The Southpaw
Page 37
We hardly know where to begin this sad history. Shall we begin far back when Henry the Whiner complained to his draft board that due to a constitutional disorder he found it inconvenient to enter military service? No, for such a comment on this ridiculous state of affairs might embarrass the soft-headed physicians who fell hook, line and sinker for such a yarn.
Instead, let us travel together to Perkinsville, N. Y., in which pleasant burg young Henry the Ungrateful first saw the light of day. Let us inquire on the streets and in the shops the reasons for Henry’s latest outburst against reason. I did so. I went to a man named Borelli, and a man named Levine, and to a sportswriter named Bill Duffy, as able a scrivener as ever set pen to paper. “Tell me,” I said, “Henry Wiggen complains that folks up thisaway don’t appreciate him. Oh, you gave him his start in Legion ball and so forth and so forth, but he says that these things, and the Welcome Home celebration of a year ago, all had nefarious and mercenary motives behind them. Can it be that you have not been duly appreciative of the honor and the glory he has won for Perkinsville?”
They protested, and well they might.
“Thees ees not so,” said the genial Borelli, wielding an angry razor as he shaved a customer in his popular barbershop.
“Not true,” said Levine, proprietor of the adjoining confectionery emporium.
“Henry sometimes pops off before he thinks,” said Duffy from behind his littered desk in the “Clarion” office.
Too Much Is Too Much
Or let’s look at it another way. As constant—bless ’em—readers of this column are aware, I am opposed to members of the Fourth Estate intruding upon the privacy of clubhouses. But there was a blowup in the Mammoth clubhouse shortly before gametime Saturday, and I felt it my duty to ascertain its causes and consequences.
Its cause: Henry the Whiner. Reason: he took issue with that amiable gentleman, Dutch Schnell, on a question of strategy. (One might note in passing that in 1931, the year of the birth of Henry Know-It-All, Dutch was a Mammoth coach and had recently brought to a close a glorious and honorable playing career.)
Its consequences: Henry shunned his teammates that evening at a simple but well-intentioned celebration staged by the Mammoth management. (Dutch’s strategy apparently succeeded that afternoon, the sage advice of Henry the Hooligan to the contrary notwithstanding.) Not only did Henry shun the shindig but he took the opportunity to pour into the startled ears of this long-suffering scrivener a veritable barrage of epithets and profane observations on the probable ancestry of his teammates. I shall mention no names. I am sure they know who they are.
It seems that they somehow betrayed him, deserted him. I should like to ask who betrayed and deserted whom in a midtown establishment after Friday’s game—or is it possible that Henry, when he buddy-buddied with Boston second-sacker Chickering shortly after Chickering broke the jaw of Mammoth captain Ugly Jones, was simply putting into practice the injunction to love thy enemies as thyself?
But if Henry so loves his fellow man I should then like to inquire how, earlier this month, in plain view of a packed Stadium, he found it in his ever-loving heart to hurl that most treacherous of all weapons—the spitball—at the jolly Tubs Blodgett of Boston.
The League tolerated this. The evidence, in any case, was circumstantial rather than concrete, due to quick thinking by the learned Berwyn Phillips Traphagen.
But how much longer can we go on tolerating? How long, for example, can the Mammoth front office continue to pay medical bills for Henry the Whiner’s nonexistent backache? And how often, when Henry is lonesome for his girl, can the Mammoths bring her to town and house her comfortably so that Henry, when he needs his hand held, can trip down three flights of stairs to be at his maiden’s side?
The Unkindest Cut of All
However, all this is as nothing in view of his most recent performance.
It seems that a group of public-spirited citizens have seen fit to sponsor a post-season exhibition tour of baseball players to the Orient where, on foreign battlefields, young men who would much prefer to be home playing ball are fighting to protect, among other sacred things, America’s baseball diamonds.
Henry Wiggen was invited to join this entourage. But the sacrifice, it seems, is too great. Money? No, his expenses would be paid. Time? No, he will have little to occupy him once the World Series is concluded.
“What then?” you ask.
I ask the same. I ask by what right a young man who has been generously pardoned from service can then refuse to participate even to this modest extent. I ask by what scale of simple justice do young Americans die on foreign battlefields while other young Americans are permitted to remain at home tossing a horsehide pellet back and forth on sunny afternoons for a salary far exceeding the wages of the mud-spattered soldier.
I should like to know—now—the whys and wherefores of this unspeakable state of affairs.
It is my sad duty to bring these matters to light at a time when all of us are intent on tomorrow’s Series opener. But when Henry Wiggen told me, as he did the other night, “Leave us forget Korea,” I felt that it was my duty to make these facts known.
When Henry was critical of his home town I was willing to laugh off the charge. When he berated his teammates I was willing to believe it was a temporary peeve. But when he calls on us to “forget” Korea and the sacrifices being made there, thoughtful people can only conclude that we have, in Henry Wiggen, a young man who is downright obnoxious.
An apology is in order. On behalf of myself and thousands of indignant Americans I demand that Henry Wiggen make such an apology. And he ought, as an earnest of his sincerity, express immediate willingness to correct past errors by fulfilling obligations he has thus far been unwilling to fulfill.
