The Cincinnati Red Stalkings

by Troy Soos

  The story appeared to satisfy Fred Hewitt, though. He scribbled a little more, then closed his notebook and concentrated on the meal.

  “Did you get in the game?” I asked Hurley.

  “No, no. Harry went with the regular nine. But I was ready and willing.”

  I was starting to have doubts about Mr. Hurley’s memory. “Why did you leave the team before the end of the season?”

  He stammered, then said he’d had a better offer to play elsewhere.

  “I’ve been interested in the homecoming celebration that was given the team in ’69,” I said. “Can you tell me what it was like?”

  “Homecoming ...” He absorbed himself in his baked potato for a moment.

  “Yes, it was the beginning of July, after the Eastern tour. There was an exhibition game and a banquet ...”

  “Oh yes, of course! Wonderful time. Great fans in Cincinnati. No place else like it.”

  I gave up, and followed Hurley’s example in paying attention to the food. I was feeling some of the same disappointment as when Ollie Perriman told me about the “1869” baseball being a fake. Then I tried again. “A few years later, you were with Washington, I heard you say?”

  Hurley then talked in detail about his brief tenure with the ’72 Washington Olympics of the National Association, baseball’s first major league. His recollections of this team sounded authentic.

  “You’ve really been a part of history,” I said. “The first professional team and the first professional league.”

  He sat up a little straighter. “That’s right!” It didn’t seem that the thought had occurred to him before.

  I tried once more to ask him about early July of 1869, but he deflected the question and talked instead about his later days as a cooper.

  As he spoke, I thought of the stories I’d read in Photoplay magazine about secretaries who would sometimes go to Hollywood claiming to be royalty; they’d often be lavished with attention from the stars until they were found to be frauds. I had the feeling that’s what we had here. I looked across the table at Lloyd Tinsley talking with Bonner and wondered if he’d questioned the man sitting next to me to determine if he really was the missing Red Stocking. Then I realized it didn’t matter to Tinsley—all he needed was a name and photograph for the newspaper.

  Suddenly I felt relaxed, not minding the deception. The old man next to me was doing no more than a million men have done in saloons and barbershops, telling stories about things they’d never really done.

  Hurley and I soon fell into a comfortable discussion about the making of barrels.

  By the time dessert came, I was quite content. The hunt for Dick Hurley hadn’t been a success, but it was now over for me. I would put 1869 behind me and concentrate on helping the 1921 Reds to finish higher than seventh place in the National League.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Garry Herrmann pushed a sandwich across his desk to me. “Have a little something,” he said.

  The “little something” was two thick slabs of black bread with about an inch of cheese between them. I didn’t think I could fit it into my mouth if I’d wanted to—which I didn’t. The cheese smelled like a cross between Limburger and a locker room full of sweaty ballplayers. “No, thank you,” I said. It was probably bad manners to decline Herrmann’s hospitality, but vomiting on his desk would be worse.

  “It’s Liederkranz,” he said. “Very good. Go ahead.”

  I declined the sandwich as well as the subsequent offers of liver sausage, Thuringian blood pudding, and a stein of foaming beer. He left them all on my side of the desk anyway.

  Herrmann’s office on the top floor of the administrative wing of Redland Field was more like a beer garden than the headquarters of a baseball-club president. Sideboards abutted either side of his desk. One table held a variety of sausages, breads, pickles, potato salads, radishes, coleslaw, and a boiled ham. The other supported an even greater quantity of beverages—bottles of wine, buckets of beer, and amber liquids in crystal decanters. Under the table was an entire keg, and on a credenza behind Herrmann were glasses and steins of various shapes and sizes. All that was missing from the room was a singing waiter and an oompah band.

