Unfortunately the news spread about the hotel as news of this kind will and, notwithstanding everything Gabby could do, the event was too sensational to cover up. The next morning Razzle’s photograph was on all the front pages accompanied by a lurid account of the evening’s foray, and a brief history of other and similar episodes in former years. Within two hours Gabby had received a terse wire ordering him to submit a complete report immediately to the president of the League.
Result—for the team, one more man out of action. For Razzle, a month’s suspension and a fine of $500. Expensive for a few glasses of beer.
12
THE TEAM WAS BOARDING the Manhattan Limited for New York. By the time of their departure from Pittsburgh more than half the squad presented some sort of problem, and the question was how a line-up could be made from the available players for the next afternoon at home. The club was feeling the strain of the race for the pennant. Reliable Tom Swanson was limping badly from an ankle which needed rest and time to heal; Jerry Strong was out for three weeks at least; Babe Stansworth, the big catcher, had a split thumb and was useless in games; Tommy Scudder had a fractured leg, the result of sliding home that day, and was left behind in a hospital; Fat Stuff, the steady old horse who did the relief pitching, was visiting Johns Hopkins for a lame arm; Karl Case in right was in a batting slump because the other men weren’t hitting and he was asked to carry an unequal share of the load, while Gabby himself, beneath his tan, was drawn and tired about the eyes and wretchedly thin. His hitting had cooled off and his fielding lost its edge. Gabby needed a letup. So did everyone else. Worst of all, Razzle, who merely had to take the box to have opposing hitters tighten up, was out for a month. A month during the most critical part of the season when the western clubs and the Giants were fighting desperately to grab away the slight lead the Dodgers held.
Going to the station in a taxi, the Kid’s mind for some strange reason went back to the distance he had covered since Clearwater, and he began to reflect upon those hot weeks, a heat which now seemed as nothing. He recalled a remark of Rats Doyle, made after one of the first few days’ practice as they came into the clubhouse together exhausted. It was one of the first times anyone had spoken to him or noticed him except old Dave Leonard, and he never forgot the remark or Doyle. “Spring training’s the toughest part of it.” The Kid smiled grimly at that sentence over a distance of six months. Somehow, looking back, spring training didn’t seem so tough after all.
Bill Hanson, the business manager, stood at the train gate checking them in. Once this had seemed amazing to him; now it was simply routine.
“Stansworth... Case... Swanny... Tucker... Allen... Razzle... Foster... where’s Fat Stuff?... Oh, yeah; he’s down in Baltimore, isn’t he?... Draper... Kennedy....” As the Kid passed through the gate someone waiting stepped forward. It was Rex King of the New York Times who always accompanied the team on its western trip. He came up.
“Say, Tuck, would you mind coming through to our compartment in the next car. Boys want a little information....”
His first impulse was to say no. Why should he bother? One did; you had to; but why? What difference did it make? He didn’t want them to write about him. Besides, he was tired and anxious to sleep. Some players could sleep until noon, but the Kid never. He was too used to getting up on the farm at home, doing the chores and putting in half a day’s work before going to town to his job at MacKenzie’s drugstore. He determined to refuse and was surprised to hear his voice say, “Sure, I’ll go back with you.” Mechanically he dropped his bag and his raincoat on his seat, took off his jacket, and went along with the older man to find four other newspapermen in the next car. They were sitting in a smoke-filled compartment, and hastily put away the cards on the table before them and drew out envelopes or pieces of folded paper. He knew what was ahead: an interview.
“Looks as if you men were going to make me talk after all.” During the early part of the season he had managed to dodge interviews fairly successfully. Interviews were frightening, and the persistent questioning he received from sportswriters in the dugout before the game or in the locker room afterward in every city did little to reassure him.
“Say, you fellas, ever since I went to Clearwater back in March I been reading some interesting things about myself. But I didn’t believe it was worth while to set things right. Too much trouble. Now it seems as if we might get the record straight.”
The five men chorused assent. They were all certain that the other man had made the mistakes.
“Yep, that’s what we want....”
“Okay, Kid, shoot the works now.”
“Sure, le’s go. Who discovered you? First of all, who discovered you? MacManus or...”
“Or Gabby....”
“Dave Leonard, wasn’t it?” asked somebody.
“No, it wasn’t.” The Kid was positive because he was a trifle tired of that story. “It wasn’t Dave and it wasn’t Gabby and it wasn’t really Mac, either. He came up to Waterbury last summer when I pitched one day, and old Hooks Barr, the owner, tried to get him to give me a chance. He wasn’t interested. Much. Then at some league meeting or other, Hooks talked about me again, and kept at him until finally in the middle of winter he sent me money to come down and try out with the team. That’s all.”
“What about your borrowing the cash from your grandma to go down to Clearwater?”
He scowled. “Aw, that’s the bunk. They sent me the dough all right, but we had to use it to replace the roof which got damaged in that storm last fall. Come winter, it started to leak so badly in the kitchen we had to use the money for that. So I did and borrowed some cash from my grandma. See?” The five men were scribbling furiously. He wondered what there was in his remarks to enable them to fill up all that space.
