King of the Mound: My Summer With Satchel Paige

by Wes Tooke

  “At the dealership or with the team?” Nick asked.

  “Whatever he wants.” Nick’s father glanced at his brace again. “Whatever you can actually do. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His father flipped off the light and then grunted as he settled into bed. Nick kept fumbling with the straps of his brace in the dark—he would never be able to fall asleep with that thing clamped to his leg.

  “Good night, Dad,” he said after a minute.

  Silence. Nick kept working on the straps, and when the last one was finally undone, he lay down on the lumpy cot and pulled the rough wool blanket over his clothes.

  He was back.

  Nick awoke to a scratchy sound. His father was shaving—staring into a tiny mirror above the sink as he intently concentrated on the sharp blade—but he stopped and turned around when Nick swung his legs off the cot.

  “I’m going to the dealership,” he said. “I’ll come get you if Mr. Churchill needs anything.”

  “You want me to wait here all day?” Nick asked.

  “Clean up the room. And there are weeds that need pulling in the yard.”

  Nick’s bladder felt like a balloon about to burst, and he glanced around the tiny cabin. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “Outhouse.” His father flicked his head at the door. “Follow the trail behind the cabin.”

  Nick strapped on his brace, but this time he covered it with a pair of pants. When he was dressed, he went outside. The trail led through a small stand of birch trees to a wood outhouse with a moon cut in the door for ventilation. Nick braced himself before he stepped inside—the outhouse at his father’s previous cabin had smelled like a medieval sewer—but this one must have been relatively new because it still had the faint scent of pine.

  By the time Nick returned to the cabin, his father and the car were gone, but he had left half a loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese sitting on the cot. Nick wolfed down his breakfast and then made the beds, swept the room, and unpacked his duffel into a battered chest of drawers. When he was finished, he returned to the yard. The sun was higher now and the morning was getting hot, so he stripped down to his T-shirt before settling onto his knees and tearing handfuls of weeds away from the base of the cabin.

  Nick had been working for only a few minutes when he heard a door slam behind him. He glanced back at the main house and saw a girl walking toward him across the patchy lawn. She was wearing a gray dress patched with mismatched fabric, and worn leather shoes.

  “Hey, Nick,” she said.

  Nick struggled to his feet, wondering how she knew his name. She was about his age, with long brown hair, dark eyes, and skin as pale as the women in the movies. “Hey,” Nick said after an awkward pause.

  The girl was staring at him, a funny smile on her face. “You don’t recognize me?” Nick shook his head. “I’m Emma Landry. I was a year behind you in school, remember?”

  The name sparked a memory in Nick’s head of a skinny kid with big eyes, but the memory had almost nothing in common with the girl standing in front of him. “You’re . . . bigger,” Nick finally said.

  Emma shrugged. “You’ve been gone a long time.”

  Nick felt a pang in his stomach. It was true—he had been gone a long time. And during the year he had been trapped in the hospital, life in Bismarck had kept moving. Kids had grown, friendships had been made and lost, things had changed.

  “Are you okay?” Emma asked. She was still staring at him. “You look sad.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “It’s going to be a good day. Aren’t you excited to see Satch?”

  Nick cocked his head, confused. “What do you mean?”

  “He arrived last night. They’re having a ceremony at the ballpark.”

  “Today?”

  “I’m leaving in five minutes.”

  “Why? Girls don’t like baseball.”

  Emma arched an eyebrow. “That’s obviously not true because I’m a girl and I’ve seen every home game for the last two seasons. Not to mention that I know all sorts of facts. Like the fact that you once struck out nine batters in four innings. Even though you were the youngest pitcher in youth baseball.”

  Nick felt his face flush. “Sorry,” he said after a long moment. “I guess girls can like baseball. I just never knew any who did.”

  “Well, now you know me. Which is good because we’re neighbors.” Emma flicked her head at the road. “Want to walk together to the game? If we go now, we might be able to sneak really close to home plate.”

