Wow...oh, say! Is that baby lucky, that Miller. That ball sure was tagged. Then he sticks up his glove, and whang! There it is.
Jake passed him on his way to the dugout. “Tough luck, old kid.”
“Yeah, well, you can only hit ’em. You can’t steer ’em after they’re hit,” rejoined the pitcher philosophically.
“Here, boy, gimme that club. I’m gonna rap one. Red is saving me a rap.” The Kid stepped out into the circle. The sun had come out half way through the game, but the circle and the diamond were now in shadow. In the field the Indians were whipping the ball around the bases with the dash and confidence that only can come to a winning team far in the lead.
On one knee he leaned over his bat. Just get on, Red, I’ll bring you in; so help me I’ll bring you in, boy. We’ll start something, you and I, Red; we’ll start things like we did that day in St. Louis. And the time we beat the Cubs in the tenth with two down and three runs to get. Look at those fans. They aren’t leaving. They know we’re a dangerous bunch until the last man’s out, the fans do. We can get a run, three-four runs. We need five, but we’ll settle for four. Give us a single, Red, just a single.
The stands rose. At the plate the batter leaned hard into the ball, struck it cleanly, and started for first. A deep one, far back, back; but the fielder was moving swiftly with the crack of the bat and was under it as it fell. One more routine catch. And another game gone. The Kid hit the ground hard with his bat, slung it away, and started toward the player’s entrance.
Across the ballpark the Indians scuttled hastily for the clubhouse as the fans poured down upon them. No one poured down on the Dodgers, nobody mobbed them or pestered them for autographs. They were a beaten team. A few curiosity seekers trudged along, but mostly they were left to themselves. Silently save for their pants and grunts they trooped inside. Even Charlie Draper, holding the big leather ball bag, carried it at a disconsolate angle.
Shucks, thought the Kid. Why didn’t he save me a rap? I shouldn’t be kicking though; I didn’t do much to help today myself. Muffed a bad chance in the field and went four times without a hit. Four horse collars. Maybe I swung too hard. It couldn’t be that shadow there, I been hitting in shadow all season. Yes, sir, that bird Miller is all the old scout said he was. Now I wish I’d paid more attention to him that morning. You gotta hand it to Miller though; he’s plenty pitcher, that baby.
Within the locker room was Razzle, all dressed, astride a corner bench. His usual after-game cigar was in his mouth, but it was not at his usual jaunty angle. Everyone felt the defeat badly. They trooped in, slumped down on the stools before their lockers, speechless. A few called for Cokes. The majority shook their heads and sat silently. In the dressing room of the manager, Dave and the coaches were taking off their clothes. Before Dave had got far he was surrounded by reporters. He sat on a chair, pulling off his socks, his pants.
“Good Lord, what you birds want? You should be over there talking to Baker.”
“We were. Got anything to say, Dave?”
“What is there to say? Those babies hit everything we threw up to the plate. Hammy swung on a pitch that was six inches inside and knocked it into right for that single that scored their first run.”
“How ’bout Stansworth? Any chance of his playing? Are you satisfied with West?”
“I gotta be satisfied with him, haven’t I? Who’ve I got to take his place? Lost my relief catcher last month, and then Babe Stansworth splits his thumb wide open last week. You can’t expect a man to catch when he has a split down the side of his bare thumb, can you?” The usually mild Dave glared at the questioner. He was tired and discouraged and in all the crowd he was the one who couldn’t show discouragement.
“Care to name your starter tomorrow?”
“What’s that? Nope, I dunno who’ll pitch tomorrow’s game. Your guess is as good as mine.” He turned his back and threw wet clothes to the bench. In a minute he left them and went to the showers. The reporters came into the big room and mingled among the players, now recovering and starting to talk.
“Whatsa matter, Razzle? Tired out from three innings?”
“Nope. Not now.” The big fellow uncoiled his long legs. “I just didn’t have my stuff today. My curve ball hung there and I couldn’t get my fast one by ’em. They hit everything I threw up.”
“Say...was Miller using a lot of trick stuff, Swanny?” asked Casey, a pencil and a pad in his hand.
“Trick stuff! With that four run lead. Why, he could ha’ thrown anything.”
