If I Never Get Back

by Darryl Brock

  Champion looked as if he wished it would all go away. “Are you safe here, Fowler?”

  I took the big plunge and told them I wanted to stay with the club. I’d serve as a sub on tour. In Cincinnati I’d work on marketing and publicity innovations I was sure would prove productive.

  “You wish employment?” Champion said incredulously. “But only the first nine are salaried. We’re a club, Fowler. Our affairs are handled voluntarily, by members.”

  “I’d like to stay connected,” I persisted. “I’ll volunteer, if that’s the only way. Meanwhile, I’d like to finish the tour.”

  “But your injury invalidates you as a substitute.”

  “I can play in a pinch.”

  “He’s not asking much,” Harry said.

  Champion sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Very well, but no further incidents, Fowler. We can’t afford trouble.”

  “I didn’t ask to get shot—” I began, and stopped as Harry flashed a look that said to quit while I was ahead.

  The next afternoon, in uniforms and topcoats, we took the Fulton St. Ferry across a dark, wind-frothed East River. Mist blurred our surroundings and rain swooped in occasional patters. To my left Champion grumbled about the wretched weather dogging the tour. To my right Millar polished his early dispatch for the Commercial. I looked over his shoulder.

  . . . the Knights of the Sanguinary Hose can carry off the palm of victory in each of these contests; but as to whether they will, we must let the caution of good old Captain Harry, who knows the tricks of the Eastern gamesters . . .

  Knights of the Sanguinary Hose, I thought. Good God. “All I’ve been hearing lately,” I said cheerfully, “is ‘Wait’ll you country-club bastards tangle with our Mutes.’” I saw Millar and Champion wince visibly at the word bastards. “Are they the toughest club we’ll face?”

  “Probably,” Millar said, adding that if we got past the Mutuals today, the powerful Brooklyn Atlantics tomorrow, and last year’s consensus champs, the Athletics, in Philly next week, we might finish the tour undefeated. But those were three formidable obstacles.

  “The guys seem pretty relaxed,” I said.

  “It’s friendly here, unlike Troy,” Millar said. “Brainard and the Wrights played for New York clubs over the years. Waterman was a Mute only two seasons ago. Andy and Sweasy came up with some of the Mutes’ young ballists.”

  “They recruit top players, then?” To me the Mutuals were starting to seem like the all-conquering Yankees of my youth.

  “All the city treasury can afford,” Champion said acidly. “Currently around thirty thousand a year, tied up neatly in the rolls of the street-cleaning department. How they pass themselves off as amateurs eludes me.”

  “Are they one of the oldest teams?”

  “One of them,” said Millar. “It’s agreed that the Knickerbockers were first, but who came next is still debated. Around here were the Gothams and Metropolitans—”

  “The Mets!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes,” Millar said, eyeing me. “And the Athletics in Philadelphia and the Excelsiors in Brooklyn. The Mutuals formed sometime around ’fifty-seven, in Tweed’s old Americus fire department, Mutual Hook and Ladder Company Number One. They’re Tammany’s darlings, of course.”

  Under ominous skies the Williamsburg ball field—it bore the name “Union Grounds,” like so many things now—blazed with color. At opposite ends of the grandstand the Mutes’ and Stockings’ flags flapped like medieval knights’ standards. Besides the Mutes’ rode the coveted whip pennant, signifying their status as reigning champions.

  The Mutuals marched onto the diamond: somber, formidable figures in mud-colored long pants and tight-fitting jerseys with white dickeys. They were fully as big as the Haymakers and moved with quick grace warming up.

  The crowd’s buzzing struck me as knowledgeable—the speculative, anticipatory sound of people familiar with the game. I said so to Andy as I lobbed the ball, testing my side against the pull.

  “They’re in the know here,” he said. “But they got nothin’ over Westerners for lovin’ it. In Cincinnati right now they’re crowdin’ up outside the tobacco shops, Ellard’s Sporting Goods Emporium, and all the newspaper bulletin boards down on Fourth. They’ll stand hushed for hours—and bust loose like Injuns when word comes we won.”

  World Series. I thought of Grandpa’s stories of his vigils during the battles with McGraw’s Giants. I remembered myself smuggling a radio to school and listening to games thousands of miles distant.

