“Yeah. We did.” Harv nodded. “But we shouldn’t’ve had to. Baseball oughta be about what happens in between the white lines, not outside ’em.”
“I think you’re right. Ralph, though, he’s a home-town fan like you wouldn’t believe,” the Indians’ manager said.
“Uh-huh.” By the way Harv said it, he didn’t believe the other fella but didn’t need to bother proving he was a liar. He nodded back toward the ticket counters. “Well, let’s go split the take. And no—what did you call ’em?—no tricks and practical jokes, all right?”
“Sure,” the Indians’ manager said quickly. He’d want the House of Daniel back in Yakima the next year so he’d have another big gate to split. And … “Even if I aimed to cheat you, put us in a room together and I bet I’d come out without my skivvies.”
“The dickens you would!” Harv said. “I don’t care what kind of drawers you wear—I don’t want ’em.”
While they dealt with that, the rest of the House of Daniel cleaned up and got into our regular clothes. “You know,” Fidgety Frank said, “sometimes I wonder what would happen if Harv used his Book of Daniel stuff on some team first instead of waiting till they tried to lay spells on us.”
“He’d never do that!” Azariah sounded shocked. “It would be sinful. And you heard him—he wants it to be about the game between the lines.”
“Yeah, I heard him.” Frank sighed. “And I know he wouldn’t pull it out first. He wouldn’t be Harv if he did. But that doesn’t stop me from wondering, or even from wishing. Things sure would be easier if he did.”
“For a little while, maybe,” Azariah said primly. “Then pretty soon there’d be three or four conjure men and wizards and I don’t know what all pulling and tugging every which way at all the ballgames. You wouldn’t be able to tell where the baseball started and the magic stopped.”
“Who says you can now?” Fidgety Frank answered. “Shove enough money into the pot—big-league money, I mean—and anything can happen. And it’s liable to. Don’t you know people who swear up and down the Bambino couldn’t have hit as many homers as he did without some fancy magic giving him a hand?”
“Just ’cause they swear it doesn’t make it so,” Azariah said. “I’ve heard all the big-league parks have wards against that kind of thing, wards set by the best wizards they can hire.”
“I’ve heard the same thing. So what?” Fidgety Frank said. Azariah blinked at him. He said it again: “So what? Whatever one wizard builds up, some other wizard’ll find a way to poke a hole in it. Gamblers and fixers can hire strong sorcery, too. You were still a kid when the Black Stockings mess came along, weren’t you?”
“I know about it,” Azariah said. “Everybody does.”
“Well, all right, then,” Frank said. “I don’t care how good the wards are. People will always find some way to cheat.”
“They shouldn’t. The game ought to be out on the field, not with some guy dancing in the stands or going to an office and working a spell on a player,” Azariah said.
“Yeah. It oughta be. But tell me this—if you found a conjure man who could work a magic that made you good enough to play in the big leagues, would you let him do it?” Fidgety Frank asked.
“He’d have to be quite a conjure man. I know what kind of ballplayer I am,” Azariah said.
“We all know what kind of ballplayers we are on this team,” Frank said harshly. “But you didn’t answer my question. Let’s do it a different way. How about if you already played infield for the Seattle Indians?”
“If I played for Seattle, I might not care whether I went to the bigs or not,” Azariah said.
“You’re being a pain in the neck.” Fidgety Frank didn’t exactly say neck, but that’s close enough. “If you were almost good enough to play in the bigs without the magic, wouldn’t you get it so you could and then worry later about whether it was right or wrong?”
“I … hope not,” Azariah answered after what looked like a real pause to think.
“Could be you wouldn’t. You’re too clean for your own good. I’ll tell you, though—plenty of people would. If I was almost good enough myself, I might. But I ain’t, so I don’t have to fret about it,” Frank said.
Was I too clean for my own good? Big Stu would’ve thought so. But if I was all that clean, how come I ended up doing things for him to begin with?
(XIX)
After a while, the towns started running together. If you ask me whether something happened in a game in Richland or Pasco or Kennewick or Walla Walla, I can’t tell you for sure. We lost one of those games, or it might’ve been two.
