The Cincinnati Red Stalkings

by Troy Soos

  And it got me thinking. Dick Hurley had been in the same situation as me, but with far greater assurance of getting into games. Hurley had been the only paid substitute on the Cincinnati roster in ’69. Without gloves or other protective equipment, the starters must have suffered frequent injuries. So he couldn’t have left the team because he was no longer needed. In fact, three other names appeared in the score book for that year: Fowler, Bradford, and Taylor. All three played their first games in July, the same month that Hurley vanished.

  Hurley had played in the exhibition game and attended the banquet on July 1, and that’s where the written record of him came to an end. The next day, according to the note I’d found, a girl named Sarah was murdered. The timing could have been mere coincidence, but I couldn’t ignore the possibility, however slim, of a connection.

  After infield practice, I looked around and spotted Dave Claxton hitting fungoes to the outfielders. He’d been the only one to tell me anything at all about Hurley, so I thought I’d see if I could milk his memory a little more.

  I walked past Dolf Luque warming up with Bubbles Hargrave, and out to Claxton. “Want me to hit a few?” I asked.

  He handed me the bat and I knocked a fly to Edd Roush. “Couple weeks ago,” I said, “I asked you about Dick Hurley from the old Red Stockings. You said you thought him leaving the team had something to do with a girl. You remember what it was about a girl exactly?”

  He let out a long breath. “Hell, that was ages ago. And whatever I heard was second- or third-hand.”

  “But what did you hear?” I hit a towering fly that Greasy Neale had to go back on the terrace to catch.

  “Well, one version was that him and the girl eloped; other version had it that he got run off by the girl’s daddy. Most of the stories favored elopement, as I recall. Him and some rich local girl ran off together.” A grin cracked Claxton’s face. “Decent folk didn’t approve of ballplayers in those days, but, same as now, the young ladies sure liked them.”

  I hit the next one to Pat Duncan. So maybe there was no murder. Maybe Hurley and Sarah simply eloped. They could still be alive now, fawning over their grandchildren somewhere.

  “But I wouldn’t lay no stock in them stories,” Claxton cautioned. “Like I say, I don’t know nothing about him for a fact, just what I heard.”

  It was more than I’d gotten from any other source. “Thanks, Clax.” I handed him back the fungo bat.

  It might have been better if I’d let the old coach bat for me in the game, too. I went 0-for-4 against Babe Adams, striking out three times. To make it worse, I also made three errors at second, the last one allowing the winning run to score for the Pirates.

  On the way out of the park after the game, I wondered if the man I’d met earlier was still going to give my autograph to his son. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the envelope I’d signed was now in shreds, scattered on the ground with the ticket stubs and the peanut shells.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The smell of fresh-cut lumber reminded me of when I used to operate a lathe in a furniture factory, forming chair and table legs of oak and pine. Here at the Queen City Lumber Company, the scent of raw wood mingled with other aromas of the production process: a faint burning odor from the sawmill, where circular blades ripped through rough timber, smoke from the kilns, where finished boards were dried, and exhaust fumes from the trucks that hauled the wood from one area to the next.

  The lumber company, in Camp Washington, about a mile north of Redland Field, was a sprawling complex of simple frame buildings and open-fronted shacks. Logs and cut lumber were stacked around the yard in no discernible order. Railroad sidings were west of the yard, with Mill Creek on the other side of the tracks; to the east, was the barren trench where the Miami Canal used to flow.

  At ten-thirty Monday morning, I made my way to what looked like the main office, a long, two-story building off Spring Grove Avenue. It had fresher white paint than any of the other structures, and elaborate trim around the door and windows. I expected this would be my final attempt to find out what might have happened on July 2, 1869. If I got nowhere today, I would try to forget about it and concentrate on playing baseball for the current Reds.

