by Jim Piersall
I didn’t exactly take it easy, but I managed to rein myself in a little. My job at the plant kept me busy days, and I made extra money and kept in good physical condition by refereeing basketball games a few nights a week. I still had the urge to move fast and crowd in as much as I could, but the thought of spring training and what it meant kept me from the dreadful compulsion that had transformed the summer into a nightmare. My nerves showed signs of loosening up a little and I slept better. Even the headaches were less severe, although they didn’t disappear altogether. Best of all, Mom, rather than showing signs of a relapse, was becoming more and more of an influence in the household. She had new responsibilities now, and she seemed to thrive on them. I had no way of knowing it then, but her illness was virtually over. She never returned to the hospital. My father’s heart attack had given her something to live for, since she had to take care of him. My mom has been mentally sound to this day.
As the time for spring training approached, I began getting jumpy again. I still had that fear of the unknown, the same fear that had engulfed me as I moved up from grade to grade through elementary school—the fear of making a big change. I was facing the most radical change of my life. I was to report to the Red Sox Louisville farm club, which was training at Bradenton, Florida. I had never been in the South. I had never seen a baseball training camp.
Suppose I didn’t make the grade? What if I had to come home a failure? How could I face my dad and mom and my friends? What would I do if I couldn’t play ball—spend the rest of my life loading freight cars? And how should I act in Bradenton? How should I dress? How should I react to the other guys? How could I tell which should be my friends and which should not? What should I say to newspapermen? Should I call the coaches by their first names or should I call them “Mister”? And what should I do if they overlooked me?
If they did overlook me, how could I attract attention? That was more important than anything. There’ll be dozens of rookies at the training camp. Some must be at least as good as I. What if most were better? The best boys got jobs on the best clubs. What if I ended up way down in the sticks somewhere, with some Class C or D club? What if I couldn’t even qualify for that?
But, scared as I was, I couldn’t wait to get to Florida. I was in such a hurry that I left a day ahead of time. The Red Sox had sent me my train ticket, Mom packed enough food to keep me going all the way down, and I took a ten-dollar bill with me. I didn’t know that the ball club paid all the expenses. I thought just my transportation and hotel bill would be taken care of. The ten-dollar bill was for food. I didn’t worry too much about what I’d do after I’d eaten it up. I figured that, if I had to, I could pick up an odd job here and there, and that would get me through the spring-training period.
Most of my stuff was in a steel foot locker, which I had shipped ahead. All I had with me on the train was the food and an overnight bag. I figured I’d pick up the foot locker at the Bradenton station after I arrived there.
The ten-dollar bill was still intact when I got off the train, but I didn’t dare spend any of it on such a luxury as a taxi. The ball club was staying at the Dixie Grande Hotel, which wasn’t far from the station, so I walked over to it. I was worried about the foot locker, though. The freight station at Bradenton was some distance from the passenger station, and about four miles from the hotel. At the Dixie Grande, the clerk, who told me that I was a day early and that none of the ballplayers were around, assigned me to my room, and, after leaving my overnight bag there, I went to get the foot locker.
It was a forty-minute walk to the freight station. I picked up the locker, hoisted it on my shoulders and started lugging it back to the Dixie Grande. The farther I walked the heavier it got and the slower I moved. I finally broke down and hailed a cab. The fare was thirty cents, and I had to go into the hotel to get my ten-dollar bill changed because the driver couldn’t break it. Feeling like a maharajah, I gave him a nickel tip, and the cab driver rewarded me with a look nasty enough to make my hair curl. It didn’t bother me any. I needed the money worse than he did.
I slept badly and woke up tired, taut and tense. After breakfast at a dog cart nearby, I went back to my room, wondering what to do next. While I was trying to make up my mind, my roommate walked in. He was a clean-cut looking guy, dressed as if he had a date with Miss Florida. His gray suit was neatly pressed, his two-toned shoes were spotlessly clean and he wore a white shirt with a necktie. He didn’t seem to be much younger than Bill Tracy.
