How to get this extra effort, how to make each player come through with his best all the time, which man to drive, which to coax along, which to holler at, that’s the job of the manager. That’s my job, thought Spike, looking out the taxi window. “Charlie, I like to kill that kid right there on the spot before the crowd. I was so mad I couldn’t speak to him last night. I did this morning, though. I had breakfast with him and told him a few things. ‘That cost us a mighty important game, boy, and it’s gonna cost you fifty bucks,’ I told him.”
“How’d he take it?”
“How could he take it?”
“Just the same, Spike, the team’s rolling better since you traded Case and stuck in this boy there in left field. Y’know, Case was a trouble-maker.”
“Sure,” Hanson spoke up. “Karl Case was the one who started all that name-calling with Jocko Klein. Look at Jocko now. What a ballplayer he turned out to be.”
“Always was,” said Spike sharply. “He always was a ballplayer. And the way he backs up with men on base is just something. I bet he saved us three different times in tight spots yesterday.”
“Doggone, then that dopey kid Baldwin has to go and lose it for us. Shoot, we would have picked up a whole game on the Cards. The Pirates, too.”
“Raz Nugent says we lost yesterday because he hasn’t got locker 13.” Hanson grinned. “Says we always lose in this town when he hasn’t got locker 13. He’s trying the worst way to get Harry Street to change, and Harry won’t, ’cause he went three for five the other day and wants to hang onto that number.”
“These birds are sure funny,” said Draper. “D’ja ever notice Roy Tucker at bat? When he first comes up he always taps the four corners of the plate.”
“Yeah, an’ Jocko Klein always puts his left shoe on first.”
“An’ Fat Stuff, if he wins a game he wears the same inner socks until he loses; why, he’ll wear ’em until they fall off him.”
“Remember that trick of Razzle’s, the way after every inning he chucks his glove across the foul line ahead of him, then when he reaches it, leans over and moves it so the fingers point toward third base? Well, I was asking him about that the other day. He says there’s folks stop him on the street and question him; says they come out to the ball park just to see him do it.”
“That big guy’ll slay me,” remarked Hanson. “Over in Cinci he got hold of a pair of rabbits and kept them four days in his room in the Netherlands Plaza. They ate up four square yards of rug. The hotel people like to throw us all out of the place. I made Raz pay for it though, every red cent.”
The taxi drew up at the side entrance to the field. Spike stepped out, and instantly the trio was assaulted by a mob of kids.
“Hey, Mr. Russell... give us yer autograph... Mr. Russell, will ya... please....”
5
BILL HANSON WAS in the grill of the Coronado drinking a highball with Jim Casey of the News. Casey had listened to the game that afternoon on a portable radio he had carried into the press box, and was describing the linguistics of Snazzy Beane, the remarkable St. Louis broadcasting genius. Now Casey was giving a fairly good imitation of him.
“He goes into his act something like this. ‘He’s rounding second... the bases are cleared... he’s going into third... folks, he’s did it! He slud into third for a triple!’ ”
Hanson threw back his head. He laughed. His red face became even redder. “Say, no human being but Snazzy Beane could take the verb ‘slide,’ call it ‘slud,’ and make it mean the same thing. Only more so.”
“It’s a fact,” replied Casey. “Look. Who’s that girl over there... at the table with — who is it? Why, it’s Hathaway and Baldwin!”
“Where? Which one?” Hanson instantly stood on the rung of his stool at the bar and looked carefully over the noisy, smoke-filled room.
“There! That table in the corner, there.” The noise of pounding came from one end of the room, and above the din could be heard Hathaway’s strong tones.
“Waiter! Waiter!”
Then he saw them. They were at a corner table with a girl in red. Yes, it was Hathaway and Baldwin, the rookie roommates. He recognized the girl, too, for Hanson had been around. “Why, sure, that’s Jane Andrews, the gal who sings at the Club Royal. I understand Baldwin knows her; they both come from the same town somewhere down in Tennessee.”
The men at the bar watched with interest. The ballplayers were noisy, and the room was watching them. Before long everyone seemed to be aware of the fact that a couple of the Dodgers were back there with a girl at the corner table. Casey after a minute resumed his account of the broadcast of the afternoon’s game.
“... Well, Bill, in the seventh the guy goes wild. You remember, when they scored that tying run. ‘Folks,’ he says, ‘folks, I just wanna tell you one thing. This is... the nuts. Yes, sir... the nuts. I’m a-broadcasting to you about the greatest team in baseball, and when the World Series comes, they’ll run them Yankees clean out of the park.’ ”
“Yeah, he’s something, isn’t he? Tommy Holmes sat next to him one afternoon in the broadcasting booth. He said it was like being at a doubleheader; you saw one game and heard another.”
Casey glanced up. The yells for the waiter from that table in the corner increased. “Those boys had better watch out. If Spike Russell catches Hathaway down here two days before he’s gotta pitch, he’ll peel his hide off him.”
“Aw, Russell thinks he knows everything there is to know about baseball. Why, I was connected with baseball before he was dry behind the ears,” said Hanson.
