The Southpaw

by Mark Harris

  When we come out it was raining. The newspaper in Aqua Clara claims that it never rains, and it hardly ever does. That was the only time but 1 that it rained to speak about in the 3 springs I was there. Every time it rains the City of Aqua Clara pays 1,000 dollars to the Mammoths.

  The only other time it rained was 1 day after about 3 weeks, and that is a day I will never forget. There was less then 100 rookies still in camp. More then 300 been sent home and most of the rest was assigned to farm clubs. The rest of us was put down in 2, 3 and 4 barrackses. Mornings we worked out, and in the afternoon we broke up in teams and played amongst ourselves. I pitched 24 and 1/3 innings altogether and done better then any other pitcher in camp. Perry and Canada and Coker all showed up well, and we was riding high.

  Then Mike Mulrooney called off about 20 names, and he took us over to the farthest diamond where the Mammoths always worked. When we got there it was raining a little bit, just a drizzly spray, and Mike told me to warm, and I done so with a kid name of Porkpie. Dutch Schnell come over behind me and watched me, and then Mike come and him and Dutch talked about the weather, wondering if it was too wet to play, and I turned around to Dutch and I said, “If you are not afraid of a little dampness you are in for an opportunity of getting a glimpse of your new 20-game winner.”

  “Well,” said he, “that settles it, for I am willing to be swallowed in the sea if I will get a 20-game winner out of the deal.” Some of the Mammoths beefed about playing in the rain, but Dutch called “Play ball!” and I noticed that 1 word from him put the lid on all complaints.

  Bub Castetter was throwing against us. Bub was cut loose just this past year to make room for me. Somebody is always getting the ax for my sake—the batting-practice kid at Perkinsville, then Slim Doran, then a fellow name of Duckworth at Queen City, and finally Bub in May of 52. I suppose that right now there is somewheres a kid in short pants that will someday crowd me out. Perry Simpson led off for us and drilled a single into center, and he no sooner got on base then he stole second. However, we could not push him around. Canada and Coker both connected but flied to Pasquale Carucci in right, and Squarehead Flynn struck out to end the inning.

  I went out to the hill. I cannot tell you how nervous I was. I scuffed my shoes on the mound and built myself the right kind of a toehold. Joe Jaros was coaching over behind third, and he yelled at me, “Let us go there, punk, for we wish to pile up about 8 or 10 runs before it rains down hard,” and I did not give him so much as a look.

  I got the sign from Porkpie, and I throwed high and hard to George Gonzalez, and it cut across his letters, and it was a strike. He stepped back out of the box and looked down at the Mammoth bench like he was saying, “Where did this kid get this speed?” and then he stepped back in and I throwed him another, and he swang and fanned the air, late, and he stepped back out again to think matters over, and the rooks on the bench begun to whoop things up, and they shouted out at George, saying, “What is the matter, Cuban? Have you never seen that kind of speed down there below the border?” and a number of things along that line. Then I struck him out with the screw.

  It was not the best screw I ever throwed. In fact it was not too good of a 1 a-tall, for the ball was a little wet, and I asked for another, and Dutch said go ahead and pitch with the 1 I had. “Do you think this club is made of baseballs?” he said.

  Porkpie give in and throwed the damp ball back to me. I tossed it back at the ump. “If you do not mind if a few boys get their skull broke it is no matter to me,” I said, and the ump looked at Dutch, and Dutch said give me a new 1.

  Lucky Judkins was batting second in the order for the Mammoths. As it happened, the new ball was a little bit wet and Porkpie did not have no more sense then to call for a curve, and the curve never broke, and Lucky spanked a single into right. Things was a little quieter down on our bench. Vincent Carucci come up. He bats left. There was some dimwitted kid in right for us, and he shifted over close to the line, and I waved him towards center about 10 feet, for I knowed that few hitters pulled any pitch of mine down the line. The kid in right did not do like I said. I got 2 strikes on Vincent with the fast ball, and then I wasted 1, and then he lined 1 into right that if the kid been playing where he should of he would of had it without hardly moving. He got 1 hand on the drive but could not hold it, and it went for a single and George moved to third and Sid Goldman come up.

