The Kansas City Cowboys

by The Kansas City Cowboys (retail) (epub)

  “Cherokee! You play more like a damned squaw, you worthless, stupid, miserable little …”

  Dan Dugdale pulled on his padded mitt, smiled, and said, “Let’s get them, Silver.”

  “Radbourn,” I told him, “just struck out all three of our players.”

  “He’s a battler. Good pitcher. We’ve played a half-inning. Rules say we have to play nine. Or have you already lost this game?”

  “Get out there, Son!” Mother yelled.

  I glanced up at the closest seats, finding, to my surprise, Cindy McKim sitting next to Mother, and Papa, who must have gotten the day off from the packing house, on the other side of Mother. Drawing in a deep breath, I slowly exhaled and headed onto the field.

  Radbourn led off for Boston. Since the Beaneaters paid him four thousand dollars a year, I guess they wanted to get their money’s worth.

  I stepped inside the pitcher’s lines, took another breath, and heard Radbourn call out, “High.”

  Then Mother’s voice rang out, “Who can do it?”

  Papa and Cindy lead the refrain, “Silver can-can!”

  So I did my dance, and hurled a pitch that Radbourn grounded weakly to my right. I picked up the ball, dropped it, got a better grip, and sent it into Mox McQuery’s beefy hands.

  Right fielder Tom Poorman struck out, and first baseman Sam Wise flied out on a ball that should have been a double, but which Mert Hackett ran down easily.

  Suddenly the cries of “Can-Can” had died, and now our spectators launched into a new shout.

  “Che-ro-kee … Che-ro-kee … Che-ro-kee … Che-ro-kee!”

  We hit Radbourn fairly well in our half of the inning, but left two runners on without scoring a run. Before we took the field, Mother stood, leaned against the banister and called out, “If Con Daily bats left-handed, Charley, do not shift over. He’ll call low, Silver, so pitch him low. Low and inside.”

  Batting as a southpaw, Con Daily grounded out to Charley Bassett for the first out of the inning.

  “Did you see that?” said a burly man in a sack suit, leaping out of his seat, and pointing at Mother. “That woman told ’em Cowboys what to do and they done it. A damned petticoat!”

  “Shut up, Eli!” shouted another man as he pulled Eli back into his seat. “You’re drunk.”

  I struck out Dick Johnston, and John Morrill sliced another fly ball into center field that Mert Hackett caught without even showing much effort.

  “Che-ro-kee! Che-ro-kee! Che-ro-kee!”

  That brought me first to the plate when we came to bat. “High,” I called out, and Old Hoss Radbourn made his first mistake. He pitched me high, all right, but also inside. Mother always called that my “wheelhouse” pitch, I got around on it quickly. The ball flew off my bat, over third baseman Billy Nash’s reach, bounced on the line, and rolled in the dirt toward the stands.

  I stood on second with a double, and I remained standing on second after Radford and Myers struck out and Hackett flied out to Joe Hornung, who showed his own speed and caught the ball with a leaping catch.

  In the seventh inning, Morrill laced a double that Mert Hackett could not catch. Dan Dugdale asked umpire Paul Grace for time to have a parley with me. Dugdale jogged out to me and said, “You’re coming through the order for the third time. What would you think about stopping your dancing and throwing from the side like you’ve done before?”

  “Is that from Mother?” I asked.

  “It’s from me,” Dan said.

  The game remained scoreless. Up until Morrill’s hit, I thought that I had been pitching brilliantly. The only problem was that Old Hoss Radbourn had equaled everything I had accomplished.

  “I don’t know, Dug,” I said. “I’ve had some success.”

  He grinned. “Did you see how hard he hit that ball, Silver? Damned near tore the cover off it. This isn’t Chicago and it isn’t Detroit. It’s Boston. They’ll be slightly ahead of us in the standings when the season’s done, Silver. I don’t have anything against Morrill … he’s a good egg … but his blade wouldn’t cut butter if you know what I’m saying. And he figured out a way to knock the hell out of your damned can-can shit. Side arm. Got it? Side arm. Or if you want, I’ll go ask your Mother to come out here and tell you to throw that damned ball the way I tell you to throw the ball.” He turned back, kicking dirt as he went, yelling at Paul Grace, “Pitchers! They’re all just so damned stupid!”

