Rookie of the Year

by John R. Tunis

  When they came up within a couple of games of the League leaders, Spike, ever the same, began to feel worried himself. That afternoon Bones Hathaway became a whitewash artist by throwing his tenth shut-out of the year, and the team clinched second place. That evening Spike called together his general staff; the coaches; Doc Masters, who knew every man’s physical condition; and Fat Stuff, the old hurler who was as much coach himself as player. They had sixteen games left, and their handling necessitated the help and background of men older and wiser than himself.

  In his suite in the hotel he began talking about the thing close to his heart; this club, his club, his men and their chances.

  “They’re tired, these boys, believe me they’re plenty tired.”

  “So are you, Spike.”

  “No more’n the rest of ’em.”

  “Well.” Old Fat Stuff puffed on a stogie. “Well, these boys have been pulling themselves up by their bootstraps since the twenty-third of July. You gotta have what it takes to do what these kids have done. Why sure, it leaves you gasping for breath. Then, too, the strain reacts on ’em physically, I think....”

  Doc Masters spoke up: “Yes, the boys are getting tight, an’ I find in baseball, when players get tight... when they get tight they always get injured. There’s hardly a one hasn’t got strawberries or slide burns or a lame back or something. Roy Tucker ran into the wall the other day and got banged up real bad, and Harry Street isn’t over that beaning yet; he ought not to be playing. Now the pitchers...”

  “We’re no worse off’n the Cards. I see where Rackenbusch was knocked out in Boston the other day. Just tired, he is.”

  “Yeah, but you take our pitchers, they all have sore arms or legs ’cept Hathaway. Take Rats Doyle, f’rinstance; there’s a big guy, a worker, a rubber arm; he gets the ball over; he knows what it’s all about. Well, he’s been in as a relief... three... four games since...in the last ten days. He’s tired. D’ja notice Raz Nugent toward the end yesterday?”

  “Did I notice him!” Charlie Draper spoke up. “In the sixth, when they tied it up there, I asked Raz when we came into the bench how he felt. The old pusher’s kinda tired,’ he says. ‘An’ look at my bunion, Charlie.’ Know what? He takes off his shoe and stocking right out there on that bench.”

  Spike laughed. “Say, I bet I looked at Razzle’s bunion one hundred times this season. Always looks the same to me. He’s that kind of a pitcher; if he gets a lead and keeps ahead, his bunion never bothers him. But when they began to hit him there in the sixth yesterday, he suddenly thinks about it and his bunion started to hurt. That’s baseball for you.”

  “Shoot, the big cry-baby!”

  “No, you’re wrong there,” said the Doc. “He’s not a baby; he’s a pitcher. They’re all that way. Razzle’s a good guy; he’ll pitch his old heart out if you ask him. But when he thinks he’s slipping, when he gets tired and loses control, he gets worried.”

  “Yeah, know what? When I see Raz out there on Friday, I walked to the bullpen to ask Rog Stinson, who’s warming up, how he feels.” Spike shook his head. “He says he feels fine. Next inning, when they get to Raz, I shove him in. They score three runs and like to cost us the game. Afterward in the clubhouse, I find out from Kenny, the bullpen catcher, that Rog told him just before I come up, that his throwing arm was sore as all get-out.”

  “Then why didn’t he say so?”

  “Didn’t want to quit, that’s all. Didn’t want to pass the buck to Rats Doyle.”

  “Boy, that’s tough.”

  “Nope, it’s baseball. It’s part of being a manager. This is a dead game bunch of guys....”

  “You bet they are. Any team that can do what this gang has done isn’t finished until the end. How many more do we play now?”

  “Sixteen. Thank heaven, we’re in our own back yard until the finish.”

  “Spike, you know what? It looks to me the way the club is rolling, those games against the Cards might decide the pennant.”

  “Most likely they will. We’re only two games out now, if we hold on like this...” He paused. A voice penetrated the smoke-filled room. It came from the corridor outside, a young, lusty, and confident voice.