  Inside the office, I asked to speak with Nathaniel Bonner. A secretary checked, and relayed that Mr. Bonner would see me “momentarily.” Half an hour later, with still no sight of Bonner, I was thinking that in the future I should call ahead and make appointments. While I waited, I prowled the lobby, looking over the pictures displayed on the walls. Many were photographs of the company grounds, showing its growth over time, with larger buildings and higher piles of lumber in the later views. Others were portraits, made by both camera and paintbrush, of Josiah Bonner and Nathaniel, recording their changes through the years. In the early ones, Josiah was pictured as a dashing dark-haired figure with a fashionable mustache gracing his upper lip; Nathaniel, even as a young man, had the same general features as his father but in a less handsome package. One photograph, obviously posed, showed the younger Bonner wielding a double-headed ax as he chopped at a tree that was already felled; he resembled a young Abe Lincoln splitting rails. In a prominent place on the wall, framed behind glass, was a Harper’s Weekly woodcut of the great bat presentation in 1869. I was trying to identify the players in the drawing when I heard a door open and Nathaniel Bonner tell his secretary, “I’ll be at the north warehouse for a while.”

  I checked my watch—quarter past eleven.

  “Terribly sorry to keep you waiting,” Bonner said as he came up to me. “Having a shipment problem.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I appreciate you taking the time to see me.”

  He started toward the door, his tall figure hunched in a charcoal gray suit that hung loose on his frame. “Wish we could meet in my office, but I have to go over to one of the warehouses. Mind if we talk on the way?”

  “Not at all.” He motioned for me to go first, and we both went outside. In the daylight, I noticed the scars that pitted Bonner’s hollow cheeks. “Actually,” I said, “I was wondering if I could speak to your father.”

  “You could speak to him,” he answered, “but I’m afraid you wouldn’t get much of a response.”

  We began to tread carefully over the bare-earth road, stepping over scraps of wood and kicking up the sawdust that coated everything like fallen snow.

  “Why’s that?” I asked. During the ceremony at Redland Field, Bonner had said his father wasn’t feeling well, so I assumed the elder Bonner was still alive. But perhaps that was no longer the case.

  “He’s ill. Been confined to Parkman Sanitarium in Bond Hill for more than a year now.”

  “Hope he gets better.”

  “Thank you, but I’m afraid it’s not likely. He’s suffering from dementia, and at seventy-five years old there’s not much chance of improvement.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “At least he’s not in any pain. It’s my mother that’s suffering the most. They’ve been married more than forty years—happy years—and now when she goes to see him, sometimes he doesn’t even recognize her. She’s been taking it hard; seems completely lost without him.” Bonner shrugged. “Sorry. I’m sure you didn’t come here to listen to me go on about family problems. What did you want to see my father about?”

  “I’ve been interested in the 1869 Red Stockings. Ever since I met Ollie Perriman. At the ceremony for him, you mentioned it was your father who presented that original big bat to the team.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “He was also at the homecoming banquet for the team—”

  Bonner interrupted. “How do you know that?”

  “The newspapers published the guest list. Anyway, I wanted to ask him about that night.”

  “You’re curious about a dinner half a century ago?”

  “Not the dinner, a player: Dick Hurley. It’s the last time he was with the team. Never played for them again and seems to have disappeared. I was w
ondering if something happened at the banquet.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t even know there was a ‘Hurley’ on that team. But then, I couldn’t name half a dozen players now on the Reds.” He flashed me an apologetic smile. “No offense. I just don’t follow the game. My mother is the baseball fan in the family.”

  “That’s okay.” I was used to being unknown anyway. “Dick Hurley was the team’s substitute.”

  An open truck rumbled past us hauling a load of window frames. It occurred to me that it was one of the few signs of activity I’d seen in the yard. I also noticed that the piles of lumber were smaller than they appeared in the photos from years past, and some of the sheds were empty.

  “Well, I’d be happy to tell you what I do know about the banquet,” Bonner said. “My father spoke of that day often—it was one of the most important in his life.”

  “How so?”

  “It marked his entry into the most elite level of the Cincinnati business community. Some very influential men were members of that club.”

