The Southpaw

by Mark Harris

  I looked out at Rob. He was standing with his hands on his hips and his head bowed. He took 1 very deep breath, and then he looked over towards me 1 time, and then he turned and walked towards the Cleveland clubhouse. I felt very sad for him.

  In the night I felt a little crick in my back. I noticed it several times before, beginning in the west, but never like this. I turned over a couple times, thinking maybe it was just from the way I was laying, but it did not go away, and I woke Perry and told him so, and he said what did I expect after working 16 innings. He laid in bed with his arm over his eyes. Then he said several dirty words and pulled the pillow over his face and fell asleep again. I pulled the pillow off his face and told him did he remember waking me in the middle of the night in St. Louis to crack his neck. He said he did, and he stumbled up out of bed and stood there swaying and trying to open his eyes, and he said there was some liniment on the shelf in the bathroom, and I went in and brung it back. It burned, and he rubbed it on where the crick was, mumbling and swearing and saying it could of waited till morning, and after a bit I felt that he was not rubbing, and I turned, and he was sitting there dead asleep with the bottle cockeyed in his hand and dripping down over his leg. I waited to see how far up it would drip. If it dripped far enough he would of woke again in a hurry. But it did not, and I give him a little push and he fell backwards on the bed and never woke up.

  The next day I drilled a little, but it still hurt, and I went back in the clubhouse and down the stairs where Doc Loftus has his office. On a hot day it is the coolest place in the park. Piss Sterling was laid out on the table with 2 cotton sticks up his nose. He has sinuses something awful, and it got worse on the trip west. He laid there reading a paper with his arms stuck in the air. He give me a hello and Doc said for him not to talk or the medicine would all run down in his mouth. “Well, Wiggen,” said Doc to me, “I do not see you here very often.”

  “I got a crick in my back,” I said.

  “That was a great game last night,” he said. “It is no wonder you have got a crick.”

  “It sure run long,” I said.

  “Leave me see your back,” said Doc, and I pulled off my shirt and he felt around with his hand where I told him to. He said he could not feel nothing, no bump nor no break. He said if it did not clear up in another day or 2 he would shoot some X-rays.

  “Maybe it is all in your mind,” said Piss.

  “Shut up and lay down,” said Doc, laughing. That was a big joke amongst the Mammoths. When Doc Loftus could not find something wrong with somebody he sent them down to the Navy hospital or some other big hospital, and it usually wound up with a report that it was all in your mind. Then you went and seen Doc Solomon. They said that Pisses sinuses was all in his mind. Sometimes Piss would run at the nose for an hour or more, and if you told him you would be glad to do something if you could he would say, “Oh, it is nothing. It is only my mind that I am blowing out my nose.”

  “Maybe it is at that,” said Doc.

  “Nuts,” said I, and I put my shirt back on.

  In come Patricia Moors for a bottle of pills. “I have not slept in a week,” she said. I believe that was the first time I seen her since I heaved a glass at her over Memorial Day in Boston. “You ain’t ill?” she said.

  “I got a crick in my back,” I said.

  “Dutch says he hears by the grapevine that some of the boys is beefing about a doubleheader after a night game,” she said.

  “They got a right to,” I said. “It was 3 o’clock before anybody got to bed.”

  We went out of Doc’s office together, and then instead of going back up in the hot park we sat on the ledge there and looked out through the little slit in the fence where Doc himself generally sits. It give us a sort of a worm’s view, and we seen 2 rough and ready ball games plus a fist fight betwixt Goose and Johnny Libby on a play at third plus some dandy language from Dutch on the play that cost Sam the first game. Sam lost it 5–4, a tough 1. Somebody on the Cleveland bench brung along a trumpet and every little while give out with “The Old Gray Mare She Ain’t What She Used To Be” and then quick hid the trumpet until Carrera went over and found it and made them put it back in the clubhouse.

  “Poor Sam,” said I.

