If I Never Get Back

by Darryl Brock

  Waverly . . . Barton . . . Smith bow . . . Tioga . . . Owego . . . Campville . . . Union . . .

  We stopped at every woodpile and water tank. I gazed dully out my window and tried to stay awake. My shoes and pants were caked with mud. The canvas bags clinked provocatively with the car’s movements. A few passengers’ gazes burned into me. My crotch burned too; I was horrendously saddle sore.

  We pulled into Binghamton, the area’s main junction, around ten. Past this point I’d be reasonably safe. With the derringer in my pocket I moved through the station. I remembered the circling bird that had appeared here; I could almost feel again the whistling strafing rush and see the arrowlike flight through the door. It had seemed to lead me to the encounter with Twain. Then there was the horrible-voiced bird in the graveyard, and the other bird at the Mansfield station just before my first vision of the soldier figure. Maybe they worked in tandem to guide me. Or maybe I was just totally fucking crazy.

  I bought a Penn Central ticket. Two hours to kill. Nobody seemed to be watching me. I ate breakfast, got shaved and trimmed, and had a bootblack work on my shoes. I purchased a stylish four-dollar Stetson and pulled it low over my eyes. Then I bought a leather gladstone to stow the money sacks in. My right arm felt six inches longer by the time I’d lugged it on board.

  It was dark when we pulled into Philadelphia. In a hotel room near the station I bolted my door and counted the loot, a labor of love. A few wads of greenbacks had rotted—moisture in the jars—but who cared? I counted $8,665 in bills and a whopping $14,578 in gold and silver—a total of $23,243. I was still gazing at the lovely piles when I dropped off to sleep.

  Philadelphia was baseball crazy. Recent papers lovingly described the Stockings’ 27-18 win over the powerful Athletics, hailing the visitors, especially Allison, for fielding “like Chinese magicians.” A mammoth crowd of twenty thousand had turned out in hundred-degree heat to see it. George Wright’s four hits had included two triples and a homer.

  The papers also reprinted several bitter New York columns in which we were denounced as “eclectic.” Only because of Cincinnati’s “imported” eastern ballists, the argument went, was the West coming to “monopolize” the sporting scene. I was happy to read Chadwick’s answer that we were no more eclectic than other clubs—we were just beating the daylights out of them.

  I was also glad to see that the Haymakers had been upset by the Eckfords, 22-14. The New York Tribune pointed out: “The large party of blacklegs who accompany the Haymakers for the sole purpose of betting laid their money on the favorites and lost.” Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch. I wondered if McDermott had been among them.

  In an adjacent column was an editorial reprinted from the New York Times entitled “Baseball in Danger.” It deplored the “enormous sums” changing hands during games between “a western nine and the champion clubs of New York.” If baseball were subject to the “plunging” of professional gamblers, the “great charm” of the game would be lost and it would sink to the status of “prizefighting, faro saloons, rat killing, cockfighting, and the like,” no longer attracting its “youthful and ardent admirers” to commence “a sporting career.”

  It was clear that we were shaking things up. I still had trouble accepting the idea that baseball’s fate was undetermined. But that seemed to be the reality. More than before I appreciated Champion’s concerns regarding his fledgling pros. And Andy’s regarding his own career.

  The morning heat was so sticky that occasional tepid showers offered the only relief. My high collar chafed my sweaty neck; my shirt was plastered to my chest. I bought a wooden fan from a street peddler and tried to stir the miasmal air. Such fans were mass-produced like book matches in later times—as much for advertising as practical use.

  I toted the gladstone to a bank on Market Street and began what proved to be a lengthy procedure. “My goodness,” said an official, waving his hands over the wads of greenbacks. “We haven’t seen some of these since the war.”

  “Finally broke into my cookie jar,” I said, eliciting a glassy stare. Never joke with nineteenth-century bankers. They’re not in it for fun.

  At length I received two drafts for $11,620 each. I sent Twain’s to Elmira—I liked the idea of his getting it as he put the finishing touches on Innocents—and mine to a Cincinnati bank. Outside, the gladstone felt wonderfully light. So did I.

