by Mark Harris
“I am very careful,” said Piney.
“That is what everybody says,” said Dutch, “yet the hospitals are full of babies. McGonigle, did you shoot a gun in the war?”
“No sir,” he said. “I played baseball.”
“Great fucking war,” said Dutch. “Goose, you was in the war. Take and empty this gun.”
“Where?” said Goose.
“At Bill Scudder,” said Sid, and everybody laughed, and Goose took the bullets out of the gun and give the works to Dutch, and Dutch put the bullets in his pocket and threw the gun back at Piney. George spoke in Spanish to Red, and Red said, “George says you should go fire it at Bill Scudder.”
But George opened the ball game with a single, and Sid right away hit Number 41 with 2 gone, the first home run he hit off Scudder in 2 years, and we picked up another in the second, Bruce leading off with a single, Dutch batting him in the 6 spot now, and going to third on another by Vincent Carucci, and coming home on a long fly by Coker, Coker still not out of the slump but Dutch using him against left-handers all the same. I remember Bruce scoring from third that time, standing on third with his back to the plate, waiting for the catch and then pushing off backwards from the bag and spinning and charging down the line towards home, the lights on his face, not running hard or anyhow not looking like he was running hard, though he was, no feeling in his eyes of hurry nor strain, looking at me for his sign, and I signed “Stand up,” for the throw was cut off in the infield, and he crossed home and run right on past me but circled a little and come back and stood in front of me. “What?” I said. He said nothing, only stood there a minute like he ought to said something, not go flying past a fellow without talking. “What?” I said. “Nothing,” he said, and he went on in.
I was glad whenever Sid hit one, then and after. Every time he connected the paper left off nosing around for the truth and rushed through a new article called WILL SEPTEMBER BE SID GOLDMAN’S MONTH OF DESTINY? or SUPERHUMAN TASK FACES GOLDMAN. Dutch moved him up to the 3 spot towards the very end to give him extra swipes.
After a couple innings Red said to Bruce, “After every pitch I wish you to lay the ball in your glove and stand up straight with your meat hand down at your side. Then bring it up slow and take careful aim and fire it back at Author’s chin,” and Bruce done so. I do not know why I never thought of it. It slowed things up, and it rested me, for it kept me from reaching now down and now up, now left and now right, which Bruce makes you do, thinking all he need do is fling the ball back at his pitcher, never mind how. After every inning he sat by Red, and Red talked to him, and whatever Red told him he done, and it helped. “That is right, Red,” he said. “Tell me what you see, for I know I got faults and always did.”
“Yes,” said Red, “as long as I am in town anyway I will pass along what I see.”
“What else do you see?” said Bruce. “Tell me more.”
“Well,” said Red, “squat even on both legs. Do not lean towards the curve. You are helping the enemy read your pitcher.”
“Squat even on both legs,” said Bruce. “What else?”
“That is enough for one night,” said Red.
I blanked them for 6 innings. They picked up one in the seventh, and they threatened in the eighth, and Horse come in and pitched out of it and went on and saved my game. He was the greatest reliefer in baseball down the stretch, fat old Horse, a rock of strength all September. Red said he must of give up beer and found the Fountain of Youth instead.
Old Man Moors hit town that night, though I never seen him. He was gone by morning, back to Detroit, and Patricia went back up to Maine or Vermont or wherever. She acts in shows. Red says she owns the theater. He never did like her.
By the time we left for Washington Friday morning everybody was used to seeing Red and Mike around and stopped thinking too much about it. The paper cooled off on it. Everybody in the know was mum and I believed the truth had got about as far as it was going.
But I was wrong. Thursday night Red said to me, “Drop up and bring your book,” and I said I would, and when I got there he was reading and George was looking at the TV, not listening but only looking, for Red can’t stand the noise and George don’t particularly miss it. “How much you wrote by now?” he said.
“I am finished 2 chapters,” I said.
He took it and ruffled it through and laid it on the dresser, and I said, “I believe George can read and wish you would not leave it laying out.”
“He already knows,” said Red, “for I told him. I could not keep it in.” George spoke in Spanish. “George says it is some shit deal Pearson been handed,” said Red.
