The Southpaw

by Mark Harris

  Lindon kept getting in trouble and then pulling out. Red steadied him and made him take things slow, and Lindon wore a worried face and frowned and scowled and done 100 useless things that sapped away his energy, mopping his face 2 and 3 times between pitches and picking up the resin and throwing it down and picking it up again, and he balked once in the eighth and it damn near cost the ball game, but he pulled out of that, too, and after every inning he come in the dugout sweating like I never seen him sweat before, his eyebrows plastered down to his head, and I fanned him with a towel between innings and told him I never seen 1 man throw so much stuff as him.

  The score was tied 2–2 when Jim Klosky come up with 2 down and none on in the last of the ninth and lined 1 into the corner in right center, square in the angle of the wall where they come together, and Swanee and Pasquale give chase. Both boys have played St. Louis many a time over the years, and they know the walls, but it was a hard 1 to play nonetheless, and Pasquale got his glove on the ball, but it spun out, and Swanee trapped it and begun the throw about the time Klosky steamed around second, and Gene Park took the throw in short center and fired in, and Ugly yelled “Burke,” meaning Lindon should cut it off because Klosky made third standing up, and Lindon cut it off behind the box about halfway to second.

  What got in Lindon then I will never know. Klosky made the turn at third, edging a few steps in towards home, and Lindon cocked his arm, and Klosky made a faint for home, though of course he had no plans whatever in that direction, and he edged off a few more steps, and then a few more still, and still and yet a few more. Then all at once he broke for home. I do not know why except that when your club is in fifth and headed neither up nor down you might try anything just for the laughs, and Lindon stood with his arm cocked, like he was a statue froze to the spot. It seemed like years. It might of been as long as 1 second, and there was still plenty of time to nab Klosky at home, and then he throwed, except he did not throw home to Red, but down to George at third, throwing to the wrong base like you will see kids do on a playground 9, and George come out for the throw as fast as he could and took it and fired to Red, and Klosky hit the dirt and made it by the split of a second, and that was the ball game.

  There was never a sound in the clubhouse, never a word spoke nor a laugh laughed. There was only the sound of water in the shower, and the sound of Mick tearing tape. If somebody was to snap the cap on a Coke it would of amounted to a noise.

  Chicago beat Boston that night. I caught the score on a newscast at 11. I never care much for them newscasts myself, but beginning along about the end of August when the race growed so hot the first item on many a newscast was the ball scores, never mind the wars and never mind the politics, and we would catch that much and then tune out, and I went down the hall and dropped in on Lindon, thinking I might cheer him up, and the room was dark and Lucky said do not turn on the light for he had give Lindon some pills to go to sleep. Lucky said the last thing Lindon said before he went under was tell me he did not mean to call me that name he called me in the clubhouse. Me and Lucky talked in the dark. He said Lindon was all broke up over the boner he pulled, and he cried and cried and carried on plenty, saying he had ruined Coker’s plan to buy his folks the brick house and ruined all the plans all the boys made to take trips in the winter or buy a house or do what they planned with their Series money, and he said that on account of him Hams Carroll’s little girl would be a cripple. Hams has a little girl with a twisted leg that he would have fixed in Minnesota in the winter with the Series money. Finally Lindon was just about hysterical and Lucky went and got some pills from Doc Loftus and put him to sleep.

  I worked and won on Wednesday night with my arm sore from my shoulder partway to my elbow where I strained it trying to shift some of the heavy duty off my back. Red kept nagging me, saying he seen too many arms throwed out by youngsters with more ambition then brains. Yet I suppose he was as relieved as the rest that I won it, for Boston smothered Chicago 11–1.

  Sad Sam Yale went the distance on Thursday, and he won it, and Boston won again in Chicago, and the east headed east for the final time, Boston still hot and the Mammoths glad enough to have 1½ games to go home on because there was times when it looked like we might have even less. We figured to do better at home then we done on the road, and Dutch said the same, and the writers, too. Things could of been worse, I suppose.

