The Southpaw

by Mark Harris

  “Very well,” said I to Pop, “I will trim that down.”

  “You could also chop out the amusement park,” said he.

  I done 8 pages concerning 1 afternoon me and Perry and Coker and Canada went to Mountaineer Park in Q. C. For a dime you could throw 3 baseballs at wooden bottles stood up on a barrel, and if you knocked them all off you got a prize. “If I cannot knock them bottles off,” said I to the boys, “I will turn in my suit and go home and pump gas,” and I got up close, and I throwed, and I will be damned but I could not knock them off.

  Then Perry give the man a dime. He did not get up close but went off to the side a bit, and he bent down like he was fielding a ground ball, and then, still in the bending position, he flipped in with that little snap throw a good second baseman knows how to make, and he clubbed the bottle dead center, and off they all went. The man give him a prize, consisting of a raggedy doll.

  Then I said to the man, “Give me 3 more, and here is your dime,” and I took the balls, and I said, “How far is it from that barrel to this here counter?” meaning the place you was to throw from.

  “About 6 feet,” said the man.

  “Well then,” said I, “I will pace off 54 more and make it an even 60,” and back I went. There was people passing back and forth up and down the midway, and I said, “Out of the way, folks, unless you wish to be beaned,” and the people lined up to see what was going on. I throwed from the 60 feet, which is the regular pitching distance, and I tagged the center bottle on the nose, and off they all went, and Canada collected my raggedy doll and I come down and flipped the man a dozen dimes or more and went back to the 60 feet. About 2 throws in 3 I turned the trick. There was quite a big crowd gathered around, and the bigger the crowd the hotter I am, and Perry and Canada and Coker gathered up my prizes. I must of spent 4 dollars in dimes, and we had about 50 dolls and wind-up toys and candy canes and balloons and circus masks and glass jugs and a little red fire engine and a bowl of goldfish, and I give it all away to the kids except a couple candy canes that I ate myself. It warmed me good. That night I shut out Omaha.

  “Why,” said I to Pop, “it was a good time and ought to be in.”

  “Son,” said he, “as long as you are doing it you might as well do it in a straight line. Aaron and Holly have read many books and know how they ought to be wrote.”

  “They do not know center field from the water fountain,” I said. “They make me dizzy. What is the sense of writing a chapter for them to tell me chuck it out the door?”

  “Now,” said Aaron, “we was saying that the big thing about the 2 summers in Q. C. was that you shook off your greenness and was getting ready to go up to the big-time.” He never forgets what he was saying. He will meet you and pick up the conversation he was snarled up in 3 weeks before, after you had forgot all about it.

  “Right,” said I.

  “Just what is left?” said he.

  I shuffled through the pages, and there was nothing left but 14 pages front and back regarding Coker and Canada and Perry. We was the closest of buddies in Q. C. If someone was to come looking for 1 all they need do is find the other 3. We was either in Perry and my room or Coker and Canada’s, or else the coffee shop, or else we was somewheres out on the town, whatever town it may be, walking along and seeing the sights.

  The only other place we could be was at the park, and we always went there together, and we had our lockers 1 next to the other, and we would dress and then go out on the field together. If it was not my day to work I might take a turn at first base during the infield drill, for Squarehead Flynn would leave me do so. He is a prince of a fellow but still with Q. C. He will be there till he is old and gray.

  When I worked it was a pleasure to have that infield behind me. Ground balls was sure outs. Then, too, Coker and Perry was a grease of lightning on double plays, and Canada down at third had no little hand in double plays himself. They set a record for the Mountain League in that department the first summer, and they busted their own record the summer after.

  After the ball games, in the clubhouse, the 4 of us sung together in the shower. I wrote out all the songs we sung, such as “I Love You As I Never Loved Before,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” “Going to Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair,” “The Good Old Summertime,” “Sweet Adeline,” “Down by the Old Mill Stream,” “Meet Me In St. Louis,” “Goodnight, Irene,” “White Christmas,” “God Bless America,” “A Bicycle Built for 2,” “Old Black Joe,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” and some songs that Coker sung back in the coal mines of West Virginia, and it took up 7 pages front and back. That was a good deal of work.