  “I can’t,” Nick said.

  “What? Why not?”

  “My father will kill me if he comes back and I’m not here.”

  Emma shrugged. “Just leave a note.”

  “He’s not much of a reader.”

  “You have to go,” she said. “It’s Satchel Paige. In our town!”

  Nick knew she was right. Sure, he was nervous about leaving the house without his dad’s permission—and he was even more nervous about the idea of walking all the way to the stadium on his brace, since the hardest he’d pushed his leg in the hospital were short strolls up and down the corridor. But those fears didn’t stand a chance against two simple facts: First, Nick hadn’t seen any real baseball in more than a year, and second, one of the best pitchers in the world was about to be standing on a mound less than a mile from his house.

  “Fine,” Nick said. “But I can’t stay long.”

  The baseball stadium was on the south side of Bismarck, and Emma and Nick took the shortest route, which was a dirt lane that ran along the outskirts of town. When Mr. Churchill signed Nick’s dad to play catcher and they first came to Bismarck, the town had been an island of houses amid a sea of corn and wheat, but a ferocious series of windstorms had blown away the topsoil, and now the fields were bare and dusty. You could always tell the farmers from the townspeople because the farmers had a lost, desperate look in their eyes. That was why Nick’s father had kept playing with a broken bone in his hand two seasons earlier. As he said at the time: “These people ain’t got nothing. So the least we can do is give them some baseball.”

  By the time the stadium finally appeared behind a row of poorly constructed aluminum shacks, Nick’s leg was aching and one of the straps on his brace was cutting into his thigh like a saw. Nick stared at the new grandstand and the row of wooden bleachers that had risen in right field.

  “It looks like a real stadium now,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Emma said. “And maybe it will actually be full since Satch is here.”

  As they approached the main gate, Nick noticed a man selling tickets and a sign that read SEE THE RETURN OF THE LEGEND. JUST FIVE CENTS!

  “I don’t have any money,” Nick said, a sinking feeling in his stomach.

  “We don’t need money,” Emma said. “Follow me.”

  She led him down the third base side of the stadium until they were a hundred yards away from the main gate, and then she reached down and grabbed the bottom of the chain-link fence.

  “Roll,” she said as she yanked the wire upward.

  Nick gave her a glance and then dropped to the ground. The fence scratched his arm as he rolled, but then he was inside. As he pushed himself to his feet, Emma popped up next to him, a devilish grin on her face.

  “It’s the bargain entrance,” she said.

  “Hey!” a voice shouted from the main gate. “Get over here!”

  Emma grabbed Nick’s hand and pulled him toward the field. “Don’t look back,” she said. “Hurry!”

  Nick did his best to keep up with her, half hopping on his stupid brace as they ran around the corner of the grandstand. He thought they were going to cut up into the crowd, but instead she ducked through a small hole and suddenly they were lost amid a maze of iron latticework under the stands. It smelled like fresh mud and stale beer, and the wood above them creaked as people moved toward their seats. Nick glanced at Emma. She was staring at his bad leg.

  “Is that f
rom polio?” she asked. He nodded. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not really.”

  “Can you pitch?”

  Nick shook his head. “I’d probably fall over on the mound.”

  “Have you tried?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, you won’t know until you try.”

  Nick thought that was pretty obvious—and didn’t really want to talk about what he could or could not do—so he just grunted and crept toward the front of the grandstand. There was a little gap between the stairs that ran up between the sections, and whenever the aisle cleared, he could get a look at the field. In dead center was a parking lot where people could watch the game from their cars—the first time Satch pitched, desperate fans had stood on roofs and hoods to catch a glimpse. To the right of the parking lot stretched the new bleachers, mostly covered with families, and the new grandstand circled the infield. It was at least thirty rows high and packed with fans.

  “It’s full,” Nick said.

  “The stadium seats almost five thousand now,” Emma said. “Half the people in Bismarck can fit in here.”