  When we hit New York I got a call from the Perkinsville “Clarion” asking me where was Bill Duffy. They had not heard from him in a week, and I remembered that the last I seen of Bill he was planning a trip across the river for a drink with a friend in East St. Louis. But I did not tell them that in Perkinsville, nor I did not tell them Bill was in his cups from the time we left Chicago.

  Bill always drunk heavy, but never like that before, and the greater the pressure got the harder he drunk. Under pressure you squirm out the best way you know how. For me it was the far corner of the lobby with a murder. For Bill it was the bottle.

  STANDINGS OF THE CLUBS

  Saturday Morning, August 30

  Won Lost Pct. Games Behind

  New York 78 45 .634 —

  Boston 79 49 .617 1½

  Brooklyn 72 52 .581 3½

  Chapter 32

  LABOR DAY fell on a Monday. In the morning, before we was out of bed, there come a knock on the door, a very chipper sort of a knock—Boom, diddy boom boom, BOOM BOOM—like somebody was in high spirits. We could not imagine who.

  The door opened and in walked Keith Crane, his grips in his hand and his face all a smile, and he set his grips on the floor and come over and shook our hand. “How is the flipper?” said I to him, “and what in the world are you doing in New York?”

  “I been brung up,” said he. “Judkins been put on the inactive list.” I shot Perry a quick look. We always liked Keith and wished him well, but we always considered him strictly AA, a good ballplayer but never really the tops, a southpaw with a crossfire delivery that is very puzzling to hitters until they catch on to it, good control and a fair curve but not much speed. He come to Q. C. our second year there with a great record in the Northern League, which is where the Mammoths send all colored ballplayers until they are ready for AA under Mike Mulrooney. Perry seemed pleased, however. “Maybe you will bring us out of the slump,” he said.

  “I believe you are out of it already,” said Keith. We had just took 2 over the weekend in Washington and picked up a full game on Boston. “However, I must admit I was in a sweat yesterday,” and he went on to say that the hostess on the airplane kept reporting the scores on the Mammoths in Washington and Boston in Brooklyn inning by inning all during the flight. He said half the plane was for Boston and half for the Mammoths, and they hardly talked about anything else. “How is your back?” said he to me.

  “Not so good,” I said.

  “Mike Mulrooney says it is your nerves,” said he. “Who will pitch today?”

  “Anybody is libel to,” I said. “For all you know you are libel to work yourself.”

  “I am just barely off the plane,” said he. “I just got off the plane last night.” He was pretty fidgety at the suggestion.

  Me and Perry laughed. “If Dutch works you you had better work and not be full of explanations,” I said.

  I was a little late to the park that day. Traffic was slow between the hotel and Brooklyn, and the jam around the park was thicker then I ever seen it before. I got out of the cab and walked the last few blocks through all that crush in the broiling heat. There must of been thousands come over from New York plus of course thousands and thousands from Brooklyn itself. Brooklyn was just about counted out by now, and I suppose they give up on their own chances. What they was really hoping to see was the skids put under us and the road made easy for Boston. Next to seeing Brooklyn win the great joy for Flatbush is seeing the Mammoths lose.

  Crane worked and won, fogging them down crossfire and having the good sense to do what Red said on every pitch. Canada turned in a nice job in center f
ield, playing there in place of Lucky now, and it looked like Dutch might have that problem licked.

  Boston lost its first game to Washington, and our cushion jumped to 3½ again with 1 game less to go. We was in better spirits in the clubhouse between games then any time since the western swing, and the quartet sung.

  I thought I might work the second game, but I did not. Dutch was saving me for the Boston series coming up. That suited me fine. Knuckles Johnson worked it and lost it 4–3 to Bill Scudder, 2 of Brooklyn’s runs unearned on a bad throw by Bruce Pearson. Bruce took over for Red. It would of usually been Goose when Red needed a rest, but Goose had 2 floating cartileges in his elbow that kept him on the bench. Dutch eat out Bruce something awful afterwards, and Boston took the nightcap from Washington, so our cushion was back at 2½.