  I remembered what Detective Forsch had said about the Reds’ president being part of the corrupt Boss Cox machine. To me, Garry Herrmann didn’t resemble a politician any more than his office looked like a place of business. His smiling florid face radiated what in Over-the-Rhine was called “Gemütlichkeit,” and his appearance was that of a dapper, middle-aged saloonkeeper: neat little mustache, hair slicked down and parted in the middle, and flashy clothes. Today he was wearing an emerald green suit with bright yellow crosshatching; a diamond stickpin was in his paisley tie and a pink carnation in the buttonhole of his lapel.

  Herrmann took a long swallow from his stein, foam sticking to his mustache. The Eighteenth Amendment had never become law as far as Garry Herrmann was concerned; he had the wherewithal to obtain the very best of what Prohibition had outlawed and enough influence to avoid being arrested for it. “A glass of beer never hurt anybody,” he said. “And two glasses are bound to be a big help.” It was his motto, and he said it often.

  “Can’t,” I insisted. “Game starts in an hour.”

  He put the stein down, and his smile disappeared. “You won’t be playing.”

  It wasn’t exactly unusual for me not to play, but if I was informed at all, it was typically the manager who told me, not the team president. Unless ... was I being traded? Sold? “Is something wrong?” I asked. Please don’t tell me I’m being released.

  Herrmann squirmed in his seat and tugged at the sparkling rings on his fingers. Something was definitely wrong. He reached in a drawer, and I wondered what menu item he was going to pull out next. “It’s the photograph. And who’s in it with you.”

  “Huh?” I assumed he meant the photo of Dick Hurley and me that appeared in this morning’s Post. “What’s wrong with having my picture taken with Dick Hurley?” I asked. “Mr. Tinsley arranged it.”

  Herrmann pulled two black-and-white prints from the drawer and slid one of them over to me. “That gentleman with you is Rufus Yates,” he said.

  I studied the photo. It showed me shaking hands with a man in front of the ballpark. I had no idea ... Then I recalled the fellow with the funny ear. “Oh! That’s a guy who stopped me a few days ago and asked for my autograph.”

  “It was Sunday,” Herrmann said. “I looked at the newspaper headline.” In the photo, Yates and I were standing near a newsboy, but I couldn’t make out the headline of the paper the boy was holding up. Herrmann apparently noticed my puzzled look; from another drawer he pulled a large magnifying glass and handed it to me.

  I checked, and saw that the newspaper was indeed the Sunday edition of the Cincinnati Times-Star. Its banner headline announced the peace agreement that had been signed between the Irish Republican Army and the commander of British forces in Ireland:

  TRUCE FOR IRELAND IS SIGNED

  Fighting Is To End Monday

  “But I don’t understand,” I said. “What difference does it make?”

  Herrmann handed me the second photo, this one of the man handing me an envelope. “What was in the envelope, Mickey?” His eyes narrowed as he studied my response.

  “I don’t know. The fellow didn’t have anything else for me to sign, so he handed me the envelope. Said it was for his boy.” I still didn’t understand. “What is this about?”

  “Rufus Yates is well-known in this city. He is a petty crook—and a gambler.”

  Jeez. Don’t tell me—

  “I will have to pass this on to Judge Landis,” Herrmann said. There was a note of regret in his voice, which I thought was genuine. “You understand with the way things are right now, any possible”—he struggled to find a word—“indiscretion must be reported.”

  “There wasn’t any indiscretion,” I said. “I had no idea who the guy was. He came up to me, told me to have a good game, and aske
d me to sign something for his boy.”

  “Yes, well, about ‘having a good game’—you have not gotten a base hit since he gave you that envelope. It might appear that your meeting with this fellow had some effect on your play.”

  How could I explain a slump? A four-game hitless streak wasn’t all that unusual for me. I wasn’t Ty Cobb or Edd Roush. Is that my defense, I thought, that I’m a lousy hitter? “He didn’t give me the envelope,” I said. “I signed it and gave it back to him.”

  Herrmann paused to pour himself a small glass of schnapps. “I’m no Charles Comiskey,” he said finally. “If you’re an honest player, I’ll stick with you—as far as I can.” He leaned forward. “So tell me the truth: is there anything going on here with you and Rufus Yates?”