Is this too much to expect? Is it too much to demand that Henry Wiggen, whom a generous nation has showered with riches and fame, reward that nation with a token of esteem? I think not.
Disa and Data. I-Love-Me-I-Think-I’m-Grand Dept: in this space, last April 15, I predicted the following finish—New York, Boston, Brooklyn, Cleveland, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Washington, Chicago. That’s how they finished, too…. Plenty Friday and week-end tickets still available at the Stadium. Scalpers need not apply: two pasteboards to a customer only, and congrats to the Moors folks for this….
Dutch Schnell will work on a book this winter. Look for it in April. Title: “Dutch Schnell—Mammoth.”
Play Ball!
“Is it true?” she said.
“Part is and part is not,” said I.
“I have wrote out an apology,” she said, and she give me a paper with a big long apology typewrote out on it. Half of it said that everything Krazy said was true, and the other half was practically an invitation for a squad of marines to drag me off by dawn and shoot me.
“I will not apologize,” said I.
“Then perhaps you will deny it,” she said, and she hauled out another paper typewrote like the first, saying that everything Krazy said was lies from beginning to end. “This is the kind of a rhubarb that brings on a crisis for the organization,” she said.
“I am not worried about crisises,” I said. “I am through with them. I been through 1,000 crisises since I was a kid—high-school ball, Legion ball, semi-pro tryout, my first semi-pro game, camp games at Aqua Clara, my first games at Q. C., my first relief job with the Mammoths, Opening Day. How many crisises is a man supposed to go through? Does there not come a time when a man must simply say that nothing is so important that he must forever fight against crisises? No, I will not sign them, neither of them, neither apologizing nor denying.”
“Yet could you not at least keep these thoughts to yourself?” she said. She sat down on the bed and stared out the window, very thoughtful. “It is the organization that must be kept pure and free from scandal. You are a part of the organization.”
“I am a part of nothing,” I said.
“You owe something to the organization,” she said.
“Ugly is being took care of,” she said.
“Have you paid a visit to Ugly Jones that you screwed out of 2,000 dollars 1 fine night in Aqua Clara?”
“Who has made such a statement?” said she.
“It is common knowledge,” I said.
“It ain’t true,” she said.
“And you would behave towards me in the same way if you thought it would keep me in line,” I said. “But I have learned a lot this year. I remember what you said of Ugly 1 night in Aqua Clara. You said his brain was down below his belt. But mine ain’t.”
I believe I hit home with that, for I know very well that there was nothing, neither money nor her own self, that Patricia would not part with to smooth the path of the organization. It was her club that her father give her, her baby, her precious thing, and she would keep it rolling at any cost. I admired her for that, and I said so to her face, saying also that there was a time when for the touch of her flesh I would of done anything, said anything, apologized 300,000 times to the newspapers for what I said to Krazy. But living and hearing and seeing learned me that if I was to be a man—a man like the kind of a man Holly Webster wished me to be—I was best off at a far distance from Patricia.
And she seen that she could not budge me, and she said that she even admired me for it, though she hoped it would not reflect too bad on the organization, and she tore up the 2 papers and dropped them in the basket on the way out.
At 11 we pushed off for Philly, drilling a long drill that afternoon and freshening up our memory on some of the special features of the Philly park, and afterwards we sat around in the clubhouse where way back in April we pulled that crazy raping tool business on Squarehead Flynn. I said it seemed like 1,000,000 years ago, and the boys all said the same.
Not 1 man on the club ever mentioned Krazy’s article. I guess they knowed Krazy too well, and me too well. What do the boys care for your view on politics and such? The boys care only for what will bring them base hits and tight twirling and the melon in the end. You could be down with leppersy for all of them.
The rest is history. The Series opened on Wednesday with all the usual hoopdehoo, yours truly on the mound for New York, Coker Roguski at shortstop so nervous he could barely breathe at the start, Canada Smith in center field and hardly much better off, the Mammoths heavy favorites in despite of the fact that both Ugly and Lucky would never see action, the crowd set at capacity about 35,000 though that mark was later topped by far when we moved back to the Stadium for the third, fourth and fifth game.
Philly tried 2 corny stunts, both flops. First off they tried to rattle me by carping and harping on that old business of rooming with Perry which was tried in our own league until after once around the circuit when they seen it rolled off my back like a duck out of water, and then the other thing they tried was crowding the plate, knowing I had this fear of beaning anybody. This was also tried in our own league and come to nothing, much thanks to good handling by Red. Meanwhile the scoreboard looked like the number 2 switch went haywire, for we scored 2 in the third, 2 in the fourth, 2 in the sixth and 2 in the seventh.
The fans took up the cry, “Leave us forget it, Henry. Leave us forget it, Henry,” clapping and stomping and having a gay old time, and between innings once somebody heaved down a whole armful of these little blue forget-me-nots. They did not like my views on Korea, believing them out of place, though I noticed 1 section behind first base with the seats tore out to make room for about 8 rows of soldiers in wheel chairs with blankets around them, and I heard no sound from there. We led 8–1 after the top of the seventh.