  Sid is from New York. He is a power hitter, though weak in the field, yet still and all the best first baseman in baseball except for Jim Klosky. We thought about walking him but then changed our mind, and he swang hard on the first 1 and missed. He cut a little upwards on the ball, and I noticed that and decided to throw high, and he swang again and missed again, and me and Porkpie talked it over. “Now we must waste 1,” I said, “and maybe he will bite. Then we will fool him with the fast 1 again,” and Pork-pie said that was a good idea. I throwed just above the shoulders, very fast, and Sid give it the go-by. Things was going according to plan.

  I got set to pitch. I checked my runners, and they was close, and I reared all the way back, almost to the ground behind me, and I let fly, and it was burning fast, right where I wanted it, and Sid swang, and he connected, and the sound sent my heart tumbling 65 miles an hour down in my shoes. The ball sailed upwards and upwards and out of the park across the street and clear over some damn house that was sitting there.

  Now, I do not consider it no honor to be the pitcher that somebody hits the longest ball in history off of. But I might as well tell it straight. Besides, you probably read it in the papers since after the game the writers went down on the field and paced off the distance from home plate to where the ball fell in the back yard of the house across the street. There was big write-ups coast to coast, for that ball went 591 feet, breaking a record that stood for 31 years since Babe Ruth hit 1 in Tampa, Florida, off the Giants in 1919, good for 587 feet.

  Well, these writers get in my hair. Did they consider that the wind was with it all the way? Did they consider that the pitch was so fast that it was no wonder Sid hit it so far? Did they consider that the ball was a good deal livelier then the 1 that was in play back in 1919? Did they mention in the papers that I almost struck him out on the previous pitch? Did they mention that I had fanned George Gonzalez? Did they mention that there was men on base and I never took a full wind-up? No, they never considered none of these things plus a few more I could mention. They consider what they feel like considering. They send only the juiciest angle back to their paper and leave out the rest.

  But after it happened I was not thinking of this. All I was thinking was that this was it. I was through. Hail and farewell, punk, there is always a job for you pumping gas for Tom Swallow. Mike Mulrooney come down to the hill, and he said, “Well, Hank, maybe this is just not your day. Why do you not go back and get under a nice warm shower?”

  Somebody tossed me my jacket and I slung it over my shoulder, and I walked back across to the barrackses, across all the diamonds, and it was 1,000 miles and I never looked back.

  Chapter 11

  NOBODY can possibly imagine my misery that afternoon. All the people of my life swum before my eyes. I could see Pop, and he was sad, and I could see Holly and Aaron, and I laid on my bed and did not take my uniform off nor take a shower, but I covered up my head with my jacket, and I laid there a long time.

  Soon the boys come trooping in. Lindon Burke had went in to relieve me, and he pitched the rest of the game. It only went six innings because the rain come down, and the Mammoths beat the rooks by 5–2. Lindon went up with the club that summer and is still with them as you know. Sad Sam pitched the last inning for the Mammoths. It was his first time out that spring and he set the side down 1–2–3.

  My head was hid under the jacket, and I could hear them talking. Perry had got 2 hits and Coker 1, and the 2 runs we got Canada drove in with a triple, so it was a good day for them though misery for me, and they was talking and laughing. Then Perry seen me on the bed with my head hid, a
nd he said, “Boys, leave us be a little quiet for Wiggen is asleep,” and they tiptoed around, and they talked about me, and they said it was too bad I had not showed up better. It was like I was in a coffin and the people was walking around and whispering and saying, “It is too bad he has passed to the great beyond so young.”

  Then the loud speaker said dinner. There was a big rush of feet, and they all left, and I uncovered my head, and Perry was standing there looking down at me, and he said, “Dinner, Hank.”

  “I do not want none,” said I.

  “What is that?” said he. “Say it again, for I must not of heard right,” and he picked up a towel and scrounged in his ear like he was cleaning it out. “Henry Wiggen does not want dinner,” said he. “Then I guess they are giving away money free and the seas has dried up and they have elected me to the White House.” Then he sat beside me and put his hand on my shoulder, saying things that you would say to a man when he is just about dead, and you tell him he will be up on his feet by tomorrow when already you have bought him a coffin and hired a preacher to speak at his grave.

