Wise Men: A Novel

by Stuart Nadler

  So while I waited and watched everyone line up to try to hit Slim—all the guys with their own equipment, so many weekend warriors with their aluminum Eastons, swinging, chopping, lining up invisible curveballs and following through—Davis pointed at each one and told me what I needed to know. Of a stocky man wearing regulation-style stirrups, Davis said, “That’s McAfee, town librarian; played minor league ball eons ago. Basically he’s got no chance unless he’s the last guy and Slim is exhausted.” A big guy swinging a handful of bats at once: “Checkers. Don’t even know his real name. Works at the landfill doing something probably illegal. Story is that once he hit eight home runs in a Babe Ruth League game.” Farther down the line, Davis pointed out the cops. “Chief’s name is Sylvester.” Then, peering at my notebook: “That’s his last name. Third-generation cop here. Don’t think he’s ever even tried to hit a baseball.” His own father, Davis said, was the slender man in sweats out talking to a group of Boy Scouts. He looked bookish for a cop, a thin wash of hair combed across his head. “He got a chance?” I asked Davis, who shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. He’s got good eyes. So he won’t fall for any of Slim’s cheese.” Cheese became the operative word for the next few hours, meaning simultaneously the break on a well-paced curveball, the slickness of a cutter, the clap of a fastball pushed by a guy waiting on something slower, or merely something good, as in, Damn, that car, that’s good cheese right there.

  To advertise the day, two teenagers milled around in the grandstand wearing sandwich boards. Come see former Milwaukee Braves pitcher Slim Ewing! Come see OUR big-leaguer. Davis told me that these were the Gaithersburg brothers, their grandfather the man for whom the park was named, some battlefield stalwart who’d come out of retirement to go fight the Germans in World War II even though he was clipping sixty. A modern-day Cincinnatus, I guessed. Their signs, with their insinuation that Charles was some glorified big-leaguer, made me instantly sad. Over the years I’d done my homework. Working at the sports desk for a decent newspaper afforded certain privileges, paramount among them access to some very decent research material—a library of tape, reams of microfiche, hundreds of thousands of box scores to pore over.

  The bottom line on Charles’s Major League experience was this: nine pitches on a day in Milwaukee in late 1949, three years before I met him, two years after the crash of the airplane that made my family wealthy, two years after Jackie Robinson started his first game in Brooklyn. He’d come into a game in September, the Braves already out of the contest for the pennant. I’ve come to believe it was a test of sorts. A way to gauge their fans. They were still a few years away from signing a skinny outfielder named Henry Aaron, and without much word to their beat reporters, or to anyone really, they’d signed Charles on a fourteen-day tender, flew him out from Birmingham, where he’d been their ace, where he’d been untouchable, where it was said that his pitches were unhittable. He’d been called out of the bull pen in the eighth, the Braves’ starter having already blown the game. Their skipper would have gone out slowly to the mound, tipping his left hand, that being the sign for the southpaw—Give me the lefty. The game had been delayed for hours by rain, and when Charles made his debut, it was near two in the morning. It’s doubtful anyone was there to see him except the guys on the field. There are no written reports of his participation, no indications that day in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that they’d breached the color barrier, just one line in a faint box score: C. EWING 1 IP, 0 H, 2 K, 0 ER. Even the reporters had gone home.