  “I heard it was more of a gentleman’s club than a sports team,” I said.

  “Indeed it was. William Procter and James Gamble were members. So was Andrew Erkenbrecher, who founded the zoo. And John Shillito, who had the biggest dry goods store west of the Alleghenies. The club was a wonderful means for the city’s young men to make business connections. And that’s what my father did. It was his idea to present the bat. He was only a young clerk with this company back then, but he managed to convince the owners that the donation would be good for business. And he was proven right. Got wonderful publicity for the company, and great contacts for himself. Company let him make the presentation, and he told me many of the city leaders congratulated him at the banquet that night. Soon after, my father was promoted. He worked his way up quickly, and eventually became president.”

  “So he got involved with the club only because of business,” I said. “He didn’t like baseball?”

  A look of distaste darkened Bonner’s features. “The game itself was dreadful. Played mostly by ruffians in those days. It was the glory that could be gained for a city that counted.”

  “Or for a company.”

  “That’s right.”

  We stopped at a rickety warehouse. Bonner excused himself and went inside. I looked around the largely empty yard, thinking that maybe the younger Bonner was hoping to do what his father had—that by getting involved with the exhibit at Redland Field, he would give his business a boost.

  Bonner came out a few minutes later, and said, “By the way, Mr. Tinsley told me about your comment regarding the bats we’ll be giving out. They will have ‘Queen City Lumber’ printed on them, and I’m proud of it. This company is part of the community, always has been. And I have a fondness for the baseball team, if only because of what it did for my father in the past. But you’re wrong about one thing: they will be good quality ash—wouldn’t look good to have kids breaking bats that we made.”

  I wasn’t going to argue with him. I couldn’t. Business was part of baseball. Hell, it was industries that had given me my start, paying me to work easy jobs while playing for the company baseball teams.

  I returned to my original interest. “Do you remember your father ever saying anything about Dick Hurley?”

  “No. I doubt that he even spoke to the players. Like I said, he was there to make business contacts.”

  At the main office I thanked Nathaniel Bonner for his time and left to go to the park. I couldn’t think of anything more to try. My quest to discover what had happened to Dick Hurley, or to a sixteen-year-old girl named Sarah from Corryville, was as likely to bear fruit as a pile of sawdust.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I had dinner ready and on the table when Margie came home from the zoo Tuesday night.

  Her eyes showed a mixture of delight that she wouldn’t have to cook and fear that I might have.

  “It’s safe,” I reassured her. “I didn’t make any of it myself.” I’d only reheated some of Margie’s latest batch of burgoo and picked up sandwiches from Kroger’s to go along with the stew.

  “That was sweet of you,” she said, and gave me a kiss. “Oh, and I have a surprise for you. ” Margie went to the parlor stand near the front door, where she’d put her handbag. She came back with the afternoon edition of the Cincinnati Post.

  I thanked her, but was a bit puzzled. Why was a newspaper a surprise?

  “Page three,” she said.

  I turned to that page, and there was Dick Hurley. An article about him, anyway.

  Described by the Post reporter as “the missing sock” of the old Red Stockings, Hurley had arrived in the Queen City last night. According to the article, he was to be a guest at the opening of the exhibit honoring his old team, and Lloyd Tinsley would be hosting a dinner for him on Wednesday night.

  By Wednesday evening, I was hoping that meeting the old Red Stocking would redeem what had been a miserable day.

  I couldn’t get to see Hurley earlier in the day because Pat Moran had called a morning practice. The Reds had lost three straight games, each defeat worse than the one before, so the manager ordered an extra workout session. Such practices generally accomplish little; no major leaguer is going to improve his fielding by catching fungoes or sharpen his hitting by teeing off on batting-practice tosses. About the most those exercises can accomplish is bolster a player’s confidence. At least they couldn’t hurt—except for today. A foul line drive during batting practice nailed Hod Eller in the eye, and a collision between Greasy Neale and Rube Bressler in the outfield left Bressler with a broken thumb.