  “Get out of here,” said I, and I pushed his hand from off my shoulder, and he went off to dinner and I laid there on the bed.

  Soon in come a kid about 8 years old. He had a baseball in 1 hand and a note in the other. The note said:

  Dear Mr. Wiggen,

  This is the baseball that Mr. Goldman hit 591 feet off you this afternoon. Will you please put your signature on it if you know how to write, or your mark if you do not.

  FAITHFUL FAN

  “Who give you this?” said I to the boy.

  “A man at the hotel,” he said.

  I took the ball and made an X on it and give it back to the boy. I do not know to this day who wrote it, probably Sam Yale or Swanee Wilks or 1 of their stooges—Knuckles Johnson or Goose Williams. Knuckles is a righthanded knuckleball pitcher. The knuckles of his hand stick far out. It looks awful when you look at it much. Goose is the second-string catcher. If you ever goose him he will howl blue murder. The boys have tried for years to get an umpire to goose him when he goes down in his crouch behind the plate, but they never will.

  I stuck the note in my gear, and I have it yet. Soon the boys come trooping back from supper, and just about then my name come over the loud speaker ordering me down for a conference at the Mammoths office in the Hotel Silver Palms.

  “What is the hurry?” said I. “They are going to do no more then tell me to clear out.” I begun to undress and shower. Perry brung me a pie and a quart of milk and come down to the shower and give me hunks while I was under, and now and then a swig of milk.

  “Leave us sing,” he said, but I did not feel like singing. Besides, it never really sounds good except when you are all in the shower. I did not have the spirits to sing, and I dried and dressed, and every few minutes the speaker would speak, saying “Henry Wiggen. Where is Henry Wiggen?” and I shouted back at it, saying, “What in the hell is all the rush to fire me?”

  “The fewer the better,” said Coker, “for if you eat a meal or sleep in a bed it is costing old man Moors plenty because he is now down to his last 25,000,000 in the bank.” This give us all a laugh, for it was about this time that Moors was setting up about 1 new factory a week in case of a new war. Old man Moors was hardly even finding much time to give to the club, most of the business handled by Patricia now, though he was down in Aqua Clara 2 weeks this past spring. Dutch says he would as soon he stood in Detroit.

  “They ain’t going to fire you,” said Canada. I guess I knowed it too but got some kind of a kick out of feeling sorry for myself.

  In come Mike Mulrooney. He was all dressed up. I had never saw him so dressed before, and I hardly recognized him, but you can never forget him once you hear him laugh. He laughs a great, rich laugh, and he shakes all over and his face gets redder then it was before. I had read a good deal about him in the books before I ever met him, and some of the writers called him “Laughing Mike.” Yet there was never a 1 that did not have the highest respect for him as a ballplayer, and then when he was too old he went to Queen City and managed the club there, the Queen City Cowboys. He was laughing now, saying “Damn it, where is Henry Wiggen? Henry, have you not heard them calling you for the last hour on the speaker, and old man Moors in a fit of temper?” and he hustled me in my clothes and took me by the arm, and out we went. “He is waiting at the hotel,” said Mike.

  He come to town to see Ugly Jones, and he figured he might see a few more at the same time between planes. Ugly is the Mammoth shortstop, and every year he is a holdout. He was asking 17,000 and Mr. Moors said in the newspaper that Ugly could rot in Arkansas before he would get that sum, and finally they agreed to talk it over in Aqua Clara, and they had both flowed in that afternoon. Ugly got his name because he is so Ugly. He is married to a moving picture actor by the name of Linda Lee Harper, and a beauty she is, for I seen her in several pictures and later a number of times in the flesh.

  “It seems to me,” said I, “that you have not got to call in the boss himself just to can a man,” and Mike laughed and told me not to worry about that.