“Is it true you sat up all night in the day coach?...”
The Kid was tired. Hot and tired and bored. “What’s that got to do with it anyhow?” The pencils went to work round the table again.
“Tell us about your life. Where were you born?”
“Tomkinsville.”
“Live at home?”
“Yep... I live with my grandma on the farm. Dad died when I was a kid and my mother died two years ago.”
“Work on the farm?”
“Uhuh. But I work in town, too. At MacKenzie’s drugstore.”
“You work at home and in town...”
“Why, sure. I don’t go on the day shift until noon. Noon to eight at night.” What time did they think folks got up on a farm?
They changed the subject. “What great pitcher did you model yourself after?”
“No great pitcher.” There was a silence in the compartment. He didn’t model himself after anyone. Why should he? “My only thought was to get on the Dodgers and stick there... if I could.” He paused a moment. “Y’see, I’m not a very good story. I’m not a mystery story. I don’t count myself a great pitcher. Had lots of luck, and a lot of help from old Dave Leonard. Maybe he ought to get the credit.” He noticed several raised eyebrows, and glances exchanged across the table. The four men were scribbling furiously. “First place my curve ball is too slow. Dave was working to give me a faster hook. I never fan many, and I... I never forget I’ve got a swell ballclub out there working their heads off for me all the time. There... is that enough?... I’m tired, you guys....”
It was enough. Until the next time. The next time came sooner than any of them expected. In fact within twenty-four hours.
There was one thing the Kid never got accustomed to, and that was the difference in the dressing room after a game they lost and a game they won. If they lost, the fatigue of the afternoon seemed doubled; everyone was all in and showed it, nerves were edgy, dressing was hard work, although nobody wanted to stay in the tension of the room any longer than necessary.
But when they won! And when they won over the Giants! MacManus and Murphy were exchanging barbed pleasantries in the newspapers, but the closeness of the league standing
was enough to pack the stands that afternoon without additional help. Both teams were keen to win. The Dodgers wanted to stretch their lead to three full games, the Giants to cut it down to one game, and incidentally grab off second place. But they were helpless before the Kid. Never had he felt keener, never more like pitching, and even with their patched line-up three runs were enough. That brought his victorious record up to fifteen. The fans almost mobbed him as he came off the field, and directly he reached the safety of the dressing room, the reporters were on his neck again.
The place was hot, dusty, and noisy, jubilant because everyone was singing and shouting across the room. A three-game lead, with a substitute catcher, a second string at third, and a utility outfielder playing most of the game, wasn’t bad. The room echoed and re-echoed to their yells, and the boys slapped him on the back as they came in throwing their gloves at their lockers.
“Nice work, Roy, old kid....”
“Tha’s pitching, that is, Roy....”
“Boy, were you hot today....”
“Great stuff, Kid; that’s keeping ahead of those batters all right, all right....”
MacManus came across the room to his locker. “Roy, that’s pitching, and it’s about time we did something for you. Drop into the office tomorrow—No, tomorrow I’m in Boston. Drop in Thursday or Friday. I’ve torn up your old contract and we’ve got to make out a new one.”
A new contract! His old one called for a couple of thousand dollars, which had seemed a fortune when he signed it early in April. A new contract. That meant more. Real money. Now he would be fixed, for Jack MacManus was a real guy.
Soon the sportswriters, having finished their stories, came in. They drifted nonchalantly across the room pretending not to see him, laughing and kidding, but with their eye fixed upon their prey. They surrounded his bench and stood watching him like an animal in the zoo, as he peeled off his sweaty undershirt, his pants, his soggy stockings. Question after question was thrown at him. How did he feel?... Was he nervous out there?... Did the record help his pitching?... Would he?... Did he?... Could he?...
“Wait a minute, you guys. Lemme have a shower, will yuh?”
“Yeah, sure, let him have his shower,” they replied in unison as he went across to the steaming water.
There were laughter and shouts coming from the shower, boisterous cries and yells. Immediately upon stepping into the warm water he was soothed, refreshed and relaxed. His muscles stopped aching. The tired feeling in his body slowly disappeared, and a great contentment took possession of his frame. Outside, the boys were horsing round, slapping each other with the ends of wet towels... calling names, someone suggesting a movie to someone else... when it happened.
Like that. Suddenly. One minute he was up, then he was on the floor, before he could save himself or do anything. Tom Swanson, standing just outside the shower, jumped quickly to avoid a wet towel-end, and as he did so fell against the Kid in the beating curtain of water. Blinded, the Kid stepped further in... slipped... and fell. On his elbow. His right elbow. There was a stinging pain.
Someone reached in and hauled him up and out. Dripping wet, in a hush, and a deep silence. Doc Masters at the far end of the room curtly left someone on the rubbing table and ran to where the Kid was sitting on a bench, his face twisted in pain, feeling of his injured elbow. From nowhere a circle gathered, men with towels in their hands, men half-dressed, naked, reporters, players, all with serious faces. Then Gabby with only his pants on came pushing and shoving through the circle, cursing.