Casey, watching the trio in the corner, made no reply. The whole room was looking at them now. Then he turned back to the bar and his half-finished drink.
“What was I saying? Oh, yes, Snazzy Beane. Well, then, in the sixth, when they threw Baldwin out at third, he really winds up. ‘Say, folks, do you suppose they broadcast these games to Flatbush? If they do, them folks can’t be enjoying their dinner much. I’ll say. An’ we ain’t gonna stop winning, either. We’ll belt that boy Hathaway right off the mound next Monday night, you see if we don’t. He beat us in Brooklyn; but he won’t repeat, you take it from ol’ Snaz. We’re in, folks, and you can call up them Yanks and tell ’em that for Snazzy!”
The commotion at the corner table became louder as chairs scraped and the three rose and came toward the bar. They were singing, all of them.
“She’s gonna cry... until I tell her that I’ll never roam... Chattanooga choo-choo... won’t you take me back home... home... home...”
They pushed and shoved their way past the crowded bar to the stairs. Jim Casey, ever sensitive to a news break, shoved half a dollar on the bar and disengaged himself from his stool. Without a word to Hanson he trailed the three singers to the doorway as they staggered upstairs. Arm in arm, they emerged into the lobby and reached the elevator just as the door opened with a bang and Charlie Draper followed by Spike Russell stepped out.
The manager took one look. He turned without speaking and walked into the Coffee Shoppe. The veteran coach was at his heels.
By morning everyone knew it, for a thing of this kind spreads fast on a ballclub. So no one was surprised the next day when a meeting was called. But this was not an ordinary meeting. Only the team was present; outsiders were excluded. Doc Masters wasn’t there, and the players noticed that Chiselbeak held the door open while the two coaches stepped through, and then kept Bill Hanson from entering. They looked at each other. Certainly this was no ordinary meeting.
“Now there’s just one thing I want to bring up this afternoon.” The room was painfully quiet. Aha, so he’s going into that! Yep, that’s it!
Spike paused and glanced around; at his brother in the group at his feet; at the others, most of them dark and tanned, a few like Swanson who was blond and never seemed to tan no matter how much he stayed in the sun. But Bob and Swanny and all of them were tired and drawn about the eyes. They were solemn and serious, too. They knew what the meeting was about.
The silence that lasted, painful in its length, was broken as usual by Razzle. No matter how serious the moment, the brash prima donna of the team had to inject his personality. “How ’bout the third time, Spike?”
There could have been titters, laughter even. But before the team’s mood could change, Spike jumped. He turned quickly toward the big pitcher standing against a locker to the side. There was anger in the sudden movement of his body, anger in his voice and his quick words. Everyone connected with the club from MacManus down treated Raz with the respect that his salary, his reputation, and his pitching record deserved. Spike Russell was different. He forgot all that. To him Raz was just another player. And for once the showboat of the squad regretted his remark. For once he was not to enjoy holding the center of the stage.
“Razzle! There isn’t... there won’t be any third time. For you or anyone else on this club.” He spoke as if he meant it and he did. They realized their manager was in no light mood. “I may lose my pitching staff. O.K. I may risk the pennant. O.K. again. I may even break up this club. O.K. If you’re a drinker... you’re through as far as I’m concerned. That means you, too, Raz, same as everyone else. Baseball’s a business. If business interferes with your drinking, go where it doesn’t.
“What’s the reason I’m tough about this? It isn’t the usual reasons. This is no Sunday School; we’re a ballclub, not a reform school. Even a few beers now and then slow a man up; he don’t get that extra step in beating out a bunt or stealing second, or that burst of speed he needs to nab a low drive in the field or grab it one hop sooner. That’s all true enough, but that’s not all there is to it. The point is this... a drinker... only one drinker... can ruin a club and its pennant chances, too. My brother Bob and me learned this a long while ago and it cost us plenty.”
Now there was a slight rustle over the room; a cough in the rear, the scrape of a spike across the floor, the noise of a bench creaking as someone shifted. Yet they watched him closely, they listened carefully as he continued.
“Back some years ago we were a couple of utility outfielders on the Dallas Rebels in the Texas League. ’Bout halfway through the season several of the boys got banged up, and Rhodes, the manager, shoved us in at second and short. We were only kids and we took quite some knocks; but we hung on, we played ball, and toward the end of the season the club finished third and was in there fighting in the play-offs for the Dixie Series against Beaumont. Night before the deciding game, a scout from the Pirates came to see us. Said he liked our looks and might send us along with Buster Reynolds, our star southpaw, up to the Syracuse Chiefs, their farm in the International League.
“There was our chance. We couldn’t believe it. Buster, now, he was plenty hot that season. He’d won seventeen for us and looked good. He met this scout the same evening, and afterward he thinks: ‘I’m as good as in the big time; I’ve made the grade,’ he thinks. ‘I’ll just loosen up and have me a beer.’ He did. Had several. Next day Beaumont scored six runs and knocked him out of the box in the first inning. We never got a chance in the field until the scout had quit in disgust. The final score was eight to nothing. Buster didn’t go to the Chiefs that next year; neither did we.