He held out his hand and said, “Chapman. Kenny Chapman. Call me Chappie.”
“My name’s Jimmy Piersall.”
“Rookie.”
He wasn’t asking—just stating a fact.
“Uh-huh.”
“I used to be one,” he said.
“When?”
“About a million years ago.”
While he was talking, he opened his suitcase and began to unpack. My eyes almost popped.
“What do you do with all those clothes?” I asked.
“Wear ’em,” he said, laconically.
“Holy cow! Look at the creased trousers! How many pairs have you got?”
“Six or seven.”
“What do you need all those for?”
He stopped unpacking for a minute, straightened up and asked, softly, “How old are you, Jimmy?”
“Eighteen.”
“Where you from?”
“Waterbury, Connecticut.”
“Ever been South with a ball club before?”
“No.”
“How many pairs of—uh—creased trousers have you got?”
“One. And I don’t wear those except for best.”
He turned his head slowly from side to side, then grinned and said, “You’ve got a lot to learn, boy. I’m going to have to teach you some of the facts of life.”
Before the day was over, I learned that the club paid for meals and laundry, and gave each player ten dollars a week for incidental expenses. There were no rules about dressing, but you were supposed to look neat and act like a gentleman. The Louisville Colonels were in the American Association, a Triple A league. At the time, it was the highest you could get in baseball without being in the major league.
I also learned that it was practically a certainty that I wouldn’t be assigned to the Louisville club.
“The Red Sox own teams in leagues of every classification,” Chappie told me. “They’ll look you over here, and then probably send you to Coco, where their other clubs train.”
“Where’s Coco?”
“Not far from here. Other side of the state.”
“How low can you get?” I asked.
“Don’t worry,” he said, kindly. “If you show them anything, they won’t send you too far down. You’re pretty young, Jimmy.”
Rooming with Chappie was the best thing that could have happened to me. He had spent most of his years in the Red Sox organization as the Louisville third baseman, since he was never quite good enough for the big leagues. But he knew his way around, and he was generous with his advice and encouragement.
“Don’t sell yourself short, Jimmy,” he said, after he had seen me work out a few times. “You’re a lot better than you think you are. You’re not a bad hitter and you’re the best fielder on the whole squad. All you need is experience and confidence in yourself. Don’t forget, those other rookies are just as scared as you—and none of them can hold your glove.”
On my first time at bat in the first intra-squad game, I hit a triple over the center fielder’s head, and from then on I was all right. I was still tense and scared, but I had better control of my nerves and my headaches weren’t too bad.
At the end of three weeks, I was sent to Coco and assigned to the Scranton club in the Class A Eastern League. I was satisfied, for it meant that I had made a better impression on the coaches than the other rookies. Practically all of them were sent to teams in leagues of lower classification.
The Scranton manager was Mike Ryba, one o
f the kindest, most considerate men I have ever known. Mike’s homely face was nearly always wreathed in a wide-mouthed grin. He had a string of gold teeth, which he flashed often. His weatherbeaten face was deeply tanned from many years in the sun, and his almost coal-black eyes were set in a wreath of crow’s feet, mementos of many years of smiling. As a boy, Mike had worked in the Pennsylvania anthracite mines, and baseball, to him, was more than just a profession. It was a way of life, and he never stopped talking about how wonderful it was.
“You’re a lucky guy if you can play ball well enough to make a living out of it,” he used to say. “And if you’re good enough to get into the big leagues, where you eat and sleep and travel and live like a millionaire and get treated like the pampered son of a millionaire wherever you go, you ought to get down on your knees every day of your life and thank your God because He made you that way.”
Mike had closed his active major-league career as a pitcher with the Red Sox, and previous to that, he had been a baseball jack-of-all-trades. He once played a different position in each inning of a full nine-inning game. He’s the manager of the Houston club in the Texas League now, and I still run into him from time to time. Whenever I ask him how he is, he answers, “O.K. Why shouldn’t I be? I’m eatin’ regular and livin’ good. You always do in this business.”