“Si, senior,” said I.
“I wonder if they made a mistake,” said Red. “These doctors can be as wrong as hell when they try.”
“We are all hoping so,” I said.
“Who all knows?” he said.
“Me and his father and minister and Holly and some people Holly told up home.”
“I mean on the club.”
“Me and the brass and Horse and Goose and Ugly and now George,” I said.
“He does not seem sad,” said Red. “He keeps thinking about what he is doing and trying to improve himself. He is quick to learn, and he is certainly hitting splendid. I must tell him either chew or not chew when he hits. There is a system to his chewing, and the enemy will read him.”
“He stops chewing when he tenses,” I said.
“I believe so,” said Red. “But he is a much better ballplayer than when I last seen him.”
“He is gaining the old confidence,” I said. “He has more friends. He never had any before.” A little breeze blew in the window and begun sliding my pages along the top of the dresser, and I got up and sat a glass on top. “It will all be in the book,” I said.
He took the glass off the pages and started reading, and when he read 6 pages he said, “I read 6 pages and it is not yet so much about him as you. Should it not be all about him and nothing about you?”
“Read more,” I said. “Pretty soon I drop out of the picture,” and I went and sat by George and watched the TV, picture but no noise, a yarn about a girl and 2 men, one of the men with a black mustache pasted on. I looked for the cops to come and haul off the fellow with the mustache because it was 5 minutes before the hour, and they done so, and the girl and the shaved fellow kissed and melted out in the pitch. George never took his eye off it. He reached for a cigarette, but his eye never left the screen, and Red stood with my book. “I will come back,” I said.
“No,” said Red, “stay. I have read enough to see that this book will never be about Pearson but about you and airline stewardesses and Goose’s wife and Aleck Olson of Boston and kosher restaurants and Holly and riding in automobiles through South Cedar Rocks, Iowa, and who the hell knows what all else by the time you are done. But it must be more about Pearson being doomeded, which is what we all are, ain’t we, me and you and George. Ain’t we, George?” he said, and he kicked the TV and spoke in Spanish, saying in Spanish, “We are all doomeded, ain’t we, George?” and George got up and pushed the TV back in the middle of the table and said we were in Spanish, if Red said so. “He says so too,” said Red, “but you are facing terrible odds, for George will never read your book, being trained to read a scorecard only and live like a seal. And even the people that read it will think it is about baseball or some such stupidity as that, for baseball is stupid, Author, and I hope you put it in your book, a game rigged by rich idiots to keep poor idiots from wising up to how poor they are.”
“I would never put any such a thing as that in my book,” I said. “It is not true, besides which it is my bread and butter. It is a game loved by millions in 4 countries, Mexico, Canada, Cuba, and Japan.”
“Stick to Pearson!” he said. “Stick to Pearson, Pearson. You must write about dying, saying “Keep death in your mind”.”
“Who would wish to read such a gloomy book?” I said. “Everybody knows they are dying.”
&nb
sp; “They do not act like they know it,” he said. “Stick to death and person.”
“I will try,” I said, and I done so. I wrote Chapter 3 and then again 4 mostly about Bruce, like Red said to, writing right there in the room with Bruce not 8 feet away. He never asked what I was writing, and never cared, and will never read the book itself when it is done, which might be any day now with luck and quiet.
Lindon Burke worked and lost Friday night in Washington, a good job, complete, but the power was off. I felt sorry for Lindon. Sid did not pick up a base hit since his home run off Scudder the first inning Wednesday night and felt a slump coming on, which it soon did and would of meant “Curtains” only Bruce was on fire, and also Ugly. Dutch moved Bruce up to the 5 spot and Ugly 6 and later benched Sid altogether. The writers now forgot Babe Ruth and begun wondering if Sid would even equal himself as of 53, when he hit 51 home runs. WHA HOPPEN TO GOLDMAN? they wrote, SAD SLUMP SINKS SID’S SPIRIT, and they give him a good deal of advice on how to pull out of it.
If we had of lost Saturday we would of dropped back in a tie. This brought all Washington out hours early, and I remember the traffic was jammed and the cabbie Anally turned his motor off and sat with his arms folded and said back over his shoulder, “You gents from out of town?”