One thing I can tell you is, the fellow who managed the Walla Walla Bears was named Cliff Ditto. He really really was was. I think that was a game we lost. The ballpark there was at a college, and they used it for baseball and football. It made a better baseball field than the other one like it that we played at. The stands in Walla Walla were farther from where they put the football gridiron, and that gave them more room in the outfield.
From Walla Walla, we could’ve gone back to Lewiston, Idaho, as easy as not. Instead, Harv took us on the Columbia River ferry, down to Pendleton, Oregon. We beat the Pendleton Buckaroos at another one of those wooden ballparks where it was even money whether a fire or the termites would finish the place for good. Pendleton cared more about its big rodeo than it did about baseball.
After we beat ’em, we ate supper at a place that served venison steaks. That was something out of the ordinary, anyhow. Most of the time, I’d sooner chow down on cow. I’m glad I tried the other that once, though. Gives me something to talk about I wouldn’t’ve had without it.
At the restaurant, Eddie said, “Looks like we’ll do pretty much the same thing we did last year.”
“What’s that?” I asked. The other guys on the team knew what they’d done then, but I didn’t.
“Work our way down through the smaller towns in Oregon and California till the Coast League season ends, then play against barnstorming teams in the bigger places—San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego,” he answered. “You can play the year around down there. It rains some in the wintertime, but it never snows. Things stay green all the time—it doesn’t freeze.”
“That’d be something to see,” I said, thinking about how the trees around Enid lost their leaves in the fall and how the grass and bushes went yellow.
“It is,” Eddie agreed. He came from a lot farther north than Oklahoma. Snow in Enid was a once-in-a-while nuisance. Snow in a place like Cornucopia, Wisconsin? Even I didn’t want to think about that.
“Who all plays on the barnstorming teams?” I asked.
“Everybody you can think of. Lots of guys from the Coast League, natch. A bunch of them live down there fulltime. Some big-leaguers come out to make extra money and just to stay sharp. Sometimes Negro League teams go out there the way we do, too.”
“Carpetbag was talking about how they stayed on the road all the time,” I said.
“That’s right. He was.” Eddie nodded. “And some colored guys from teams that don’t go barnstorming come out on their own and join up with mostly white outfits.” He poked me in the ribs. “They do, even if you don’t like it.”
“Oh, give it a rest, why don’t you?” I poked him back. He wiggled—he was more ticklish than I was. I went on, “Folks don’t mix that way where I come from. But I played against colored guys, and you’d have to be nuts not to want Carpetbag Booker on your team.”
“Can’t tell you you’re wrong about that.” Eddie nodded again. “Carpetbag’s different, though. When he’s with you, you’re playing with Carpetbag Booker. You’re not playing with some ordinary colored guy.”
“He’s not ordinary—that’s for sure,” I said. “Funny you should put it that way, too, ’cause I had almost the same thought when he was pitching for us.”
“I wish he would have stuck around after the tournament,” Eddie said. “With him throwing, we’d really be ready to take on some of
the hot barnstorming teams we’ll run into.” He shrugged a sad shrug. “Now he’s mowing people down for the Regents instead.”
“Uh-huh. That was interesting, wasn’t it? What color Carpetbag was didn’t matter so much to us. But what color we were mattered to him. He was happier with his own folks.”
“I don’t think we bothered him so much: the team, I mean. I sure hope we didn’t,” Eddie said. “When he was with us, though, he had to put up with all kinds of garbage he didn’t need to worry about in his own part of town. The landlords who didn’t want to let him stay in their places, the waiters who didn’t want him eating in their restaurants—”
“The crowds calling him names, too,” I put in. I won’t tell you I never called a colored man a name. I could. You wouldn’t know I was lying. But I would know. When you listen to other people do it, though, you start hearing how ugly it sounds.
“Yeah, that’s one more thing he doesn’t have to hear when he plays for a colored team in front of a colored crowd,” Eddie said. “They won’t razz him for being colored. They’ll just razz him for playing on the road team.”