“We figured we were through ’cause Buster Reynolds went haywire that night. We weren’t. But it was a long road up; a couple of years with Scranton in the Eastern League, then for a while with Little Rock in the Southern, until we were traded to Nashville and Grouchy Devine. Three-four years all on account of that bender of Buster Reynolds’. We lost the pennant, we lost the Dixie Series, and a lot of time into the bargain. So... you’ll understand why I mean business about liquor on this club.”
There was silence again. Everyone was thinking the same thing — of men they’d known; of Mike Stanley of the Cubs, who ruined his career and ended up as a grounds-keeper in Cinci; of that kid Beichman on the Senators, who was let out in the middle of the season; of old Jeffers, the veteran lefty, who couldn’t hold on in any league; of a dozen others who had suddenly disappeared, dropped out, lost to baseball, never heard from again. That’s what they were all thinking.
“So it’s no drinking. That means... no drinking. I don’t know how I can make it any straighter. I don’t know how I can prove to you I mean business... except to say you’ve been warned, everyone on this club. Is that plain? Do you get me? I want no excuses, nobody saying they didn’t know... they didn’t understand... they didn’t think I meant it that way.”
This time even Razzle was quiet. No one dared look at Hathaway and Baldwin in front. No one stirred. No one moved and the room was silent. Spike Russell reached back in his hip pocket for his glove.
“Meeting dismissed!”
6
BALLPLAYERS DISLIKE NIGHT GAMES. For one thing, night games mean sitting around a hotel lobby all day waiting to go out to the park. Movies? Take in a movie and you’ll tire your eyes in no time. For another thing, night games interfere with a man’s regular meals. A player likes to have a big dinner after he has finished, but if the game is at night, he must eat in the late afternoon, beforehand, and must have a light meal. Moreover, if the contest goes into extra innings, he won’t be able to leave the grounds until after eleven o’clock. Then he can’t get to bed until after midnight and perhaps isn’t relaxed enough to sleep before two or three in the morning. Often he has to rise early to catch a train; in any event his rest is upset. And while lighting in the majors is excellent and visibility good, the smoke pall which hangs over the park in the evening mist is hard on the eyes and makes them smart all the next day.
Yet night baseball is dramatic. The vivid lights give the grass a peculiar emerald color, the uniforms are a brilliant white, the colors all sharpened. And the fans like night games, especially in certain cities. St. Louis is one of them.
They came early that evening; it was daylight when they started pouring into Sportsman’s Park; they came in the dusk; they swarmed in as twilight settled and the batting cage was placed round the plate and the players took hitting practice. Long before the umpires appeared, the bleachers in right and center were jammed and the double-decked stands back of first, third, and the plate were filled. The crowd packed the stadium; the general tenseness in the air gave the game almost a World Series feeling. By now the Cards saw a dangerous contender in the Dodgers and were determined to win. While the Brooks, beaten the day before, wanted revenge from the League leaders.
This was the setting into which Spike Russell threw his star freshman, Bones Hathaway, a tough spot for the youngster. Naturally he was nervous at the start. In the first inning the Cards threatened to tear the ballgame apart. Three straight singles scored a run, and Spike waved to the bullpen for action. He always signaled with his right arm for a right-hander and his left arm for a lefty. This time he waved f
or Rats Doyle, a left-hander and a man he liked to throw in early when necessary. It wasn’t necessary. Before Rats could get properly warmed up, the batter looked at a third strike, and Bob and Spike took young Hathaway out of a hole with a quick doubleplay ball.
From then on he settled down, pitching brilliant baseball. For many long innings not a Redbird got as far as second. In the sixth the Dodgers pushed over a run and tied the score when Allen doubled, was sacrificed to third, and came in on Clyde Baldwin’s long fly to deep left field. The seventh, the eighth, the ninth, and both hurlers seemed to get better the longer they threw. The tightness increased. The crowd howled and shrieked for a run, clap-clapped and hooted to rattle the youngster in the box, cheered and roared when a Card was walked, groaned and settled back when the next two men struck out and the side was retired. In the tenth, with one down, Bob banged a liner over second base, and Jocko Klein, told to hit, did hit. When the fielder got the ball back there were men on second and third and a score threatening.
The Card infield came in on the grass. A situation like this, with a man on third and one out, is the best situation in baseball for the offensive team. The defensive infield is obliged to play in, making it easier for the batter to hit through them, and adding about fifty feet to the acre of ground in which a Texas leaguer can fall safely. Also a run may be scored on a long fly ball.
The whole set-up screamed for a squeeze play; the stands expected it, so did the Cards. But Spike crossed them up. He ordered Swanny to hit away. Stein, the Card pitcher, was crowding him all the time, pitching tight to his weakness, a high inside ball. Instead of pounding it hard, Swanny only got a piece of it and poked one up in the air near second. The ball disappeared in the haze and smoke of thousands and thousands of cigars and cigarettes. It went up, up, out of one light zone into another, appearing and disappearing and then descending into the glove of the waiting shortstop. Two out!
Rookie of the Year Page 3