Painting the Corners

by Bob Weintraub

  “Sit down, Johnny, and tell me what in blazes we’re gonna do for another pitcher.”

  Abbott lowered his long, wiry frame onto the red, vinyl seat sacross from Carlson. Years of use and abuse had produced cracks in the faded covering on both sides of the booth, and strips of duct tape had been applied to hold the material together. He saw that the silver-colored, tin ashtray on the table already held six or seven cigarette butts, each one smoked down to its very end. The package of Lucky Strikes was visible through the pocket of Carlson’s short-sleeved white shirt. Abbott was surprised to see him wearing a pair of metal-framed glasses, something he never did at the ballpark, even when the two of them were alone in the manager’s small office. The frames were resting near the tip of his nose, and he lowered his head so that he could look out over them.

  “Couldn’t we be having this conversation about two hours from now, Moose?” is what Abbott wanted to say. He knew that Carlson had given himself that nickname years earlier, rebelling against his parents’ choice of having him go through life as Morton, or even Mort. It had nothing to do with the enormous size of his shoulders or the girth of his waist that forced him to the racks carrying the size 46 when he had to buy a new pair of pants.

  But Abbott was too smart to speak those words. The last six baseball seasons sitting next to Carlson in the dugout had taught him how the manager would react.

  “Two hours from now?” he would say, his voice rising. “Why the hell not two days from now? Better yet, let’s wait a couple of weeks.” By that point Carlson would be rapidly approaching a full bellow. “Maybe by then we’ll be five or six games out of first and pissing away the whole pennant race.” He would stop then, take a deep breath and let out a long sigh. His next words, released as if the shouting had been an uncontrollable aberration they should both ignore, would be spoken in a normal tone, but reeking of sarcasm. “You’re right, Johnny, what’s the hurry? It’s no big deal.”

  Instead, Abbott said, “You look like shit this morning, you know that?”

  “I feel good, too,” Carlson countered quickly. “So how come you can sleep like a baby with the problems we’ve got?”

  “That’s easy,” Abbott answered. “Because if I stayed up all night and looked like you do now, you’d think I was after your job.” He pointed at Carlson’s coffee cup. “Did you have to make that yourself, or what?”

  “Nah, the blonde waitress is here. Helen, or Helene, whatever her name is. She’s making me some French toast. Probably be out in a minute.”

  Abbott reached over and took a sugar cube from the small ceramic bowl sitting next to the salt and pepper shakers. He unwrapped it and held the end in his mouth for a few seconds, then broke a piece off with his teeth.

  “I don’t know who we can use for another starter,” he said. “There’s definitely no one in Tulsa ready to make the jump up here yet. Bobby Reynolds is the best of them, but some days he can’t find the plate with a map, and he’s got a bad habit of throwing too many gopher balls.” Abbott folded his arms and pushed his shoulders against the thinly padded back of the booth. “It’s a shame that Whitlock waited until after the trading deadline to break down. If it happened sooner, we’d have had a choice of two or three guys on other clubs who could help us out. Seems like all we can do is watch who gets put on waivers and hope no one else grabs them before it’s our turn.” He waited a few seconds but Carlson didn’t say anything. “You got a better idea, Moose?”

  Before Carlson could answer, the waitress came over and put his dish on the table. The nametag fastened to the breast pocket of her green-and-white uniform informed her customers that she was “Eleanor.”

  “Coffee?” she asked Abbott.

  “Yeah, and a couple pieces of white toast.”

  “You take it regular?”

  “With cream, no sugar.” She started to turn away. Abbott spoke again. “Wait a second, Eleanor. Mind my asking if you’re married?”

  She looked at him carefully before answering, as if trying to decide what she’d say to this man, at least fifteen years older than her, rapidly turning bald, and not wearing a wedding band, if he asked her out.

  “The answer is nope and nope.”

  Abbott didn’t hesitate. “Are you looking for someone?”

