Hunting a Detroit Tiger

by Troy Soos

  I unwound the bandages from my right wrist and flexed it gingerly. There was no sharp pain and it appeared only slightly swollen. It felt good enough that I decided to ignore doctor’s orders and try swinging a bat.

  Determining when to come back from an injury is tricky for a player. Coddle it too long, you can weaken the muscles; exercise it too soon, you can cause additional damage. As a utility infielder, the decision was a little easier for me because time was a luxury I didn’t have. A regular player could be out of the lineup for weeks or months with a substitute filling in for him. But there were no substitutes for utility men. If I couldn’t play, I’d be off the team. So, no matter what the instructions from doctors, I always followed one simple regimen for recovery from injury: work it out.

  Even if it did my wrist no good, I hoped that focusing on baseball for a while would clear my head.

  After retrieving one of my Louisville Sluggers from the umbrella stand near the door, I went to the middle of the parlor and assumed a relaxed batting stance. The room was large enough and the furniture sparse enough that there was little danger of me hitting anything.

  I’d rented the cheap, three-room flat “furnished,” which my landlady interpreted to mean a bed in the bedroom and a sofa in the parlor. What passed for a sofa was a sagging bed lounge that had shed most of its burgundy mohair. Like the other pieces in the room—an arthritic cane-backed rocker, a lumpish hassock made of carpet remnants, a wooden folding table held together with gobs of glue—it was from the previous century and of no discernible style. Harsh sunlight revealed the furniture’s every scar and tear, for there were no curtains on the window—“If you’re doing something you don’t want people to see, you shouldn’t be doing it anyway,” she’d explained.

  I took a cautious half swing and a flash of pain shot up my arm. The sensation sent me back two weeks in time, to Greensboro, North Carolina. It was while batting in a spring-training game against the Boston Braves that a fastball from Joe Oeschger sailed inside and smashed my wrist. I’d barely noticed the impact at first because of the umpire, who claimed the ball hit my bat and called it a foul tip. With great vigor and no discretion, I pointed out that he was not only blind, but deaf, unable to tell the difference in sound between bone and wood. It wasn’t until after my ejection from the game that I noticed my wrist ballooning up to the size of a grapefruit. Manager Hughie Jennings had me see a local doctor, who determined it to be “prob‘ly busted or somethin’,” and I was sent on to Detroit to let it heal.

  As I continued to swing the bat loosely, the pain subsided to a dull throb. I smiled as I recalled that some of my teammates envied me the chance to go home early. The Tigers and Braves had decided to cap off their spring-training seasons by barnstorming together in the Southeast. The tour turned out to be a fiasco in every respect. Endless rains kept fans away from the games and turned the playing fields of the ramshackle ballparks into treacherous swamps. Errors were rampant, partly due to poor field conditions and partly because fielders were watching the ground for copperheads and water moccasins instead of paying attention to the ball. More than one pitcher developed arm trouble after hurling sodden, heavy baseballs that were better suited for shot-putting.

  My escape from the misery of spring training had afforded me little relief. The swelling and soreness didn’t subside for days, and I started to have my first inkling of baseball mortality. Whenever I’d been hurt in the past, I’d never even considered the possibility that I wouldn’t recover. But I was older now, twenty-eight, prime age for a ballplayer. Old enough to realize what happens after you reach your peak: you go downhill. If my wrist didn’t heal properly, the downhill slide to involuntary retirement would be steep and rapid.

  As I took my cuts in the parlor, I found it hurt most when I tried to snap the bat around. It was my top hand—the power hand—that Oeschger had hit, and I couldn’t follow through properly. If only I was left-handed like my new teammate Ty Cobb ... Hey, why not?

  I’d tried switch-hitting before, back when I played semipro ball for industrial teams, but had given it up when I realized that I needed to concentrate my efforts on hitting from just one side of the plate. No reason not to try it again, though. I reversed my hands on the bat handle and crouched in a left-handed stance. It felt awkward at first, but I feigned a few bunts, then some half swings, and it started to seem a little smoother.