  Nick shook his head. “Mr. Churchill sure must have been mad when Satch didn’t show up.”

  “I heard he beat up a brand-new car,” she said. “Smashed the windshield and everything.”

  “I wonder why he let Satch come back.”

  Emma shrugged. “Because he can pitch.”

  Nick knew Emma was right. His father claimed that a star pitcher would always have a job no matter how crazy he was. “Great players live their lives by different rules,” his father had said more than once. “At least until they can’t play anymore. And then people dump them twice as fast because they never could stand to be around them.”

  The grandstand above Nick suddenly rumbled as hundreds of people pushed themselves to their feet. A gate had opened in center field, and a silver convertible was slowly driving toward the pitcher’s mound, Mr. Churchill and Satch perched in the backseat. Satch was wearing the team uniform—a white jersey with “Bismarck” printed across the chest in bold letters—and waving at the crowd, a bemused half smile on his face. Mr. Churchill was significantly shorter than Satch but at least three times as wide. He had once been a good baseball player, but those days were long gone, and according to Nick’s father he weighed almost three hundred pounds. In a town of skinny, hardscrabble people he stood out like an elephant in a herd of cattle. Today he was wearing a white linen suit that draped over his massive body like a tent, and he was pointing and winking at people in the crowd as the car slowed to a stop near second base.

  “I can’t see,” Emma said. “Let’s go up in the stands.”

  “What about the guard?”

  “He won’t be looking for us. Not with Satch on the mound.”

  Emma turned and slipped through the hole in the grandstand. Nick followed her, and a moment later they found a spot amid a family in the front row. Satch and Mr. Churchill had gotten out of the convertible, and Mr. Churchill was holding a megaphone to his mouth.

  “Behold the return of the great Satchel Paige!” he bellowed. His voice was as loud as a steam engine. “A legend who needs no introduction . . . a man who dazzled us with his talents two summers ago. Inventor and master of pitches too numerous to name, including the Bat Dodger, Midnight Creeper, Four-Day Rider, Nothin’ Ball, and infamous Rising Tom!”

  While Mr. Churchill was shouting, a black man in a dark suit emerged from the dugout and strolled to home plate.

  “I think that’s Double Duty,” Emma whispered.

  Nick craned his neck to see. Double Duty Radcliffe was one of the most versatile players in baseball: He had earned his nickname during the 1932 Negro League World Series when he caught a shutout from Satch in the first game and then threw a shutout in the second. He was short and squat and had a reputation for making jokes during games—Nick’s father had said that when Double Duty caught, he sometimes wore a chest protector with the words “Thou Shalt Not Steal” written across the front.

  Nick glanced back at Satch, who was twirling a ball in his hands on the mound, and Nick knew he was about to see something special. For Satch’s first appearance two years earlier, Mr. Churchill had put a book of matches atop a stick at home plate, and Satch had hit the matchbook thirteen times out of twenty. But Nick knew enough about showmanship to understand that they couldn’t do the same thing again—this time the stunt had to be bigger. Better.

  Double Duty dug into the batter’s box as if he were going to hit, but then he withdrew a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches from his suit pocket. A moment later a lit cigarette was dangling from his lips. Satch stared in at home plate as if waiting for the sign, his long arms dangling loosely by his sides and his intense brown eyes narrowed into menacing slits.

  “Play ball!” Mr. Churchill shouted.

  Satch began his windup, his leg rising almost as high as his ear, and then whipped his body toward home plate. Double Duty stood motionless as the white streak rocketed toward his face. People in the crowd screamed. Nick felt Emma grab his arm—

  And then the ball clipped the cigarette and slammed into the bottom of the backstop. Double Duty casually leaned over and picked up the cigarette from the ground.

  “It gone out!” he loudly announced.

  The crowd exploded into wild applause. Nick smiled at Emma, his hands pounding together. When he looked back at the field, Mr. Churchill was pointing at Satch.