  He’d thrown nine pitches. Savannah had told me that. He’d made a point not to mention it. He’d mentioned everything but those nine pitches, as if that one inning were a mark of shame. But look at the line: zero hits; two strikeouts; zero earned runs. He was flawless. I’ve searched, but there are no recordings of the game, no film, no secreted kinescopes languishing anywhere. There was no record of what his mechanics looked like except for what existed in my mind from that day on the back lawn in Bluepoint, my tire strung up, his curve acing it. I’d wanted a record of it, though. To see all the small stuff. To see Charles as he came into the game, as he walked across the grass, cut in late September with a pattern of diamonds, or zigzags, so that from the sky, if you were to cross overhead in a prop jet, you’d see something ornamental, something decorative, without knowing that a thirty-three year-old from Birmingham was about to have his mettle tested. To see, at the least, how he’d got that last out. Did someone get a hold of Charles? Did his curve fail to break? And then did someone try to punch the gap? The optimist in me would like to think so. The optimist in me would like to believe that their manager, or their bench coach, or the owner, or maybe even their catcher, had seen something unfeasible in Charles’s delivery, or in his curveball. Or that some guy in the bull pen noticed some flaw, languishing there with flaws of his own, shucking peanuts to keep busy, smoking out in the open just because he could and because it was boring to just sit out in the pen, waiting for someone to fuck up bad enough that they might call him in. But if Charles’s curve failed to break and someone really got a good whack at it, and if, when that happened, the center fielder made a good grab and saved some runs, then his having never pitched again, never getting another try—all of that would make some sense to me. Any decent pitcher can get a few outs in a meaningless game. The alternative—We’ve got Hank Aaron coming soon, and two colored boys is one too many—is a more likely scenario. I knew that. But that was why I wanted to find film of it. To see how good he was. Nobody else here in Ebbington seemed to know that. It seemed to me that they all believed he’d had a long career. That he’d actually played for Milwaukee for longer than nine pitches. He’d stopped keeping it a secret and started allowing a lie.

  What then? Had he stuck around in Milwaukee a few days, hoping they might change their minds? He’d bought that car, the Packard. In September 1949, driving south from Wisconsin to Alabama, or from Wisconsin to Mississippi, or from Wisconsin to Georgia, where Savannah was waiting with her mother, he’d have been carrying the Green Book with him. The Negro Motorist Green Book. This would have told him where he could stay on the road, who’d serve him, where there were toilets to use, even though up in Wisconsin, or even in the north of Illinois, he wouldn’t have had to worry about any of this, about what his wife, who read all the newspapers, called Jim Crow, but what he liked to just call all that bullshit; but then, getting closer to home, all of it would have mattered, the bravado gone suddenly, and he’d reach into the glove box, find that little green thing. He’d have gotten it at the Esso station back home, the old guy there checking his oil, saying, “You travel anywhere, son, you need this.” In the backseat, he’d have had his uniform folded up, packed in a box as secure as one carrying the Hope Diamond. He’d have stolen some things from the locker room. Souvenirs, he’d tell his wife. Gifts, he’d tell Savannah. Because they liked your daddy so much, sweetie. In private, he’d think that the least they could do was to let him take some stuff home. In the trunk, a program from his big day, a resin bag, a glove autographed by all the guys nice enough to sign a colored boy’s glove, some man’s bat, just some anonymous guy’s bat. Crossing from Indiana into Kentucky, he’d have had to watch the sun, be careful to get someplace decent for the night, be careful not to be out too late in the pretty country north of Lexington, where there were horses everywhere, where there were so many hills. With the book on the dashboard, he’d slow down to thumb through the listings, the Packard in the right lane, doing fifty. Just fast enough to go someplace. Just slow enough not to get stopped. Slow enough not to be bothered.

  Charles arrived at Gaithersburg Grounds in a rusting Dodge Dart, honking his horn, playing the ham, tipping his cap. He’d dressed himself in a Braves uniform that looked, to my eyes at least, like the real deal, the tomahawk across the chest, the cursive lettering. We were close enough to Milwaukee that the sight of the uniform brought out some genuine cheers. The memories were still fresh. The team had moved to Atlanta only six years earlier. Now the
Brewers were in Milwaukee, with a better name for a town built on the back of Miller. The Braves had come to Milwaukee from Boston, just the way I’d come to Iowa. A part of me had expected Charles to be driving the old Packard: the headrest on the front seat, the bench inside where Savannah had sat, her hands tugging me. I like being with you. Anyone ever say that to you? But there was no way a guy like Charles would still have that car. By now, I was sure, he’d gambled it away.

