by Lee Gutkind
“In 1963, when the league changed the rule on the balk, and the sportswriters were taking potshots at us for calling the balk on pitchers so often, I tried to get Giles to back us up, to defend us, to tell the writers and the fans that we were just doing our job. You think he would? Hell, no! He made the balk rule, but he wanted us to enforce it without him getting involved. He wasn’t interested in backing us up by saying one word.
“One day I got really fed up. I called my crew into the umpires’ room and told them I was going home, quitting. I’ll tell ya, that was the longest plane ride I ever took, but I had my satisfaction. Giles called me at home every day for two weeks, but I refused to talk to him on the phone, I was so pissed off. He wouldn’t give us any support on a rule he made up himself. He didn’t even have the guts to point out to the writers and fans that the umpires don’t make the rules, they only enforce them.
“Warren Giles,” says Al Barlick again, shaking his head and staring at the ground. “Warren Giles was the nearest thing to nothing I’ve ever seen.”
Abandoning the umpire’s shirt and cap he usually wore during the work day week, Willie Rooks went to church early that Sunday morning, wearing his new, gray tweed sports jacket, a red shirt, charcoal pants, white tie, and brown and white shoes. At 11:30 AM, after services, he drove to the Pick Congress Hotel to meet the umpires, load their baggage, and transport them to the ballpark in plenty of time for the two o’clock game. At Wrigley, the police permitted Rooks to pull right up on the sidewalk to unload the umpires’ suitcases and store them safely in the ticket office. After parking, Rooks joined Colosi, Wendelstedt, Williams, and Harvey in the umpires’ room, talking, laughing, and sipping cups of black coffee until the game started. Then he selected a place to watch the game from any vacant seat in the house. And there were plenty of them, as cold as it was this spring. Near the end of the game, Rooks reloaded his taxi and waited on the sidewalk, engine running, for the umpires to emerge from the ticket office, carrying disguised bottles of Budweiser in brown paper sacks. With any break in the traffic, Willie Rooks would have the umpires at the airport within forty-five minutes, concluding an enjoyable and profitable day.
Wendelstedt leaned forward over the front seat and lifted the lapel of Willie Rooks’s jacket. “You know, Willie, I’ve seen that shirt you got on before.”
“That a very popular style,” said Rooks.
“It’s got a funny kind of weave in it, something like linen, except it’s even nicer. Looks nice with your white tie.”
“I got it at Chase’s. You ever heard of Chase’s? Goddamn best men’s store in the goddamn city. Paid a pretty penny, too, I don’t mind tellin’ ya.”
“I used to have a shirt just like that,” said Wendelstedt. “I remember the weave. I like the way it looks. I think I bought it in New York, three, four years ago, sometime after I got married.”
“Went down to Chase’s and told the man I wanted something really smart to go with this new tweed jacket. You like this jacket, Harry?”
Wendelstedt nodded disinterestedly. “Looks good.”
“‘Price is no object,’ I tell the man,” said Rooks. “What a man put on his back, got to make him look good and feel good, ’specially on Sunday.”
Wendelstedt, still leaning forward, lifted some of the slack material of the shirt and ran his thumb and forefinger up and down its surface. “That even feels familiar, goddamn it. What the hell did I do with that shirt?” he turned to Harvey.
“You think I’m your goddamn valet? I’m a crew chief.”
In the back, Colosi covered his mouth with his palm, and Williams turned to smile out the window. Rooks gritted his teeth, seriously attempting to concentrate on the road. Then he said: “That man show me white shirts, gray shirts, silks and plaids to try on, but I tell him I ain’t going to fool around. I can’t exactly describe the shirt I want, I tell him, but soon as I see it, I’ll know.”
“I can’t remember what I did with that damn shirt,” said Wendelstedt, frowning. “You remember the shirt I’m talking about, Nick?”
“I got my own wardrobe to worry about,” Colosi said gruffly.
“There was this one blue shirt I liked a lot that he show me,” Rooks continued, “with a special knit. He call it cable knit. But I tell him, no, I need something to wear with a tie. Then he brings out this here shirt I got on and I know right away this is what I want. I try it on and it fit just right. Fit like it was made for me. Never once ask the price. I don’t care what I pay for a shirt, long as it feels good on my back,” said Rooks. “A shirt got to look good and feel good for a man to be happy, is what I always say.”