  The afternoon was worse, at least for me. Spittin’ Bill Doak, the ace of the St. Louis Cardinals and one of only seventeen pitchers who would be allowed to use the spitball until their careers were over, struck me out the first three times I faced him. Since the Saturday doubleheader against Pittsburgh, I’d gone 0-for-14 at the plate.

  At least after the game, I did wangle an invitation to the dinner from Lloyd Tinsley. He thought it would be a good publicity angle to stage a meeting between me and baseball’s first professional utility player.

  Evening finally came, and I walked into the plush lobby of the Sinton Hotel, dressed in my best suit and with a hundred questions that I wanted to ask Dick Hurley.

  I spotted Lloyd Tinsley and Fred Hewitt, a sportswriter for the Post, standing near a gaunt, elderly man seated in a leather wing chair. His dark eyes blinked and darted like a pigeon’s. His hair was no longer the black that I’d seen in the team portraits. Sparse strands of white hair were combed over a scalp blotched with liver spots; a trim fringe of snowy beard covered his chin, and a mustache, twisted and waxed at the tips, lined his upper lip. The mustache was the only elegant feature about him. He was wearing a winter suit of brown tweed that was at least a decade out of style; for him to be wearing it this time of year meant it was probably the best he had—and the jacket was fraying at the cuffs. Recent years had not been kind to him, I thought.

  As I approached, I heard him say to Hewitt, “Disappear? I don’t know why anyone would say that. I played for the Washington Olympics in ’72, I’ll have you know, along with my old Cincinnati teammates Asa Brainard and Fred Waterman. If the Olympics hadn’t folded by the end of May, who knows what I might have gone on to.”

  “Where did you go on to?” the reporter asked, scribbling in a notepad.

  “Played a little here and there,” Hurley answered. “Then I went back home to Pennsylvania. Worked as a cooper, making barrels. Later moved to Indiana.”

  Tinsley interrupted to introduce me to the former Red Stocking, and Hewitt went to find the Post photographer. Now I was nervous about meeting Hurley—and hoping that he hadn’t heard about my performances on the field the past few days. It turned out I needn’t have worried; he hadn’t heard of me at all, although he graciously—and unconvincingly—pretended that he had.

  We didn’t get a chance to talk before the photographer came and
put Hurley and me in a pose shaking hands. I felt like a big shot; this time I was one of those who’d be getting his name in the paper for going to an event. I’d even get my picture in it!

  Nathaniel Bonner and a few others who liked to have their names published arrived, then Tinsley ushered all of us into the dining room; Garry Herrmann, unable to attend, would pick up the tab, he said.

  To my surprise, I was seated next to Hurley, and the reporter was on the other side of him. I expected Tinsley or Bonner would want the choice seats, but as the dinner proceeded, I realized that they weren’t interested in talking with the man; to Tinsley, Hurley’s function was merely to garner some publicity.

  During the first course, Hewitt asked a few more questions, mostly about famous contemporaries of Hurley’s. When you’re a utility player, many of the questions you get are about other, more famous, players you might have met.

  Hurley kept saying, “Oh yes, I remember them well”—but in the same doubtful tone as when he’d met me in the lobby.

  Hewitt then asked, “Tell me about that tie against Troy.”

  The old Red Stocking dutifully recounted the story of the infamous game with the Haymakers in Troy, New York. Gamblers had bet heavily on Troy to break the Red Stockings winning streak. When the score was tied 17-17 in the sixth inning, and the gamblers began to fear a loss, the Haymakers withdrew from the field in order to protect the wagers. Troy claimed a tie, but the game was officially awarded to Cincinnati. There were a couple of things I noticed about Hurley’s tale. One was that there was no personal perspective to his account; it sounded like something he’d read. The other was that he claimed to have witnessed the game—although from reading the score books I knew that the match had been played in August, a month after he’d vanished.