  “She’s gonna cry... until I tell her that I’ll never roam... Chattanooga choo-choo... won’t you....”

  “Won’t you take me back home.” Two voices went down the hall, roaring at the top of their lungs.

  “There’s two boys is loose and easy,” said someone. The room listened. Then the singing died away as the pair turned the corner at the far end of the corridor. Spike looked at his watch; eight-thirty. Hathaway, feeling high after his shut-out that afternoon, and Baldwin, doubtless, equally so after a triple and a homer against the Reds’ best pitcher, were together. They’d bear watching, those kids. Maybe they were all right; maybe they’d take in a movie and come back to bed. Maybe not. He made a mental note to check on them later in the evening.

  But it was a long while before the Dodger board of strategy broke up, for there were many things to settle, and when Spike found himself alone he was worn out. Forgetting his rookies and their troubles, he climbed into bed. His brother tiptoed in, undressed in the bathroom in order not to disturb him, fell into bed, and almost immediately began to snore. Not Spike. He tried to sleep, but the harder he tried the more wide awake he became. He wasn’t worrying about the club, but he had to think about something and the club was on his mind. Hours went past. Darkness finally gave way to dimness; dimness to dawn; dawn to daylight.

  Someone was knocking, knocking hard and with insistence. He woke from deep slumber, certain he hadn’t slept at all. It was broad daylight; Bob heard the noise and stirred uneasily. The knocking continued. Hang it, a telegram most likely. Spike sat up in bed, rubbed his eyes, sleepy and annoyed.

  “Yeah. Who is it?”

  “It’s me. Swanny.”

  Spike jumped from the bed. Swanny, one of the most reliable members of the team, must be in trouble. An accident, an injury, trouble of some sort and serious trouble. Bob, now awake and startled, too, sat up blinking as Spike rushed to open the door.

  He opened it for Swanny. For Roy Tucker and Rats Doyle also, all of them dressed. They said nothing but pushed past him into the room. He looked at his watch. It was exactly seven-thirty.

  He closed the door, closed it on someone and quickly opened it again at another knock. Freddy Foster, followed by Red Allen, entered. Then McCaffrey and Jocko Klein and Raz Nugent, a scowl on his face. Spike stood sleepily in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes as they filed in. They sat on chairs, on the bed, stood by the windows.

  “What the... what’s biting you guys?”

  No one spoke. There was a queer look on several faces.

  “What’s biting you, calling a meeting this hour?” said Raz.

  “A meeting! I never called a meeting. What is this?” Now he was furious, angry at having been called from a sound sleep.

  They all started talking at once. The telephone operator had called every room, told them to report at Spike’s suite for a meeting at seven-thirty.

  Spike grabbed the phone, irate, weary, sore. The door was still opening for the latecomers. He got the assistant manager. That gentleman went to another phone and talked to the operator who had put in the calls. The night before she had received orders to call everyone at six-thirty for a seven-thirty meeting.

  Spike put down the phone. He was plenty mad. But he couldn’t be mad with the boys; nor they with him. Plainly, someone had played them all for suckers. “Wait a minute... who’s missing... anyone missing?”

  By now the room was full of sleepy, irate, and breakfastless ballplayers, angry at the trick that had been played. Who’s missing? Everyone looked at everyone else.

  “Whitehouse?”

  “Here I am!”

  “Elmer McCaffrey ain’t here.”

  “Hell I ain’t!”

  “Harry Street. Street, Harry Street.”

  Then the door opened and Harry walk
ed in.

  “Hathaway!” exclaimed someone.

  “Hathaway!”

  “That’s right. Hathaway.”

  “Hathaway... and Baldwin.”

  “Let’s get them guys!”

  “Let’s go for ’em!”

  “What’s the room number? Get the room number, Raz.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort.” Spike took command. “You guys go down to breakfast, and let me ’tend to this. Now get out. And leave those boys alone, hear me?”

  They turned to leave, as disgruntled a bunch of ballplayers as you could find. But they knew their manager. When Spike got his dander up, he could be plenty tough. They decided to leave things to him.

