by Jim Piersall
The conversation was general, but I didn’t have much to say, even though everyone was talking about the ball game. I couldn’t take my eyes off Mary. I saw now that her hair wasn’t really red at all, but quite definitely brown. I loved to watch her smile, for she smiled with more than just her mouth. Her eyes twinkled and her whole face lit up, and she smiled often. For the first time, I noticed the curve of her chin. She had a look of determination, and I saw now that it was because of her chin. It was a beautiful chin and it went well with the rest of her face because it didn’t jut out, but it just missed being square. I wonder if she’s stubborn. Does she have to have her own way all the time? She smiled and I relaxed. How can a girl with a smile like that be stubborn?
“Are you always so happy?” I asked.
“Are you always so serious?” she countered.
We both laughed. Then I said, “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”
“Can’t we talk here?”
“Not really,” I said. “All these people—”
“We can’t very well break away.”
“Why not?”
“Wouldn’t it be sort of obvious?”
“What if it is?”
“Jimmy—”
“What?”
“After tomorrow, I go back on duty days.”
“Then we can get together Sunday night. There’s no ball game.”
“Holy cow, you’re a real bright boy, aren’t you?”
We both laughed again. It wasn’t until after Bob Howley had driven her home and then dropped me off at my rooming house that I realized my tensions and pressures had eased up so much that I was almost completely relaxed.
At the time, Mary was living with an aunt, Mary Holleran. We sat on the porch Sunday evening, and talked softly while a full moon played hide-and-seek with passing clouds. One minute it would be almost pitch dark and the next the whole porch would be glowing. I remember that evening very well because it was the first time I ever talked frankly about myself to a girl my own age; in fact, before I was through, I told Mary things I had never told another living soul. I told her about my headaches and my fears and my mom’s trouble and my dad’s temper and my need for security and my everlasting quest for release from the pressures that plagued me. I tried to tell her everything at once. I was terribly anxious for her to know and understand me—the sooner the better.
Suddenly, I realized what I was doing and stopped, embarrassed because I had poured my troubles into her lap.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Why?”
“I’ve talked all about myself. I must have been boring you.”
“You haven’t bored me, Jimmy. I want to know more.”
“What about you? I don’t know anything about you—except that you’re in training to be a nurse. Tell me about yourself now.”
“There isn’t very much—”
She told me about her dad in Wilkes-Barre, and her younger brother Harry and still younger sister Ann. Her mother had died when she was eleven, and from then on there had always been a housekeeper. Her father had a good job. He was a dragline operator at a surface mine. A dragline, she explained, was a sort of super-steam shovel which was used to scoop up piles of coal residue. It took a skilled man to operate one—a man with keen long-distance eyesight and quick reactions.
“My dad’s a little man, but he runs one of the biggest machines at the mines,” she said. “And you know what, Jimmy? He’s a great baseball fan. He goes to all the Wilkes-Barre games he can. He’s seen you play.”
“I can’t have your dad rooting for Wilkes-Barre.”
“He won’t be. He’s coming here to live in a few weeks—as soon as the kids get out of school.”
I liked Mary’s father. As she had explained, he was a small man, but he didn’t seem small, for he carried himself with dignity. He had merry eyes which glinted with good humor, and a leisurely manner of talking which gave the impression that he never was in a hurry to finish a sentence. It was easy to see where Mary had acquired her smile. Her dad’s eyes never stopped smiling, and his mobile face relaxed often into a wide grin. His real name was Harry, but for no particular reason, I started calling him George. Mary and I both call him George to this day.
I went with Mary all summer. Realizing my hunger for peace of mind, she was always trying to quiet me down and softly telling me to take it easy. She knew I was moving too fast, and time and again she said, “It’s a long life, Jimmy. Don’t try to use it up all at once.”
We grew closer and closer, and I was happy in the knowledge that I had found the girl I wanted. Mary was my kind of person—a member of my faith, a child of a working-class family and a product of a medium-sized city. We understood each other so well that we drifted into talk of marriage as naturally as we talked of everything else.
One night I said, “We could be happy together.”
“Could we?”
“Yes. Only—”
“Only what, Jimmy?”
“Well—I don’t have very much money. And I’ve got to take care of my folks.”
“I know.”
“We might even have to live with them.”
“That’s all right.”
“Someday, Mary—not this year, but maybe next—all right?”
I went back to work for the silver company in Meriden during the winter of 1948–1949, and, to make sure that Mary wouldn’t forget me, I bought a second-hand car and commuted between Waterbury and Scranton every other weekend. It was a tough, eight-hour trip over winding, mountainous roads. I would drive to Scranton Saturday, stay there until Sunday evening and then go directly to Meriden, walking into the plant on Monday morning without any sleep. It was not recommended routine for a boy suffering from nervous tension, but, even though I was usually too tired to take Mary anywhere after arriving in Scranton, I thrived on it. I was more relaxed that winter than I had been for years.
I was apprehensive about my father’s reaction to Mary, so I didn’t tell him how serious I felt about her. But between his illness and my own new-found independence, he no longer could frighten me with his roaring temper. He told me what he thought I should do, and if I thought his advice was good, I followed it.