“You sure can’t win if you don’t hit and score runs,” said someone across the room.
“Shoot,” came back the answer. “We never once got a break. Those Indians had all the breaks. Tomorrow they’ll need ’em and they won’t get ’em. Wait and see.”
“Jes’ so Miller don’t pitch tomorrow, that’s all I ask,” retorted Case.
“Yeah. He sure pitched a darn fine game. But what in blazes, we’ve only made eight hits the last two games. We’re better’n that. We’re due for a change.”
“Say, I don’t mind going hitless myself so long as we can win.”
“Well, we won the hard way all season. We came from behind to grab off the pennant; we’ll pull out the Series, wait and see.”
“Anyhow, you’ll split eighty-two thousand. That’s the take they gave out this afternoon for the first four games,” said Casey. “And eighty-two thousand isn’t hay.”
A chorus of rebuffs rose all over the room.
“I wanna win.”
“So do I.”
“Me, too.”
“That’s right. We gotta win this-here Series. We haven’t played our game yet, least except that first one.”
“Yessir, we’re better than anything we showed so far.”
Roy said nothing. He pulled off his wet clothes, tired, unhappy. Bong-bong-bong-bong went the bell in his head. So tense had he been he’d hardly noticed it out there in the field. He noticed it now, all right. Climbing out of his sticky undershirt he went across into the soothing warmth of the showers. The hot spray beat on his aching legs and back. Ah...that was something like. No shouts, yells, or laughter came across the partitions. The others too were beaten and exhausted. Funny, he thought to himself, how much more tired a man is when he’s played in a losing game.
Slowly he put on his clothes. After finishing he went over to Chiselbeak and handed him the key to his locker in the valuables trunk. Recovering his watch and money he went toward the door. There was a notice on the bulletin board:
THE TEAM WILL REPORT AT SUITE 977 IN THE HOTEL CLEVELAND TONIGHT AT SIX THIRTY. THIS MEANS THE WHOLE SQUAD.
A bawling-out. Dave was going to tell them off for their playing. Well, they certainly had it coming.
6
THE BIG BUS with the words BROOKLYN BASEBALL CLUB over the driver in front drew up at the hotel. A small crowd immediately collected on the sidewalk, making an open path through which the players had to pass into the lobby. It was a home-town crowd and therefore apathetic because they were waiting for their heroes, the Indians. The Kid heard one or two remark in disappointed tones, “It’s only the Dodgers.” A few picked out Razzle, conspicuously elegant in his green suit, and big Babe Stansworth with his thumb bound up in plaster and tape.
The lobby was jammed as usual. He went to the newsstand, bought several papers, and took the elevator to his room, listening to the comments in the crowded car. “Yeah, they’re all washed up now.” “The National League never was a first class league, not since...” “Why, Leonard had horseshoes to win the pennant with that bunch of boys.” He stopped at his floor, glad to escape. Harry Street with whom he roomed on the road was already there counting his laundry.
“Nuts! They didn’t send back my blue shirt.” He picked up the telephone. “Hey there, sweetmeat, gimme room service.”
Tired, discouraged, the Kid sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off his shoes. When a team lost it sure made a man feel tired. You were tired all right when you
won, but not the same way. No, not the same way. He picked up the Series program which happened to be on the night stand beside the bed. Leaning back, he arranged the pillow and thumbed over the pages. How old was that bird Miller, anyhow? He came to his own photograph, and for the first time read the lines underneath the picture.
Roy (Kid) Tucker
Outfielder. A manager’s dream. Great competitor, great fellow. Started back in 1939 as a pitcher with the Dodgers, hurt his arm, and like Johnny Cooney of the Braves made himself into an outfielder. Was a substitute last season until Tommy Scudder was traded to the Phillies for Elmer McCaffrey. Bats left. Throws right. Unmarried. Lives in Tomkinsville, Connecticut. Nickname: Bad News.
He threw the program on the floor. He hadn’t been bad news for anyone save poor old Dave. Things looked tough for Dave unless they could pick up another game. Even so, MacManus would not likely bring him back the next season. MacManus had no use for losers. He strung along with winners. If only they could get another game. That was the reason for their meeting tonight; a good stiff fight talk and a change in the batting order. Maybe Dave would have to yank him from the line-up. He glanced at one of the newspapers full of pictures of the Cleveland players scoring runs, making catches in the field, running wild on the bases. Underneath he read the captions. Then he turned to Grantland Rice’s column.
