Rookie of the Year

by John R. Tunis

  Raz Nugent raised one hand. Razzle, the big, brash pitcher who thought nothing of sneaking into the enemy clubhouse and listening in at their meetings, was just as bad in his own quarters.

  “May I speak?” he asked politely.

  The young manager beamed. He liked to have the men take part in the meetings. “Go ahead, Raz.”

  Razzle uncoiled his six feet two inches, and shuffled awkwardly to the front of the room. He yanked a sheet of white paper covered with figures from his back pocket. The room sat up with interest. The paper was evidently a list of the Cincinnati hitters and their weaknesses. They waited for Raz’s comments, which they knew would be pungent, with interest.

  Raz was a show-off. He stood looking around, feeling his audience with him.

  “Now here’s something that really has me stumped, Spike.” He scratched his head, pushed his cap back on his brow, and glanced down at the paper in his hand. “The man at the garage soaked me $34.75 for fixing up my car the other day, and I think the bill is too darned high.”

  Spike gazed at him in stunned silence. Before he could intervene, a voice came from the group below. It was Rats Doyle, Raz’s roommate and also a jokester.

  “Naw... I don’t hardly think that’s overcharging, Razzle.”

  Raz nonchalantly shifted a huge lump of chewing tobacco in his mouth, and before he could adjust it to speak another voice chimed in.

  “What did he fix, Raz?”

  “There’s a valve intake in the engine,” explained the big pitcher, “that had to be repaired. But doggone, he’s charging me for new parts, labor, and everything else ’cept the national debt. I think it’s too much.”

  Immediately everyone in the room started to talk. Half the club thought it too high, others felt it was about right. But everyone had an opinion. Spike stood there listening to the argument for a moment. Finally he jumped in, bellowing at the top of his lungs over the din.

  “QUIET! What the dickens has Raz’s busted auto got to do with our beating the Reds this afternoon?”

  Looking about the room, he perceived their grinning faces. Then a momentary feeling of annoyance surged upon him as he noticed in the rear the familiar red face of big Bill Hanson, the club secretary. Bill’s head was back, his huge frame shaking with laughter. Now Spike was angry at the older man. Hanson had no business snooping round at meetings for the team, and Spike started to say something. Then he suppressed his annoyance and decided to give Chiselbeak orders to keep Hanson out in the future. He collected himself, looked at the team, and being a smart manager, realized he was being taken for a mild sleighride. He threw his hands up.

  “Meeting dismissed.” He turned toward the door to the field amid a roar of laughter, shaking his head. Sure, they’d given him the bird, but just the same his heart was light. After all, they had as much right to ride him as Swanny or Rats or anyone else on the club. Wasn’t he one of them? Of course. He was there on the field, dishing it out to the other clubs, yes, and taking it, too, with the rest of the team. Therefore he ought to be able to take it like the others inside the clubhouse.

  He shook his head as they all clumped out the door, but secretly, in his heart of hearts, he was glad. Glad they felt they could ride him just the way they rode everyone else on the team.

  Clack-clack, clackety-clack, clack-clack, clackety-clack, they stomped out to the field, laughing, talking, loose and happy. Yet not a team to be taken lightly because of those shouts and laughter, either.

  3

  OUT AROUND SECOND base, the pivot base, that’s the spot from which a ballclub can be sparked to life. Spike and Bob Russell, the Keystone Kids, were doing it, too, bringing fight and punch to the veterans flanking them, keeping everyone from getting sluggish. Age and youth, fire and experience; the combination was developing into a real infield, and the infield was fusing into a team. At first base was Red Allen, steady, dependable, always picking someone up with a brilliant stop or a catch of a wide throw. At second was Bob, a peppery wildcat through whom it was impossible to drive a ball; at third was Harry Street, a reliable veteran; at shortstop was Spike, hounding grounders like the lead dog in the sheriff’s pack. That hot afternoon in early August the club came into Philadelphia treading on the heels of the Cincinnati Reds in third place, raring to go.