In the last half of that inning Philly loaded the bases with 1 down, and the clapping and the hollering and the stomping interfered a good deal with my concentration. So for a long time I stood on the hill with the ball in my hand, waiting for it to quieten, and when it did not I simply stepped off the rubber and kept warm by throwing down to George at third a couple minutes until the rumpus simmered down.
Then I throwed 1 pitch to Ralphie Carucci (Vincent and Pasquale’s kid brother, a righthanded hitting shortstop) and he slashed it down towards second. Gene took it on 1 hop and flipped to Coker for the force, and Coker fired to Sid for the double, and I turned to the crowd, first to the first base side and then to the third base side, and I give them the old sign—1 finger up.
I probably caught more customers with that vulgar gesture then anyone ever done before or since, not only 35,000 in the park in Philly but millions more on TV because I understand it took the camera crews off balance.
It really wasn’t supposed to be vulgar, though. I don’t know what it was supposed to be. I guess all I was saying was they could go their way and I would go mine, and some folks is born to play ball and the rest is born to watch, some folks born to clap and shriek and holler and some folks born to do the doing. I was born to do the doing and know nothing of wars and politics. All I know is what I like and what I do not like. But I did not know how to say all this. So I said it the best way I could.
I guess the truth is it was probably 1 of the dullest Serieses on record. The only really good ball game was Thursday, which Sam lost 4–3, Knuckles winning 7–1 when we opened in New York on Friday, and Hams on Saturday by 6–0, the best pitched game of all.
I worked and won on Sunday, the whole thing wrapped up in the bottom of the first when we batted around. Canada and Vincent and Sid all hit, and then, after 2 was out, Gene and Coker connected and Red mopped up with a home run in the upper stands in left just before I come to the plate in time to fan for the third out. I fanned 4 times that day.
It was 10–2 when the curtain come down. Most of the afternoon the crowd took what pleasure it could from riding me about 1 thing and another, thinking they could needle me into a vulgar gesture or 2. But I give them no such bonus for their money.
And when it was all over with we sat till after dark in the clubhouse promising to write each other a letter over the winter and then never doing it though more then once I sat down with the best of intentions. Now there seems no use, it being February again and just about time to shove off south. This year the contract calls for 12,250 on the head.
I phoned home and told them wait up, for I was about to catch the 11 o’clock Albany train out of Grand Central, and I done so.
It was raining when the train slowed for Perkinsville. I jumped clear, throwing my bags out ahead, and the platform was slick and I almost fell. But I did not fall, and I went back for my bags and then down behind the depot to the parking lot where my Moors had sat since February. I opened her up and slid in behind the wheel and started her. But she would not start, for she would not turn over. That goddam Evva-life battery hands me a laugh.
I left her there, bags and all, and started on foot across the square. There was not a soul in sight. It must of been 2 or maybe after, and I walked rather brisk, down past the Embassy Theater, past Borelli’s where my picture was hung before they took it down, past Fred Levine’s Cigar Store, past Mugs O’Brien’s gymnasium just across from the statue of Mr. Cleves, turning north at the pharmacy corner and heading up Lincoln and out of town.
It drizzled all the way. About 1 mile later I seen up ahead 2 lights coming towards me on the opposite side of the highway, and they drawed up beside me, and a voice called out, saying, “What is the matter, Henry, did Dutch make you walk home for striking out 4 times?” and the voice was the voice of Aaron, and I crossed the road and climbed in, and Pop and Holly was there, Pop driving. “We got worried,” said Pop. “We heard the train go through.”
“My battery is dead,” I said, and we drove down to Perkinsville, and me and Holly got in the 50 Moors and Pop goosed her a few times from behind until we straightened her out and headed her downhill, and then he kept pushing
until she turned over, and finally she started up with a roar.
“Henry the Navigator has come home at last,” she said, “and I for 1 am glad to see him.”
“He is glad to be home, too,” said I. “He sure got put through the ringer these last couple months.”
“He went many places and seen many things,” she said.
“He done all the things he ever wished to do in life,” said I, “up to and including pitching in the World Series. But if he ever had a friend in the world he has lost them.”
“Oh no,” she said. “I doubt that.”
“Then after he done everything there was to do,” said I, “all the kick was gone. You dream and you dream and you dream, and then when the dream comes true it falls flat on its face.”
“Not my dream,” said she. “According to my dream this was to be a year of great victory for you, and I believe it was.”
“The statistics back you up in that,” said I.
“Oh no,” said she, “they show nothing of the sort. They show only games won and games lost and your E. R. A. and such as that. What they do not show is that you growed to manhood over the summer. You will throw no more spitballs for the sake of something so stupid as a ball game. You will worship the feet of no more gods name of Sad Sam Yale nor ever be a true follower of Dutch Schnell. And you will know the Krazy Kresses of this world for the liars they are. You will never be an island in the empire of Moors, Henry, and that is the great victory that hardly anybody wins any more.”
“I believe it is at that,” said I. “I never thought about it much. Yet I thought about it a little bit at that, noticing how even the boys theirselves buckled and lost their courage when the heat was on.”