The Southpaw

by Mark Harris

  I dropped in the coffee shop for a bite. Dutch and Joe Jaros and Clint Strap and Egg Barnard and Swanee and Sam was at 1 table drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. They had a bunch of napkins spread out, and they was writing things down all over the napkins. I slid in behind a far table and give the waiter my order, and then Dutch shouted at me, “Say, Henry, come on over,” and I went, and I drawed up a chair in the isle. Dutch folded the napkins and put them in his pocket.

  “What are you doing out so late?” said Dutch to me.

  “I been in the park reflecting,” I said. “Do you know what I think is wrong with the boys? I think they are too tight.”

  They all looked at 1 another. “That is just what we been saying,” said Joe.

  “Maybe we hit it right,” said Dutch.

  “That is all it is,” I said.

  “Goddam it,” said Sam, “I bet that that is all it is.”

  The waiter brung me my food and Dutch paid, though I argued some. Then Dutch took the napkins out of his pocket again and leafed them through and found the 1 he was looking for. “Okay,” said he. “How is this? Simpson, Roguski, Smith, Goldman, Carucci, Carucci, Wilks, Bruce Pearson and Burke. How does that look? That moves Swanee down to the 7 spot and takes the pressure off him. It gives Red a rest and also gives an extra day to my rotation. It gives all but a few regulars a real chance to catch up on their rest. By Tuesday we should be back in shape. How does that look?”

  Everybody said it looked fine. Dutch crumpled up the napkin and throwed it on the floor. “Make Red explain it to George,” said Joe. “George been playing good ball and you would not want him to think he is getting benched.”

  “Red is a big problem to me,” said Dutch. “I feel like Red tells George what I tell him to tell him, but he puts on a different twist.”

  “That is Red,” said Clint.

  “I could of swapped Red for Bill Scudder,” said Dutch. “I would do it if I had the chance again.” Joe Jaros give him a big scowl, meaning there was a little pitcher with big ears in the crowd. I looked down in my cup like I wasn’t listening. “This is all under your hat, Henry. Then I would of swapped George to Chicago for Millard May. I would have Smith to take over in George’s spot. I like young Smith. He is my kind of a ballplayer, and in 2 or 3 years he will be the equal of George. Chicago will take these here Cubans. Then I would of got hold of Klosky some way or other. Goldman ain’t my kind of a ballplayer.”

  “He has got 5 years of youth on Klosky,” said Egg. “You would of made a bad deal.”

  “I would rather face Klosky then Sid any day in the week,” I said.

  “Maybe so. Well, this is all under your hat,” said Dutch. “I get so damn sick and tired of different ballplayers with different kinds of personality. Why in the hell do they have to have all different kinds of personality? Why in hell ain’t they all the same?”

  After a time we broke up and went to bed.

  The next day Lucky showed up at the park and got in uniform and drilled. I stood beside him and we shagged flies together. Them that you needed to run for Lucky said, “All yours, Hank,” and off I went and dragged them down, and them that just floated out to where we was standing Lucky got under and let it drop, and then he flipped to me easy and I tossed it back towards the infield. He said his back was worse then ever. He said he was over to the Navy Hospital but all they done was tear off Mick’s tape and plaster on their own.

  Lindon did not begin warming until very late. It was terrible hot, and there wasn’t no need, and Dutch give us a lecture whilst we sat around drying off. It was real short, and all he said was as far as he was concerned he did not care if we won today or not, but just go out and play the best we knowed how and then Tuesday we would be back home and rested and all set to dig in for the stretch. He was sweeter then honey. He went around the room slinging compliments. He was like your old grayheaded grandfather, all gentle and kind.

  Lindon done fine, and so did they all. If you squinted a little and took in only the box and the left side of the infield it looked like Q. C. all over again. The boys sung, and I remembered all of a sudden that all across the west they was not singing, and I think that helped Lindon plenty, for he is the sort of fellow that lacks confidence. He has got to be told time and again how good he is. If you tell him something bad about himself you have got to square it with something good. I never tell him he pitches too quick but what I tell him I wish my fast 1 hopped more, like his, even though I actually know mine hops the better.