  “I do not feel sorry for Sam,” said she. “Sam is 1 of the few people I really and truly admire.” She was in a very confidential mood that afternoon, though dog-tired after not having slept in a week. “Is it not odd that after putting thousands of dollars in sprucing up the park I wind up down here?” she said.

  “It is out of the hustle and rush,” I said. “Though Dutch will probably wonder where I am all day.”

  “I will square it with Dutch,” she said. “Dutch is another I admire.”

  “Do you admire me?” I said.

  “It is too early to tell,” said she. “1 thing I like about you is you say what you think. You are a very frank type of a person. Most ballplayers I admire as ballplayers only. I admire Red. I admire Red as both ballplayer and man.”

  “I admire them all,” said I.

  “You go around admiring everybody you lay your eyes on,” she said. “That is 1 of the things I admire about you. Yet you need not do it, for you are in debt to no man, and you never need be. In your job you need only deliver the goods. You are not forced to act like you admire those who you do not. I am your boss, yet you are frank with me. You do not admire me, yet you make no secret of it.”

  “I admire you as to sex,” I said.

  “Well, that is something,” said she. “There goes the Boston score,” and we crouched down for a better look at the board, and Boston beat Chicago, and that meant a full game sliced from our lead.

  “Boston is getting the pitching lately,” I said.

  “A ballplayer need only do his job,” she said. “He need never throw a party for a politician by way of selling the army the product of Moors. He need never entertain the owner of a paper so as to get a decent treatment in the press. It does not matter what the press says. A home run is a home run and no 2 ways about it. A pitcher pitches a 16-inning game and not 5,000 writers can take it from him. He never need care what people think or say. All that he does is open and public.”

  “Yet there must be people to keep the organization running on all fours,” I said.

  “That is the part that is closed from sight,” said she. “That is the part that any cluck can do. There is 5,000 people in this park this minute that can step in and do what I do. But it is mine because I was born to it. My name is Patricia Moors. What gives me the chills is suppose my name was Betty Brown.”

  “You need some sleep,” I said. “You ain’t slept in a week.”

  “Nor am I libel to sleep for another,” she said. “My mind is too full of a number of thoughts, and none of them pleasant.” Then we rose and headed back up. Knuckles Johnson was coasting through to a win in the second game, and I suppose that might of put her in a better frame of mind. Yet I don’t know. She is 1 of these women caught halfway between keeping house for some cluck and really doing something in life. Holly says the same.

  Chapter 29

  THE crick in my back got no worse but no better, so Thursday I had the X-rays shot, going clear down to some hospital on 26th Street. The nurse that worked the machine said her little nephew spoke of me often and would be pleased to have my autograph, and I wrote it down over my picture that was in yesterday’s paper laying on the table in the waiting room, and then I beat it back in a cab to the Stadium. I missed the drill and never throwed a ball all afternoon, and that helped some.

  But we dropped the ball game. Boston and St. Louis was to play that night, but it rained in Boston and that chipped another half a game off our lead. That was July the 24th.

  Cleveland moved out and Chicago moved in. Dutch give us a lecture before the Friday game. He said we ought to done better then split the series with Cleveland. He hit hard on the fact that .500 ball was good enough most any time but not right now with Boston as hot as th
ey was. He said what he wanted to do was make them cry “Uncle” as soon as we could and clinch it and have the mathematics beat and then maybe take things easy 2 weeks or so the end of September until the Series opened. “This is the class of the league and there is yet a flag to win, and we are going to win it all right, for there is no question in my mind. But I would like to get it over with.” He mopped his brow whilst he talked. “Red,” he said, “does George know anything about this Lavalleja?” meaning the Chicago pitcher.

  Red spoke to George and George give him a long spiel. “George says he comes from a town nearby his own,” said Red.

  Dutch mopped his brow some more and spit on the floor and ground it with his toe. Then he said very quiet. “That ain’t what I asked you, Red. I am not interested in the personal history of Lavalleja.”

  “George says he is plenty fast and got good control,” said Red. “He has got a fast curve.”