  The sky brightened. The crowd swelled to six thousand. Our white uniforms sparkled on the field, the underdog good guys versus the sinister dark-clad Mutes. I wondered if the pool sellers saw it that way. I asked Hurley as we took seats at the scorer’s table next to our bench.

  “Odds favor the Mutes,” Hurley said. “But only five to four. Our reputation’s arrived before us. We’re starting to attract sober attention.”

  Harry won the toss and sent the Mutes up. Brainard’s first fastball brought a rising, expectant, full-throated sound from the crowd.

  Within hours of its conclusion, this game would be judged the best ever played. Multitudes would claim to have seen it—far more than could fit inside the ballpark. The contest was hard-fought and low-scoring; at the end it was waged in an atmosphere of goose-pimpling, gut-gripping intensity.

  It began with Charley Hunt, the Mutual left fielder, grounding to Waterman; jaw bulged by his ever-present plug, the stolid third baseman calmly played the short hop and threw him out. Jack Hatfield next grounded to Sweasy, who lobbed to Gould. Everett Mills topped another grounder to Waterman, who charged it cleanly but pulled Gould off with a high throw. Brainard walked the next Mute, then knocked down a smash up the middle with a snake-quick backhanded move for the third out.

  It previewed what would come in most innings: threatening runners, tight pitching, clutch fielding. Brainard’s fastballs, sinking today, were driven repeatedly into the turf by the Mutes’ bats. In all they grounded out eighteen times against six flies. Conversely, Rynie Wolters, their pitcher, threw rising, medium-speed floaters that we clipped underneath, producing sixteen fly outs.

  “Wolters reminds me of Jimmy Creighton,” said Brainard, watching him work on George Wright. “Makes the ball look like it’s coming up out of the ground. ’Cept Jimmy was swifter—swifter than anybody.”

  “Who’s he pitch for?” I asked.

  Brainard gave me an unreadable look. Andy nudged me and murmured, “He’s dead.”

  Well, shit.

  George popped to Hatfield. Not an auspicious beginning. Our star rarely failed to get on to start a game. Gould drove a scorcher into left center, but Hunt streaked over the grass and took it against his chest, like a football receiver. It brought an appreciative roar (“rapturous cheers,” Millar would write). But the crowd quieted when Waterman took first on an error, hustled to third on a passed ball, and scored on Allison’s bouncer muffed by the shortstop.

  Stockings 1, Mutuals 0.

  In the third we tallied again. George rocketed a double to left and scored on passed balls by the rattled Mute catcher, who had trouble with Wolters’s rising tosses when he was close behind the plate. Otherwise, pitching and defense smothered all threats. The Mutes held us to five hits total—unheard of among top clubs—and managed but eight of their own.

  The game moved quickly as goose eggs mounted. The crowd watched in deepening silence as we shut out their champions inning after inning. At the end of seven it remained 2-0.

  I kept my eyes peeled for McDermott or Le Caron. If they were going to strike, it would happen while we were in New York. The derringer was in my topcoat pocket, close at hand. It seemed unlikely they’d attack in front of ten thousand witnesses. But I didn’t rule it out.

  Andy was playing superbly. On base in the fourth, he ignored Mills—the Mute first baseman was notorious for distracting opponents with amiable gossip—and promptly stole second. Taking third on a wild throw, he danced down the l
ine, but Mac’s fly stranded him. In the sixth, with two away and runners tearing from the bags, a Mute batter smashed a ball so high that it vanished momentarily into low-hanging clouds. Hurley groaned, thinking it was gone. But Andy retreated to the fence, leaped high, and came down with the ball in his right hand. The crowd moaned in disbelief.

  In the eighth, the Mutes got their leadoff hitter on with a scratch single. The next two hitters couldn’t advance him. Then Mills sent a soft looper outside the left-field line. It looked as if Andy had a chance for the foul-bound out. He sprinted. The ball bounced on the turf. He dove, stretched out, one arm extended. His fingers clutched the ball—and fumbled it.

  Hurley swore softly and I tried to shake off an uneasy premonition. Sure enough, Mills connected on Brainard’s next pitch, lining it into right and scoring the runner. The next hitter grounded sharply to George for the force. We were out of the inning, but our lead was cut in half. And the chance for a historic accomplishment—shutting out the mighty Mutes—was gone.