Wendelstedt shook his head, leaned back in his seat, locked his eyes in a half-shut position, then meditated for thirty seconds. Suddenly he jumped forward, grabbed Rooks, and lifted the collar of the fancy red shirt. “Goddamn it, Willie, that’s my goddamn shirt! That’s my laundry mark! Since when is your name Wendelstedt?”
Wendelstedt folded his arms, shook his head, and flushed his cheeks, then looked around at his friends for any sign of interest or recognition, but Harvey was reading a newspaper, Colosi was studying his fingernails, and Williams was staring at a particularly nice-looking statue of a Civil War hero to his right out the window. “Can you imagine the goddamn abuse I have to take? Can you imagine the nerve?” Wendelstedt mumbled to no one in particular. “My own crew turning against me, stealing my favorite shirt and giving it to a lying goddamn black bastard cab driver. I’ll tell ya, that’s really something, really something. All I ever get is abuse around here.”
Wendelstedt leaned back, lifted an amber bottle, and took a deep swallow of beer. His big, blunt face seemed to light up when he drank beer. He always liked two or three bottles, especially after a tiring game, and he disposed of them fast, like water. After studying the traffic for a while and concentrating rather distantly on receding passersby, he said: “Remember that time the Mafia was after you, Willie?”
“Hot dog, I sure do.” Rooks glowed, shook his head, then chuckled.
“Wait a minute, Willie, you claim to be fearless,” said Harvey. “You didn’t let them dagos bother you, did you?”
“In this town, when The Organization after you, all bravery cancelled out,” says Rooks.
“This was two years ago when I was traveling with Lee Weyer,” said Wendelstedt. “And you know Weyer; he’ll do anything for a practical joke. Anyway, I go with Weyer into this novelty store down the street from the hotel and we buy a string of firecrackers and some of those decals you put on the rear window of your car that make it look like you’ve been sprayed with machine gun fire. Then we go back to the hotel and I call up Willie and tell him to come early to pick us up before the game, tell him I want to buy him a cup of coffee before the other guys get there.”
“That’s all you got to tell Willie. He’ll do anything as long as somebody else will pay for it,” said Harvey. “Of course, he didn’t charge us anything for wearing your shirt.”
“Except the shirt,” said Williams.
“Yeah, we had to promise to give him the shirt.”
Wendelstedt sneered, shook his head, and continued: “Weyer waits in the lobby till he sees Willie pull up and walk into the coffee shop. Then he sneaks out, pastes the decals on Willie’s rear window and walks, cool as a cucumber, back into the lobby and meets us in the coffee shop.
“Meanwhile, there was this gang war going on in Chicago at the time, see, spread all across the front pages of the newspaper—everyone was discussing it—and Willie and I were sitting and talking, and I’m giving old Willie all the gory details about the five people killed so far. Really laying it on, telling about how their skin was all shredded by machine gun bullets and how police had to search whole city blocks to find the remains of the victims. Willie, you know, he’s not much for reading the newspapers, so he’s just listening to all this stuff open-mouthed. Thinks the whole thing is fascinating. Keeps saying to me, ‘Is that right? Is that right? Right here in
Chicago? Well, goddamn! Hot dog! Waddya know!’
“Then Weyer sits down, orders a cup of coffee, and joins in the conversation. I’ll tell ya, Weyer’s really slick, calm and quiet, although you know he’s just bustin’ up inside, thinkin’ about what he’s going to do to poor old Willie.
“‘The funny thing about these shootings,’ Weyer says, ‘I was just talkin’ to this cop and he was tellin’ me that each and every one of these murders took place in a cab. Only when the victim was in a cab.’
“‘No shit,’ Willie says. Already you can see his whole face turnin’ purple.
“‘That’s what this cop told me. The victims were all killed in cabs between the hours of noon and one o’clock.’
“‘What time is it?’ I say to Weyer.
“‘Quarter to twelve.’
“‘Goddamn!’ said Willie. Man, that was the first time I ever saw a black man go completely flush.”