“Good pitching will always beat good hitting, and the Indians have the pitchers.” Shoot, we haven’t been hitting. We haven’t hit like we can hit.
Another writer compared the two managers. Interested, the Kid looked over his remarks about Dave Leonard. “Leonard’s secret of success in running the Dodgers this season has been in not over-managering. He has a club composed mainly of former players with whom he buddied as a player. He understands that too much bossing would be resented. So he ups with a system that gives his men latitude without too much rein. This has developed initiative to a greater degree than any other major league club.”
“Here! Get a load of this.” Harry, sitting on the side of his bed, unfolded a newspaper. “Casey says, he says...here...about Lanahan. Lanahan plays ground balls now like a member of the married men’s team in an office field day. Ha, ha.” Casey could invariably be depended upon for a chuckle. He was always funny. About the other team, anyway. The telephone rang.
“I hope they located my blue shirt. I like that blue shirt.” Harry picked up the receiver. His newspaper fell to the bed and the Kid, leaning over, picked it up. He looked at Casey’s column.
“It’s the old pitch-punch show. As always, good pitching has the call. But the fact is the Dodgers are paralyzed. For the first time they’re up against something new; American League fast-ball pitching. Moreover, they’re dead on their feet. While the Indians coasted in to the pennant through September, the Dodgers had to fight right down to the last day of the season to outscuffle the Giants. The Dodger pitching staff is worn and weary. The Gowanus Gang is washed up.”
He felt his face redden. That wasn’t funny. It wasn’t funny at all. Washed up! We are, are we? He read along. “The Dodgers one-two punch, with Babe Stansworth out, has failed miserably. Swanson has been a soft touch for all the Cleveland hurlers. Tucker is probably in worse shape from his beaning than anyone suspects. He gets dizzy out there in the sun and finds it difficult at times to hear out of his right ear.”
Yes, there it was! “...and finds it difficult to hear out of his right ear.”
“Hey, Harry! Just listen to this, Casey says I can’t hear out of my right ear. Where does he get that stuff?”
“Aw, that bird! Last May he said I was sick with the flu and wouldn’t be back in the line-up for two weeks. Gee, was I mad! My mother sent me the clipping from home. That same day I’d written her saying I was feeling fine and everything was dandy. She thought it was a lie and came hustling down to Chicago to find out. I like to paste Casey when I seen him in the dugout before the game that day.”
“Yeah, but saying I’m deaf in one ear. And suppose the Dodgers let me out? Suppose I get that pink slip one of these days? What then? What chance have I got with any other club? Who wants a deaf mute around? Say, who do you guess told him that?”
“Nobody. He just made it up.”
“Made it up?”
“Why, sure. He’s too busy playing poker and gobbling his laughing soup at night to chase round and check on all the rumors floating about.”
The Kid shook his head. He was sore and no mistake. Leaning back, he shook the paper and read on.
“In the eighth this afternoon Andy Painter drove a deep one to right center. It was a hard hit ball but the Tucker of the days before he crashed into the Polo Ground wall would have been up against the fence and speared it. Those catches were a dime a dozen for the Dodger right fielder in the old days. But since that injury and since he was skulled by Gene Miller, the Kid from Tomkinsville is wall-shy. The ball got away for a double and a run. The fact is that Tuck is wall-shy and plate-shy, too. Leonard better write him off as a total loss.”
There was lots more but he didn’t care to go on. Instead he threw down the paper and jumped from the bed, his face flushed. Harry was busy telephoning. Harry was always telephoning. In every city of the circuit he spent his time telephoning. But say, that man Casey...wall-shy and plate-shy, was he? And deaf in one ear!
It wasn’t true. Nosir, it wasn’t true, none of it. “Look, Harry, look at what that fella says....”