  Old Man Moors had a whole sweet to himself in the hotel. Mike went in, never even knocking, and I practically fell over from the smell of perfume. The first person I seen was Dutch, and I said, “Dutch, that is a mighty strong perfume you are wearing tonight,” and Mike laughed and laughed. Nobody else laughed, though I thought it was rather a comical remark myself.

  The top of the club was there, Mr. Moors and Dutch, and Egg Barnard and Joe Jaros, both Mammoth coaches, and Jocko Conrad the head of the scouts, and Bradley Lord the club secretary. They had a number of tables shoved together, and they all sat around them. They was all covered with papers and beer, and every little bit the bellboy would come in with a telephone, and then Mr. Moors would talk in it awhile, and then come back to us. Between them all they just come through a long session with Ugly, and he signed for 15,000 about an hour before.

  Then I knowed what the smell of perfume was from, for in walked Patricia Moors. She is vice-president of the club. Her name is on the contract. She is the daughter of Lester T. Moors, Jr., about 30 years old and 1 of the most beautiful women ever seen, bar none. She come in through the door behind where they was all sitting and took a place at the table, and I looked at her, and her at me, and nobody said nothing, and then Mike introduced me to all the people, and I shook hands all around, and when I shook her hand it was all smooth and covered with rings, and her bracelets jangled on her wrist like a metal tag all a-clink on a running dog, and she drawed her hand out from mine very slow, rubbing it along my palm, or so it seemed at the time.

  “This is 1 of the boys I want,” said Mike to Mr. Moors.

  “How would you like to play at Queen City?” said Dutch to me. Queen City is AA in the Four-State Mountain League.

  “We will start you at 225,” said Mr. Moors, “for we have had good reports on you all up and down the line.”

  The price sounded low. “Many of the AA boys I been talking to are getting lots better then that,” I said.

  “Ho ho,” said Mr. Moors. “I see where we have got another problem on our hands. Are you 1 of them ballplayers that plays only for the money or are you 1 of those kind of young men that we wish to have in our system that is in there for the love of the game?”

  “Well,” said I, “anybody will tell you that I love the game, but Pop says never sell myself short. I am worth more then 225.”

  “He loves the game,” said Mike. “I know that he loves the game.”

  “Who is Pop?” said Patricia.

  “My pop,” said I. “He was with Cedar Rapids in the Mississippi Valley League.”

  “Here is the thing,” said Dutch. “You must not get the idea that you are doing us any favor in Q. C. You are going to Q. C. as a favor to yourself. A season or 2 under Mike Mulrooney will make a ballplayer of you.”

  “We are building,” said Mr. Moors. “It is next year and the year after
that we are aiming at. You are not yet ready. You are still not a ballplayer a-tall.”

  “I would not put it just that way,” said Mike. “He is a very fine young ballplayer, but he has got his faults.”

  “Pop says I am just about the finished product,” I said.

  “Maybe Pop is not the final word in these matters,” said Mr. Moors. “You have got to start considering Mr. Mulrooney in place of your pop, for he is in charge of you from now on.”

  “Leave us look at a few pictures,” said Patricia. Bradley Lord jumped up out of his chair and run around the room turning off the lights. Then he run over to the movie camera and switched it on. Bradley is a frog. You know how a frog does. When he is sitting on the ground you give him a little touch on the behind and up he leaps and starts to run. If Mr. Moors or Patricia Moors is to say a word up he jumps and begins to do what was said. Naturally they don’t go over and touch him on the behind, but it adds up to the same thing. 1 time in the Mammoth clubhouse I was sitting with Red when in come Bradley Lord, and he walked past, and Red said to him, “You are a frog. Did you ever think to yourself what a frog you were?” Bradley Lord said he never considered himself as a frog. “Yet at least,” said Red, “a frog will sometime not jump when he is touched on the behind, for at least sometime a frog has got the sense to lay down and die and not be a frog no longer.” He switched on the machine and throwed the beam against the wall, and it showed my name and the date, and there was pictures of me throwing. “Put her in slow motion,” said Mr. Moors, and Bradley Lord done so. “Now, Dutch,” said Mr. Moors, “tell this boy what is wrong with him.”