  Nonetheless Aaron said it had no place in the book. “For God’s sake,” said I, “they was the best infield the Mountain League ever seen and if it was up to you they would be slid over without hardly a mention.”

  “Just exactly what is a double play?” said Holly.

  I leaned forwards and put my head down on my arms.

  “Go ahead and tell her, Hank,” said Pop, and I lifted up my head and begun to explain.

  “The most usual type is when you have a man on first,” I said. “Then the batter hits a ground ball to the infield, and the infielder scoops it up and tosses to second. That gives you a force on 1 man. Then the second baseman or the shortstop, whichever took the throw, he rifles it down to first base. If it gets to first base ahead of the runner you have worked the play. You have got 2 men out on the 1 pitch.”

  “That does not sound hard,” said Aaron.

  “It is a beautiful play when done right,” said I. “It is harder then it sounds. The average ballplayer can get from home plate to first base in 3 seconds. A fast man can do it in less. So you have got 3 seconds to field the ball clean, fire it to second, make the play there, keep clear of the runner, pivot and throw to first. That is a lot of work to do in 3 seconds. The shortstop and the second baseman have got to be like a fine machine, working together to the split of a second. They have got to know each other like a book. It is like they was 1 and the same man, not 2 different men. That is how Perry and Coker works, like they was 1 and the same man. It is beautiful. Then, too, it is a great help to any pitcher. It saves wear and tear on him. A good double play combination around second base will save you many a ball game. It can win a pennant for you or lose it.”

  “All this brings us to the very point of the whole discussion,” said Aaron.

  “I must say it is about time,” said I, “for it is now 2 o’clock in the morning and we have jawed away at this thing for 7 hours. There is nothing left.”

  “There is still the main point left,” said Aaron. “You have jammed it all in 1 sentence, but it is the main point,” and he picked up 1 half of the last page that I had tore in 2, and he read what I had wrote. He read: “Well, the outcome was that I went up to the Mammoths in September of the second summer, and I pitched 1 inning in relief against Boston.”

  “You might just as well throw that out, too,” said I, “for you cannot have a chapter that has got only 1 sentence in it.”

  “Yet that is the big point,” said he, “for that is what you were aiming at from the time you first took a baseball in your hand. The rest of the chapter is full of dead matter that leads you nowheres.”

  “I will not write it over,” said I. “I should of never begun it. It is Chapter 12 and that is a bad number for me and always was.”

  “That is up to you,” said he. “If you wish to leave number 12 out of your book it is your right to do so. However, it seems to me that whatever chapter follows 11 ought to be about when you was sent up to the Mammoths.”

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “I will do it tomorrow. I thank you all for your wonderful goddam help.”

  Aaron and Pop went home, and I was tired, and yet I could not calm down and sleep. I lit the fire in the fireplace and shaved a new point on an Eagle #4. I thought I would write a few minutes and then turn in. Yet when you get to writing you run on and on, and it is hard to stop, and I have wrote 14 m
ore pages front and back and still not got into the main point, which is when I went up to the Mammoths. I will do it tomorrow—that is, tonight. It is now daylight and I must first get some sack.

  Chapter 13

  WELL, the outcome was that I went up to the Mammoths in September of the second summer, and I pitched 1 inning in relief against Boston.

  The word come on a hot afternoon. Me and Perry was laying on our beds in our room in the Blue Castle Hotel in Queen City in the Four-State Mountain League when in come Coker and Canada in their shorts and bare feet. Canada said it was so hot he had took 4 showers since noon. Coker said you would never know what hot was until some summer’s day you was down in a coal mine in West Virginia, and then you would know.

  “I will tell you what hot is,” said Perry. “If you was ever to be in the Ford Rouge plant of a summer’s day you would know what hot is. When I lay me down here and I think it is hot I say to myself be thankful you are laying here in your under drawers with this pitcher of ice water in your hand and be glad you are not back in the Ford plant.” He took a drink from the pitcher, and he passed it to me, and I drunk and I give it to Canada. “I only hope I can save my money and never go back to the factory,” said Perry.