A simple man who appreciates the simple things in life, I guess Mike is still baseball’s champion hotel-lobby sitter. Except when he goes to and from the ball park or the railroad station or airport, Mike spends practically all his time in a lobby chair, calmly pulling away at a big black cigar. I asked him once if he didn’t ever get curious about what goes on elsewhere in town.
“Why should I?” he answered. “I can see all I want to see from the lobby. One time in Boston I saw thirty-nine June weddings without moving out of my seat. Where else but in a lobby can you watch thirty-nine weddings in one month?”
Mike took an interest in me, partly because he thought I was a good ballplayer on the way up, partly because he realized how desperately I needed help and encouragement, and partly because I was his kind of guy. I used to lay all my problems in his lap while he sat, solid and serene, listening to my troubles and smoking his big black cigar. He would let me talk myself out. When I got all through, he’d roll the cigar around in his hand, take a couple of slow drags, let the smoke drift out of his mouth and finally drawl in his low, gravelly voice, “Nothing ever goes so wrong that it won’t get right somehow. If you can’t make it right, wait a little while and it’ll right itself.” Mike couldn’t solve all my problems, but he was good for my nerves. Just looking at him relieved some of the tensions that were always tying me up inside.
When we first went to Scranton, I moved into a rooming house with Nylon Smith, a left-handed pitcher about my age. We stayed together only about a week, because Smitty was sent down to another club, but it turned out to be the most important week of my life. It was during that week that I met the remarkable girl who later became my wife.
Except for Sundays, the Scranton club played all night games, and after we showered and dressed, we used to go to a restaurant called the Tiptoe for a bite to eat and a chance to relax. I was standing outside the place waiting for Smitty one night, when a neat-looking guy who walked with a limp came over to me, held out his hand and asked, “Aren’t you Jimmy Piersall?”
“That’s right.”
“My name’s Tony Howley. I go to all the Red Sox games.”
He meant the Scranton Red Sox, who were named after the parent club in Boston.
We talked until Smitty came along, and then Tony went into the Tiptoe with us. I told him I wanted to go to confession, and he arranged to meet me the next day so he could take me to St. Anne’s Monastery. It turned out that Tony, who was an accountant, had once studied to be a priest, but he had lost a leg in an accident, so he had to give it up.
Smitty and I walked into the Tiptoe a couple of nights later, and Tony was sitting at his big table with a group of girls and boys. He waved to us, then came over to say hello. After a while he said, “I’ll see you guys later. I’ve got to go back to my date.”
“Which one’s your date?” I asked.
“The little one over in the corner.”
“You mean the redhead?”
“I guess she’s sort of redheaded, at that,” Tony remarked. “Funny—I’ve known her for years and never noticed. Well—I’ll see you.”
I wanted to follow him and meet the redhead, but I didn’t dare. I hadn’t had much experience with girls. The only one I’d ever gone out with much was a Waterbury schoolmate named Pat Delaney. She and I grew up together. Our folks were friends, and I guess they hoped maybe we’d get married some day. We liked each other all right, but if I ever had the remotest idea of getting serious with her, I forgot all about it one night during my senior year in high school.
“What are you going to do after you graduate?” she asked.
“Gee, I don’t know. Play ball, I suppose.”
“Ballplayers are traveling all the time, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t want to marry a ballplayer. Ballplayers aren’t home enough.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m going to be a ballplayer.”
And that was that.
Every so often I stole looks at the little redhead with Tony. Her hair was really light brown, I suppose, but it had a reddish cast to it. She had huge china-blue eyes, shining white teeth, high cheekbones, and soft white skin. I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, but all I could do that night was sit and admire her from a distance.
“Nice, huh?”
Smitty was pointing towards her. I reddened and clenched my fists but I didn’t say anything. I’m mad at Smitty and I don’t even know the girl. And all he said was what I was thinking.
At the Tiptoe the next night, I said to Tony, “That your girl—the one you were with last night?”