  Again, she took her time before responding, and prefaced her words with a nervous smile. “I’ve been looking for fourteen years, ever since my seventeenth birthday.” She didn’t see any sign of doubt in their eyes about the numbers she had given them to add together. They didn’t have to know she had turned 35 a month earlier.

  “So what do you do until the right one comes along?” he asked.

  “Just keep praying, I guess.” She smiled again at both of them, sensing that Abbott’s questions weren’t leading to any kind of proposal that they get together. “Let me go put in your order,” she told him.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Carlson asked as soon as Eleanor had moved several booths away from them. “Are you thinking of getting married at your age?”

  “You know me better than that. But she just gave you the answer to your problem.”

  The manager put down the bottle of maple syrup he’d been applying too generously to his French toast. He looked at Abbott, waiting to be enlightened. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Start praying for a pitcher, and keep at it ’til we find one.”

  Johnny Abbott was allergic to tobacco smoke. When he was forced to breathe enough of it, he would get a rash on his body — like hives — starting on his neck and moving down his chest and back to his belt line. It had been an occupational hazard over the years as he traveled with baseball teams by rail from city to city. Very few trains reserved either a passenger or dining car for non-smokers. There just weren’t enough people like him to warrant it. He avoided the dilemma on some occasions by driving alone in his car between cities when the team was playing a series close to St. Louis and returning for a home stand when it was over. Abbott did it all the time when Chicago was the only destination, and occasionally when it was the first stop on a road trip that included Cleveland or Detroit, or both.

  The Browns were scheduled to play a weekend series in Chicago at the end of July, beginning on a Friday afternoon. In the ten days since Whitlock’s injury, they had been overtaken by Detroit and had fallen into second place — two games behind. Carlson’s face had taken on a wasted appearance, like a man in the first hours of recovery from major surgery.

  On Thursday, a scheduled travel day, Abbott left St. Louis after breakfast for the roughly 300-mile trip to the home of the White Sox on the shores of Lake Michigan. About halfway there — as he approached Peoria where he always stopped for lunch — his three-year-old Chevrolet sedan began losing power periodically and making some popping sounds he was certain he hadn’t heard before. Abbott slowed down to no more than twenty miles an hour and coaxed the Chevy to a Mobil station located on the main road into town.

  While the mechanic was filling the gas tank, he listened to Abbott describe the symptoms. He checked under the hood and then had Abbott move the car inside — above the oil pit — so he could examine it from underneath. A few minutes later he informed him that the problem was with the muffler. He assured Abbott that he could fix it, but that he wouldn’t be able to finish the job until sometime the following morning.

  “But I’m supposed to be in Chicago at noon tomorrow. We’re playing the Sox at one-thirty.”

  The mechanic didn’t say anything. Abbott could see that he didn’t understand. “I’m a coach with the St. Louis Browns. We’ve got a weekend series with the White Sox, starting tomorrow afternoon, and I’ve got to be there.”

  “I getcha,” the mechanic answered. That explained the deep tan on the man’s leathery face, he thought. “Ordinarily, I’d be able to get this done before dark, but one of my boys is playing a ball game himself today, starting about four. I’m going to have to close a little early to go help him out. I’d send you someplace e
lse but none of the other stations do any work after five.” He watched Abbott’s facial expression turn to one of disappointment and uncertainty. “Tell you what I can do, though,” he said. “I’ll get in here early tomorrow, finish up, and have you on the road by nine at the latest. With a little luck, it could be eight-thirty.”

  Abbott didn’t understand what this man had to do to help his son during a baseball game, but he was afraid the boy might be crippled in some way, so he didn’t ask. He nodded his head. “Okay, I’ll leave it here.”

  “There’s a few places in town you can stay at,” the mechanic said, “but I’d recommend the Morgan Hotel. The rooms are good, it’s a fair price, and it sits right across the street from Rose’s Diner, where you can order the best pies you’ll ever taste.”

  Abbott liked this mechanic. “My name’s Johnny Abbott,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ll take your word for it that I can be on my way to Chicago tomorrow morning. What’ll it cost me?”