  Far out in center field, playing from a wooden park gazebo, a brass band started up, New Orleans–style, the trombone woozy, loose, sliding up to every note, the trumpet chirping, a guy on a four-string banjo banging out some sloppy chords. It was “Sweet Georgia Brown,” the Globetrotters song. It wasn’t a bad comparison, I thought. Whatever this was that we were about to see, it wasn’t a baseball game. As Charles crossed the base paths. he jumped the chalk—that old superstition of never touching a crack. The crowd hollered for him. In my notebook, I wrote: Slim = hero? He seemed unfazed. A second tip of his cap was out of the question. Ballplayers acquire this certain frozen determination early in their career and never lose it. Retired ballplayers have to find someplace to put it, and if you don’t like to golf, it just lives in you, revealing itself at the worst moments. This was why I always hated interviewing old pitchers for the Spectator. If I’d challenged them somehow by saying that maybe there were young pitchers doing something better than they themselves used to do it, invariably they’d get a cold, locked-in, sniperish glaze in their eyes. And then, of course, I’d have ruined the interview. But in Charles, this coldness was different. In him, it seemed desperate. Like trying to fit together two pieces of a broken fishing rod. The ovation here was more an act of appreciation, of solidarity, maybe even pity. How had he ended up here, of all places? A thousand white faces. Maybe fifteen hundred. Had he always been their big-leaguer? Had he told his customers from the start that he’d pitched in the big show? Serving coffee, flapjacks, waffles fresh from the hot iron, had he leaned in, giving them their forks, their syrup: I see you’re looking at the sports page. Wanna know something? I used to pitch for the Braves. Yep. The Braves.

  Charles had become an old man. I don’t know exactly what I’d expected to find. In the diner, he’d appeared more or less as I’d remembered him—long, somewhat handsome, with a hint of a devious smile. His hair was gone now, but even young men go bald. He was fifty-six. In the daylight he looked even older. His gait was awkward—his legs seemed stiff, his hips locked. His uniform hung from him. At the mound he kicked at the dirt, bounced a rosin bag three times in his open hand. At the backstop, a high school boy was wearing catcher’s gear. As they were about to begin warming up, a man in a suit stepped out onto the grass to talk to Charles.

  “That’s Barnum,” Davis said.

  “Like the circus?” I asked.

  He smirked. “Exactly. This whole thing was his idea.”

  “It wasn’t Charles’s idea?”

  “Slim’s? No. I don’t think he’d ever just ask somebody for money.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Oh yeah. Slim’s way too proud. Barnum came up with the idea. You know, all these guys out here, they all talk. Most of them think that Slim’s bullshit. That he never pitched anywhere in the big leagues. I mean, it’s not like there were that many black ballplayers. Why wouldn’t we have heard of him?”

  “He played,” I said. I thought about those nine pitches. Obviously he was telling people it was a hell of a lot more than that. “I know it.”

  Davis shrugged. I wasn’t sure whether he believed me or not.

  “So Barnum just came up with this whole thing. It’s kind of like casino night at the church. Plus, everybody knows Slim likes to bet. It’s like the only thing people know about him.”

  Charles was kneeling patiently on the pebbled infield, rubbing his right hand against his left shoulder, clearly trying to stay warm. The wind picked up, flinging dirt into his eyes. He winced, spit, rubbed at his face. He looked despondent and humiliated, and occasionally I saw him clutch the ball, squeeze it, and fit his longer fingers across its seams. Is that what became of old Negro Leaguers, I wondered? Had they all turned out this way?

  The first batter came up with a swagger. Barnum announced his name—Peters—and Peters obligingly bowed at the waist. Barnum stood behind the catcher, a plastic bucket at his feet. Peters put his five dollars in. Barnum barked out to the crowd: “Pot’s at five, people. Pot’s at five. If you want in, sign up with Lucy.” He pointed to a white-haired woman wearing an apron decorated with sloganeered buttons. Peters, meanwhile, stepped confidently into the batter’s box.

