to be Cuban?”
I pondered for a minute, but nothing came to mind.
“That's not the point,” I said. “The only reason he's pretending to be Cuban is because he's colored and colored players can't play in the Carolina League.”
“Okay. I’ll give you that,” Chopper continued. “But, which rule is it that says colored players can't play?”
“Well that's uhm… Oh… let’s see now. I'm sure it’s in the rule book under eligibility. I've just can't remember which subsection it is in.”
I closed my eyes and tried to remember but, when it came right down to it, I could not recall reading anything that said colored players were not allowed on the teams.
“I'll save you some trouble,” Chopper laughed. “You can't remember which rule it is, because it's not in the rule book. There's nothing in the rule book about colored players.”
“You've gotta be wrong,” I protested. “Everybody knows you can't have colored players on a white team. That's plain as turkey squat!”
“What about Cuban players” asked Shine? “Aren't they colored?”
“They are Latin colored,” I explained. “That's completely different.”
“Then how come Shoofly Brown can pass as Cuban, if Cubans are a different color?”
I looked over and Shine was grinning like a bushel basket full of happy idiots. He had me, and he knew it. And, that's when I said something I spent the rest of my life wishing I could take back.
In the heat of the moment I used the ‘U' word.
“Now Shine,” I said. “You just quit being so uppity!”
The smile melted right off his face. For a second he was stunned but then his face went tight and angry.
“Just who are you calling uppity, you little red necked pissant? “
“Shine,” I interrupted. “There's no call to get your dander up. I didn't mean nothing by it.”
But Shine was not appeased by my half hearted apology.
“Listen here bat boy, you can't just go around calling people uppity, just cause you can't think of a reason to keep a black man from playing baseball.”
“Calm down, Shine,” I protested. “I didn't make the rules. All I said was it's not fair that Shoofly is pretending to be Cuban so he can play.”
“You don't think it's fair?” asked Shine.
“No,” I said, staking out the moral high ground. “It is clearly not fair! “
“Well,” replied Shine getting more excited. “How is it fair that a man has to pretend to be Cuban to play baseball in the first place? Especially when there ain't no rule against it?”
“Shine, settle down. You're just talking crazy now.”
“I am just telling you the truth, Bobby McRainey and it's something you don't want to hear.”
Shine did not stop there. He continued.
“You know what else I am saying? I am saying that I'm not having Hygomia with you or any other cracker bat boy until they apologize! That's what I'm saying.”
“Well fine!” I replied. “I won't ask you to have Hygomia with me.”
“Well fine!” he said. “Cause all I would say is no. And, not just no, I’d say Heck NO! “
“Goody goody gum drops,” I said. “I'll just eat all my Hygomia sandwiches my own self.”
“Well, I hope you choke on your old sandwiches,” Shine said. “And I hope you get big as a sow on that sour old milk.”
“Fine, I will,” I said.
“I hope you do,” He said.
“Then fine.”
“Yeah, fine.”
Without any compromise in sight, we both stormed off in opposite directions.
*****************
We lost to Morganton 8-0 and for the rest of the day Shine and I did not speak to each other.
I figured he needed some time get over his moodiness and start thinking clear again.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Chapter Fourteen – Who Owns Baseball?
After the game I caught up with Chopper Gaines while he was picking up towels in the shower. Since it was just him and me in the club house, I spoke up about my dilemma.
“Chopper, are you sure there's no rule against colored players in the league?”
“No, Bobby. There is no rule against it. There is just something called a ‘gentleman's agre
ement.'“
“What's a ‘gentleman's agreement?'“ I asked.
“That's when the owners meet over dinner and they all agree to keep the blacks out, but they don't put in writing.”
I pondered that for a second.
“So, it is against the rules, but this rule is not written down anywhere?”
Chopper looked up.
“Can it be a rule if it's not written down?” he asked. “Is it okay to even have rules that you are afraid to talk about in public?”
“I don't know,” I stated. “But, they're the owners. It is their game.”