  Just then in come Mike Mulrooney, manager of the Queen City Cowboys and 1 of the grandest men you will ever meet. He taught me more baseball then any man before or since. Pop set me up and Mike put the finish on. When I went to Q. C. the summer before I was a fair enough country ballplayer, and when I come away I was big-time, and Mike said, “Well boys, leave us phone down and have them send up some steam heat.” This give us all a big laugh, for Mike was always ready with a joke. He flopped down in a chair and begun to fan himself with the newspaper. We sat, and we waited for him to say what he come to say, for Mike seldom come just for the visit. He always come for a purpose. Maybe he would come to tell of a fault he seen in 1 of us, or he would come and wise us up on some trouble another fellow was having. He might say, “Now boys, I want you to help me out with Squarehead Flynn,” meaning Squarehead Flynn the first baseman. “I do not think it is kind to Flynn to call him by the name of Squarehead, so if you boys will just call him Flynn or Bob it will be a big favor to me.” We done it when we remembered, though “Squarehead” seemed to fit perfect. But if Mike Mulrooney was to ask it you could never refuse. Still and all he never jumped right into the business of his visit, and we always waited, and he would talk about the weather or last night’s ball game or some old-time remembrance, and on this day he said, “I do not call this hot. Nowadays the ballplayer has got things better. It is cool at night, and we play so much at night nowadays, and the trains and the hotels is air-condition. I will tell you what I call hot. I remember doubleheaders in St. Louis when it was 110 in the shade.”

  “What would you say is the hottest city of all?” said Canada.

  “St. Louis,” said Mike. “Washington is close. All of them is hot. I remember hot days everywhere. Yet I was always a good hot weather ballplayer.”

  “The hotter it is the better Pop likes it,” said I.

  “I have played ball in cold and snow in Boston and wet and dry and thunder and lightning. I once played ball in the flood in Cincinnati. But the worst of all is heat,” said Mike. “However, I did not drop in for story hour. The reason I come is because I just heard from Dutch.” He took a wire out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was the wire I was waiting 20 years to see. It said:

  R. DVA 165 SER PD WUX NEW YORK 12 1158A

  MICHAEL J. MULROONEY

  BLUE CASTLE HOTEL

  QUEEN CITY

  SHIP ME WIGGEN FASTEST

  DUTCH

  I have got the wire yet, and I could not believe my eyes, and the other boys come around behind me and looked, and Canada give a whoop and shot out the room and spread the news around. I sat froze to my bed, and the first 1 I saw was Pop in my mind, and I said, “I must send a wire to Pop.”

  “I have sent 1,” said Mike.

  “I better get moving,” I said, and I begun to cram things in my bags.

  Mike laughed. “Do not be in such a hurry, Hank. I have got your plane reservations for 11 tonight,” and I sat back down, and Mike said, “I hope it is the right thing.”

  “I am ready,” said I.

  “Yes, you are ready,” said he. “But you have still got many things to learn.” He fussed and fidgeted, and finally he said, “I will tell you the truth, for you will hear nothing but lies from now on. You are a natural ballplayer. You have won 21 games this year. You are a regular horse for work. Yet you have got things to learn. When you get up to the Mammoths there will be 1 man that will be no end of help to you.”

  “That is Sad Sam Yale,” said I.

  “No,” said he, “it is not Sam. Do not listen to a single word said by Sam Yale. Do not play cards with him. Do not drink with him. Do not lend him money nor borrow any. If you see him with a woman put that woman down in your book as a tramp, for if she is not a tramp at the start Sad Sam will make her 1. Everything that Yale touches will turn to shit. Except only 1 thing, and that is a baseball. When he is pitching you must glue your eyes to him and never take them off. You must learn to watch him and never listen to him, and you will learn much about baseball and much about life.”

  “Then who is the man that will help me?” said I.

