The head table was raised along the far end of the long room. Arranged below it were two ranks of long tables, each made up with white linen and flower centrepieces with blue candles in them to match the crêpe-paper streamers draped from the girders in the ceiling and the balloons taped to the walls. It looked as if it had been decorated by the prom committee at a school for the imaginationally challenged. Some tables were already full of eager-looking people. Past their suppertime, no doubt.
“I wonder which one is unlucky thirteen?” Andy wondered.
“Over there,” Claire pointed. “Mum and me saved seats for everyone.”
“You should have said ‘Mum and I’ saved seats,” Amy said. Claire stuck out her tongue.
“She’s right,” I said. “But whoever did it, it was thoughtful. Thank you.”
In the display area, there were large photographs of each of the women being inducted as well as scrapbooks and other memorabilia that had been donated to the Hall of Fame.
“Isn’t that your bat, Edna?” my mother asked, as we joined them. “It’s got your number on the handle.”
“That’s the one that beat the Peaches,” she said. “That’s the one that hit the home run.”
“And you’re giving it to the museum?”
“It might as well be here as in the garbage after I die.”
“Please, let’s not be morbid,” my mother fussed. “It’s a night for celebration.”
“Nothing morbid about thinking about death,” Edna said cheerfully. “It’s going to come to all of us sooner or later. In our cases, Helen, sooner. Can’t pretend otherwise.”
Jack came up and handed her a glass.
“I’m going to get Mom,” he said. “Can you see that Edna gets to where she has to go, Kate?”
“Of course,” I said. “We’ll see you in a few minutes.”
“Where do you have to be, Edna?” Andy asked.
“Oh, there’s some kind of official picture being taken at six o’clock. I don’t know where.”
“I do,” my mother said, looking at her watch. “We’ve got fifteen minutes yet.”
Another couple joined us then. The woman was wearing a long dress in bold vertical black-and-red stripes, which served to emphasize, rather than hide, the cruel curve of her spine from osteoporosis. But her infirmity didn’t stop her from making an effort. Her bleached blonde hair was done in an elaborate helmet with kiss curls at the temples, and she was in full glamour makeup of an earlier era. Her gloomy-looking husband, who was even shorter than she, wore a black blazer with gold buttons and a bow tie that matched the red of her dress. I recognized them as a couple I’d seen checking in in the lobby earlier, dressed in matching Hawaiian shirts.
“Shirley and Bert Goodman,” my mother said in introduction, “This is my husband, Reverend Douglas Henry, and our daughter, Kate, and her . . . friend, Inspector Andy Munro.”
She paused only for a small, disapproving, beat, but I heard it. I smiled and shook hands with the Goodmans.
“Shirley was our star pitcher,” my mother said. “She led the league in wins in 1945.”
“Now, tell me right away,” Shirley said, “tell me if you are the one who writes the baseball for the Toronto Planet.”
I admitted it.
“I knew it, didn’t I, Bert? Didn’t I always say that she must be Helen’s daughter? Didn’t I always say that? That she must be Helen Henry’s daughter because she surely does know her ball. I must have said that a hundred times.”
“At least, dear,” her husband said. He was wearing a hearing aid in his right ear. I wondered how often he turned it off.
“Well, I’m just thrilled to meet you,” Shirley went on. “I read your write-ups every day. We live in Etobicoke, you see, so we’re Planet readers. Aren’t we, Bert?”
He didn’t bother to agree, just took another mournful drink.
“How long have you lived in Ontario?” I asked.
“Most of our married life, haven’t we, Bert? We moved just after our wedding in 1950, and we have enjoyed our bliss there ever since. This is our first trip back in years.”
“How nice,” I said, for want of anything more intelligent.
“I was just saying to your mother how wonderful it is to get the gals together like this again. I keep up through the newsletter, but it’s not the same. And I say it’s about time this Hall of Fame recognized us. We’re getting our due too late. What about poor Wilma Elshaw? She died five months ago.”
“I met her brother this afternoon,” Mum said. “He’s here to represent her. That’s him over there, in the blue suit.”
She pointed to a tall, slightly stooped man with glasses, standing with a group of men by the bar. He was the only one not laughing. He looked fit, considering his age.
“Didn’t she come from around here somewhere?” Shirley said. “I think I remember that she did.”
“Yes, right here in Battleford,” my mother said, “but she made her home in Indiana.”
“Well, of course, she did. I knew that. And who else is here? We just got in this afternoon. Is dear Virna here?”
“Her son’s just gone to get her,” I said.
“She’d best hurry, they’re going to want us for the group photograph soon,” my mother said.
We suddenly became aware of a commotion across the room, by the door. Edna looked up and laughed.
“Never fear, Virna’s here. And how!”
We all turned to see Virna Wilton make her entrance, dressed in a goldenrod-yellow Racine Belles uniform, with her head held high and a grin all over her face. Jack at her side, she waved both arms over her head to acknowledge the applause that erupted at the sight of her. The Goodmans went towards her, but the rest of us stayed back to watch.
“Darn her, anyway, she can still fit into it,” Edna muttered.
“That’s what they wore?” Amy asked, momentarily startled out of her world-weary pose. “Skirts to play baseball?”