  15

  EVENING. SPIKE SAT waiting for his young rookies to come to the room. He sat in the easy chair with the lamp behind it, newspapers on the floor at his side, another one in his hand. He was reading Tommy Heeney’s column in the Mail, and for just a minute he forgot the problem before him. There was a knock at the door.

  “Come in.”

  They entered, two worried boys. Spike tossed the newspaper to one side. He got up and closed the door.

  “Sit down, Bonesy; sit down, Clyde. I wanna have a serious talk with you two. Guess you know what it’s all about.” Now comes the tough part. Grouchy would handle these birds right. But now it’s up to me.

  “Boys, lemme ask you something. If you were out there in a tight game, and either of you came up to the plate with the bases full, you wouldn’t strike out each time on purpose, would you?”

  “Why, no, of course not.”

  “You wouldn’t try to make it harder for the boys than necessary, would you?”

  No, they wouldn’t. But they were puzzled. It was plain they were puzzled. Spike went on, not so sure of himself.

  “That’s what you did when you woke up twenty-two men this morning.”

  They spoke together. “Spike, we didn’t do that.”

  “Now, looka here, boys; let’s get this one straight. I happen to know you were out last night.”

  “No, sir....”

  “No, we weren’t, Skipper.” Their tones were firm. “We only went to a movie, then we stopped in for a couple of cokes, and we were both in bed by eleven.”

  “Bones, I’m not going to ask what you did last night or where you went. All I’m interested in now is that someone pulled a schoolboy trick on us. They gave orders to attend a meeting in my room here, and woke the boys up at half-past six.”

  “Spike, we had nothing to do with it.”

  He looked at them both. They both looked back at him. And they seemed to be telling the truth. He was perplexed.

  “Boys, I’d like to tell you something.” He decided to take another line. “This race is tight. I feel it, same as you and everyone. You boys can loosen up once in a while; I’m the manager, I can’t. An’ I don’t sleep so good, either. Last night I saw dawn come. That’s a fact, I never got to sleep until daylight. Then just as I’m dead to the world, the boys start knocking the door apart.”

  “Gee, Skipper, that’s really tough.”

  “Yeah, well, whoever did it has me sunk. Now you boys both have the goods. But you’ve both been hard to handle ever since you came on this club and...”

  “But, Spike, we didn’t have a thing to do with this; we didn’t know about it till we came down to breakfast.”

  “O.K. O.K., if you say so. Just the same, you’ve both given me trouble before. Bones, you made a fool of yourself eating that breakfast of herring and bacon and eggs ten days... eleven times straight. Well, that’s a typical rookie trick. You were lost to the team for almost a week; and I overlooked that. But we’re coming up to the pay-off now. I wanted to break you and Baldwin up several weeks ago, and I was advised not to. Wish I hadn’t taken that advice. I know how ’tis, a man gets used to another roomie and it upsets him to change, especially if he has only had one roommate since he came to the club. But I’ve got to go through with this. Tomorrow you’ll move into Freddy Foster’s room, Bones.”

  “Me? Room with old Fat Stuff?”

  “That’s right. And Baldwin will go in with Harry Street. They’re older men, they’re married. They like their rest every night and they’ll make darn sure they get it. See you get yours, too.”

  “All right, Spike, if you say so.”

  “Remember, one more flare-up and you go off to some other team, and take it from me, no manager wants boys on the club that’s likely to cause trouble, no matter how good they are.

  “So this is your last chance. Stay with us, boys. See here, you two have everything. I don’t ask much, all I want is you should keep in good condition for these next vital games we’re running into. Do that, and you can pretty near name your own figures on a contract for next season. I don’t usually make predictions, but here in this room I’ll say that if you stay in condition, you boys, we’ll grab off the pennant. Now that isn’t asking too much, is it?”

  “No. No, Skipper, it isn’t.”

  “Nope, it isn’t, Spike.”

  “All right. Go get yourself a good sleep tonight, and tomorrow pack your stuff and move into your new quarters. And mind you, remember what I’ve been saying.”