  Grinning at my own childishness, I then pretended I was Cobb, spreading my fists apart to mimic his split grip and leaning over from the waist in imitation of his stance. I knew I didn’t look anything like the powerful center fielder. I was strictly from the infielder mold: five-seven in my shoes, about 150 pounds when holding a bat, and with just enough muscle to loop a base hit one out of every four at bats.

  Cobb and I did have one thing in common: we were the only two Tigers who didn’t complete spring training. Although the barnstorming tour started in his home state of Georgia, Cobb elected not to participate. His vacation did nothing to endear himself to the rest of the team, but since Ty Cobb had spent the last fifteen years antagonizing his teammates—as well as opponents, fans, and anyone else he came in contact with—neither did it make him more despised than he already was.

  The decrepit cuckoo clock on the wall made a grinding noise, and a small bird limped out to emit five groans. Five o’clock. Exactly twenty-four hours ago, I’d left for Fraternity Hall to meet Emmett Siever.

  It had come about so innocently. I was new to Detroit, with no friends yet and my teammates still on the road. Karl Landfors phoned and suggested I meet a friend of his who used to be a ballplayer. That’s all there was to it. The result: WAR HERO KILLS BOLSHEVIK.

  Switching back to my natural right-handed stance, I focused on an imaginary fastball knee-high down the middle and took a cut. I swung again, and again, harder and harder, oblivious to the pulsing ache in my wrist. Then I lifted my eyes, looking up to where the pitcher would be and imagining infielders behind him. I wanted to be on a baseball diamond. To forget about the police and the newspapers and the sight of Emmett Siever’s dead body. If I could just step onto a ballfield again, everything would be okay.

  Laying the bat on the sofa, I went to the phone and made a call to Hughie Jennings at the Sherman House Hotel in Chicago. A bellboy tracked him down and the manager got on the line. I asked him if I could come and join the team.

  Jennings hesitated. “Doctor say you can play?”

  “Not yet, but I’ll be seeing him again tomorrow. Even if I can’t, I’d like to be with the club. Work out some, maybe warm up the pitchers if you want ...”

  “Well, I don’t think Navin is gonna pay for you to come out here if you can’t play.” Tigers owner Frank Navin was a renowned nickel-nurser.

  “I’ll buy my own train ticket,” I offered.

  “There’d still be hotel and meals to pay for.”

  I wasn’t even worth room and board? “I’ll pay for that, too, if Navin won’t.”

  Jennings paused again. “Well, it ain’t just Navin that’s the problem.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  “I’ll take it easy—”

  “I don’t mean getting hurt on the field. It’s in the locker room I’m worried about. The other players are out for your scalp.”

  “Why?”

  “They think you killed Emmett Siever.”

  Jeez. “I didn’t kill him, Hughie! The newspapers got it wrong!”

  “Yeah, well, I think it’d be better for you if you stay in Detroit. Maybe by the time we get home, the boys’ll have calmed down.”

  I didn’t want to push it with Jennings. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”

  “Take care of that wrist, kid. If they’re still as pissed as they were this morning, you might have to use your dukes.”

  After hanging up, I went back to swinging the bat. Left-handed, with a split grip. Maybe I didn’t look like Ty Cobb, but I now had one more thing in common with him: my teammates hated me.
/>
  Chapter Three

  At the same time that the Tigers were taking the field in Chicago’s Comiskey Park for the season opener against the White Sox, I was being tortured in a dark, filthy office in downtown Detroit.

  With a strong two-handed grip, Dr. Wirtenberg twisted my right wrist. He’d already poked, prodded, and squeezed the damaged joint, and was now giving it some kind of final test, apparently to see if he could unscrew my hand from my arm. “Seems to be getting better,” he mumbled, releasing his hold on me.

  The doctor’s lips were drawn back, not in a snarl but as a precaution. Clamped in his stained yellow teeth was a burning cigar stub so short that it threatened to set his equally stained gray mustache on fire.

  “Am I okay to play?” I asked, fighting the hope in my voice.

  His eyes squinting against the smoke that shimmied up his face, Wirtenberg pulled the wet, crumbly cigar from his mouth, handling it with far greater care than he’d shown my wrist. In a nasal voice that sounded strongly of the Bronx, he said, “Think you’ll need another appointment. Maybe two.”