“Heck, no,” he replied. “I don’t have any girl. She’s just an old friend.”
“Who is she, what does she do, and when are you going to introduce us?”
“Her name’s Mary Teevan. She’s training to be a nurse. You like her, eh? She’s a nice girl. I’ll take her to the ball game and introduce you to her later if you’ll promise to hit a home run tomorrow night.”
“I’ll promise anything.”
The next night I hit a home run my first time up. When Smitty and I walked into the Tiptoe after the game, Tony beckoned to us. His cousin Bob Howley, who drove us home every night, was with him, along with Mary and a couple I’d seen before but had never met. The girl’s name was Ann O’Brien and the boy with her was Dan Kuchar. I didn’t pay much attention to either of them. I was too busy edging Tony away from the chair beside Mary. He caught on quickly and made room for me. I sat down, tried to think of something sensationally clever to say, grinned foolishly at Mary, took a deep breath and finally managed a brilliantly conceived, “Holy cow!”
Mary laughed.
“I liked your home run,” she said. It was the first time I’d ever heard her speak. Her voice sounded just the way I expected—neat and small and calm, yet clear and direct.
“So did I,” I replied. Then I said, “I wouldn’t have hit it except I wanted to meet you.”
“Tony told me. He knows lots of girls. Get him to introduce you to one a day. It’ll make you the greatest home-run hitter of all time.”
A day or so later, I was walking along Washington Street, the main thoroughfare in Scranton, when I heard a girl say, “Holy cow! Look who’s here.”
It was Mary, smiling as she used my favorite expression. She was on her way to the hospital with Ann, who was also in training to be a nurse. I persuaded them to stop in at a soda fountain, but they were in a hurry and only had time for a Coke. While they were drinking, I gobbled up two sundaes and was just starting on an ice-cream soda when they got up to leave. The last thing Mary said as she walked out was, “Holy cow! What
an appetite!”
I may not have liked the way he said it, but Smitty was right. This is a nice girl. This is more than that. This is the girl for me. Mary Teevan. Catholic—like me. That’s good. I’m going to marry a Catholic. Marry? How can I think of marriage? I’ve got enough other responsibilities without taking on any more. I have to take care of Mom and Dad. But I wonder. Maybe I can’t think of marriage now. But I want to know more about Mary Teevan. What does she like? What doesn’t she like? Where is she from? How about her people? When can I see her again? I’ve got to call her up and make a date—for tonight. She’ll be through at the hospital at just about the same time the ball game’s over. But where does she live? I don’t even know the name of her hospital.
I called Tony Howley, and he said I could reach Mary at St. Mary’s Hospital, so I phoned her just before I left to go to the ball park that night. As I waited for her to come to the phone I nearly hung up. My hand was shaking so much that I couldn’t get a firm grip on the receiver, and suddenly I seemed to be swimming in perspiration. When she finally answered in her small, firm voice, I could only stammer, “Meet me at the Tiptoe after work?”
“Holy cow!” she said. “It’s Jimmy again. How are you?”
“O.K. Meet me, Mary?”
“Sure. I’ll meet you, Jimmy,” she said, softly.
“And if the game’s not over—”
“I don’t have to go back on duty until tomorrow afternoon, so I don’t care how late I get in. If the game’s not over, Jimmy, I’ll wait for you.”
There was a caress in her voice, and somehow I didn’t feel nervous any more. I wanted to stand in that phone booth and talk to her, but I had to get to the ball park.
“Mary—” I said.
“What?”
“Uh—nothing. I’ll see you at the Tiptoe.”
My heart was pounding when I hung up. What’s the matter with me? I never felt this way about a girl before.
At the Tiptoe, Mary was sitting at a table in the corner, with Ann and Tony and Dan and a couple of other people. She waved when I walked in, and motioned me to an empty chair beside her. I was annoyed. I’d hoped to find her alone. I nodded to everyone else, and greeted Mary with a somewhat thin “Hi.” Then I sat down.