“We wore skirts for everything back then,” my mother said. “Ladies didn’t wear pants.”
“And the league wanted to make sure everyone knew we were ladies,” Edna laughed. “We wanted to play in pants, but they stuck us with those stupid uniforms. You couldn’t even slide in them without losing half the skin on your legs. I’ve still got scars. Mind you, Virna always did wear hers a little shorter than regulations, as you can see. But, darn her, she’s still got the legs for it, at her age.”
“The ballplayers always say the legs are the first to go,” I mused. “But in women, they’re what last the longest.”
“At least she’s not wearing her spikes,” Edna said.
“I don’t think the floors would take it,” I said, noting that she had compromised with black leather high-top Reeboks that went well with the knee-length socks and didn’t look too incongruously modern.
“I don’t know where she gets her nerve,” my mother said. “I could never do such a thing.”
“She always had nerve, Helen,” Edna answered. “Virna Wilton never lacked for nerve.”
“We’d better be getting to the other room for pictures, Edna,” my mother said, looking at her watch. “We’ll see you all later.”
“Good luck, dear,” my father said. “You look lovely tonight.”
And she did, in a pretty flowered suit of some soft synthetic material she’d bought in Regina for the occasion. She excused her extravagance by reminding herself she could wear it to a wedding they were attending in September.
“Knock ’em dead, Mum,” I said. “You too, Edna.”
But they were already gone, Edna holding on to my mother’s arm. Two extraordinary women on their way to the moment of their lives.
Chapter 10
Like most couples, Andy and I can read each other’s minds, and seen through his urban eyes, the whole scene—the pathetic decorations; t
he forty-ounce poodle; the old team photos glued to Bristol board; the hairdos, the clothes; the hearty back-slapping laughter of the men at the bar; the assembly of eccentric women in corsages with their nicknames and their jokes that were corny the first time around, fifty years before—was hokey beyond anything he’d ever seen in Toronto, even in hard-core suburbia. It was un-cool, un-hip, un-chic, It was un-Toronto. There wasn’t a leaf of radicchio in sight.
But I feared that he could never see the scene as I saw it: a community ritual, a clan gathering of decent people, genuinely warm and friendly, so downright nice, so like the folks who crowd my memories of childhood. These are my people, and I resented Andy for making me embarrassed to be one of them. When the pianist played “When the Saints Go Marching In” and the head table guests entered behind an RCMP constable in ceremonial red serge and everybody at all the tables stood up and clapped in rhythm, I could barely see Mum through the tears of pride.
We stayed on our feet to sing “O Canada” (in English only), and to receive the benediction from the local Catholic priest. We toasted Her Majesty the Queen. We sat down.
The master of ceremonies for the evening was a skinny little guy with a three-ball voice and a fuzzy moustache, who turned out to be the program director at a local private radio station and clearly something of a Battleford celebrity. He certainly had a face for radio. After welcoming us, he explained that dinner would be served buffet-style, in order of table number, starting with Table One. There were loud groans and laughter from everybody on our side of the room.
Then the emcee introduced the head table, and asked for a moment of silence in honour of deceased Hall of Fame members. Then he mentioned the notable guests: a former leader of the provincial Conservative Party, five previous inductees, the local federal member of parliament (a New Democrat, I was pleased to note), two aldermen, the mayor of North Battleford, and, of course, Inspector Digby. The biggest hand was for Dave Shury, chairman of the Hall of Fame, a good-looking older man who acknowledged the applause from a wheelchair.
“That Dave’s quite a guy,” said the man on my right, round as a doughnut and bald as an egg. “I guess you know him.”
I admitted that I hadn’t had the pleasure.
“Oh, well, you have to meet him. Without him, there wouldn’t be a Hall of Fame. There wouldn’t even be a Saskatchewan Baseball Association. He’s our guiding genius, afflicted as he is. He can do more from that chair than any two able-bodied men.”
“It’s certainly impressive,” I agreed. “I’m Kate Henry, by the way. My mother was a Belle. Is your wife one of the players?”
“Oh, no. Never had one of them. I came along with my pal Garth Elshaw. He’s up there on the platform representing his late sister Wilma, may she rest in peace. Morley Timms is the name.”
I shook his hand and introduced those in our group within earshot, including my father, Claire, Andy, and Jack Wilton, who was across the table from Timms.
“Well, then I guess you knew Wilma, too,” Timms said.
“Of course,” Jack said. “She was my mother’s best friend. And she was like a second mother to me.”
He turned to me.
“My mother and Aunt Wilma had a business together in Fort Wayne after their playing days were over. The All-American All-Star Flower Shoppe. Two ps and an e. They thought it was classier that way. Wilma did the arrangements and Mom ran the business. And we all lived in the apartment above the store.”
“My condolences to you on your loss,” Timms said.
“Thank you,” Jack said, then explained to me. “Aunt Wilma died of cancer in March. Just after we heard about the Hall of Fame. So at least she knew.”
He had bought a bottle of wine, and he poured some for me, then motioned it towards the older man’s empty glass.
“No thanks,” he said. “Don’t indulge. Haven’t touched the stuff in more than forty years.”