Occasionally someone in the club was late. Occasionally there were the usual stragglers filing in to a meeting or getting to a train gate after everyone had arrived. Not tonight. They all knew they were in for a lacing and nobody felt like making it worse by showing up late. Even Razzle in his green suit was solemn and subdued as Roy and Harry met him before the elevator. Together they got off and walked silently down the hall. At 977 they paused, picturing the scene inside. There would be Dave astride a chair, a toothpick waggling from one side of his mouth to the other, his face grim and serious. There would be the coaches near him, and opposite the circle of chairs, everyone wide-eyed and sober. So the three stood outside, hesitating. None of them wanted to knock.
“Come in.” The door opened. There was no meeting. Instead a long table almost filled the room. Big bunches of flowers decorated the table and there were printed menu cards at each place. Already the small space around the long table was jammed. Laughter rose, and big Bill Hanson the business manager was pointing across to Karl Case. Dave stood by the door holding it open.
“Come in, boys, come in. Come in, Raz; come in, Roy. Hullo, Harry.”
Never would the Kid forget that dinner. There was no baseball. Baseball was out. No one talked baseball or mentioned the Series or the game that day. No one spoke of Gene Miller. Instead they were laughing at Charlie Draper giving an imitation of Babe Stansworth behind the plate, or smiling while Cassidy, the first base coach, exchanged wisecracks with Razzle and Harry Street. There was beer, plenty, in pitchers. Before long the whole room was noisy and happy. Everyone was at ease. But the thing they would never forget beside the atmosphere was the food.
It wasn’t the regular food, the food they ate every day in the Coffee Shoppe. As Fat Stuff once remarked, that Coffee Shoppe food was cooked about three in the afternoon and kept warm in an oven until dinner time. This was real food, especially ordered for them. They started with a planked lake shad. The Kid had never eaten a planked shad before. It was wonderful. Then a steak and fried potatoes. Boy, what a steak! Even Charlie Draper who knew where to get the best meals all over the country said it was a good steak.
“Yeah, that’s a good steak all right. That’s a good steak, couldn’t do better in Kansas City.” “But that’s a K.C. steak right there, you bum.” The boys laughed to see Charlie fooled.
Then a peach melba. Peach ice cream and crushed peaches and whipped cream, lots of it, poured over it. As much beer as you wanted, waiters filling up your glass from behind. The Kid preferred his favorite drink, a lime Coke.
Ov
er everything was the noise and laughter, Raz’s voice, and a spirit of comradeship. He felt himself one of the gang, warm and happy. It made him forget Casey and those smarting words.
“Babe, how much you weigh?” asked Raz.
Babe Stansworth at the end of the table looked up suspiciously. Too often he had been the butt of Razzle’s jokes.
“What’s it to you?”
“No kidding. What’s your playing weight?”
“Two thirty.”
“Two thirty. Two hundred thirty pounds, he weighs. Get that, fellas. Weighs two hundred and thirty and sits with a crossword puzzle in our room for half an hour trying to think up a three letter word for obese.” The crowd roared.
“Fat Stuff would get that right off, wouldn’t you, Fat Stuff?” The old pitcher looked up and grinned. He was deep in his steak, saying little.
“Hey, Elmer, how ’bout that jane you had the date with the other night? Did she show up?”
“Yeah, she showed up all right,” said Red Allen, McCaffrey’s roommate. “She showed up and you know where Elmer took her?”
“To the Ritz, I suppose,” said Raz.
“Naw. He took her for a bus ride.”
“Know what he says to her?” Bill Hanson’s blue eyes shone. “He says, ‘Sister, you know you got great potentialities.’ And she says, ‘Shhh...the driver’ll hear you.’”
Laughter. More laughter. Dave’s voice, quiet and relaxed, came down the table.
“Hank Butler? Yes, he was with me back in nineteen and thirty-one, you remember, Charlie....” Time flew. Cigarettes were passed and cigars. Razzle stuck one in his mouth at the usual jaunty angle. Finally Dave rose. A kind of suspense hung over the room. Was it coming now? Was the dinner a prelude to a grim scene, was baseball coming back? Then he spoke.
“All right, boys. Everyone had enough? You, there, Rats...sure you finished?” Rats Doyle ate twice as fast and twice as much as anyone on the club. “If you’re ready, Rats, we’ll move on.”
“Aw, leave him here. Cassidy didn’t finish all his steak.”
World Series Page 5