  Another shower began. I bought an umbrella. Since I hadn’t figured out how to approach Harry and Champion, I didn’t. Instead I strolled down to see the Liberty Bell and visit Independence Hall. I fed the pigeons in Franklin Square. The morning passed pleasurably.

  But by midafternoon I couldn’t contain myself. I took a hack to the ballpark at Seventeenth and Columbia, where the Stockings faced the Keystones. The driver pulled in among the carriages and announced that he too would stay for the game. We ate peanuts and looked on from center field. I felt strange watching the action from behind Harry.

  My teammates looked weary. That plus the Keystones’ slugging and the damp conditions made for a sloppy game. We took an early lead, then hung on, flailing the Keystones and being flailed like ungainly punchers. The crowd, expecting a close, graceful exhibition, booed both clubs.

  Allison didn’t play at all. Hurley started in left and Andy at catcher, but in the first inning a foul tip caught him over the eye; he traded places with George and played a decent shortstop the rest of the game, but I felt guilty for not being available. The game went seven innings before darkness forced a close with us leading, 45-30. Another victory, albeit ugly.

  My reunion with the club went surprisingly smoothly. Harry was glad to have his other sub. Champion swallowed my story of a maiden aunt dying and leaving me everything. At least he seemed to. He questioned points of the litigation involved—which I fuzzed with truly inspired vagueness—and he desisted, no doubt deciding it was as well not to know too much. As for the cash box, I claimed I’d been so excited on receiving the telegram that I’d forgotten everything—including telling anybody good-bye or even remembering that I held the team’s receipts—until I’d jumped on a train for Syracuse. When I could finally get back, of course, they’d departed.

  Well, it was pathetically thin—but better than confessing that Le Caron had tried to murder me again, and then I’d gone grave-robbing. I said I was sorry for inconveniencing everybody and offered to pay cash on the spot to cover my travel and hotel expenses during the tour. Champion lit up at that. “That’s the true idea,” he said warmly. “Make one’s own way!” As I handed him the money, he extended a telegram.

  CHAMPION AND WRIGHT, C.B.B.C.: IMAGINE TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE AT THE GIBSON HOUSE WAITING FOR THE SCORE. EVERY MINUTE ROARS AND YELLS GO UP. OH, HOW IS THIS FOR HIGH?

  “That came from home during the Athletic match,” said Champion. “We’re making history. Thousands are sharing our glory, Fowler. You should consider yourself most fortunate to be with us.”

  “Oh, I do,” I said. “You have no idea.”

  As for the Stockings, I told them how good I felt to be back with the “Eclectics.” George retorted that nobody on the club was half as eclectic as me, and Brainard dubbed me “Gone-Again” Sam. Sweasy glowered; whatever bothered him about me seemed no better. Andy, his eye blackened where the ball had struck, picked at my story skeptically. I didn’t like lying to him, but it was preferable to having him think I’d risked my life to help his mother—an intent I kept to myself.

  The Maryland club fed us terrapin, crab cakes, and oysters at the Gilmor House on North Calvert. Hurley drank too much wine, and I saw Harry eyeing him.

  We played at the Madison Avenue grounds, a grassy expanse near Druid Lake. With Allison’s and Gould’s hands sore from so many games, Harry told me to be ready. I suited up happily. Things seemed simple now, away from New York. Le Caron was in jail and McDermott’s crowd, Millar assured me, never journeyed this far except to follow a top eastern club.

  The Marylands’ clubhouse was festooned with evergreen br
anches and a banner: WELCOME RED STOCKINGS. Five thousand people—a record crowd here—came out to see the conquerors of the East. Among them were a number of Baltimore’s famed belles—the nation’s comeliest women, Brainard asserted. Leaving the hotel, we saw several coyly lift their hems as they stepped from curbs, revealing shapely ankles encased in red stockings. The players whistled and shouted.

  “I’d fancy ’em all, one after t’other,” Sweasy said, keeping his voice low so Harry wouldn’t hear.

  “They ain’t cheap waiter girls,” Waterman said. “You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  As we took the field I reflected that my teammates were changing as their fame grew. Only Harry seemed unaffected. The others were taking on the arrogant assurance of proven winners, stars even. Well, I thought, what the hell, they were kids, barely in their twenties. They had the rest of their lives to be sober and mature.