He turned to me and tapped his temple.
“Keep the head clear, and anything’s possible,” he said. “That’s my motto.”
“And an admirable one it is,” my father said. “By the way, have you met Bert Goodman, on the other side of you?”
The two shook hands, and Goodman muttered a greeting. Peter Deneka was across the table, and I introduced him to my father.
“It’s nice to see so many of you here,” Deneka said.
“We’ve taken over the table, I’m afraid,” my father said.
“Well, that’s a good thing,” Deneka said. “It’s good you’re so proud of her. Our kids couldn’t be here. Too far to come. Our son’s in Ontario, working for the Hydro there, and the daughter sells real estate in British Columbia.”
“That’s the way it is these days,” my father said. “All the young people move away.”
“That’s the truth, but who can blame them? There’s nothing for them here. My son didn’t want to be a farmer,” Deneka said. “I don’t know why not. You freeze in the winter, broil in the summer, and work seven days a week just to pay the interest on your bank loan. That’s if the gophers and grasshoppers don’t get your crop.”
He laughed heartily. Farmer humour.
“Where do you farm?” Timms asked.
“I don’t anymore,” he said. “My wife hasn’t been well, and what with no one to help me run it, I sold and moved into town. To Esterhazy, for the hospital and all.”
“We’re from over that way, too,” my father said. “We’re in Indian Head.”
“Well, you got yourself some baseball history over there. Did you ever play?”
My father laughed.
“No, that was my wife’s department. I never had the athletic talent.”
“I remember those tournaments they had there, back in the fifties. They’d draw ten thousand people. That’s when they had those Negro players Jimmy Robison brought up from the south. Oh, he was a smart one, all right. The Indian Head Rockets. Didn’t they just win everything for a while there?”
“That was before my time in Indian Head,” Daddy said. “I’ve heard about it, of course, but I never saw them play.”
“That’s too bad. Those were good times. I saw some pictures of those teams over at the Hall of Fame this afternoon. Surely brought back memories.”
“We haven’t gone yet,” I said. “We’re going over tomorrow. I think there’s a plan for all the Belles to go together.”
“Yes, I know about that. At eleven,” Deneka said. “We’ll be there. And, look, it’s finally our turn at the trough.”
The people from the table behind us were returning with full plates. We stood up. Morley Timms helped me with my chair.
“Ladies first,” he said.
Chapter 11
The keynote speech was an apparent inning-by-inning history of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, delivered by a sports historian from Winnipeg. Her research was commendable, but her delivery was dismal. When she finally wound down, the applause was delivered more out of gratitude than appreciation.
Her audience, at least the part of it in my immediate vicinity, was suffering from the torpor that comes after a big meal. We had been fed chicken in a vaguely oriental sauce, with mushroom rice, corn niblets, and several salads, along with dinner rolls. Dessert was strawberry shortcake, with whipped cream from a can. By the time the speech was over, our coffee cups were empty, the dessert plates were sticky, and I was dying for a smoke and a pee, not necessarily in that order. I was about to sneak out when the master of ceremonies went to the podium.
“Now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” he said. “In a just a few minutes, the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame will have received twenty new members, twenty new female members, into its honoured ranks.”
“It’s about time, too,” a woman shouted from the back of the room, to the obvious amusement of the head table.
I ap
ologized to my bladder, and promised not to feed it any more coffee if it would just behave itself for another half-hour.
“Our first honouree hails from the town of Watrous. For six years, she backed up the plate for the Racine Belles . . .”
As he introduced her, a grinning Edna Summers stood up and was escorted slowly from the table by a well-set-up young usher in a pale blue tuxedo. He brought her to centre stage in front of the head table, where the video camera was set up.
“Three times an all-star, she will always be remembered for the home run she hit off Gull Lake’s own Willetta Heising to win the 1946 championship over the Rockford Peaches.”
Great laughter, as, on the dais, the guilty party put her head down on her folded arms and pretended to cry.
“Because Edna Summers was Edna Adams during most of her career, she alphabetically qualifies to become the first woman to be inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame. I present Edna Adams Summers.”
“Way to go Edna,” came the shout from the woman heckler at the back, followed by applause.
“Please, ladies and gentlemen, hold your applause until all the inductees have been announced,” the radio guy said. “Unless you want to be here all night.”
Andy leaned over to me.
“You mean we haven’t already been?”
The emcee waited for Edna to be photographed receiving her plaque, and then went on to the next player, a catcher for the Peaches, who was, in turn, escorted to the place of honour.
With applause obediently withheld, the induction moved quickly along, each woman, or the one accepting on her behalf, receiving her plaque and posing for a commemorative two-shot. Some were shy and hesitant, others bold and brassy. When it was my mother’s turn, she stood shyly, but with her head held high. Claire couldn’t restrain herself, and shouted out, “Yay, Gram!” Sheila shushed her. I winked. Virna Wilton was the last, and after she received her plaque, she went to the podium.
“I have been asked to respond on behalf of all the girls here tonight,” she said. “I am honoured to have been chosen. Of course it’s probably because I’m the last one up.”
Prairie Hardball Page 6