  So I picked up dirt, rubbed it in my hands, grabbed the ball, and glanced at the stands. I couldn’t make out Mother’s face, but I heard the fans all around her, all around the Hole, even on the hill from those cheapskates who sat over center field to watch the game without paying fifty cents.

  “Can-can Silver do it?”

  “Yes, he can-can!”

  The crowd went silent when I fired a side-arm pitch that Jack Burdock swung at and missed, falling to his knees.

  “Criminy!” The Boston second baseman managed to stand, brush off his pants, and say something to Dan Dugdale, then Paul Grace, before settling back into his stance.

  John Morrill was left standing on second base, too.

  “Keep that up,” Mother said when I trotted back to the bench after striking out three consecutive Beaneaters. “Forget that can-can. Your father and I have always preferred a good polka, anyhow.”

  Charley Bassett led off by ripping a long single to right field, Jim Lillie walked, and Jim Donnelly managed a weak hit back to Radbourn, who threw the ball well over Sam Wise’s head. That sent Bassett to score the first run, and Lillie and Donnelly stood on second and third.

  “Don’t try to do too much!” Mother called down to me. “Radbourn’s spent. That errant throw to first has rattled him.”

  She must have been right. Radbourn gave me nothing to hit, and I walked to load the bases. Radford and Myers struck out, but then that new rallying cry rang out across the Hole.

  “Che-ro-kee! Che-ro-kee! Che-ro-kee!”

  “Silver!” I heard Cindy’s voice from my spot on first base, and I looked into the stands as Mert Hackett walked to home base.

  “My father’s yelling Cherokee, too!” she called out, and blew me a kiss.

  It sounded like all of Kansas City kept shouting Che-ro-kee after Mert Hackett drilled a double over left fielder Joe Hornung’s head that scored three runs. We were up 4 to nothing, and Mother had been right. Old Hoss Radbourn was played out.

  We wound up winning, 13 to 3.

  * * * * *

  The next day, Boston pitched Radbourn again. And after that game, in which we squeaked out a 7 to 5 victory, I caught up with him and asked, “Don’t you ever get tired?”

  “Rookie,” he told me with a grin. “Tired? Tired from tossin’ a little ball that don’t weigh no more’n five ounces? Sonny, I used to be a butcher. Before the sun was up, from four in the morn till eight at night, I knocked down steers with a twenty-five-pound sledge.” His head shook and he turned to walk away. “Tired? Golly. Tired from playin’ two hours a day for ten times the money I used to get for workin’ sixteen hours a day. Sonny, you sure make me laugh. Pitched a good game, though, your ownself. Are you tired?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  In the Kansas City Times, Mr. James Whitfield called this “The Streak.”

  After winning two consecutive games against the Beaneaters, we played three games against the Maroons at the Hole. The first game, which went sixteen innings behind the brave pitching of Grasshopper Jim and Pete Conway, was called a 4 to 4 tie when it grew too dark to continue playing. The crowd at the Hole cared nothing for that, and Kerry Coffelt quit umpiring after that game when Mr. McKim led several other stalwart Kansas Citians.

  “What I heard Mister Coffelt say,” Mox McQuery told us when we had gathered at Mr. Bayersdörfer’s place, “was this … ‘I ain’t afraid of their yells, but as soon as they pull their guns, I’m
goin’ to dust.’”

  We followed that tie with 6 to 5 and 9 to 3 victories. On September 13th, the Detroit Wolverines came to Kansas City for four games. Manager W. H. Watkins, whose team was challenging Chicago for the National League lead, met Dan Dugdale in front of our bench as we prepared for the first of our games. Tying my shoes, I looked up to find Watkins glaring at the man sitting on the edge of the bench. The man, of course, was our center fielder, Mert Hackett, who was adjusting his black cowboy hat.

  Watkins spit tobacco juice into the dirt. “Jack Rowe’s wondering what happened to his brother. But now I see why Dave ain’t here.” Sarcasm accented his voice. “Are you baseball players, Dug? Or wranglers?”

  “Wranglers work with horses,” Dan corrected. “Cowboys work with cattle. And we happen to be both. That’s Charley Bassett sanding the handle of his bat yonder. His pa’s a lawman in Dodge City. Over yonder, drinking his coffee, is Frank Ringo, blood kin to Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Geronimo. Silver King sitting down on the bench, well, he just finished a cattle drive to Atchison. And that there’s Cherokee Hackett and …”

  “Yeah,” Watkins said. “I’ve read all about this Cherokee in your newspapers.” He spit again. “Hey, boy!” he called out to Hackett.