  Stockings 2, Mutuals 1.

  Allison’s leadoff single was the only spark in our half of the eighth. Playing smoothly and confidently now, the Mutes cashed in three quick outs. The stage was set for the ninth.

  The silence falling over the diamond was eerie. I could hear coughs in the stands across the field. Then a solitary voice shouted encouragement, and a chorus took it up. It built to a crescendo as the Mute hitter stepped in. Suddenly the tension was too much. Hurley and I scrambled to our feet along with the crowd. The assembled thousands stood and yelled, waiting to see who would falter. Very quickly we saw that it wouldn’t be the Mutes.

  Brainard’s fastballs still looked to have full velocity, but the first two batters poked singles over the infield. The next fouled a pitch behind third. Waterman sprinted and lunged, missed by inches, somersaulted, and slammed into a grandstand support. He staggered up, spitting blood and waving off George, who tried to attend him.

  The Mute used his second life to push a heartbreaker through the box and past a diving Sweasy. The tying run came home. Mac’s quick throw held the other runners at first and second, but there were still no outs. The crowd danced and stomped and screamed and waved and heaved food and trash and money and hats and umbrellas and coats and canes and scarves and parasols.

  “Crap,” I said.

  “In a word,” Hurley agreed.

  The jubilance was choked moments later when the next hitter lifted a weak pop-up. Waterman moved in rapidly to take it.

  “Two, Freddy!” George sprinted behind him to third base. “Two!”

  Waterman settled under the ball, cupped his hands—and deliberately let it roll off his fingers. He snatched the ball from the sod, wheeled, and fired to George, who kicked the bag and rammed the ball to Sweasy at second. The chagrined runners were frozen. Double play!

  The Mutuals argued vehemently that Waterman had caught the ball before grounding it, but the umpire ruled against him. When the confusion settled, the next Mute stepped in, swung hard, and tipped the ball straight back. Allison sprang high and speared it. He ran from the diamond yelling and holding the ball aloft triumphantly.

  We’d escaped. I sat down and breathed again.

  Stockings 2, Mutuals 2.

  Andy was up. I moved close as he wiped his bat with his lucky rag. His face was taut. I knew he was still down on himself for dropping the foul in the eighth. Jaw muscles bunched, he stalked to the plate. I wanted to look away as he took his stance—feet wide apart, crouched slightly, choking up on the bat—and looked out at Wolters in the crowd’s stillness. He watched a high pitch go by, then got what he wanted. He swung and drilled the ball on a low line toward left. The Mute shortstop jumped, knocked it down, threw quickly. Andy’s legs blurred on the baseline. He left his feet and hurled himself at the bag as the throw came.

  “Safe!”

  “Yeah,” I screamed. “OH, YEAH!”

  Andy looked for Harry’s sign. Steal. He broke for second on the next pitch—and slipped and sprawled. It took half the Mutes to run him down. Andy trudged to the bench, head low and cap pulled down over his eyes. I knew better than to say a word.

  “Stir ’em, Acey!” yelled Hurley.

  Working his toothpick, Brainard turned smoothly on Wolters’s pitch and rapped the ball safely to left. To our surprise—and certainly the Mutes’—the slow-footed pitcher didn’t stop. Hunt fielded the ball and threw it in without realizing Brainard’s intent. Even so, the cutoff man had plenty of time to nail him at second. But the Mutes’ alarmed shouts must have flustered him. He launched the ball ten feet over the leaping second baseman, allowing Brainard to puff into third.

  We hooted and pounded each other. Wolters looked sick; it would take a miracle to hold us now. His very next pitch skidded on the plate and went through the hapless catcher’s legs. Brainard trotted home with the winning run. I hugged Hurley till he sputtered, then lifted Andy and pummeled him till he laughed with the rest of us.

  After police had cleared a few maniacs off the field we played the contest to the last out—a nonsensical practice. Sweasy slammed a triple through the Mutes’ dispirited outfield and scored on Mac’s infield out to add a meaningless run—except perhaps to bettors—to our total.

  Stockings 4, Mutuals 2.

  We stood together, arms entwined, cheering the Mutes, cheering Brainard, grinning and thumping each other, and then singing at the top of our lungs.