  In the top of the sixth we rolled. Swanee and Bruce hit, and Lindon flied deep, scoring Swanee. Perry slashed a single off Jack Klausner’s glove and Bruce took second, and Coker pushed them along with a bunt that he almost beat. It was too bad he did not, for Canada followed with a blast high in the upper bleachers in left. It was a mighty swat, and we was 4 ahead. It was Canada’s first round-tripper in the big-time.

  The board showed Brooklyn swamping Boston. It seemed like we might all enjoy the open day better if we was to go home 5½ ahead instead of something less.

  In the sixth Dutch sent me down to the bullpen to warm. Lindon was just the faintest bit tired, though never in trouble to speak of, and we picked up another run in the seventh and things looked safe.

  In the Washington ninth, however, after 1, was out, both Klausner and Monk Boyd singled. Lindon could of pulled out of it fine, I believe, but Dutch never give him the chance, yanking him in a hurry and sending me in to relieve. I believed at the time that it was a mistake, and I still believe it, for he should of showed more faith in Lindon and left him finish and made him feel like he trusted him. What it was he lost his nerve—Dutch did—and put no faith in nobody.

  Anyways, it was Lindon’s game to save, and I saved it easy enough, and the only reason I mention it a-tall is because it was 1 of them games that had a meaning to it that the box score never showed.

  First off, it come as a crusher to Lindon to get lifted that way. As for the rest of the boys, they took it as the sign from Dutch that he was now wearing his worrying clothes. All the little things—Lucky’s ailing back, Ugly feeling poorly, Lindon and Piss never too dependable, Swanee Wilks somewhat in a slump—all these little things and more now added up to the fact that with the race still far from over there was the first small signs of trouble ahead in the wind, and Dutch could give us 45,000 more lectures saying “Go out and relax and play ball and never mind who wins,” but we knowed all the same that he meant something else again, for winning is meat and drink to Dutch, and losing is the bitterest of pills.

  And amongst the boys it was the same, not only on account of the money (though we never passed payday by) but also as a matter of pride, because I don’t care who they are—Sam Yale or Red Traphagen or anybody else—deep down they play ball to win for winning’s sake, not only for the cash but also for the glory. There was a lot of Dutch Schnell in all of us, and I believe that when Dutch stepped into his worrying clothes we put our own on, too. And I believe it was that Sunday afternoon in Washington that for the first time things took on a dangerous look.

  Chapter 28

  POP says, you remember, there is too much dirty language in this book. This gives me rather a jolt, for I been wondering right along whether there wasn’t too little. Him and Holly argued it over, and we asked Red when he was here. “Well sir,” said Red to Pop, “you been a ballplayer and you know how they talk. If that is the way they talk should not Henry put it down like that?”

  Pop said that was the way they talked back in the Mississippi Valley League, but he rather thought there might be a different class of ballplayers come of age in the meanwhile that talked in the higher style. “After all,” said Pop, “there is a rash of ballplayers that went to college.”

  Red said to Pop, “Do you not want Henry to write a true book so as to explain everything that happened just like it was? Why, a book about baseball without no swearing would be like “Moby Dick” without no whale or “Huckleberry Finn” without no Huck.”
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  Well anyway, you know what happened later on if you read “SPECIAL WARNING TO ALL READERS!!!”

  We played poker all the way home from Washington. It was only a short trip and we did not play long. We had got out of the habit of playing all together any more. Things run in streaks like that. For awhile we was calling everybody by their name backwards, and then that left off just as sudden as it begun. Anyways, we was back to playing poker in little groups on the way home from Washington, me and Perry and Canada and Coker and Lindon up at 1 end of the car, what you might call the Queen City bunch. Maybe also Bruce Pearson. I forget about Bruce. It was either then or soon after that the boys took to riding Bruce. Him and Lucky had a scrap and that was the beginning. 1 day Swanee called Bruce a name in the clubhouse and Bruce could not think of 1 to call Swanee back. When Bruce gets riled his mouth don’t work. Lucky laughed, not meaning no harm, just laughing, and Bruce said it was a mighty sad note when a fellow got laughed at by his own roomie, and Lucky said he would as soon room with someone else anyways. So Lucky switched over and roomed with Lindon, and Bruce with Sid, and then when the club was in New York Sid lived with his mother on Riverside Drive and Bruce was all alone, and the more alone he was the bluer he become, and the bluer he become the more the boys rode him.