  “Thank you, Red,” said Dutch. “You boys heard what he said, so stand right up to him and figure on good control. We ought to pick up a game or so over the weekend.” He walked up and back. “These doubleheaders are driving me out of my mind. Sunday is another. Well, that is my worry and none of yours. Okay, is there anybody got anything on his mind?” Nobody did, and we all filed out, all but Red and Dutch. Dutch called Red back, and they had a little conference all their own, and I do not know exactly what went on, for I got my story second hand from Coker who got it from Mick. Mick said they was not exactly a couple lovebirds in a cage. Dutch told Red not to be so smart, particularly around the younger men, and set a bad example, and Red said that George said that he heard that Dutch would as soon trade him off and never have another Latin on the club, and this made Red mad, George being his roomie and all. Dutch said why in the devil did not George learn the language of the country that was making him rich. Red said why in the devil did Dutch not learn George’s language. Dutch called Red a gymnasium teacher, and Red said if Dutch did not want a gymnasium teacher on his club it could be arranged, and he begun to peel off his shirt until Dutch said to not take everything he said in heat so serious. Dutch said many of the Latins in the league picked up the language by going to the movies and the TV every spare minute they got, and Red said him and George both hated the movies and the TV both. He said George was better off not knowing the language in the first place.

  As for Lavalleja, I believe he speaks enough English to order a meal and shine his shoes, and that’s about all. But he fires a baseball good enough. On a better club then Chicago he could win 15 games or more a year, for his E. R. A. is up there with the best. He is a slow worker. He might scrabble around out there 2 minutes between pitches. The crowd will holler and the opposition bench will complain to the umps, but Lavalleja don’t give a hoot for neither. He takes the attitude that if the fans is in a hurry to get home they should not of come out to the ball game to begin with, and as for the other club the more he takes his own sweet time the more they boil, and the more they boil the worse ball they play. I admire him for that. I got so I could be almost as slow as him by the end of the summer. I could keep 60,000 howling people and the other club waiting whilst I tied a shoe that never needed tying or blowed my nose when it never run, not to mention thousands more on radio and TV. I guess I growed a tough skin over the year.

  Lavalleja kept us in agony that afternoon. It was like trying to make time on a highway where every mile there was a full stop sign. Dutch moved Pasquale to center and played Canada in right. It looked odd to see Canada in the outfield. Yet we expected it. Krazy Kress wrote that Dutch was about to cut loose 1 outfielder and bring up a pitcher from somewhere, maybe Dolly Peterson from Q. C. I always liked Dolly and hoped it was true, for we needed another pitcher.

  We kept getting men on base almost every inning. Then Lavalleja would drop off in his wintertime sleep, and by the time he was ready to throw again we scarcely remembered our signs, and the batter would back out and look for his sign again, and the runners would wear theirselves thin running up and down the baselines. Piss turned in a fine job, and it was 2–2 going into the ninth. They scored 1 time, and we tied it up right away, Sid lining 1 into the stands in right just over the bullpen, and we went into extra innings.

  In the first of the tenth Jeff Harkness beat 1 into the ground in front of the plate. It was an easy play, and I do not know what happened except that Piss went for it and it rolled up his arm and over his shoulder, and Harkness beat it, and then Pisses sinuses begun to trouble him. Vasquez singled. We expected the bunt, and then he whaled 1 that would of crippled George if he did not leap up out of the way. It was stupid baseball, but I guess when you are as low down in the standings as Chicago you will try anything once. Harkness held second, and Leif Lindsay pushed the runners along with a bunt, and Piss throwed 2 wide pitches to Joe Fredericks, and then Red went out and talked with Piss, and then they called for Dutch, and Dutch went out and spoke awhile and finally signed down to the pen for Horse. Horse walked Fredericks on purpose, and we played for the double play on Millard May. We almost got it, too, but “almost” ain’t enough. May rapped down to George, and George fired to Gene and Gene to Sid, and May beat it by a hair, and Harkness scored from third. And that was the ball game, for we could not do a thing in our half of the tenth.