“From good old South Turtle Landing, Arkansas,” I said. “We run the dancing school down there but flew up in a hurry thinking we might see this whizzard Henry Wiggen pitch.” Bruce started jabbing Mike in the ribs with his elbow and whispering, “This is a gag.” Mike laughed on the inside, his whole stomach shaking, but his face straight, winking and nodding at Bruce, same as saying, “I am glad you told me or I would not of knew,” though God knows Mike knows a gag when he sees one after 59 years. “If you ever pass through South Turtle Landing, Arkansas,” I said, “drop in and waltz around with us one time.”
“I ain’t been out of town since 1921,” he said. “I hope this goddam Wiggen does not pitch. We ain’t beat him more than once or twice all summer.”
“You ain’t beat him a-tall all summer,” said I. “Do not think you can pass out phoney information just because we are clucks from the country. We get the paper down there, and many of us can read.”
“Nothing personal meant,” said the cabbie, and he turned back around and started up his motor, and Red put it in Spanish for George, Red never laughing, though George did, Red only smiling out of one side of his mouth. The cabbie drove on, saying nothing until when we got out he said, “Nothing personal meant again, but if I heard on the radio where Wiggen dropped dead tomorrow I would not shed a tear.”
There was an overflow, the first time in many years down there. They roped it in the right-field corner, maybe 3,500 people. I personally thought nothing about it, figuring our left-hand power was the equal of theirs, and Dutch said the same, saying “Anyhow, is it human to fight over such a small thing?”
“I do not know if it is human or not,” said Clint, “but I believe an overflow in Washington must be roped in left. It is libel to cost us the ball game otherwise,” and they sat around trying to remember the last time there was an overflow, Dutch and Joe and Egg and Clint and Mike and Red and Goose and Horse and Ugly, but none of them could, and Dutch called Krazy Kress in the press-box, saying, ”Krazy, do you remember where they roped the overflow the last time they ever had one down here?” for anything Krazy can’t remember probably never happened, and Krazy said, “Yes, Dutch old pal, I remember, only the clubhouse door is locked in my face these days.”
“It will be locked in your face forever and a day,” said Dutch, “unless you tell me.”
“In left,” said Krazy, and the brass all sat down with the Washington book and figured out which way was libel to hurt us less, and they figured left, and Dutch went and collared the umps and told them move the overflow in left, where it belonged according to the regulations, and Washington said “No!” though knowing they were wrong. But they finally done so, the field crew unroping the ropes and hustling the fans across the grass into left. The spot the crowd was hustled out of was covered with bottles and wrappers off franks and such, and by the time the field crew swept it up the game was 20 minutes late getting under way.
Washington yanked all its left-hand power and threw in right-hand power, not much, and Dutch done the same, dropping Sid to the 7 spot and Pasquale Carucci 8 and yanking Vincent Carucci altogether, batting right-hand power 1–2–3–4–5–6, George and Perry and Canada and Bruce and Lawyer Longabucco and Coker, the first and only time in his life Bruce ever batted as high as 4. It looked mighty peculiar, but it worked, and it was a wild and crazy ball game, your left-fielder laying in it looked like practically just behind short, and everybody aiming all afternoon for the overflow, popping them in there amongst the fans, 2 bases. We set all kinds of records, the most doubles in a ball game for 2 teams, the most doubles for one team, us, the most doubles in one inning, the most consecutive doubles, the most doubles after 2 out, the most doubles for one ballplayer in a 9-inning ball game, Bruce, the most consecutive doubles for one player in a 16 inning ball game, also Bruce, the most doubles with bases loaded and the most doubles with bases loaded in consecutive innings. We used 5 pitchers and Washington 7, all right-handers, and it run 4 hours, and we took it, 16–11, and the cushion was 2 again.
Sunday there was no overflow. It rained, and we were late getting started again, and we sat in the clubhouse and Piney played his guitar and sung, taking off his cap and putting on his 10-gallon hat instead, and wrapping his belt with his gun around his middle, half Mammoth and half cowboy. You could hear the crowd shuffling around above, trying to jam in under the roof and out of the rain. Piney sung pretty good, singing—
As I was a-walking the streets of Laredo,
As I walked out in Laredo one day,
I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen,
All wrapped in white linen and cold as the clay.