Chopper leaned over and picked up another towel off the wet floor. Then, he stood back up and looked me in the eye.
He did not say anything for a minute. It looked like he was thinking hard and picking out just the right words.
Finally, he spoke.
“Bobby, one thing you have to understand: no one owns baseball."
He let the words sink in.
"Sure, we let the owners build stadiums and pay players and even charge for tickets to get inside but, they don't own baseball. They can't own baseball. That would be like owning the night air or a rainbow in the sky. Because that is what baseball is. Baseball is a cool breeze that blows through our lives. It’s the rainbow after the storm of pain.”
“You have to understand Bobby; Baseball is more than a game. Baseball is hope. Sometimes, it’s even hope beyond reason.”
He paused.
“You know, I was in the war right?”
I nodded.
“But, I bet you did not know that we played baseball in the war?”
“You played baseball in the war?” I asked disbelieving.
“Sure,” Chopper said. “We played baseball right on the battlefields. Why, I remember playing in the snowy pastures of Bastogne when it was so cold that your hands could hardly grasp that old horse hide. Sure, we did not have gloves or proper baseball bats, but we played with what we had. We played, and laughed and lived.”
“We played baseball on Iwo Jima, running through volcanic sand and sulfur flavored air. We played baseball in the muddy jungles of Guadalcanal. In North Africa we played in the sandy desert. We played in the rocky fields of Sicily. Eventually, we even played in the green grass along the Rhine River.”
“Bobby, we needed baseball. We were a long way from home and in some unbelievably bad places. And, in the midst of that death and destruction baseball was our hope. Sometimes it was our only hope.”
Chopper paused.
“I remember sitting in a muddy foxhole in the Ardennes, waiting for Panzers to come grinding over the hill in front of us. We were shivering cold and hungry and terrified, and we didn't know if we were going to make it through the night. But, me and a short kid from Chicago, Mac Tory, were huddling there in the dark, shivering… and talking baseball. We were debating the designated hitter and the infield fly rule.”
“Suddenly, the ground around us begins erupting as kraut 88's start pounding our position. Each explosion would pick you up and slam you against the walls of your hole. Each second I wondered if the next shell was going to drop in right on top of us. We kept trying to squeeze farther and farther down into the ground, trying to make ourselves as small as possible. We were just trying to survive.”
“And, right there in the middle of that terrifying frozen crazy world, I realized that Mac was yelling above the exploding shells. At first I could not make out what he was saying, but he kept yelling it over and over until I finally understood.”
Chopper stopped talking. I could see from the look in his eyes that he was in some faraway place. For a second, he was back there.
“What was he saying?” I asked quietly.
Chopper looked back at me and grinned.
“Good pitching beats good hitting.”
Chopper laughed out loud.
“The whole world was exploding in fury and death and Mac just keeps yelling ’Good pitching beats good hitting,’ as loud as he could. Like what he was saying was more important than the explosions around us.”
His voice trailed off and he was gone for a few more seconds.
Then Chopper reached down and picked up another towel and he looked back at me.
“So, you see Bobby, baseball is bigger than owners and stadiums and leagues. It’s bigger than any one group of people, no matter what color they are or how much money they have in the bank.”
“Baseball belongs to everyone.”
He stood looking at the floor for a moment. Then he looked up, and I saw he had a tear in his eye.
“I would grow a mustache. I would change my name. Hell, I'd paint my face purple and wear a tutu, if I could just get just one more at bat.”
He paused. Then he shook his head and shrugged.
“So, if Shoofly Brown wants to be Jimenez Cuervo to play baseball, I say more power to him.”
Chopper walked away and went back to picking up towels and straightening the club house.
So, I finished up my chores, and I headed home.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Chapter Fifteen – A Promise Kept
I remember walking home from the baseball stadium and feeling pretty sorry for myself. My best baseball friend was not talking to me and the Rocks whole season was in the toilet, and I did not anticipate either one of those situations improving anytime soon.