  Something about his manner gave me the impression that the additional visits were more for his benefit than for mine. “Tigers pay you for each visit, right?”

  Wirtenberg nodded. “That’s the arrangement I have with Mr. Navin.”

  “How much?”

  “I don’t see where that’s any—”

  “How about if I pay you myself for two more visits and you give me a clean bill of health?” I wanted to be free to join the team and play ball as soon as I could. Besides, two more treatments by this guy and I’d be out for the season.

  The doctor gave the smoldering cigar a mercy killing, crushing it out in an iron bedpan on the corner of his desk. Sprinkles of cigar ash, as well as a more uniform layer of dust, covered everything in the room, including some grimy medical instruments. I’d been in minor-league locker rooms that were more sanitary.

  Wirtenberg removed his pince-nez and polished the lenses with his necktie. “Sounds reasonable,” he agreed. “It’s four dollars a visit, so you owe me eight altogether.”

  I suppressed a laugh. The fee he’d quoted was probably double what he really got from Frank Navin. Judging from the condition of the office and knowing Navin’s reputation as a tightwad, my guess was that the team physician was selected solely on the criterion of lowest rates. It wasn’t even a requirement that the doctor be a Tigers fan—tacked on the wall next to Wirtenberg’s diploma was a New York Yankees pennant.

  “Give you five,” I counteroffered.

  “Six.”

  “Five.”

  “Close enough.”

  I pulled a bill from my wallet. “Do I pay you or the receptionist?”

  “Me.”

  The doctor tucked the money in his vest pocket, then scribbled a note to the effect that I could play baseball again. Handing me the slip of paper, he said, “Was probably just bruised anyhow.”

  As I rolled down my shirtsleeve, I noticed how red and swollen the wrist had become as a result of his examination. If it wasn’t bruised before, it sure was now. “Should it be bandaged again?” I asked. I knew the cotton wrapping was only for protection in case I banged my hand on something; it wouldn’t help the healing process.

  “If you like.” He made no move to do the wrapping.

  After loosely winding the bandage myself, I pulled on my coat, put the note in a pocket, and started to leave. I was more convinced than ever that one of the best ways to stay healthy is to avoid doctors.

  “Oh!” Wirtenberg said as I reached the door. “I read about you in the paper yesterday.” When I turned back to face him, he asked in a confidential tone, “Tell me: why did you really kill that fellow?”

  I started to say “I didn’t—,” then caught myself. What was the point of denying it, I thought. No one believes me anyway. “Because he was a Yankee fan,” I said.

  Two people were in the waiting room outside.

  One was the doctor’s receptionist, whose nose was buried in the latest issue of Collier’s. It remained there as I passed her desk; her response to my “Good-bye” was “Uh-huh.”

  The other person was a bulky, thick-necked man wearing a loose khaki sack suit. He rose from a bench near the door, pulled himself to a height of about six-four, and studied me carefully. In a raspy voice, he asked, “Mickey Rawlings?”

  I acknowledged that I was, and tried to figure out who he could be. The man’s head was crowned by an oversize tweed golf cap, a thin yellow bow tie was embedded under his lowermost chin, and a green automobile duster was draped over his left forearm. Bright red socks were visible between the tops of his heavy black work boots and the high-riding cuffs of his trousers. Physically, he looked like a wrestler, but all I could determine for certain was that he had no fashion sense.

  Forming a toothy, mechanical smile, he said, “Let me shake your hand.”

  I held up my bandaged wrist and started toward the door. “Sorry. Can’t.”

  He slid in front of me, the unconvincing grin still on his face. “A mutual friend asked me to take you to lunch.”

  “Who?” If the mutual friend was Karl Landfors, declining the offer might be the best thing to do. I seemed to bring his friends bad luck.

  “Frank Navin.”

  Navin? That was a surprise. I’d never met the Tigers owner, not even to sign my contract. Navin was my boss, not a friend. “And who are you?” I asked.

  “Hub Donner. Shall we go?”

  The name was unfamiliar to me. “Uh, yeah, sure.” I was wary, but curious to find out what this was about.