  “I’d say probably about eighteen dollars. Most of it’s the parts.” He shook the hand extended to him. “I’m Galen Morrison. And if you’re short of cash, don’t worry about it. I’ll give you an address where you can send a money order.”

  “I’ll be okay,” Abbott said, “unless I eat too much pie over at Rose’s before I leave town. The hotel’s about ten blocks or so from here, right?”

  “Just about,” Morrison told him, “but I’ll have my helper drive you over.” He walked outside and around the corner of the building before calling for someone named Lloyd. A young boy appeared a minute later, dressed in the same kind of green shirt and pants as Morrison, and wearing a pair of high-top, black sneakers. He just nodded when he was told to take the red Ford and drop Abbott off at the Morgan Hotel. Abbott figured the helper was no more than fifteen, and learned on the short ride to the hotel that he had overestimated by almost a year. The boy, when asked, bragged that he had been driving since he was eleven.

  “Who’s playing in that game you told me about, and where’s the field at?” he asked Morrison, while getting in the Ford.

  “It’s the guys from a couple of the factory teams around here. They’ll show you some good baseball. Some of them played in a semi-pro league, and there’s two or three with a little minor league ball under their belts. Game’s at Lindbergh Park. They renamed it just a few months ago. It used to be Harlow Field, after Jetson Harlow, a lawyer downtown. He contributed the most when they fixed the place up and put in a grandstand about ten years ago. But Ray Beazley, the mayor, convinced the folks it ought to have the name of someone well known.” Morrison laughed. “Of course, Harlow gave a lot of money to the mayor’s opponent in last year’s election.” He hesitated, to let the point sink in. “It’s no more than a seven or eight-minute walk from the hotel. Just ask anyone how to get there.”

  Just after three-thirty Abbott took a second row seat in the wooden stands on the third base side of the field. A quick look around told him that there was room for about a thousand people to sit down and watch the action. He was the first spectator to arrive, and was one of only a handful there watching the teams take fielding practice until about ten minutes before the game began. Then, suddenly, cars were coming from all directions, and both grandstands began filling up.

  The crowd, mostly men, seemed to know all the players warming up. They shouted words of encouragement to some of them or began heckling those on the other team. But it was all in fun, and every few minutes one of the players being razzed would stop and, with a big smile on his face, point a finger toward the person in the stands baiting him.

  Everyone on both teams wore a uniform, but Abbott couldn’t find two alike. He realized that each player probably had on the shirt and pants he’d been given by some club or league he’d played for in the past. Looking around, Abbott spotted the shirts of the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Athletics on two of the players. He learned from an attractive girl in blue jeans who sat down near him that the team on their side of the field was from Gibson Filters, a company that made automobile filters. The group on the first base side worked at Peoria Packing, where farm vegetables were cleaned, cooked, and canned for shipment all over the Midwest.

  It took less than an inning of play for Abbott to shake off the indifference he’d brought with him to the game. The pitcher for Gibson Filters was throwing a knuckleball on almost every delivery, and Abbott could see it dip and move around from where he sat. The Peoria Packing hitters weren’t coming close to making contact with it, but the catcher had the same difficulty trying to get the ball into his glove. At least one of every three pitches went to the big wire backstop. The pitcher’s occasional changeup was a fastball that overpowered the batters when it crossed the plate, catching them off balance as they tried to time their swings to the next fluttering move of the knuckler. But it was a welcome relief to the catcher who knew where it was going and didn’t have to hurl his body in one direction or another to stop it.

  “What’s the pitcher’s name?” Abbott asked the same girl. He had listened to her root for each of the packing company hitters flailing away at the plate and wondered why she hadn’t taken a seat on the other side of the field.

  “That’s Tommy Morrison,” she answered. A few moments later she added, “He thinks he’s so good.”

  “He is good,” Abbott said to her. “From what I can see, he’s damn good.”

  Peoria Packing scored two runs in its long first inning, without the benefit of a hit. Morrison walked one batter and struck out five, but three of his victims reached first base when the third strike eluded the frustrated catcher’s grasp.