“Now the cowboy speaks,” said Piney.
“Try a different song,” said Mike. “That is all I heard all summer.”
“No,” said Piney, “it is the best of them all,” and he sung on—
I seen by his outfit that he was a cowboy,
And as I walked near him these words he did sigh,
“Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story,
“I am shot in the breast and I know I must die.”
“I believe it is letting up,” said Ugly.
“It is corn,” I said.
“No,” said many of the boys. “Leave him sing. It sounds good.”
“Then the cowboy tells him his sad story,” said Piney, and he sung on again—
“It was once in the saddle I used to go dashing,
“Once in the saddle I used to go gay,
“First down to Rosie’s and then to the card house,
“Shot in the breast and am dying today.
“Get 16 gamblers to carry my coffin,
“6 purty maidens to sing me a song,
“Take me to the valley and lay the sod o’er me,
“I am a young cowboy and know I done wrong.”
“Come on, boys,” said Piney. “Why do you not all join in a little? The boys in QC sing all the time.” But nobody did, and he thumbed a bit, and then he sung it through—
“O bang the drum slowly and play the fife lowly,
“Play the dead march as they carry me on,
“Put bunches of roses all over my coffin,
“Roses to deaden the clods as they fall.”
It made me feel very sad. Yet I knew that some of the boys felt the same, and knowing it made me feel better. Not being alone with it any more was a great help, knowing that other boys knew, even if only a few, and you felt warm towards them, and you looked at them, and them at you, and you were both alive, and you might as well said, “Ain’t it something? Being alive I mean! Ain’t it really quite a great thing at that?” and if they would of been a girl you would of kissed them, though you never said such
a thing out loud but only went on about your business.
Van Gundy worked when the rain stopped, and he was rocky. It is no good cooling after warming. Washington kept getting hold of little pieces of him, waiting for the curve when it did not break quite right, which it begun to do more and more until Dutch lifted him in the fifth, and Keith relieved, and I went down and warmed, and the crowd booed me on the way down, and I raised my arm at them and waved and smiled, like I thought booing was a compliment, and they stopped booing and laughed, and I warmed with Jonah and went in in the bottom of the eighth. The score was 5–5. I was hot and quick.
We went ahead in the tenth on a single by Bruce which drove Pasquale home, Bruce batting without his chew and using Perry Simpson’s bat, for Red told him, “A strong boy like you need only meet the ball, not murder it, so use a lighter stick,” and he used Perry’s, waiting up there for the one he was looking for, and splitting Perry’s bat on the drive, a hard smash punched through third and close to the line, and the crowd groaned but then cheered, seeing Sampson Opper coming over very fast and taking it backhand on the bounce in foul territory, the same boy we played Tegwar with on the train that time, and digging and stopping and firing it home, a perfect throw, a great young ballplayer that I know Dutch will dicker for at the winter meetings but probably never get, and Pasquale slid in under the throw, safe, and the one was more than plenty for me. Dutch played Canada at first in the tenth, and McGonigle in center, and he sent Coker in at short for Ugly, and Jonah caught, the best defense he could field, though it was not needed, for I was still hot and quick and could of went another 5, even with only the 3 days rest.
Perry eat out Bruce for splitting his bat, and the boys all laughed, saying “Go soak your head, Simpson,” and we went back home with the cushion at 3, the most lead we ever had all summer since May.
CHAPTER 16
I BEAT Cleveland Friday night, Number 20, August 26, 1955. a date which I am not libel to forget very soon and probably never, going afterwards to The Green Cow. Katie had a girl with her, never mind her name. If I name her I am libel to be sued. I was almost sued by Old Man Moors for saying in “The Southpaw” that Patricia and Ugly had illegal relations on page 152, 155 in the quarter book, though I actually never said such a thing. It may of been between the lines, but certainly I can not help what relations go on between the lines. She introduced me to this girl and said, “Does her name sound familiar to you?”