“Well,” Willie turned, remembering, “I got to thinkin’ how them victims coulda just as easily been in my cab, as anyone else’s. Besides, them boys, Wendelstedt and Weyer, were really convincing. Sure enough, they could fool the Pope.”
“Anybody could fool the Pope,” said Colosi.
“Pope goes the weasel,” said Williams, laughing.
“After a few minutes talking, we tell Willie we want to go for a ride through the city,” Wendelstedt continued. “It was really pretty that day; the flowers were blooming in all the parks.”
“That’s one of the main reasons I like this town,” said Harvey. “The parks are just beautiful; spread out along the banks of the lake are flowers of a hundred different colors. Rainbows of petals. In other cities the downtown area is dreary and dirty, but in Chicago it’s pretty and sweet all the way from the hotel to the ballpark. Reminds me of home.”
“Nothin’ reminds me of home more than women,” said Williams, “and this town is chock full of them black beauties. I’m having breakfast this morning over at the Harrison Hotel across from the Pick and these four sisters come in and sit down beside me. One of the waitresses right away tells them who I am and before I know it, they’re all gathered around, asking me questions and gettin’ my autograph. But this one—Williams paused to simulate the curves of her body with his outstretched hands—this one, named Violet, I swear, she was endowed with everything imaginable in a woman. I swear, she was beautiful. She ask me what I’m doing tonight, whether I dig the good wine, the sweet weed, or the sets.”
“What the hell is sets?” asked Wendelstedt.
“You don’t know the lingo, you out of the picture,” said Willie Rooks from the front of the cab.
“I tell her I got a wife and grown children at home, and besides I gotta leave town today, but man, I was sorely tempted. Really tempted.
“Know what she said? ‘Brother, that ain’t got nothing to do with what we could get together right now.’ Man, was I tempted. Lucky my heart is pure,” he laughed.
“So we get into Willie’s cab,” Wendelstedt continued, raising his voice momentarily to regain the floor and Weyer starts telling Willie where to go. Turn here, turn there, you know. In the course of the ride, Weyer also mentions that every one of these killings happened on Washington Boulevard. He just sort of throws that out casually. Meanwhile, I could see old Willie up there in the front seat sweating; his hands are shaking slightly and he’s puffing on his cigar so hard it looks like a volcano.
“Just then Weyer says, ‘Turn here!’ And before Willie knows what’s happening or thinks about resisting, we’re driving down Washington Boulevard.”
“Goddamn,” said Williams, laughing, “old Willie musta shrunk three feet down in his seat.”
“What I don’t understand,” said Harvey, “is why Willie didn’t see the decals on the back of his cab.”
“Shit. You ever know Willie to look in his rear view mirror?”
“Too many things happening in front of me,” said Rooks “to worry about what going on behind.”
“Anyway, here we are driving down Washington Boulevard between noon and one o’clock in a taxi, and you can sure guess what Weyer did next. What I’m tellin’ you is the absolute truth.”
“It’s true,” said Rooks, “I almost died through it, it’s so true.”
“Weyer waits for a time when we’re going real slow and there’s not much traffic around, then he takes out his string of firecrackers, rolls down the window, lights the crackers and throws them outa the car. You should have heard those explosions. It sounded so real, I thought I could hear the ricochet of the bullets.
“Well, Willie goes crazy. He pulls halfway to the side of the road, slams on the brakes and turns around. What’s he see? There’s me and Weyer slumped on the seat, our eyes all bugged out, and we’re looking so fucking dead it’s sickening. And there’s poor old Willie Rooks, who’s turned almost albino by this time. Willie looks down at me, my tongue is hanging out. He looks at Weyer, he’s got his eyes closed and his mouth all contorted up like some deranged killer. Then he looks up and sees the machine gun bullet holes through the rear window. ‘Mutha Fuck,’ he said. Real long and drawn out, ‘Mutha Fuck.’ The next second he was gone. In my whole life, I never saw an old man jump so high or run so fast. We caught him hiding—no, he was cowering—behind a building nearly two blocks away.”
“That Weyer is a real bastard,” said Harvey, smiling. “You guys really had old Willie going.”
“Worst thing I ever done to anybody in my whole life,” said Wendelstedt.