  Spike could feel the looseness of his men by their gags and cracks as they warmed up around the dugout, while the home team took batting practice before the game. Familiar voices echoed about him. Over at one side three pitchers were warming up, Rats Doyle, young Hathaway, and old Fat Stuff Foster. Freddy Foster was too old to pitch often, so Spike seldom used him save for relief jobs or against the weaker clubs in the League. That afternoon he hoped to run him in, and stood there on the steps of the dugout watching the three men throw, wondering whether to spot his star youngster and make the game sure or save him for the tough Sunday doubleheader against the Cubs and take a chance with the veteran against the easier team. A decision hard to make; he put it off as long as possible. Guess right, and no one thinks anything about it; guess wrong, and you begin to lose the confidence of the management, the fans, and before long of your own men.

  He stood on the step, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. Then he heard the voice of Charlie Draper, one of the coaches, talking to a Philadelphia sportswriter.

  “... Yessir, that kid really has what it takes. He’s a cool customer. Y’know, only the other day over at St. Loo, the Cards got three men on in the ninth, and Danaher comes up with two out. Jocko Klein gives Bonesy the sign for a fast ball. The kid shakes him off. So Jocko gives him the sign for a hook, and the boy shakes him off again. Jocko, he walks out to the box. ‘What’s the matter, young fella?’ he says. ‘Don’t you want to pitch?’ ”

  The reporter laughed. Suddenly he observed Spike standing alone on the dugout step, eyeing his pitchers in the act of warming up. The newshawk walked across. “Hullo, Spike, how’s tricks?”

  “Fine.” Spike kept his gaze on the three men throwing to the catchers. He always remembered what Grouchy Devine, the manager of the Volunteers when he and Bob had been in the Southern League, used to say. “When you don’t talk, you don’t never have to eat your own words.”

  “Say, this kid Hathaway looks good. He oughta beat some clubs in this League with that sinker.”

  “Yeah. He’s gonna help us plenty.”

  “That win over the Cards last week won’t hurt. I understand he pitched real ball.”

  “He’ll do better next time.”

  “He must have been hot the other day, though. The Cards were here the next afternoon; they said they couldn’t see his fast one.”

  “Yeah. Well, he’ll improve.”

  “Those Cards said his fast one has a mean hop to it.”

  “If all you can throw is fast balls, it’s murder,” said Spike succinctly.

  “Yeah? Oh, yeah, of course. But he’s got a hook, too, a major league curve, and a big time pitching delivery. But that fast ball... funny. I was just out there watching him. He’s not a big boy; why, he’s almost slender.”

  “Yes, but he’s got a good chest and he gets his shoulders behind the ball. See... see there....” Silence for a moment, while they stood side by side watching the youngster pour it in.

  “Uhuh. He breaks his stuff low.”

  Bill Hanson’s voice broke in. “He’ll be a swell pitcher all right, if only he’ll lay off the beer.”

  Spike turned. Hanson again! Now who asked him to give out with his two cents’ worth? The young manager had the soldier’s half-expressed contempt for the non-combatant. He turned his back on the club secretary and addressed the sportswriter directly.

  “Lemme tell you something. That kid’s arm went bad last year; he wasn’t even taken down to spring training camp. So whad’ he do? He goes to Montreal, played the outfield, developed into quite a pinch hitter in a short while, too. Was batting around two ninety. ‘I won’t quit,’ he told Buz Farrell up there. ‘Nope, I won’t
quit baseball ’cause I love it. They may chuck me out; but I won’t quit.’ So Buz stayed with him, and after a while the boy tried pitching again. His arm came back and he won six straight games, so we called him down about a month ago from Montreal. First game he stopped a liner with his meat hand and lost the nail of one finger. That set him back quite some time, ’bout two-three weeks. But now he’s coming along. He’s a pitcher, now.”

  Spike Russell seldom talked as much as that to outsiders. For a moment he forgot he was addressing a sportswriter. Then he turned away as the umpires gathered around home plate.

  Ten minutes later he was sitting beside Fat Stuff while the Dodgers were taking their raps. Whenever possible the young manager sat beside his old hurler, never failing to learn something valuable. The old timer had a knuckle ball, a screw-ball, control, the whole tempered with aggressiveness. Best of all, he had a thorough knowledge of the hitters. Together, manager and pitcher discussed Danny Lee, the home-run slugger of the last place Phils.