When it came time for spring training, I reported back to the Louisville club. I was looking forward to it because Mike Ryba had been made manager of the Colonels. To make me feel even more at home, Ed Doherty, who was president of the Scranton club when I played there, had also been promoted to Louisville. Doherty, a tall, friendly, prematurely gray man who always treated me well, is now president of the American Association.
A month after the 1949 season started, Mary flew to Louisville to see me. She stayed with friends for several days, and just before she flew back I said, “How about setting a date?”
“Like right after the season’s over?”
“Yes—sometime in October.”
The next time she came to Louisville, my dad was there. He had met Mary in Scranton, and was not upset when I told him we were going to get married. It wouldn’t have made any difference, of course, but I was relieved because I had been apprehensive about his reaction. I knew there’d be no trouble with Mom. She and Mary got along very well, and, in fact, Mom already was aware of our plans and approved of them.
I was very happy, even though assailed by vague worries over finances. I was assuming a new responsibility, but Mary was so willing to co-operate that I almost felt that I was taking advantage of her. Each time I started to tell her about my obligations in Waterbury, she put a finger to my lips and said, “Don’t worry about it, honey. Whatever you say is all right with me. Don’t you know that yet?”
I did know it, but I still couldn’t help worrying about money. Occasionally, while I tossed around trying to get to sleep at night, I’d be plagued by simple mathematics, as I tried to figure out how much I’d have to give the folks, how much we’d need to live on, how much I could put into the bank and how much more I could make over my baseball salary.<
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One day I asked my father, “How much do you need every week? Tell me exactly.”
“Thirty-five dollars,” he replied.
“O.K.”
After that I did all my nocturnal figuring with that as a base. After I had set aside thirty-five dollars for my parents, how much would Mary and I need to live on? And how long would there just be the two of us? We both wanted a family. How much more would it cost to have one? And what if one of us should get sick? How could I possibly figure out how much that would set us back? No matter what happened, the thirty-five dollars for Mom and Dad would have to be taken out. That was a prime responsibility.
But whenever I brought up the subject of money with Mary, she laughed it off.
“Don’t lose any sleep over it,” she insisted. “We’ll get along.”
“I know, but I want you to have a nice place to live. Honey, I’ve got to make a lot of money.”
“You will. I know you will.”
“We’ll have to live with Mom and Dad, and I hate to think of your being in that flat.”
She kept assuring me that it was all right, but the more I thought about it the less I liked the idea. Mary would never be happy on East Main Street, no matter what she said to the contrary. I began to wonder if I could swing a house. I had some cash in the bank and if I could work out reasonable payments—
WE WERE MARRIED on October 22 at the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord in Scranton. Mary’s cousin Ruth Holleran was maid of honor, and Tony Howley was my best man. The priest who married us was the Reverend John O’Brien, Ann’s brother. Father O’Brien had become a good friend of mine. He later officiated when his sister married Dan Kuchar.
A number of people came over from Waterbury. My folks, and one of my aunts—my mother’s sister—were there, and so was Bernie Sherwill. Al Dostaler, who had played on the Leavenworth High School basketball team with Bernie and me, the Tracys, and Jarp O’Neil came, too, along with several family friends. It was a wonderful wedding and everyone, including me, was very happy.
Back in Waterbury, we moved in with my parents, and I went back to my old job at the plant in Meriden. I kept thinking about the possibility of buying a new house, but I knew I couldn’t afford it yet, so I didn’t say anything to Mary. Then, right after Christmas, Mary told me there was a baby on the way. For three weeks, I walked around on air, but my happiness didn’t last any longer than that. Mary got sick a month before it was time to go South to start training for the 1950 season, and for a while her condition was pretty serious. I spent my days at the hospital and my nights alternately praying and ripping my jagged nerve ends apart with frantic worry. She lost the baby, of course, but by that time I just wanted her to get well. She improved enough to go to spring training with me, but she wasn’t herself, since she tired easily and still had a lot of pain. The Colonels were training at Deland, Florida, that year, and the doctors thought it would do Mary good to be where the weather was mild.
Mary’s recovery was slow—much too slow. She still wasn’t right when we got to Louisville for the opening of the season, and she was so shaky that I dreaded every trip we had to make. Then in May she got sick again, and this time the situation was desperate. For days she lived on other people’s blood, as she had to have one transfusion after another. Her life hung in the balance and so did my sanity. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, even baseball. All I could do was go to the hospital, stare at Mary, head for the ball park when it was time for the game, go through the motions of playing and then go through the motions of trying to sleep. I dreaded the proximity of a telephone for fear that someone would reach me with bad news.
After a few days, I began to develop stomach pains myself. I didn’t dare tell Ryba about them, because I was afraid he would bench me, but I couldn’t fool Mike for long. He knew Mary was very sick, and all he had to do was look at me to realize that I was pretty badly off myself.
“Go home,” he said one night. “Don’t come back until Mary’s out of danger.”
“But my job—” I started to object.
“Forget your job. It’ll be here when you get back.”