  Hackett looked up, but said nothing.

  “I hear you Injuns done a lot of scalping. So when you come to bat, boy, you prepare yourself for a little white retaliation. We might just scalp you, too. We’re pitching the Kraut today, and when you come to bat, don’t expect the Pretzel Twirler to throw you a bunch of curves and drops. He’s gonna be aiming right at your head, Che-ro-kee.”

  That’s when I stood up. That’s when I realized that Dan Dugdale was right. We had not been a team until that little lesson at Mr. Bill’s ranch. Now we felt unified, like cowboys working on a cattle drive.

  “I can say something about my sister,” Cod Myers once told Dave Rowe. “But it don’t mean you can.”

  Charley Bassett hefted his bat. Frank Ringo emptied his coffee cup, set it down, and found his own bat. Even Kentucky-born Mox McQuery walked up to Watkins, with Jim Lillie and Shorty Radford right beside him.

  “One thing you ought to know about us Cowboys,” Mox told him. “Working cowboys and baseball-playing Cowboys. We stick together. We play together.”

  “And,” Shorty added, “we fight together.”

  Dan Dugdale gestured to the stands, which already had become crowded. “So do the folks who come to see us play. I know you’ve read about that in your newspapers, even in Detroit.”

  Watkins looked away from us and into the grandstands. Mother waved at him. Behind her, Mr. Bill Anderson, his three sons, the toothless curmudgeon named Duncklee, and a few other cowboys stood, adjusting their gun belts. I’m sure glad the Andersons picked that day to come watch us play a game.

  The Wolverines came into that game with seventy-three victories. They still had seventy-three victories when we left the ball park, celebrating our 13 to 4 win. Perhaps Detroit’s German ace, Charlie Getzein, should have thrown more fast balls after all—because the Pretzel Twirler’s drop balls and curve balls did not drop or curve much on that afternoon.

  We beat them, 9 to 4, the next day, and split the following doubleheader with a 14 to 13 loss but ending the series with a 7 to 5 victory. And if you’re curious, Jack Rowe never asked anyone about the health or whereabouts of his brother. I don’t think Jack liked Dave, either.

  On Thursday, September 16th, however, we had to play the Chicago White Stockings, the best team in the National League. King Kelly and Jim McCormick. Jocko Flynn and Billy Sunday. Tom Burns and, of course, Cap Anson himself.

  They were throwing John Clarkson, who had won fifty-three games in ’85 and already had thirty victories this year. I would be starting for the Cowboys.

  “This is what baseball’s all about,” Mother told me from her seat on that cloudy afternoon. “The best against the best.”

  “Mother,” I told her, “Chicago is closing in on eighty victories already. That’s double what we’ve won.”

  She shook her head. “For next year. We’re building for next year. Small steps, Silver, lead to giant things.”

  I smiled. “You should be a manager,” I told her.

  Dan Dugdale had just walked up. “What do you think?” he asked Mother, who was about to reply when Cap Anson called out Dan’s name.

  Adrian Constantine Anson. Red-haired with a curled mustache, he stood six-feet-two and weighed north of two hundred pounds. They called him the “King of Kickers” because he could kick more dirt onto an umpire’s shins than anyone in the game, and at the Hole dirt was in no short supply. We knew about Anson’s intolerance for men of color. Back in 1883, in nothing more than an exhibition game in Toledo, Ohio, Anson had refused to take the field unless Toledo made its great catcher, Moses “Fleetwood” Walker, leave the stadium. He had refused to play against Newark because of their Negro pitcher, George Stovey.

  When we turned around, Anson’s eyes seared with hatred as he studied silent Mert Hackett, who was stretching his legs.

  “When’s Dave Rowe coming back, Dugdale?” Anson had walked right up to us.

  “That’s up to the doctors,” Dan answered.

  “You ain’t playing that darky, Dugdale,” Anson said, pointing at our bench. “We have an understanding in this league.”

  “Mert’s a Cherokee,” I lied.

  “Red nigrah. Black nigrah. Nigrah all the same. And he’s no more red savage than my sainted mother. Get him off the field.”