  The diamond was superb, the Marylands jaunty in new uniforms with blue-and-white checked caps and jerseys. But the game wasn’t much. Our bats boomed from the start: George and Gould rapped seven hits each; Andy and Harry followed with six, and Brainard baffled the Maryland hitters.

  In the eighth, Waterman’s shin was spiked and Allison’s head slashed by a foul. In what I considered a strange series of moves, Harry stationed George behind the plate, took shortstop himself, and, with us leading 40—7, ignored Hurley and waved me out to center.

  “Don’t run me down!” Andy cried from left.

  “Fine,” I yelled back. “You just take everything out this way!”

  As luck had it, the second hitter lofted a fly directly to me. Andy sprinted over. “Mine!” I called, reaching for it. In a replay of my first day at practice, the ball bounced out of my hands. Andy dove under me and with a great sliding belly flop snagged it before it touched the grass. Red-faced, I helped him up.

  “Thanks for keepin’ that ball alive,” he said, grinning wickedly. “I might not’ve got it otherwise.”

  To a few cries of “Muffin!” I came to bat in the ninth. I hushed my hecklers by driving a low inside pitch that screamed over third and kicked up chalk; I pulled into second with a stand-up double and scored moments later on Harry’s single.

  “That’s the goods!” Andy said.

  A sequence, I thought, for my personal ’69 highlights film.

  It ended 47—7. The belles promenaded as we packed our gear, manipulating fans and parasols with the artfulness of geishas, shooting coquettish glances at us, to the discomfiture of their escorts. It was all a little silly, and yet they were gorgeous and still a bit mysterious to me in their panniered dresses, picture hats, and veils. I felt a pang of horniness remembering my night with Charlotte. Could these Scarlett O’Haras compete in her amatory league? I doubted it.

  We left for Washington on the 8:20 train. The journey’s only memorable feature was a discussion of Harry’s batting order, which I’d never understood.

  “Why, it’s easy,” said Andy. “He’s got the swift runners striking between the slow, to save force-outs and double plays.”

  “So George leads off,” I said, “and with his speed and base-running ability isn’t likely to be forced by Gould, who’s slow, is that it?”

  Andy nodded.

  “Not slow,” Gould rumbled. “Sure to bring George home with his run.”

  I finally had a handle on Harry’s unvarying lineup:

  G. Wright

  Leonard

  Gould

  Brainard

  Waterman

  Sweasy

  Allison

  McVey

  H. Wright

  The team’s leadfoots—Gould, Allison, Brainard, and Mac—were sandwiched between fast, canny runners. On a modern-day team Allison would never hit cleanup, nor Mac ninth. On a piece of paper I wrote their names in the order I’d have them hit and showed it to them.

  Leonard

  McVey

  Sweasy

  Allison

  G. Wright

  H. Wright

  Waterman

  Brainard

  Gould

  I explained that Andy was the perfect leadoff man, Sweasy a push-along spray hitter, George a rare mix of power and consistency ideal for the third slot; Waterman, while not capable of the towering shots powered by George or Gould or occasionally Mac, hit for extra bases consistently and was undaunted by pressure. The bottom three names were virtually interchangeable.

  I thought it was pretty convincing, but they didn’t. Sweasy pointedly said nothing. Brainard was offended that I’d slotted him ninth, in rookie McVey’s place. George argued that he wouldn’t score nearly as many runs batting third.

  “But,” I countered, “you’d drive in more.”

  “It’s making your run that counts,” he said with a grin. “It’s the whole object.”

  “Okay, but isn’t maximizing the team’s run production more important?”

  ‘ I had a sudden and unexpected ally. “George ain’t changed a whit since we were on the Nationals,” Brainard said. “He sulked whenever he didn’t lead the scoring then—and he’d do it now.”

  George stared at him, his grin fading. Brainard met his gaze and added, “Course, there’s little chance of that, long as his brother’s captain.”

  That produced an uneasy silence. As they looked at each other a moment longer, something seemed to be crystallizing between them.