What else could possibly go wrong? I wondered.
I should have realized that whenever you are feeling sorry for yourself, you are just asking for trouble. Life can't wait to give you something to be really sorry about.
When I walked up the steps and through the front door to my house, I knew immediately there was a something wrong.
I don't know how I knew it. I walked in to the front room and everything was just the way it was when I left that morning. There was no one in there. There was nothing out of place. There was no sign of foul play.
But, I knew in the pit of my stomach that something was terribly wrong.
“Mom?” I called out loudly enough to be heard throughout the house.
“We're in the kitchen, Honey,” she replied with an unsteady voice. “Come on in and join us.”
Us?
That uneasy feeling got a lot stronger. Who was here with Mom this time of day?
I made my way through the front room and through the pair of half sized swinging doors that Mom had put up to ‘formally divide the eating and living area.'
As I pushed through, I saw Momma sitting at our little chrome dinette set with the pink Formica top. Grandpa and Grandma Tooley were also at the table. They were leaning over and comforting her.
There was a blue cardboard box of Kleenex on the table. I could tell it had just been opened, since the cardboard cover strip lay on the table beside it. A stack of used Kleenex littered the Formica surface, like crumpled white carnations on the pink background.
Beside the Kleenex box there was an opened telegram.
I could see from the smeared makeup that Mom had been crying. Anxiety and fear crept into my voice.
“Mom? What's going on? What's wrong?”
Mom looked up at me and smiled. It was a forced smile. She was quiet for a minute. When she finally spoke, she was working to control the emotion in her voice.
Mom reached over and pulled a fresh Kleenex out of the box. At first I thought she was just going to dab her eyes, but when she brought the soft white tissue to her face, she dissolved in tears.
“It's Captain Ricky,” she struggled. “He's coming home.”
****************
I don't really remember much of the next couple of days. It was odd. It was like pieces from a movie all spliced together. I remember short scenes and snatches of color and noise.
I remember the military hearse bringing the flag draped coffin up to the Church house.
I remember everyone sweating in the pews and flapping those free cardboard fans the funera
l home gives out.
I remember people bringing food.
There were pans and dishes of casseroles and cakes and salads. I remember food was stacked all across the kitchen table and perched on every counter surface. I may just be crazy, but it seems like at one time, we had seven colors of congealed Jell-O salads lined up beside the sink.
And, I remember the graveside gun salute, followed by a mournful trumpet crying Taps.
Clickity, clack. Boom!
Clickity, clack. Boom!
Clickity, clack. Boom!
Somehow that last volley was like a cold washcloth to the face. Suddenly, I was waking up from a three day nap or, someone hit the switch and my brain snapped back on.
I don't know where I had gone but I was back.
Grandpa and Grandma were practically carrying Mom home from the graveyard. I was walking behind them and having a real thought for the first time in days.
I was thinking that I was never going to have a Father.
Now, I really had not had a Father for a long time. I was two when Captain Ricky shipped off overseas, and the truth is I did not remember him as a real person. He was only the pictures that Mom put out and the stories she liked to tell.
I always felt that someday I would have a real Dad. He would come home from The War, and we would ride bikes and go fishing and play baseball. I would show him off to all my friends, while he sat at the kitchen table reading the newspaper out loud and complaining like somebody's Father.
But, now I knew that was never going to happen because Captain Ricky flew his B-25 into the side of a cloud covered mountain, when he disappeared six years ago.
So, when we went back to the house and all these people dressed in black came by to pinch my cheek and cry and laugh and tell stories about Captain Ricky, I could not take it. My Sunday suit and dress shirt felt like a boy choking straitjacket.
I snuck out the backdoor and high tailed it for the baseball stadium as fast as I could.
Since, it was an off day; none of the players were around. That was okay, since I really just wanted some quiet. I walked up the old concrete grandstand to the very top row. I took a seat and pulled off my black clip-on tie and unbuttoned my top button.