  “Standing in the central box

  The “Brainy” one is found,

  He beats the world in tossing balls

  And covering the ground.

  And as the pitcher of our nine,

  He seldom needs to change.

  For those will find who play behind—

  Our Asa has the range!

  Oh, we are a band of ball players

  From Cincinnati City . . .”

  It occurred to me even then, in the midst of it all, that this heady feeling of belonging, of achieving together, of winning, was high up among the very sweetest things I knew. The others’ faces showed something of the same. That happy circle in the middle of the Williamsburg diamond is burned in my memory.

  Chapter 9

  That night Earle’s Hotel reigned as New York’s sporting center. Reporters and fans besieged us. Brainard, Waterman, and George were in heavy demand as stars of the victory. Harry was as euphoric as I’d ever seen him.

  “Thirteen blanks!” marveled a bearded reporter I later learned was Henry Chadwick, dean of America’s baseball writers, waving his notebook and citing the number of scoreless innings. “Magnificent contest! Most scientific on record!” He claimed it even surpassed the recent rowing championship between Yale and Harvard. “You western boys are rekindling the national game here, no doubt about it!”

  The lobby buzzed with speculation about tomorrow’s Atlantic game. And with debate over whether our 15-0 record topped that of the ’sixty-three Brooklyn Eckfords, who had won all nine of their match games, plus every first-class, second-class and amateur contest they had played—nobody knew the exact total—and as the arguments grew heated they included so many classifications and technicalities that I gave up and listened instead to talk of a fight that day in St. Louis. One Mike McCoole, the current American heavyweight champ, had defeated Tom Allen of England. Although illegal, boxing flourished and was passionately followed in both countries. Enormous sums of money must have changed hands this day, I thought.

  Champion stood on a table and read a telegram that arrived from the directors of the club.

  “ON BEHALF OF THE CITIZENS OF CINCINNATI WE SEND YOU GREETING. THE STREETS ARE FULL OF PEOPLE, WHO GIVE CHEER AFTER CHEER FOR THEIR PET CLUB. GO ON WITH THE NOBLE WORK!”

  George joined him atop the table and led cheers. Toasts were offered until Harry protested that we faced two more tough games in successive days.

  During all of that I received a message of my own. A courier tapped my shoulder and handed me a sealed letter. I tipped him and
tore it open.

  Dear Mr. Fowler,

  Allow me to express my gratitude for the appreciation you showed following my performance. I will repay you with this vital information: I overheard Mr. M. talking to a certain gambler who will attempt to take your life after tomorrow’s match. Beware passing through the crowd, for that is where it will come. I risk all with this note. Destroy it and never admit its existence.

  EH

  I stared at the thin sheet. The writing was frilly, its loops and flourishes incongruous with the stark message. EH: Holt. M: Morrissey. The gambler could only be McDermott. I twisted the paper nervously. Should I go to Champion? The police? Get the hell out of New York? But where? I didn’t want to jeopardize my shaky standing with the club. I also didn’t want to die.

  Without explaining how I’d been warned, I huddled later with Andy. He called in Brainard and Waterman, and together we came up with a simple plan. I hoped like hell it wasn’t too simple.

  Sometime after midnight Andy and I were jolted awake by hammering on our door. Andy opened it. Sweasy and Hurley stood unsteadily outside. They smelled like a distillery. Hurley began to sing.

  “Come, let us roam together

  O’er the soft and purple heather

  From Ulster’s dim gray mountains

  To Muskerrys fairy fountains. . . .”

  “He’s spifflicated,” said Andy. “We gotta keep him quiet.”

  “ ’S as natural for Hibernians to tipple as pigs to root,” Hurley proclaimed. “ ’S your trouble, Andy, you think you’re too good to be properly Irish anymore.”

  “That’s true goods!” Sweasy said, scowling at me. He took a lurching step forward. “C’mon, you bastard!” He raised his fists. “You’re bigger’n a shithouse, but I’m meaner’n a singed cat.”

  “Oh fuck,” I said, and closed the door in his face.

  “Get some sleep, Sweaze,” said Andy. We listened as they lurched down the corridor. “Don’t pay any heed,” he said. “He’s just jealous.”