  Oh, shit, I thought, what now?

  Chapter 12

  Considering its historic qualities and the fact that I’d spent several weeks there the previous year—a century in the future—I thought I would enjoy Washington.

  I did not.

  We piled out of a four-horse omnibus in front of Willard’s Hotel, around the corner from the White House, at Fourteenth and Pennsylvania. I stared at the unfinished Treasury Building across the way, then dragged Andy out for a walk around the Ellipse—and found nothing but dark outlines of trees and a truncated, half-built Washington Monument. In the far distance, dimly illuminated, was the dome of the Capitol Building. Andy thought he remembered hearing about its completion during the war.

  I had a bad moment: a sense of being wrenchingly dislocated, cut off, abandoned. This was the first place I’d come back to that I’d known at all well. While writing a feature on Vietnam vets I’d become familiar with the capital and could picture the way it had looked. That picture was jarringly out of sync with what I saw that night: I scarcely recognized the White House without its wings. The Old Executive Office Building wasn’t yet built. Nor the Lincoln or Jefferson memorials. No reflecting pools, no shimmering lights. The broad streets were dirty, the buildings shabby. If ever I felt culture shock, it was then.

  “What’re you fretting so hard over?” said Andy.

  “Even if I told you, it wouldn’t make sense.”

  “You rile me saying things like that,” he said hotly. “Go ahead, try me!”

  “All right,” I snapped. “I’m thinking that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial isn’t here. And that it’s crazy for me to know about that.”

  There was silence.

  “You’re right,” he said at length. “I don’t make sense of it. It is crazy.”

  He sounded hurt. I felt bad about that. But I was too low just then to do anything about it.

  We spent four days in the so-called City of Magnificent Distances. My spirits did not rise very far. It seemed that I was adjusting all over again. Road weariness didn’t help. We’d all had enough touring. It would end soon—this was the last major city—but for me, unlike the others, reaching Cincinnati would only pose a new set of problems.

  We were celebrities here, as in Baltimore. The Washington Republican called our eastern swing the greatest baseball tour ever. At all hours the staff of Willard’s shooed rubberneckers from the lobby. People massed outside for autographs.

  The players sat for another picture, at Mathew Brady’s studio a few blocks up Pennsylvania. The walls there were covered with photos of corpse-strewn b
attlefields and steely-eyed Civil War officers. A Brady assistant made the portrait. The only notable changes in the Stockings since Newark were tonsorial: Andy had a two-week-old mustache; Sweasy and Mac showed the beginnings of brushes; Gould had shaved his goatee off so that he too wore only a mustache. With so many models around, I’d decided to raise my own crop of whiskers and had not shaved for several days. Once again I declined being in the portrait.

  Waterman and Sweasy hid Brainard’s baseball shoes so well that in desperation he borrowed mine for the picture. In it he sits on the floor, one oversized shoe pointing upward with spikes attached—I had misplaced the key to unscrew them—while Waterman and Sweasy barely repress smirks.

  We were scheduled for two games. On a ninety-degree Friday we faced the Nationals at their new grounds on upper Fourteenth. A crush of traffic made surrounding streets impassable. Trees and rooftops, including that of the State Department across the street—it was situated temporarily in the Orphan Asylum—were crawling with spectators. We waited. And waited. Tempers grew short. People collapsed on the baking turf. Politicians droned floridly. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish was mercifully brief—he must have been a wretched orator—in his enthusiasm for the national game. The entire British legation was introduced. By then nearly ten thousand had assembled—another record smasher—and Champion was all smiles; no more complaints about gate receipts.

  While we waited I asked Millar if baseball went back as far here as in New York and Philadelphia. He said that teams of clerks had faced off on the “White Lot” behind the White House before the war. Lincoln himself had reputedly played, once stalling reporters with, “Wait until I make another hit.” But with the proliferation of teams after the war, Andy Johnson had chased everybody off—hence these new grounds. In ’67, having recruited George and Brainard among other stars, the Nationals were easily the nation’s best team. Touring westward they crushed the Stockings 53-10, a “Waterloo defeat,” Millar said, that had inspired Champion’s dream of assembling a western powerhouse.