“I don’t know about that,” said Rooks. “You got me that time good, but you got me worst before. When they together, I wouldn’t trust Weyer and Wendelstedt far as I could spit.”
“I wish they were still together,” said Harvey. “They deserve each other.”
“Hey, Willie,” said Wendelstedt, smiling broadly, “you remember when Pete Roselle called you?”
Late one night last spring, while transferring planes in Chicago for a game on the West Coast the following day, Wendelstedt and Weyer wanted to phone Rooks from the airport. When they looked up his number, they discovered that Willie had taken out a full-page ad in the Yellow Pages for Rooks Cab Company. “Go Anywhere. Anytime.” It was two in the morning when they woke him up.
“This is Pete Roselle, commissioner of the National Football League calling,” Weyer had said. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Rooks personally.”
“This is Mr. Rooks,” Willie had said, groggily.
“Mr. Rooks? This is Pete Roselle. I’ve got thirty National Football League officials stranded here at the airport, and I want to get them downtown to a hotel, and there are no taxis out here right now. We’ve got a convention to go to tomorrow and I want them to get some sleep. Now, can you send some of your men out here to pick them up?”
“My men? What do you mean, ‘Some of my men’?”
“Some of your drivers.”
“I ain’t got but one man,” Rooks had said, “and that’s me. And I’m sleepin’.”
“You only have one taxi?”
“How many taxis one man need?” Willie had asked.
“Then what the hell you got a full-page ad in the goddamn Yellow Pages for?” Weyer had replied in a furious tone of voice.
“Cause ads is cheaper than automobiles,” Willie had answered firmly.
A few minutes after Wendelstedt finished the story, Rooks pulled into O’Hare airport and chugged up the drive, passing each terminal slowly until he stopped at the blue and white American Airlines sign. Each man shook hands with Rooks somberly, then they picked up their cases and walked inside. In seconds they were gone, blurred first by the thick glass of the sliding doors that lead into the terminal, then swallowed by clusters of scurrying travelers.
Rooks folded the money they had given him into a much larger wad of ones and fives that he pulled from his pocket, then climbed slowly into his green and white Checker. He looked at his watch and mumbled. If he hurried, he could make it back home in time for a cold beer b
efore dinner. He started his car and pulled down the drive, kicking gravel and burning rubber as he shot onto the expressway.
The Battle of the Burning Cigars
HARRY WENDELSTEDT NEITHER KNEW nor cared whether Willie Rooks had recognized Lee Weyer’s voice that night at the Chicago airport more than a year ago. It didn’t matter; the success or failure of the joke they had pulled on Willie Rooks had nothing to do with the purpose of it. What mattered, pure and simple, was that Rooks had permitted the umpires to have some fun at his expense; for whatever reason, Rooks had been willing to serve as a diversion then, and on many other long, lonely nights and boring, listless afternoons that the umpires endured on the road. Certainly there was no harm done, playing an innocent prank, and yes, the stories the umpires told about their exploits with Rooks were usually embellished more with each subsequent version. But that didn’t really matter much either. Along with Harvey’s appreciation of Chicago’s flowers, Williams’s harmless infatuation with Chicago’s women, and Colosi’s enjoyment of normally-scheduled evening meals here, Willie Rooks had humanized this city for Harry Wendelstedt as he had for many other umpires. And Wendelstedt appreciated that more than anything.
For umpires, most cities are bloodless, juiceless, odorless, and stainproof, like artificial turf. While ballparks have their share of characters, most lack character. By eating out night after night, food, even in those cities with good restaurants, begins to taste the same. All hotel rooms, luxurious or lowly, still have four blank walls, tired pillows, unfriendly beds, repetitious TV.
Sometimes Wendelstedt felt as if he were following Perry Mason reruns around the country, not baseball teams. Sometimes he felt that reading one more local newspaper, taking one more walk around a strange block, watching one more boring soap opera, making one more whirl through a bleak lobby, or listening to one more dripping faucet would drive him batty.
There were, of course, friends you made, bouncing back and forth from town to town, season after season. There were special people, old, young, freaky, or ordinary, everyday people. Wendelstedt thought back ten years to one lonely night, and to the beginning of a very memorable friendship with one old man, now dead.