  “If only we can handcuff that guy, this team is a pushover, Fat Stuff.”

  The old fellow nodded. “Yeah. You know he strikes out prob’ly more than anyone in the National League; but he’s a darn dangerous man in a tight spot. And he’s bad medicine for the lefties; glad I pitch right-handed.”

  “Yeah, he really owns the lefties, doesn’t he? How you plan to throw to him, Freddy?”

  “Well, he’s a loosey-goosey at the plate. Thing to do is to avoid giving him that letter-high fast ball across the middle. He hits that one out of sight. Two years ago in the All-Star game in the Yankee Stadium, I seen him belt one of Royal Davis’ pitches clean out into the bullpen in deep center. Boy, that’s a good bit over four hundred and fifty feet. Yessir, he can paste it. Well now, you can throw to Danny Lee four ways to get him out. The spots to pitch to him are: high, inside; high, outside; low, inside; low, outside. Oh... say... looka that catch! Roy was robbed that time. That’s tough, Roy.” Fat Stuff picked up his glove, shifted his wad in his mouth, hitched at his pants, and went out to the mound to go to work.

  The game was close from the start. Few men got on base; those who did died there. The Brooks were hitting hard but right at the fielders, hits that didn’t mean a thing. The Phillie pitcher was stingy, and as the game progressed they kept returning scoreless to the bench after each inning.

  “Say... aren’t you boys going to get me any markers?” complained the old pitcher. “Hey there, what’s the matter with you guys?”

  Spike became almost ashamed, watching the veteran pitch his heart out, putting the opposing side down in short order at the plate, yet still without a run to win. Finally, in the eighth, they managed to squeeze across one tally. Fat Stuff squelched a rally in the last of the eighth himself, with a beautiful stop of a hard hit ball to the left of the box. Finally they came into the last half of the ninth, still clinging to that precarious lead. Two men went down in routine fashion. The Brooks peppered the ball around the infield, chattering at Fat Stuff, everyone thinking of those cooling showers, of dinner, and the end of a hard, hot day. Then the third batter hit a long, lazy single.

  The sparse crowd, scattered throughout the huge stadium at Shibe Park, now paused at the exits and began to come to life. Fat Stuff went to work on the next batter. He’s careful now, thought Spike, he’s throwing careful to get this man. Actually, the veteran pitched far too carefully and lost him, giving up his first base on balls of the game. Plain to see the old pitcher was tiring. The next batter topped a slow ball toward third and beat out Harry Street’s throw by a foot. Three on, last of the ninth, and Danny Lee, the club’s heavy hitter, strode to the plate while the home crowd yelled. This was the big moment.

  Spike looked anxiously at the bullpen where Rats Doyle and Rog Stinson were burning in their throws. Then he glanced back at old Fat Stuff, standing quietly on the mound in that din of noise and clap-clapping from the stands. Shall I yank him? No, siree! I’m gonna stay with him. He’s pitched one swell game, and he’s the foxiest man I’ve got in a spot such as this. Besides, it’ll show the kids like Hathaway that I stay with my pitchers; it’ll build up that lad’s confidence in himself....

  The first ball was high, inside, and Danny Lee swung under it a foot, so hard he swung right off his feet. The swing checked the noise in the stands abruptly. The next pitch was high, outside. The batter looked at it, and now the count was even at one and one.

  The roar over the half-empty ballpark resumed. From his position in deep short, playing for a force-out at second, Spike watched Jocko Klein’s signal. The veteran shook the kid off. He took the next signal and nodded. The ball was going low; low, inside. The batter took his cut, only got hold of a piece of it, and fouled it into the stands. One and two. Again the old chap was ahead of the man at the plate.

  Then something made Spike turn to glance at the scoreboard, and he saw the figures on the game in Cincinnati; Chicago, 3, Cinci, 1. The Dodgers would be in third place! One more pitch, one more good pitch and we’re in third, and we won’t look back, either. C’mon now, Fat Stuff. One more pitch. “Lay it in there, boy; O.K., now.... Let him see it, Fat Stuff... old kid, old boy... alla time now, alla time....”