  Tuesday night Cleveland moved in. There was a big crowd, 45,000 or better, and they got their money’s worth, both as to the time they put in and the brand of baseball they seen. Dutch give us a lecture beforehand. He praised the boys to the skies, and when he got done he ripped out against the writers and the announcers and the organization—the Moorses—and the schedule and the weather and the umpires. If I was to tell you some of the names he called these people you would never believe me. They was rip-roarers, just about everything in the book plus a few that was too spectacular for any book. Dutch said there wasn’t a thing wrong with the club itself, just with the people that messed in from the outside. He said he heard that a few of the boys was snapping amongst themselves and talking about changing roomies and all. He said he did not believe any such stories, for he had hand-chose the club with an eye to fellows getting along together come hell or hot water.

  He said he was pitching me tonight because he wanted to get his rotation back on schedule and not because, like some writers said, the staff was off its form. He give Sid a rest and played Canada at first, saying Sid deserved the rest for the way he hustled all year, and he put Lucky back in center so as to let him work out the kinks and get used to the tape. The boys sung that night, and we hustled, and we would of had it easy but for a couple bad breaks.

  I was hooked up with Rob McKenna. That was partly what brung the crowd, I suppose, for there was much said by the writers over which was the best young pitcher in the league, me or Rob, and 1 writer said in the St. Louis “Globe” 1 morning that it would probably be either me or him for Rookie Of The Year. As it turned out Rob won Rookie Of The Year because I won Most Valuable Player Award when the election was held around November 1 and they could not give me both. Actually MVP tops them all. I also won the Sid Mercer Memorial Award of the baseball writers association as Player Of The Year in case you’re interested.

  Rob was a different pitcher at the end of July then he was back in May. He still made mistakes, but never so soon nor so frequent.

  We played the kind of ball we always played against Cleveland, waiting for the mistakes. On this particular night they almost did not come, and it irritated hell out of me because we had the game sewed up 2 different times and then missed fire. It seemed like we lacked the punch when we needed it.

  In the seventh Nat Lee slammed a home run off me that cleared the wall in right that if there was another coat of paint on the wall would of bounced back in play. When I come back to the bench after the inning Dutch was in a mood and the boys was mostly shoving down towards the far end and trying to look invisible.

  We still trailed 1–0 when Ugly worked himself a pass to open our ninth. Perry went in to run. The crowd begun to sidle towards the exits by then, although a good many of them stopped in their tracks and leaned on the rails and watched. I don’t know why they come in the first place if they are all in such a sweat to get home. Perry kept prancing back and forth off first. Rob McKenna throwed over a few times and Perry slid back in safe on his chest. I was praying for him to play it smart and not do nothing that would get him eat out.

  Gene struck out, and the crowd begun to move again, and it was here, 2 outs from what would of been the finish, that Rob made his mistake. He went into a full wind-up. We all seen it on the bench, and we screamed, but Perry already seen it and was off like a bullet, and it was too late for Rob to check, or else he would of balked and Perry gone down anyways, and the only hope was to throw to the plate and pray that Perry busted an ankle on the way down. But he did not, and Rob felt like a fool. He must of felt a good deal miserabler 2 pitches later, for Red lined a single to left and Perry come home on wings, and the ball game was tied.

  I would like to see the face of some of them boobs that cleared out of the park and got home and then maybe flipped on their radio and found the game still going. It was still going in the eleventh, and yet again in the twelfth. Coker was down at short now in place of Ugly. Sunny Jim was in center in place of Lucky, Lucky’s back stiffening up on him in the cool of the night. It was past midnight. Horse and Gil was down in the bullpen, and they called on the phone and said don’t forget to send them down breakfast.

  I cooled off awful fast between innings. Doc Loftus said later that maybe that was when my backache set in, but I doubt it. I wore my jacket to bat in the twelfth. I do not believe I ever done such a thing before or since.