  Tuesday was an open day, but we drilled in the afternoon in all the heat. I throwed some, but mostly I stretched out bare to the waist deep in center field, and I left the sun bathe the back, and it was good.

  When we left the park after the drill there was already a line at the bleacher gate, 40 or 50 people sitting up against the wall, the stands mostly sold and only the bleachers left.

  The club roomed Keith with Perry, and me and Bruce went in together, Sid living at home now that we was back in New York. That was pretty much the final break-up of the old Queen City gang, Coker and Canada having split some weeks before over a matter I never knowed the inside story of, Lindon fairly chummy with Lucky now, and them 2 roomies, and Perry with Crane as stated above.

  It was in the cards. We still sung in the shower, me and Coker and Canada and Perry, but we did not run together like once we done. We was Mammoths now, no longer Queen City Cowboys, swallowed up you might say, though never swallowed up really, being neither Mammoths of the old school—Sam and Knuckles and Swanee and that bunch—and yet not green rooks neither, rooming more or less together and drilling more or less together but still and all not tight and close like we was at the first, not like some weeks before when wherever 1 was there was the others 9 times in 10 like these twins that you see pictures of in the paper joined at the hip. Perry and Keith went their own way, and off the field I almost never seen them. They went uptown a hell of a lot. Lindon and Canada developed a very fancy taste in restaurants. They spent a lot of time at Toots Shorses, and Coker put in a hell of a lot of hours at various clothing stores. He soon begun wearing a different suit every day, and I never seen a guy so worked up if his tie didn’t match his socks. Well, that was okay, too.

  I figured I could put up with Bruce for a month. Mostly he would sit and stare out the window, and then again he would trail me to my place in the lobby and sit near by, and I would be lost in a murder, and when I put it down he was still there, just sitting. Sometimes he would fall asleep. Sunny Jim said that me and Bruce was not real lobby sitters, for your real lobby sitter will neither read nor sleep, but merely sit. That was the most conversation I had with Sunny Jim all year.

  Wednesday morning about 6 A.M. Bruce woke me and told me the radio said there was a wreck on the train from Boston. He said they put on a number of extra sections to bring down the crowds, and 1 end of the railroad forgot to tell the other what was up. I told him to turn off the radio and get back in bed. He said he always got up early, ever since he was a boy in Bainbridge, Georgia, and he asked me would I come and go hunting with him in the winter, and I said I would if he turned off the radio, and he done so.

  But that was all the sleep I got. I was jumpy, and I was worried about my back, for it was tight from the knob behind my neck to the knob of my spine, and I dreamed all night that we dropped 3 to Boston and lost the lead, and Bruce said he believed that dreams come true because he dreamed 1 time that there was rabbits in a certain meadow, and he went there and there was. I said I believed it was impossible that we could drop 3 in a row to Boston. I said if we took even 1 we might scrape through, for I knowed that as long as we had the lead we had hope. Once we fell behind we would never make it back.

  Sam worked. I had not worked since the Wednesday before in St. Louis, and I do not know what the strategy was, but Dutch picked Sam. Fred Nance was on the hill for Boston. Me and Keith Crane kept warm in the bullpen.

  Sam was in trouble now and then. He give up 1 in the fifth and another in the sixth and steadied down for the seventh, and in the last of the seventh Canada and Vincent singled after 2 was out, and Sid blasted a home run and we led 3–2.

  Sam was rocky again in the eighth. Here and there amongst the crowd the song took up whenever Sam was in trouble, and groups of people would sing, “The old gray mare she ain’t what she used to be, ain’t what she used to be, ain’t what she used to be,” most of them down from Boston or over from Brooklyn, and generally they was drowned out by the rest. Nonetheless the song come through. It never bothered Sam, or if it did he did not show it, knowing as well as anybody that he was not what he used to be. Nobody at 34 has the stuff he had at 30, or 25. The crowds begun to sing that song in Washington the weekend before Labor Day, and they picked it up in Brooklyn and sung it a number of times during the holiday doubleheader, and it was with us yet on Wednesday and all through September right down to the wire.