  He held out his hand. They took it. Their faces were sober. “O.K.”

  “O.K., Skipper.” The door closed behind them as they went out.

  16

  NOW IT WAS DING-DONG, hammer and tongs, everyone all out every minute of play in those tense, torrid days of September as the team crept steadily up, their hot breath fanning the red necks of the nervous Cards. Four games back the first week of the month, then three, then two as the teams came down the stretch in the final fortnight of the season. You picked up the morning paper and figured percentages until you knew them by heart. Fifteen games to go, four games behind; twelve games left, three games behind; ten games to play, and two games back.

  And every inning, every pitch and every throw worth a thousand dollars. No wonder the stands were packed each afternoon, no wonder long lines stood waiting for tickets, no wonder the team was pestered by sportswriters who once had believed the young manager to be a bit on the soft side. They had never imagined the Dodgers could come from sixth place at the end of July, with the season more than half gone, up to second.

  Now things were so tight it was necessary to go into fractions to figure out the standing of the two leading teams of the League. With the Dodgers having an extra game to play, this is how they stood.

  Won Lost Pct. Games to Play

  St. Louis........ 98 49 .688 3

  Brooklyn........ 97 49 .685 4

  Four games for the Dodgers, one against the fifth place Cubs, and then the vital three against the Cards. So a victory that afternoon would put them in a tie against the leaders, leaving everything depending on those last final contests.

  The sportswriters stood around Spike before practice that steaming September afternoon as he sat on the spare rubbing table, thumping his glove with his fist, long legs dangling, trying to answer the questions from the group among whom were many strange faces. Lots of people had suddenly discovered the Dodgers were news.

  “The Series? Oh, yes, the Series.” He answered vaguely. “Well, I’m not worrying about the Series. All I’m thinking about is one game at a time. We’re going out for this one; to hell with the Series.”

  They wanted more, they became inquisitive, they peppered him with queries. “Well... for one thing, I treat my players the way I want to be treated. The way Grouchy Devine always handled us in Nashville. I never call a man down before the others. I don’t believe in tearing a clubhouse to pieces after a defeat. There are no second guesses and no post-mortems. I try to encourage initiative. Once the game starts, I leave the fellas pretty much on their own. Give boys a chance to play their game, and they’ll carry the load for you. One thing I do insist; I make an effort to impress on them that today’s game is the important one.... How’s that? What say, Stanley? They call us what? They cal
l us lucky?”

  He laughed, a pleasant, agreeable laugh, yet there was tension underneath. “Maybe so. What’s wrong about being lucky? They can’t put you in jail for that.” Everyone joined in the general laughter.

  “You got ’em fighting hard, Spike,” rejoined the sportswriter.

  “Stanley, when the going is good it isn’t tough to fight hard. Anyone can manage a winning club. But when you’re down in the second division, then it’s no fun to keep struggling. That’s what my boys have done. They hustled and they fought when things were blackest. They took up the slack of a poor start, they felt we ought to be somewhere up there at the end of the season, and we are. We take baseball seriously because it’s the most serious thing we do.”

  He looked challengingly from one man to another; from the strange faces to the familiar ones; from the old timers who traveled with the club and were friends, to the columnists in search of a story for the next day who were strangers. Somewhere in the rear a voice murmured something about “the old college try.” It was hardly a complimentary tone, and Spike instantly accepted the challenge.

  “Yep, that’s correct. This team has the college spirit; that’s the way we came up. There isn’t a single man on my club who considers himself a star. That’s why we play well together, why we’ve been able to come from so far back to fight for the lead.”

  Then came the old question. “The pennant? Well, we try not to play the scoreboard; we try never to worry about the other man. I’ll say this, though; as for the pennant, well, I think we gotta chance.”

  Laughter. Afterward the query he had been dreading because it was the one for which he had no answer.

  “What about yourself, Spike? At the dish you haven’t been connecting lately. How do you account for your slump?”

  “I don’t really know. Maybe I’ve been striding too soon; that’s the cause of about 90% of all batting slumps in my opinion.”