  Dutch asked me every inning did I need relief, and I said no. I said if McKenna could keep going I could. We was making him work, nobody swinging until there was at least 1 strike called, and still he kept pouring them through, and I admired him for that. In the last of the thirteenth Sam come over and sat beside me on the bench. He hardly ever done that, usually staying down at his own end, but he come and squeezed in betwixt Perry and me, and he give me a special salt pill all wrapped in silver paper, saying swallow it. I did not swallow it right away. I don’t know why. I put it in my pocket.

  The crowd was so still my ears itched. Everything seemed unnatural, like everybody was told be quiet and the noise would be filled in later, and every sound carried far, and it was like a dream where you knowed it would all stop happening real quick, and yet it went on and on, the fourteenth, the fifteenth.

  In the first of the sixteenth Barkowski opened with a single. It sounded like he hit it with a hollow bat. He danced back and forth up and down the line, and Canada covered, moving up and back with the pitches, trying to keep the runner close and at the same time play the bunt, and I throwed high to Taggart, and he tried to bunt, first fouling 1 off, and then bunting on the second pitch, and it trickled down the line towards first, and I moved over after it, and my legs was heavy and I felt like I was carrying around a sack of lead on my back, and finally I reached the ball and made the throw to Gene at first, for Gene was covering, but Taggart beat it.

  McKenna batted for himself. He got a hand, but this time it was me that got the break, for he tried to bunt but popped it in the air, and I moved a few steps to the left and took it, and the runners scrambled back to their bases.

  That brung up Reynolds. He is the Cleveland shortstop and been their lead-off man as long as I can remember. The books say he is 36. That would mean he broke into pro ball at 14. I would of rather it been a younger man that would maybe do something real dumb and help me out this late at night. It was the old veterans that worried me and give me the most trouble all year. Red signed for a fast 1, just blaze it through, and it seemed wrong to me but I was too weary to shake it off, and I throwed it, and Reynolds just looked it over, and Neininger called it a strike. He was trying to wait me, and tire me, and somehow that made me mad, and I remember that right about then I seen a little knot of people moving towar
ds the exits, and that made me mad, too, for it seemed like when a fellow is in trouble people ought to at least stick it out and watch and not be in such a hurry to rush on home because it looks a little late. It was after 1 now on the center field clock, and Red called for the same, but neither so fat nor so good, and I throwed it, and Reynolds sliced it off foul down the line in right. It hooked into the stands and clattered amongst the seats, and a lady in a white dress strolled over and picked it up and stuck it in her purse.

  I took out the pill Sam give me. I tore off the paper and popped it in my mouth, and it stuck in my throat, and after awhile it went down, and I remember thinking maybe Sam was giving me poison for all I knowed, and I remember that I wondered if anybody ever wrote a murder story where 1 ballplayer murdered another. This was about the time I begun to read murders quite a bit. Then Red give me the sign, and I throwed, and Reynolds swang and lashed it into right, and I knowed that I should of been backing up a base somewheres, but I could not think where to go. So I just turned around and watched the play. I seen Pasquale come charging in and diving and skidding along on his belly and making what they call a shoestring catch, and then all in the 1 motion he was up on his feet and firing down to second. Barkowski was halfway to third, not thinking Pasquale could make the catch, and now he was stopping short and turning and heading back towards second, and Coker took the throw, stretching out toward right with 1 foot on the bag like a first baseman, and Barkowski was doubled easy and the inning was over. I never told Pasquale what the catch meant to me, and I never asked Sam what was in the pill. I always meant to. But soon it was another day and another ball game and I guess I never did.

  Sunny Jim opened our half of the sixteenth with a single. Lindon pinch-run for him, and Canada bunted Lindon along.

  Pasquale was up there it seemed like years. He run the string out and fouled off a couple. And then I seen him shift his feet just the barest trifle, and I seen where Reynolds seen it, too, and shifted over himself and shouted to the rest of Cleveland to do the same, and Joe Lincoln yelled from the bench. But it was too late, for Pasquale drove 1 into right, and it fell close to the line and Levette Smith come over as fast as he could from where he was playing Pasquale more or less straight away, and he grabbed it and done the only thing he could do, firing it home with all he had, and the ball was still in the air when Lindon slid across.