  “That is Red Traphagen,” said he, meaning the Mammoth catcher. “When he says something that has got to do with playing baseball you must hang on his every word like it was the word of God. He is the smartest ballplayer in baseball today. If he did not have so much respect for his own personal self-respect he would be in line to be a manager. But he will not brown-nose. On the ball field he will talk only about baseball, and you must listen. If you can remember to do it write it down afterwards and study it once in a while. But when you are off the field do not pay him no more mind then if he was a pillar or a post. He is all full of chatter and nonsense. He does not believe in God. That is 1 thing I hold against Red. A ballplayer must believe in God.” Mike was quite religious himself and went almost every Sunday. I did not know if I believed in God or not. I rather suppose I did not, but I said nothing.

  I said, “It is sad to me to hear what you say of Sad Sam Yale.”

  “Yes,” said he, “it is sad. It is always sad when a great ballplayer goes wrong as a man. I am not telling you these things out of anything personal. I am telling them to you because I want you to be a great and immortal ballplayer. You have all the makings. You learn fast and never forget. But never listen to Sam nor the men that is his pals. If they was once good in their heart they are good no longer, for Sam Yale has did them in. Steer clear of Knuckles Johnson and Goose Williams and Swanee Wilks.” Mike grabbed the water pitcher and took a swig, and then he took some ice from the tray and dumped it in the pitcher and sloshed it around. “There is nothing more to tell,” said he. “Remember that the parks will be bigger then in the Mountain League. But do not let this make you over-confident. Do not relax too much at first. When you are in trouble rely on your curve and forget the fast 1. Do not forget that the boys you will be throwing against will be hitting harder then any you have ever faced. Remember that you will be throwing against the very best ballplayers in the world. True, some of the best ballplayers in the world will be on your side, too.

  “Henry, I will tell you the damn truth. The damn truth is that I can tell you no more about baseball. You are already a fine young pitcher. When you are up there you will be playing the same game you been playing all your life. The ball will be the same, and the bases will be the same 90 feet apart, and there will be 9 men to a side, and the game is still decided by who scores the most runs. The main thing is not half so much the other teams but your own men that you will be playing with and traveling with and be close to every hour of the day from February to October. I have told you what I know about the men. The rest I do not know so well. They are young men. Let me see,” and he leaned back and begun to reel off the men on his
fingers. “The Carucci brothers, they are Roman Catholics of the Italian race, and good boys, and they stick together. I do not know them, nor I do not know Lucky Judkins, for he is young and new. Scotty Burns and Sunny Jim Trotter is the rest of the outfielders. They do not mix in with the rest. They stay to theirselves and sometimes I think this is best.

  “Ugly Jones and Gene Park are steady hands. You can depend on them. I do not know Goldman or Gonzalez. Gonzalez does not speak the language, and he is just as well off. They are the kind of young men that Dutch is trying to build a club around. That is your infield, for the rest will be cut loose.” Mike looked at Coker and Perry and Canada. “Here is the rest of your infielders right there in their underwear if they show up good in Aqua Clara in the spring. That is a secret amongst us 5, but it is the straight dope from Dutch.

  “Red Traphagen will catch about 135 games a year. I have spoke about him and Goose. Bruce Pearson is your other catcher. He was big-time when I sent him up, but he does not get enough work. This has knocked his spirits all to hell.

  “The pitching is young. If the pitching comes through you will have a winner up there in New York in the next year or 2. It all depends. Sam and Knuckles and Horse Byrd is your only veterans. Carroll I do not know. Castetter was sent down today, and he will never go back up. That leaves Sterling and Gil Willowbrook and Macy, plus Lindon Burke and yourself. Tell Lindon that if he gives himself 10 seconds between pitches he will help his control.” Mike kept looking off in the distance, like he was in a dream. There was more he had on his mind to say, and we knowed it, and we waited, and he did not say it. I always wonder what it was, and I wonder to this day. Yet he said nothing but only rose and said, “I will see you boys at the park tonight,” meaning Coker and Canada and Perry.