“That’s bad enough,” I said. The House of Daniel heard that kind of thing all the time. We’d heard some in Pendleton that afternoon. What the people in Enid yelled at the Ponca City Greasemen, and what the Ponca City fans called the Eagles, that was worse. But none of it came close to the things a white crowd shouted at colored ballplayers.
The Tarbaby I’d hung on Willard, it was nothing much, not as those things went. Still, I wondered how come he hadn’t hauled off and decked me. Only reason I can think of is, he knew how much hot water he would’ve landed in if he had.
It hardly seemed cause enough to hold back.
* * *
Our next stop was The Dalles, on the Columbia. Of course, we’d crossed the river to get down to Pendleton, but I don’t think I said anything much about it before. That is one serious stream, with a lot of water in it. I suppose the Mississippi’s bigger, but I bet the Columbia runs faster.
We played an all-star team in The Dalles on a high-school field with some extra portable bleachers set alongside the ones that were usually there. The all-stars didn’t all have one uniform, the way a lot of those teams do. They wore the home whites for their own clubs. Guys played for teams from a salmon-packing plant, an outfit that brined cherries, a butcher shop, a railroad, and I don’t know what all else. It was quite a sight.
Put them all together … and they weren’t very good. We were up something like 13-2 after six, so Harv took Fidgety Frank out and let Azariah finish the game with his knuckleball. He gave up three or four runs, but we had the game in hand anyway. He might have given up more, only Eddie pulled the hidden-ball trick on a runner at second base. He made as if to throw it, the way he would with nothing when he did the phantom infield during warmups. That was what he threw this time, too—nothing. Azariah pretended to catch it on the mound. The runner took his lead … and Eddie tagged him.
Oh, that guy was mad! And he was embarrassed, too. He couldn’t seem to decide whether to murder Eddie or just sink down into the ground and disappear. The way he walked back to the dugout—slow, slow, slow, his chin on his chest—he might have been going to meet a firing squad. By how the manager tore into him, he might really have been going to meet one next.
“That wasn’t very nice,” I told Eddie after the last out.
“Yeah.” His eyes twinkled. There was just a little bit of devil in Eddie. Not much. Most of the time, his sober side ran things. But that devil bubbled out once in a while. I could see it right then. He went on, “Figured I’d give it a try. If he didn’t fall for it, fine. But Azariah played it up neat as you please, so he got suckered.”
“I guess he did!” I said. “Maybe you should try it more often, you know? These guys aren’t looking for it. Who would? We had this one in the bag, but you might be able to steal an out that matters.”
“Huh!” His eyes twinkled some more. “You’ve got some of that old original sin left inside you, don’t you, Snake?”
“Funny,” I said, “but I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
The Dalles was about as close to Portland as Harv wanted to play. He didn’t plan to go into Portland, any more than he’d gone into Seattle. The PCL teams in those towns ruled the roost. There were plenty of semipro teams in both places, but they were more semi than pro. In a smaller town, one where there’s no team in the regular minors, the semipros can be cocks o’ the walk. But the Indians and the Beavers had Seattle and Portland sewed up. They got all the newspaper ink. Their games were on the radio.
And they played better ball than we did. Oh, we were good enough to stand a chance against them. But if we played a season in the PCL, we’d finish a lot closer to the bottom than to the top. You’ve got to keep your limits in mind.
So we played in Salem after The Dalles. And we played in Corvallis, and we played in Eugene. We got a day off in Eugene, too, because it poured rain. Just as well, too—the night between those days had a full moon. You want to stay inside with things locked up tight when werewolves prowl.
Harv fidgeted like a cat with fleas even so. He was the one who had to fix up our schedule, and the one who had to shell out for our lodging with no money coming in that day. I have to say, though, the rest of us weren’t too sorry. Rain was about the only thing that kept us from going out on the field every doggone day. Wes put it best: “Weather’s been too damn good lately. We’ve been working our fannies off.”
“You’ve still got a good bit left of yours,” Harv said. No, he didn’t need to swear to needle.