  Casey Sharpe begun the trouble for Sam in the eighth with a single, and Heinz moved him along with a bunt. Chickering slammed 1 back towards the box and it went through into center, and Canada come in fast and fielded it with his bare hand and uncorked the long throw home, and it bounced once near the box and kicked up the dust, and Red took it at the plate and slapped it on Sharpe, Chickering going to second on the play, and the telephone rung in the bullpen, and it was for me. I walked the long walk across the green.

  Tubs Blodgett was the hitter, Chickering on second, 2 down, and still the 1 run lead for us. Tubs reminds me of Mike Mulrooney. I do not know him in a personal way except to say “Hello,” but he is the friendly type, and he looks like Mike, red of face and jolly. He hits with a black bat, and he waved it and looked as fierce as he could, though it is hard to look fierce when your face is a natural smile and you look like Santa Claus without the beard. I throwed a few down to warm, and then I was ready, and Red put his mask on and signed for nothing but curves. We always throw curves to Tubs, and I checked Chickering, and then I throwed the curve, and it did not break, and Tubs whaled it down the line in left, and a great cry rose from the people. I did not look. Then the cry all of a sudden stopped, for the ball hooked foul, and the new ball come out and I checked my runner again, and then I throwed a second curve, and it broke better then the first, though not very good a-tall, and Tubs whaled it again, trying to pull it close, aiming for the wall in left, and this time it hooked but not so soon, and finally it done so and landed in the upper deck a bare 5 feet foul or so. Red come down and asked me what was the matter. “Nothing,” I said. “Only my back. I do not seem to get the full motion.”

  “I do not think he will expect another curve right away,” said Red, “so we will throw him another,” and he went back behind the plate and settled in his crouch, and a drop of perspiration rolled down off my nose, and I stepped off the rubber to itch it before I throwed, and I felt of my face, and it was wet like I was fresh out of the shower, and I toed back in and tugged at the peak of my cap with my thumb and first finger, and with the other fingers I took the sweat of my brow and rubbed it along my fingertips, and then, with my fingers still wet, I throwed the curve.

  That is what you call a spitter. It is outlawed from baseball. A player can pull a suspension for a year if he throws it, for you can kill a man with a spitter if you hit him right. You do not have it under full control. All this I knowed, and I did not care. I did not wish to kill Tubs Blodgett, but my curve was not breaking on account of my back, and I throwed quick before I had time to think about consequences, and the curve broke big and sharp, for my fingers was slimy and wet, and Tubs swang and missed, striking out and ending the inning. Red whipped it down towards third, like he was making the play on Chickering coming down from
second, and George never even reached for the throw but left it roll to the outfield, for the rolling dried it off, and Boston stormed from their dugout and beat their chest and raged and swore and howled and stamped their feet, for it was plain to all that I had throwed a spitter. But Frank Porter could not call it a spitter because the ball was laying out in left, dry, like new, because the rolling dried it, and I was all a-tremble, knowing that I done wrong according to the rules and could of been suspended and might of killed Tubs Blodgett besides. The crowd give me a hand when I come to the bench for the way I fanned Tubs on 3 pitches, and they give Canada a hand for the fine throw on Casey Sharpe from center, yet I hardly heard it I was so scared and shaking.

  We scored twice in the last of the eighth, and I coasted through the ninth, and the cushion was 3½ again and the quartet sung in the shower.

  Boston protested to the League on the spitter I throwed Blodgett, and the League turned it down on grounds of lack of evidence though warning Dutch if I done it again I would be in hot water, and Dutch told me and said I must not do it again, and he laughed, for he was in a good frame of mind that night, which was Wednesday night, and he pitched me Thursday.

  The heat hit the peak on Thursday. 1 fan dropped dead. I wished I was anywheres else but here, though I turned in a good job for 7 innings and left the ball game with 3 on and none out in the top of the eighth and the score knotted 2–2 on account of my back.