  Without any wind-up the veteran threw. It was low, outside, and would certainly have been called a ball had the home-run hitter of the Phils not swung at it, swung well over it for the third strike. High, inside; high, outside; low, inside; low, outside. Three strikes and the game was over!

  The Dodgers were in third place. Their highest standing of the season. Triumphantly they rushed for the showers, jubilant at having won and pulled up from sixth to third. Now the team was moving at last. Spike found himself trudging along beside Charlie Draper, the coach, his jacket slung over his shoulder, the leather ball-bag in one hand. The coach knew baseball. He shook his head in admiration at the veteran’s canny pitching.

  “Yessir, he really has what it takes, that man Foster, he really has. Y’know, Spike, this would be quite a ballclub if everyone hustled same as old Fat Stuff.”

  Spike looked quickly around. He hoped some of the young pitchers heard that crack.

  “It sure would,” he agreed.

  4

  A WEEK LATER SPIKE was seated in a taxi in Chicago on the way from the hotel to Wrigley Field with Bill Hanson, the club secretary, and Charlie Draper, the coach. Spike went back to the game of the previous afternoon. “Shoot! We never should have lost that one yesterday. Made me mad!”

  “Me, too. It was a tough one for Bones Hathaway to lose,” rejoined Charlie. “He pitched first-class ball. Why, he was flipping little peas to those Cub batters. His fast ball was right pert.”

  “Yeah,” said Spike, “the kid has it. He has the know-how of pitching. What I like about him is his stance after he’s thrown, both feet planted firmly before him in perfect fielding position.”

  “He’s one of the best fielding pitchers I’ve ever seen,” said Hanson sagely. “The best since Snicker Doane of the Yanks.” Hanson had been around baseball for years, and always harked back to an era in the game no one else could remember. Consequently no one could ever contradict him. “He’s gonna help this club plenty, if he’ll only let the liquor alone.”

  “He’d better,” replied the young manager firmly. “He’d better unless he wants some thin salary checks coming up. What time’s the train for St. Loo leave tonight, Bill?”

  “Six-thirty. Don’t go into extra innings. Shall we give the boys dinner money?”

  “Uhuh. Give ’em dinner money.” Spike went back again to the game of the previous afternoon. “So help me, Charlie, we should never have dropped that one.”

  Although he addressed the remark to Charlie on his left, it was Hanson, somewhat to Spike’s annoyance, who answered. “Nope. Here we are in the second week in August. Doesn’t look too good, does it?”

  Now Spike really was annoyed. Sometimes he wondered whether Hanson was for him or against him. But he knew that all club secretaries thought they knew mor
e baseball than any of the players, so he controlled himself and answered courteously. “Bill, I’m afraid you don’t know your baseball history. D’ja ever hear of the 1921 Giants winning after being seven and a half games behind in late August? Or the Yanks blowing a 13-game lead in 1928, and just barely limping home? Or the 1935 Cubs staging a 21-game, late-season winning streak? Or the Pirates building a World Series press box in 1938 that was never used? Or the Cards catching the Dodgers from ten games back in August, 1942, and...”

  “Maybe you got something there, Spike, maybe you got something there. I just meant...” Hanson was the sort of person who agreed with anybody who put up an argument. But Spike wished to squelch that defeatist talk. It could hurt the club badly.

  “If you’re trying to hint to me the outlook is dark, I say nuts to all that, Bill. I know baseball history. I haven’t been round as long as you have but I’ve seen enough to know this team won’t stop until they flash the mathematics on us. I never said we’d win the pennant. I don’t go in for predictions. I only said we gotta chance. I said that back in June, when we were hanging on to seventh place; I said it in July when we were fifth; and I say it today when we’re third. Yes, even if we did drop an important one yesterday.”

  “Yeah... yeah... oh, yeah, that’s right. You’re dead right, Spike....”

  Charlie Draper felt the atmosphere tighten. He spoke up. “We needn’t have lost that game yesterday at all if young Baldwin hadn’t gone into third standing up in the sixth. Too darned lazy to hit the dirt, he was. Went in standing up, so he was out; then Klein hits that double which would have won us the game. Spike, it’s what you were saying the other day, the effect of nine men giving their best over a hundred and fifty-four days; that means ten or fifteen games, that extra effort.”