  “No. ”

  “Very well. I spoke with Pat Moran, and he hasn’t seen anything funny in your play. It simply hasn’t been very good of late.”

  “I know, but I—”

  “These photos will be on a train tonight to Landis. Until he decides what to do, you won’t be playing.”

  “What about innocent till proven guilty?”

  “Not in baseball. Judge Landis is in power now.” He sighed. For eighteen years, since the American League and National League made peace in 1903, Garry Herrmann had been head of the National Commission that ruled baseball. Since November, though, Judge Landis was the absolute boss of the game—a “czar,” the newspapers called him. “We have to cover ourselves,” Herrmann explained. “If we have any evidence of fraternizing with gamblers, we cannot allow you to play until we get approval from Landis.”

  “What about the road trip Friday?” We were to head East for games in Philadelphia, New York, Brooklyn, and Boston.

  “Better if you stay here,” Herrmann said, shaking his head. “The Judge will probably want to speak to you in person.”

  “And until then?”

  “We—you—wait.”

  “Do I suit up for today’s game?”

  “No. Go ahead home.”

  What would people—my teammates—think? “What will you tell people?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Can we keep quiet about why I’m not playing—say I’m injured or something? Landis is gonna clear me. He has to—a picture of me shaking a fellow’s hand isn’t evidence of anything. But if it gets out that I’m under investigation, some folks will think I’m not on the square.”

  “The handshake isn’t the problem. The envelope—and your poor performance afterward—is.” He downed the rest of the schnapps. “However, I see your point about being discreet. I think it’s only fair to keep this a private matter for now.”

  We agreed that the public reason for my absence would be that I was seeing a doctor for headaches and vision problems. Then Herrmann repeated his offer of beer and his slogan about one glass and two.

  I settled for one.

  Chapter Sixteen

  My eyes focused in and out. sometimes taking in the cornfields of central Indiana, sometimes catching my reflection in the train window as we rattled northwest toward Chicago. It jarred me every time the image of my face flashed on the glass; I couldn’t believe how scared I looked.

  Or how alone I felt. Contributing to my sense of isolation was the expanse of flat plains outside and the lack of company in the nearly empty railroad coach. So was the knowledge that, at this very moment, the rest of the Reds team was traveling in the opposite direction, on a Pullman to Philadelphia for the start of an Eastern road trip. They were going to be playing the Phillies in Baker Bowl while I was off to face Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis by myself.

  I had no allies in this fight to clear my name. Before I left Cincinnati, I’d asked Garry Herrmann and Pat Moran for letters attesting to my honest efforts on the ballfield. Both gave me verbal encouragement but refused to put anything in writing—because it would look bad for them if it turned out I really was tied to gamblers.

  I’d also called a longtime friend of mine, a former newspaper reporter named Karl Landfors. For almost a year, Karl had been in Boston trying to help a couple of Italian anarchists named Sacco and Vanzetti who were on trial for murder; he was convinced they were being railroaded because of their political views. Karl had helped me out of some tough jams in the past, and I thought he might have some ideas on how I could get out of my current predicament. The first thing he told me, though, was the news that the Italians had been found guilty. I tried to sound sympathetic about the verdict. I also said I wasn’t going to be able see him next week as we’d planned. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell him why I wasn’t going to be in Boston with the team.

  I did tell Margie, the one person to whom I could confide anything. Even talking to her about it, though, I felt ashamed. Merely being under suspicion was enough to have me totally demoralized.

  In the past, I’d found sufficient strength in my own knowledge of whether I was right or wrong. Not this time. It didn’t matter what I knew, or even what the truth was. All that counted was what the new baseball commissioner would believe. And since taking office, he’d shown little inclination to be persuaded that ballplayers were innocent of any charge.