  “Now show them what they came to see,” Mr. Churchill shouted. “Show them the Rising Tom!”

  A familiar figure trotted out of the dugout—Nick’s father, wearing his uniform and a catching mask. As he settled into position behind home plate, Satch made a show of stretching his arm.

  It’s not fair, Nick thought. They shouldn’t make him try to catch a Rising Tom when he hasn’t seen it for two years. Not in front of a crowd.

  “Does the Rising Tom really rise?” Emma asked, interrupting his thoughts.

  Nick shrugged. “That’s what they say.”

  Satch’s leg kicked high again, and then the ball was flashing toward home plate, spinning so fast that it was just a blur. Nick’s father stabbed upward at the last moment, but the ball nicked off the top of his glove and smashed into the backstop with a sound like a gunshot.

  As the crowd erupted into applause again, Satch waved broadly and then started toward the convertible. Nick’s father was trudging back to retrieve the ball, his jaw clenched. Nick knew why he was upset—he couldn’t stand to be embarrassed. As he leaned over to pick up the ball, his angry eyes scanned the crowd. At the last moment Nick realized what was about to happen, and he tried to duck behind the man next to him. But he was too slow.

  They stared at each other for a moment that felt like an hour. And then his father shook his head, an expression on his face that Nick recognized.

  He’d been home for less than a day and already he was in trouble.

  Nick sat on his cot and waited for his father to return from the ballpark. It felt like being slow-roasted over a smoldering fire—every minute he got more and more anxious until eventually his brain just shut down and he stared blankly at the floor. Finally his father’s boots clumped up the stairs and the door swung open.

  “Out,” his father said.

  Nick glanced up. His father was pointing at the porch, expressionless. Nick pushed himself to his feet and hobbled outside. As he settled onto the rough wood of the porch, a wool blanket landed next to him, and a moment later the door slammed closed. The sun had set and the only light came from a pair of lit windows in the main house. Occasionally a shadow moved behind the curtains—maybe Emma.

  Nick had been on the porch for maybe ten or fifteen minutes when he smelled the fire, and a few minutes later he heard the crackle from the frying pan, and then the thick, rich scent of bacon drifted onto the porch. His stomach growled—it felt like there was a tight fist behind his belly button squeezing nothing but air. The temperature was also dropping with
each passing moment, and Nick pulled the blanket around his shoulders and lay back on the porch. Was he really going to have to sleep outside?

  As the seconds turned into minutes and the sliver of a moon began to move across the sky, Nick felt his anger begin to simmer. It wasn’t fair—he had done his chores before he went to the game. Did his father expect him to hide at the house all day? Maybe that was it; maybe he didn’t want the other players to know he had a crippled son. But it wasn’t Nick’s fault that he had gotten polio, and he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life hiding. No matter what his father wanted.

  Just as Nick’s anger reached its peak, the door swung open and his father loomed over him, a faceless shadow in the dark.

  “You’re not a little kid anymore,” he said, his voice a low growl. “You want to live here and eat my food, then you live under my rules. You do what I say when I say it. Understand?”

  “Yes,” Nick said quietly.

  “Yes, what?”

  The anger was a fierce ball of flame high in his chest, and Nick had to swallow hard before he could speak. “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay,” his father said. “Get inside.”

  The smell of bacon had been coming from a square of fatback, which his father cut in half and then put on two large slices of rye bread. Nick wolfed down his food, and the moment he finished, his father blew out the lamp. For the second time in two nights Nick undid his brace in the dark, and by the time he lay down, his father’s resonant snores were echoing around the tiny cabin. Nick had never imagined that he might miss the hospital, but at this moment he felt more isolated lying ten feet away from his father than during all of those lonely nights on the polio ward.

  The next morning Nick was sweeping the porch when his father emerged from the cabin, the worn duffel he used to carry his equipment slung over his shoulder.