  When Morrison went back out for the second inning, leading 4-2 on the runs his team had just answered with, Abbott went to watch the action from behind the wire backstop. The first three batters went down swinging and became official strikeouts, but all of them reached base on passed balls. At that point Abbott was convinced that he had never seen as good a knuckleball in his life.

  The team manager went to the mound along with the catcher and spoke to Morrison. When the conference ended, the young pitcher began throwing mostly fastballs. The Packers, realizing that they no longer had to worry about looking foolish in the batter’s box, got a couple of hits in the inning and regained the lead by two runs. Abbott saw that the first two innings had taken an hour and a half to play and figured that the teams would be lucky to squeeze in three more. Tired of standing, he returned to his seat in the grandstand.

  But he was wrong about the time. Gibson Filters tied the game with two runs in their half of the second and had a new catcher behind the plate when Morrison returned to the mound. He threw twelve pitches, nine of which were knuckleballs. All but one were handled cleanly by his battery-mate, and he struck out the side.

  Abbott’s female neighbor was clearly upset. “Ringer!” she had begun shouting toward the field after the second out. “Take out the ringer!”

  He could see that her resentment was being directed toward the catcher who had come into the game. The man looked vaguely familiar but Abbott couldn’t see his face. “Who’s catching for them now?” he asked her.

  “That’s Tommy’s father,” she said. “He worked for Gibson before he opened a garage. All the teams let him play when Tommy’s pitching because he’s the only one who can catch a knuckleball. We’ll never win now.”

  And she was right. Gibson scored three runs in the next four innings while Morrison allowed only one more hit the rest of the game. Incredibly, Abbott’s running total showed that the kid had struck out nineteen batters in seven innings.

  That night, after a most satisfying dinner at Rose’s, topped off with a huge slice of cherry pie, Abbott called Carlson at the team’s hotel in Chicago. He explained why he had to stay in Peoria until the following morning and told Carlson about the game he had watched.

  “This kid’s unbelievable, Moose. I’m telling you he’s got a major-league knuckleball.”

  “How old is he?”

 
; “Nineteen.”

  “Nineteen, for Chrissake. Johnny, I’m worried about winning this year, not three years from now.”

  “What I’m saying is that he can do it right now.” Abbott realized that he was yelling into the phone. He stopped and took a deep breath. “Tell me, Moose, how many times in your career did you hit against Stitch Walters? Best knuckleball you ever saw, right? Could pitch every other day, right? Believe me, this Morrison’s better right now. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “How can you say that, Johnny? You told me they were guys from a factory down there hitting off him. We play in the big leagues, remember?”

  “That don’t matter. No one’s gonna hit him. The ball dances like it’s on strings. You’ve got to see him pitch for yourself.”

  Abbott could hear Carlson exhaling loudly and guessed that he was smoking a cigarette. Several more seconds passed before the manager spoke. “And even if he’s as good as you say, who’s gonna catch him? Sheroff’s too old and worn down to start fighting a knuckler behind the plate, and Holmes probably never saw one before. I know the three years he’s been up here no one’s ever thrown a knuckleball on this staff. So what’s the use?”

  “There’s a guy here who can catch him. Handles him like every pitch is straight down the pike. Only one ball got by him in five innings last night. And the kid had twelve strikeouts in those frames. We could sign them both.” Abbott waited for an answer. When he heard nothing, he said, “The least you can do is take a look. Either that or just keep praying.”

  Carlson sighed heavily into the phone. It was clear that he wasn’t convinced. “Okay, bring them with you tomorrow. And if they’re not everything you say, I’m gonna let you drive them straight back to Peoria.”

  It wasn’t easy for Abbott to convince the Morrisons to make the trip to Chicago with him. Galen Morrison was standing in the oil pit, hard at work on the Chevrolet when Abbott got to the garage just after seven-thirty the next morning. He had walked there from the hotel, stopping first at Rose’s for coffee and a couple of her homemade chocolate donuts.