  With a gesture at the door he stood aside for me to go first.

  Down three flights of stairs, we emerged on Gratiot Avenue and into a thick, overcast day with a bone-biting chill in the air. It felt more like midwinter than the first day of baseball season. Donner slipped into his automobile duster and I fastened the belt of my double-breasted ulster. He pointed to a glossy new Model T runabout parked at the curb. “We can take my car.”

  As he grabbed the handle of the passenger door, I said, “Let’s walk.” Something in the back of my mind warned me that getting into a stranger’s automobile might not be the wisest thing to do, even if the stranger did claim to be a friend of Frank Navin. In fact, the mere notion of a baseball owner having a friend sounded suspicious.

  A hint of a genuine smile twitched the corners of Donner’s mouth. “Fine by me,” he said. “It’s not far. Thought we’d eat at the Tuller.”

  Half a block from Wirtenberg’s office, we turned west on Madison Street, our heads low and shoulders hunched in defense against the bitter wind. Most of the heavily bundled men passing by us wore derbies jammed low on their foreheads. I was in a straw boater; it was my personal custom to wear the summer hat from opening day through to the end of the World Series, and I wasn’t about to break the tradition just because of a little cold weather.

  Donner became aggressively chummy as we walked, jawing and joking like a Rotary Club luncheon speaker. He accompanied his punch lines with slaps on my back, and often draped his big hand over my shoulder. I shrugged it off every time.

  By the time we crossed Randolph, fat snowflakes were dancing in the air but not yet sticking to the sidewalk. And I had already tired of Hub Donner’s company.

  The Hotel Tuller was an imposing structure, about fifteen stories high, filling Park Boulevard from Bagley to Adams. There was something forbidding about its stately appearance; the very bricks seemed to suggest that only those of wealth or importance were welcome within. I wondered if the management still maintained the policy that finer hotels used to have of refusing service to actors or ballplayers.

  Either the policy had been abandoned or I wasn’t recognized as a baseball player, for we entered without incident. After checking our coats and hats, Hub Donner directed a fawning maître d’ to give us a window table in the Men’s Grill. The ground-floor restaurant, with its dark wood paneling, polished brass, and plush ca
rpeting, had the ambience of a gentlemen’s club. Although it was on the late side for lunch, almost all the tables were occupied, and it was several minutes before the maître d’ could accommodate us. We settled into leather chairs next to a window overlooking Grand Circus Park. The view of the park, where naked trees shuddered in the wind, was often interrupted by pedestrians walking past.

  Sitting across from each other, I took a closer look at Donner. He reminded me of movie actor Erich von Stroheim in one of his evil Hun roles. Donner’s close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair looked more like a five o’clock shadow than a hairstyle. Creasing his scalp was a patchwork of vivid scars; I assumed he was proud of the marks, or he would have let his hair grow out to cover them.

  Scanning his face, I caught his dark steady eyes and saw that Donner was sizing me up, too. Literally sizing me up. “So you’re the fellow who killed Emmett Siever,” he said. “Smaller than I expected.”

  “If it makes you feel any better,” I said, “maybe the guy who really shot him was bigger.”

  Donner chuckled as if to show he’d only been pulling my leg.

  When our waiter came, Donner took it upon himself to order for both of us: porterhouse steaks, double thick, rare, with potatoes and onions. I interrupted that I wanted mine well-done. He let me name my own drink, ginger ale, while he opted for coffee, black.

  As the waiter scurried away with our orders, Donner fingered a ridge of scar tissue that ran for several inches over his right ear. I’d seen enough similar marks during the war to know that it was a bullet wound. I also knew that most fellows who had them didn’t like to be asked about their scars—the stories of how they got them were usually too grisly or too embarrassing for them to want to repeat. Hub Donner was drawing attention to his, though, almost pleading for a question.

  I went along. “War wound?”

  Donner laughed as unconvincingly as he smiled. “Yes, but not the one you were in.” His words sounded as if they passed through broken glass on the way out of his throat. “Union wars. Bullet was from one of Bill Haywood’s miners in Colorado, summer of ’05. Haywood’s boys play for keeps.” The smile again. “But so do I.”