  That night I went up with Sid for dinner at his mother’s on Riverside Drive. I was glad to have the invite. Tempers was short in and around the hotel. Sid has got the right idea about living at home if you can.

  Friday night is a special time at Sid’s. He has got 1 brother and 2 sisters, and they come and bring their family, 5 kids all told, and Sid sometimes brings 1 ballplayer up. He brung Piss and Lindon and the Caruccis in the past, and Monk Boyd when Monk was a Mammoth. He said he would bring Perry Simpson, but he did not think it would sit well with his mother. He said it took him a long enough time to whip her in line and let him bring Christians much less a Negro. I told his mother I might as well be a Jew for all I was ever anything else, and she got a big boot out of that. I told her that many of my best friends in Perkinsville was boys I played with on the YMHA basketball club. I did not tell her who they were. They was 2 Irishmen, 2 Italians, 4 Jews and Cal Robertson that I don’t know what Cal was. The kids all fell in love with me at once. The oldest was a girl, 16, name of Sylvia, and I tried to shove in beside her at dinner but the other kids would have none of that. There was 1, boy on either side of me and 1 about 7 that wanted to sit on my lap, but his mother yanked him off and his father said if he did not do right he would not take him to the doubleheader Sunday. The 4 youngest kids was named Oscar, Irving, Joseph and Helene. I kept looking across at Sylvia, and her at me, and I had her on my mind a full 2 days afterwards.

  There was a maid that damn near run her legs off back and forth betwixt the dining room and the kitchen. I felt sorry for her. Her name was Mary, and after dinner I snuck back in the kitchen for some milk, for it was against the regulations to have it with the dinner, and she asked me was I not the boy that roomed with Perry Simpson. I said I was. She give me 2 glasses of milk. I must say that you have got to admire anybody like Sid that is willing to give up his milk for his religion.

  We begun with a prayer said in Hebrew by Sid’s older brother. Everybody bowed at the neck, the men and boys covering up their head with a napkin. Then we sat down and begun to stow it away. There was filter fish with horse radish, and soup with a couple doughy balls floating around, and there was roasted duck and cold slaw with a slice of ice on top and bread without no butter and finally cake and tea. I drunk about an inch of red wine, although it was against my rules to drink but Sid said it would never hurt me. Sid’s sisters pointed out to them kids how careful I was to eat and drink all in the right amount. It was all delicious. Mostly we talked about what was causing the club to slump.

  Whatever I done them kids done the same. They hung on my every word, and they felt of my muscles and made me spread my hand, and they studied it. Actually my hand is not too big, spanning about
10½ across. Sam has got the biggest hands on the club, about 12 inches. “I will bet you that Henry does not bite his fingernails,” said 1 of the sisters. “Do you, Henry?”

  “No,” said I. “I do not. Who bites their fingernails?”

  “Irving does,” she said.

  “Why,” said I, “ain’t that terrible?”

  Irving said he would never bite his fingernails no more.

  “I will bet you that Henry does not need to have chocolate syrup in his milk every time,” said the other sister.

  “No sir,” said I. “I drink it plain.”

  “I hope Joseph heard that,” she said.

  He did. He said it would be plain white milk for him forever after.

  Then they wanted me to go out in the park with them and play ball. I said I just spent the whole afternoon playing ball. Then this brat Helene says no I did not, for she seen the game on the TV and never seen me even in the bullpen. Sid said I had a crick in my back and needed the rest. This turned the trick, for these kids was Mammoth fans from the word “Go,” and it give them a real feeling of helping the club by not tiring me out. They clumb on my shoulders a little and made me hoist them up and see how much weight they gained, but otherwise they took it easy on me. Irving wished to wrestle with me and show me how strong he was on the living room floor. Finally the kids all went in the other room, all but Sylvia. She was shy and very timid. Every time I looked at her she would blush and look in her cup. Her father, name of Abner, had many theories on the causes of the slump, all of them cockeyed, and afterwards things begun to break up, for they had to get the kids home to bed, promising them if they would hurry they might catch a part of the Brooklyn game on TV.