  “You are a vile, wretched man!” Mother called out.

  Anson spit. “And I’ve heard about her, too. You let a woman tell you what to do, Dugdale?”

  “All the time,” Dan answered. “Makes life easier.”

  “She ain’t coaching this game. And he …”—pointing his finger angrily at Mert Hackett again—“ain’t playing.”

  “The National League hasn’t banned Indians from playing baseball,” Dan said.

  “Yet.” Now Anson grinned. “But there’s one thing I’m real good at. And that’s reading minds.” He spun around. “Hey, you!” he shouted, and when Mert looked up, Anson yelled again, “That’s right, boy! Come here. Now. Now, I tell you!”

  Mert Hackett stood, dusted off his pants, adjusted his cowboy hat, and walked slowly but surely to our congregation of men. By then, Mr. McKim had arrived to escort Cindy to her seat beside Mother. He came to the balustrade.

  “What’s going on here?” Mr. McKim asked.

  “You’ll see, beer-maker,” Anson replied, and grinned the meanest smile I’d ever seen on a human when Hackett stopped and stuck his glove underneath his armpit.

  “Take off that hat, boy.”

  Mert Hackett obeyed. I felt sick.

  “Here’s what you black-loving filth will learn about Cap Anson. No darky can ever lie to me. Tell me, boy, are you a Cherokee red devil? Or are you nothing more than a real black bastard?”

  “Mister Anson, sir,” Hackett said, thickening that accent the way he had done back when he was earning five dollars a victory from Mr. Heim. He paused, though, no longer staring at Cap Anson but at me, and Dan, and Mr. McKim, and Cindy. Finally, he looked back at Cap Anson and grinned. “Cap,” he said, and I enjoyed the shock and anger that registered on Anson’s rigid face, “my mama picked cotton for Col’nel Dashiel Jones’ plantation in Helena, Arkansas. Never knowed my pa. The col’nel sold him to a Baton Rouge merchant, I got told, for talkin’ sass. Cherokee? I don’t know. Hailin’ from Arkansas and all, I reckon I might have some Cherokee blood in me. Besides, before the war, Cherokees owned slaves, too. But I’ll tell you one thing, Cap. I loved my mama. More’n even I love cowboyin’. More’n I even love baseball. And I could never do nothin’ that’d dishonor her and her memory. But I can lie to you, Cap Anson. I can say, ‘You’s a fine man, a credit to this game o
f baseball, and, even more, you’s a credit to your race.’” He pulled on his hat, and closed in on Anson, who drew back as if to punch Hackett. But Hackett stopped. “Lay a hand on me, white man, and you’ll never be able to even hold a baseball bat.” Anson’s face paled, and Hackett walked away.

  That’s when I heard hands clapping behind me, and I turned to find Mother and Cindy applauding Mert Hackett’s audacity, and his bravery. Mr. McKim wasn’t clapping, but his face had to be whiter than Cap Anson’s. Dan Dugdale didn’t clap, either, but his eyes shone with a fierce pride as he watched Mert Hackett shake hands with his teammates, gather his equipment, and start for the stairs. There’s something else you should know. Most of my teammates likely felt the same as Cap Anson did about Negroes. But they were loyal to their teammates, and Mert Hackett had helped us win a few games. We were a unified baseball team. Like the cowboys of Mr. Bill’s Diamond Nine, we all, black or white, rode for the brand.

  That’s when I started clapping, too, and that’s when Mr. McKim did something that almost made me forget all his curses, all his anger, everything he did that angered Cindy, everything he did that ridiculed all of his baseball players, including me.

  “Hackett!” he called out.

  That stopped Mert, who was looking into the stands.

  “Joe Heim pays you five dollars as our mascot for every game we win, Hackett,” Mr. McKim said. “Take your seat on the edge of the bench. With the Kansas City Cowboys. Where you belong.”

  Anson whipped off his baseball cap, and pointed his ugly, crooked finger. “You play that black bastard and I’ll run you out of the National League. You’re finished in this league, anyway. You’re all finished. And after we whip your ass …”

  “Boston has a Negro white-washer as a mascot for its home games,” Mr. McKim said. “You don’t object to her.”

  “She don’t play!”

  “Neither will Mert. But one day, men of his color will.”

  “And I’ll spin in my grave.”