  “This guy’s an idiot,” Davis said, not exactly whispering. “Owns a sandwich shop. Nice enough, I guess. Great sandwiches.” Peters took three choppy practice swings at the air. His legs were a mess, his knees too stiff, his back foot loose on the dirt. Charles stood on the mound, waiting patiently for Peters to settle. He held a new baseball in his mitt, massaging it, working his hands around it. Barnum commenced the exhibition by blowing on a whistle—like a gym teacher, or a basketball referee, or a traffic cop. A whistle, though, has no place on a ball field. When Charles finally pitched, I saw what others around me must have only imagined. That old delivery: pumping, striving, his kick already so old-fashioned. Here was the man I’d seen in Bluepoint, acing my tire. His curve struck at noon and fell at six. It was likely all he had left, just this one pitch, and no one could hit it. Not Peters, who tried. He took the first pitch far too late and looked like a fool, swinging at something that wasn’t there. His second and third strikes swung him around like he was a boy swinging his dad’s bat. No matter who came in to face Slim, everyone suffered the varied magic of that pitch: a fast curve that broke at your eyes and dropped to your toes like somebody had batted it out of the sky, a swatter to a fly. A slow pitch, like something tossed as an explanation—Here, this is a curve, take it nice and slow—nearly broke some men at the knees. The batters tried, but each was spun around, made to seem useless, blind, impatient, their chastened strength an illustration of Slim’s brilliance. The power hitters—the bigger guys, the cops, the firemen—swung far too early. And the contact men, the skinny guys, the men who Davis told me were the eye doctors, the dentists, the county livestock inspector, all waited too long. He made quick work of everyone. Soon, Barnum announced that the pot had four hundred dollars. Eighty guys up and down. I hadn’t been counting, but Slim got nearly everyone on three pitches, sometimes four. The rare man got contact on the ball; the lucky managed to splice something foul.

  After a certain point, it all became a farce. Nobody could get anything close to solid contact off Charles. The local high school team showed up, a bunch of scruffy kids in their uniforms, cocky in the batter’s box. But they’d never seen a pitcher like this, someone whose stuff became invisible somewhere between the mound and the plate. It was clear that he was the best man of the bunch, even now, even at fifty-six. In his mind, he was at Wrigley or at the Polo Grounds or in the Bronx, and he wasn’t pitching to some washed-up Little Leaguer from some Iowa hamlet, some man who’d given up his aspirations two decades earlier and who worked now driving a forklift or pressing tin or washing the killing floor of a pork processor. No, Charles was twenty still, with a rubber arm and boundless confidence, and he hadn’t ever had a daughter, hadn’t been to Massachusetts or even heard of Bluepoint or the Emerson Oaks or the Wise family. He was just a pitcher with a curveball no one could touch. I thought of Lem, in my father’s car, four months before the end of his life, telling me that Charles was no good. And I thought of Savannah that night, standing with her bandaged knee, with those buckets behind her, Lem giving her all his money. He gonna find it. He got a nose for money. In my notebook, I wrote: Why were you living at the Emerson Oaks? Why didn’t you and Savannah move somewhere else after the fire? Why did Lem tell me that you were “no good”? What did he have against you? And then I simply wrote Lem’s name in big, bold letters. I underlined it, and th
en: What do YOU think happened in that prison?

  I started to ask people if they knew Savannah. “She’s Charles’s daughter,” I said. “Do you know her? Do you know if she lives around here?” I got nothing. Even Davis, whose knowledge of Ebbington seemed beyond challenge, pleaded ignorance.

  “A daughter? Oh, I have no idea,” he said.

  “She’s probably my age,” I said.

  “Fifty?” Davis asked, humorlessly.

  “No.” I coughed. “I’m thirty-eight.”

  “Well, what’s she look like?” he asked. “I mean, I assume she’s black? Charles is the only black person in town. There’s black folk a town over. But—”

  And here he stopped. He didn’t ever go a town over. He didn’t need to say this. I could tell. I knew the look on his face.

  “She looks like Charles,” I said, trying once more. I said this even though I knew it probably wasn’t true. Not now.