Wes looked wounded to the core. He looked so very wounded, he probably practiced in front of a mirror somewhere. “I’ve got big bones,” he said, as dignified as an English butler only without the silly accent.
We went over to Springfield the next day to play the Booth-Kelly Axemen. They were—surprise!—a sawmill team. Their uniforms had a red diamond with a white BK in it on the left breast. Some people from Eugene were in the crowd. The two towns are only a few miles apart. You could tell the fans from Eugene—they booed the Axemen and cheered for us.
If I remember straight, we won that one. I know I remember the muddy field. It wasn’t like playing in the mud in Texas. This stuff was chilly. So was the weather. People from Oregon told me it could get hot there. I don’t think anybody told the sun, though.
We took US 99 down to Medford. The highway crosses one branch of the Umpqua River or another three or four times. We liked the name. Every time we went over the river, we’d all start going “Ump-qua! Ump-qua! Ump-qua!” like a bunch of bullfrogs. You spend that much time riding in a bus, you find ways to make your own fun. You’d better.
Medford’s town team was called the Nuggets. They played at a fairgrounds ballpark with an auto-racing track around it. Harv kinda clucked when he took a gander at the stands. “I thought this place was bigger,” he said sadly. “I bet it don’t even hold two thousand.”
It was packed, though. In a town like that, a long way off from anywhere big, the House of Daniel was something to come out and see. So we put on a special show for ’em. We did a fancy phantom infield. We even ran a phantom outfield, going back under flies that weren’t there and firing ’em to the bases, where the guys pretended to catch ’em and slapped tags on imaginary baserunners.
The game turned out to be tough. The two things I recollect about their pitcher were his jughandle ears and his fastball. He smoked it in there, and he didn’t have bad control. Amos caught one square and hit it out, but most of the time we flailed away.
We were hanging on to a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the ninth when a Nugget doubled with one out. I got the ball back in to Eddie. He carried it over to Frank, then walked back to second base. Frank straddled the rubber and peered in at Amos for the sign. He shook his head.
If you stand on the rubber without the ball, it’s a balk. You can straddle it all you please, though. The Nugget led off second.
Fidgety Frank ignored him and kept shaking Amos off. Eddie strolled over to the runner and slapped him on the can with his glove.
Then he showed the base umpire the glove had the ball in it. “You’re out!” the ump shouted, and held his fist in the air with his thumb sticking up.
“I’m what?” the Nugget yelled, even louder. Eddie showed him the ball, too. The Nugget didn’t walk off the field as though he’d just watched zombies eat his ma. He hollered something that dented four or five commandments all at once, and he tried to knock Eddie’s block off.
Everybody on both sides ran out to second base. Most of it was pushing and shoving and wrestling, nothing more. At the bottom of the pile, Wes ground that hotheaded Nugget’s face in the dirt, accidentally on purpose. After a while, we untangled. The ump threw the hothead out of the game, and we got on with things. Fidgety Frank made their next hitter bounce back to him. That was the ballgame.
Eddie had a bruise on his cheek. That haymaker got at least partway home. He was grinning all the same. He slapped me on the back almost as hard as the Nugget had swung on him. “Try it when it counts, you told me, Snake,” he said. “They won’t be looking for it, you said. Boy, did you hit that one on the button!”
“Hey, I’m glad it worked,” I said. “Two outs with nobody on is a lot better’n one out and a man on second.”
“You betcha!” He pounded me on the back again.
The Nuggets’ manager wasn’t so happy. “Of all the chickenshit things to do—” he growled at Harv.
“I can’t help it if your guy went to sleep out there,” Harv said sweetly.
“But the hidden-ball trick? C’mon! Nobody uses the hidden-ball trick! Is it any wonder that Olaf got sore at your second baseman?”
“He made the bonehead play. Eddie didn’t. And when things started up again, your old Olaf looked worse’n Eddie. We don’t want to play rough, but we’ll finish anything you start,” Harv said. Baseball’s Golden Rule is Do unto others as they do unto you. Somewhere or other, as you would have them do unto you got changed a bit.
The House of Daniel Page 33