The next few days seemed like months, and I couldn’t begin to estimate how much they took out of me. All I know is that life had turned into an everlasting vigil of prayer, desperate hope and nerve-racking worry while my head pounded with pressure and my stomach writhed with pain. Then, one morning, good news came. A nurse met me on Mary’s floor and whispered, “She’s going to be all right.”
For the first time in a week, I smiled. I stayed with Mary most of the day, and then, my stomach pains gone, I had my first square meal since she had taken sick. That night I told Mike I was ready, and he put me back in center field. At Mary’s insistence and with the doctor’s approval I made the next road trip. By the time I returned to Louisville, she was fine. She had made a miraculous, almost unbelievable recovery.
The Red Sox, who were on the road, sent for me early in September, and I joined them in Chicago. While I was thrilled over the prospect of traveling in the same company with men like Williams and DiMaggio, I suffered from nothing worse than the usual jitters that always engulfed me before making a major change. Big-league ball clubs often bring youngsters up from their farm teams in September so that managers can see them work out after they have been playing the better part of a full season in the minors. My being included in the 1950 crop was not unexpected, since, in spite of my personal troubles, I had had a good year under Ryba in Louisville.
The Red Sox manager was Steve O’Neill, a battered old baseball warhorse who had been in the majors as player, coach and manager for more than forty years. A former catcher, his nose was squashed and twisted and every one of his fingers gnarled and bent from frequent bone breaks. Like Ryba, he was a product of the Pennsylvania coal-mine regions. He had been around the majors for so long that he had become a sort of baseball nomad, never in or out of a job for any length of time. The Red Sox were the third team he managed and he has since been in and out of Philadelphia, where he managed the Phillies for a couple of seasons.
Steve, the patriarch of a huge family, liked rookies and knew how to handle them. A jovial, good-humored man, he rarely got annoyed and I never saw him lose his temper. He was always considerate and kind to me.
“You won’t get to play much, son,” he told me, “but you’ll learn a lot by sitting on the bench and keeping your eyes open. You’d be surprised how much you can pick up just by watching what goes on around you.”
I was so happy simply wearing a Red Sox uniform that, for once, the prospect of sitting on the bench most of the time didn’t bother me. The season had only a few weeks to go and, as Steve pointed out, I could learn by looking. Besides, he told me I might get a chance to pinch-hit a few times, and maybe even start in one of the late-season games.
But I didn’t get my name into a big-league box score until the last week of the season. We were playing the Washington Senators in Boston, when, during the third inning of a hopelessly lost game, O’Neill sent me up to bat for our pitcher, Dick Littlefield. Gene Bearden, a veteran who threw a baffling knuckle ball, was the Washington pitcher, and I was so scared that I threw the bat over the third-base dugout and into the grandstand the first time I swung at a ball. Imagine my embarrassment when I found myself standing at the plate without a bat in my hand.
I turned and walked over to Billy Goodman, the next hitter. He had been crouching in the on-deck circle, but he stood up and met me halfway.
“What do I do now?” I whispered.
“Get another bat,” said Billy. “Here—use mine.”
I did, and it brought me luck. After the count ran to three balls and two strikes, I drove the ball safely to right field for a hit on my first time at bat in the majors. I felt as if I were flying down the first-base line—there were wings on my shoulders.
When I said good-by to O’Neill after the last game of the season, he shook hands and said, “You’ll get there, boy. We’ll see you ne
xt spring in Sarasota.”
Mary and I went back to Waterbury again after the season was over, both of us bubbling with happy anticipation. We were expecting again, and this time the doctors assured us that everything would be all right. Furthermore, we had decided to buy a home. We found a new ranch-type house that was not quite completed. The builder assured us we could get in before Christmas, so we settled down with my folks while we waited. Mom and Dad were going to move in with us, and I was glad I could get them out of their old apartment.
Mary, busy with decorating and furnishing the new place, was having a wonderful time. I went back to work for International Silver, so we had that additional income, and there was really no financial problem, but I had misgivings. Something seemed to be wrong somewhere, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. I should have been happy. Mary was out of the woods and a baby was on the way. I was moving my parents out of an ancient flat where they had lived for years. I was about to go into a brand new home, complete with the latest gadgets and equipment. I was in my own home town, among my own people, and working at a familiar off-season job. Everything should have been perfect.
It wasn’t. Night after night, after Mary was asleep, I would lie in bed, tossing around and worrying about the house. Was I doing the right thing? Would I be able to meet the payments? Would Mary be happy once we were settled down? Did I want to commit myself to living in Waterbury permanently? A house was a pretty permanent thing. Once in there, would it be easy to get out? Yet why should I want to get out? How could I be thinking of getting out? I hadn’t even moved in. What was the matter with me?
All through the month of November, while Mary kept going back and forth between East Main Street and the new house, I worried about the situation. She was so happy getting ready to move in that I didn’t have the heart to tell her about my doubts. Instead, I listened while she chattered, telling me about the furniture and the drapes and the colors and the kitchen equipment and all the other things wives talk about that go in one male ear and out the other.