  Landis placed the eight indicted White Sox—Joe Jackson, Chick Gandil, Swede Risburg, Lefty Williams, Ed Cicotte, Hap Felsh, Buck Weaver, and Fred McMullin—on the ineligible list in March. The move was widely heralded as being exactly the sort of decisive action baseball needed. I agreed with it myself; three of the players had already confessed, and there was enough evidence for a grand jury to indict the eight, so I figured it was reasonable that they shouldn’t be allowed to play until their case was decided in court.

  But two weeks later, Landis banned Phillies’ first baseman Gene Paulette, and the reasoning was less understandable. Paulette had “associated” with gamblers when he played for St. Louis, but there was no evidence that he’d ever done anything crooked.

  Gambling-related allegations weren’t the only thing that could land a player on the “permanently ineligible” list. Benny Kauff of the Giants, once hailed as “the Ty Cobb of the Federal League,” was put on the blacklist for reasons that had nothing to do with baseball. Kauff was co-owner of an automobile dealership and had been indicted on charges of receiving stolen cars. In May, he was acquitted in court—but Judge Landis declared that the acquittal was “a miscarriage of justice” and kicked the former batting champion out of baseball. This action started to trigger some rumblings that the commissioner was overstepping his authority.

  Landis’s June victim was Ray Fisher, one of the Reds pitchers who’d helped lead them to the 1919 championship. Fisher had decided to spend this season coaching the University of Michigan baseball team instead of playing for the Reds. He’d done everything by the book, going so far as to obtain permission from Garry Herrmann and Pat Moran before talking with university officials about the job. Landis, without giving the pitcher a hearing or issuing an explanation, banned Fisher for “contract jumping.” Not even the judge’s staunchest supporters could defend this ruling.

  By now, I didn’t know what to make of the commissioner, but his actions sure seemed to be getting more eccentric. And it was now July. Was I to be this month’s example of his absolute authority?

  The train lurched and I saw my face in the window again. I wanted to calm the scared kid who was looking back at me, but didn’t know how.

  Having lived in Chicago for three years, I was aware that the Federal Building in the Loop was considered to be one of the city’s architectural jewels. I’d always admired its majestic style, but it was its sheer size that struck me now. Eight floors of granite and marble covered the entire block bounded by Jackson, Adams, Clark, and Dearborn. Topping the massive structure was a dome one hundred feet across and three hundred feet high—larger even than the one that crowned the Capitol Building in Washington. Federal operations for the entire Midwest were carried out from this building, and it appeared that the U.S. government wanted to make its presence and au
thority known by the imposing size of the edifice that represented it. And it was in this building that Kenesaw Landis presided as a federal judge.

  I went inside, passing through the octagonal rotunda decorated with mosaics and gilded bronze. Then to the sixth floor, where the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois was in session. A secretary let me into Judge Landis’s chambers to wait for him. I was twenty minutes early for my ten o’clock Monday morning appointment.

  Landis’s chambers were as different from Garry Herrmann’s office as the building was from Redland Field. Not a sausage or beer bucket was in sight. The modest-sized room was conservatively furnished, with dark wood paneling, thick rugs, and high-backed leather chairs. Law books lined the built-in bookshelves, an unflattering portrait of President Harding hung on the wall, and a large American flag was in the corner.

  I was aware as I waited that most of the baseball world was focused on another court building, the Cook County Courthouse, four blocks to the north. On Friday, the final jurors for the Black Sox trial had been sworn in, and opening statements were scheduled to begin today. Landis wouldn’t be there, in part because of defense objections that his presence would have an undue influence on the proceedings, and because he had his own court to run. Although he’d been severely criticized for it, Landis had elected to retain his federal judgeship—and the $7,500 salary that came with it—when he became commissioner of baseball. The owners were already paying him an extraordinary $50,000 a year—the vice president of the United States earned only $12,000—but rumor had it that Landis was not one to forego a single nickel if he could help it.

  Kenesaw Landis, wearing the black robe of his profession, stalked into the room at a quarter to eleven with no greeting and no apology for being late. I hopped to my feet. I knew people stood when a judge entered a courtroom, and I assumed the same custom would apply in chambers.