“How many times have I told you men... Who did that?... Who shoved you, Tuck?... How many times I’ve said... Is it okay, Doc, is it okay, is it?...”
The Doc paid no attention to him. Instead he kept gently rubbing the sore spot, until the acute pain subsided. The Kid tried to smile. “Yep, it’s better now, much better.” His face was sweating; in fact he was sweating all over. But the pain was less violent. A few days’ rest wouldn’t hurt him anyhow. Doc suggested. He was overdrawn. He was down fine. But the elbow would be okay; nothing serious about that.
The reporters weren’t sure. They didn’t want to miss a story if there was one, but yet they weren’t anxious to get out on a limb. The news spread. Once in his room in the hotel with his arm bandaged and liniment taking out the soreness, the telephone rang. Newspapers, radio commentators, press associations, everyone wanted to know whether he had been injured and if so how badly. Finally in despair he told the operator not to connect him, and slowly undressed. A dozen times, twenty times, a hundred times, he fingered his right arm tenderly, trying to decide if the pain was going down. It was a hot night. And he was a worried boy as he lay thinking of what one careless shove might do, realizing for the first time the importance of physical condition and its possible effect on his paycheck. Stories he’d heard came back; locker room gossip of men who got blood poisoning, who received leg or arm injuries which cut short their baseball life, flooded his brain. That catcher... what was his name... on the Browns... and Donnelly of the Red Sox, the best lefthander in the League... and the young rookie from the Coast who lost his leg from an infected spike wound... yes, and Fat Stuff, who was trying to nurse a weak arm along....
As he turned over he realized suddenly that it wasn’t called his salary arm for nothing.
13
WHENEVER GRANDMA WAS in trouble she made tea. Whenever she was tired and exhausted and worried from trying to keep the farm going with the help of the young Johnson boy next door and a hired man seldom reliable, she brewed tea. Strong tea. Tea occupied much the same place in her life that beer did in Razzle Nugent’s. Inasmuch as she was not in training she availed herself of her particular stimulant more often.
Grandma knew baseball. Being the grandmother of the Kid, she had to. But she had learned much from his letters and from the New York newspapers to which he subscribed for her. She not only understood the game, but also the casual significances which lay behind newspaper stories or the patter of the radio announcer. When Roy was pitching she always had the radio tuned in, a new magnificent machine with short wave and other facilities that Grandma scorned.
“Now that was bad of him, real bad of him, buying that expensive thing. I wish he’d save his money. Besides I’d just as lief have kept the old one; fact is I was kinder fond of it.” So she was, but the Kid knew she’d never get Cincinnati and St. Louis on the older set.
The radio was chattering while she rose and left the room to make tea. Despite the view over the back meadows where the hired man was mowing steadily, the kitchen seemed cheerless. She bent over and with a vigorous gesture turned down the arrows of the kerosene stove. Roy had wanted her to have a gas range, but she put her foot down. Gas was dangerous. Always she had cooked by coal in winter and kerosene in summer, and always she would. Moving to the sink she pumped water into a tea kettle and placed it on the stove, struck a match and lighted the soaking wicks of the kerosene stove.
“Click-click-click-click-click-click,” came the familiar sound of the machine in the meadow, and the hired man’s peculiar way of addressing the horses. “Oopse, there, Sandy, oopse....” Grandma stood listening, her gaze on the back road and the distant hills, hills she had seen as a child and as a woman, a sight so accustomed that from the window over the sink she actually saw nothing. What she saw was a wide green field dotted with men in white and a boy standing alone in the middle, his hands on his hips. He was in trouble. What the trouble was she couldn’t tell, yet something was wrong. A voice from the other room called her back again to the kitchen in the farm.
She returned to the parlor and sat down in the rocker before the radio. “Now, folks, that makes three men on base, three on and nobody out. First three Boston batters have singled, Kline’s hit was a clean smack to left and only fast fielding prevented a run. Roy Tucker out there on the mound... looks unhappy.... He’s rubbing his right arm.... Now Gabby’s coming in from short to talk to him.... Remember, this will be his sixteenth straight win, folks, no rookie
ever won sixteen straight his first year before, and no pitcher in the League, in either league, ever won more....”
“There they go. He’s set... his foot goes up... first pitch... is... wide, ball one. Ball one. Is this crowd nuts! They sure want to see the Dodgers get back into first place by taking this game, and they’re all out there pulling for that Kid in the box. Here comes the pitch, ball two. Isn’t a very good start. What’s the matter, Roy? He doesn’t seem ahead of the hitters the way he usually is. Two balls, two and none... there it goes, a hit... a fly to deep center.... Swanny’s going back... back... he’s up against the fence now... IT’S A HOME... A HOME RUN....” And his voice was lost in a tremendous roar.
“Well, I guess that was a little lucky. Pretty lucky, that was, just cleared the fence, a few feet this way it’d ’a’ been out. Kelley went for the cripple and knocked it over the fence, and that means four runs. Four runs isn’t so much against this scrappy ballclub... now the boys are round the box talking to him, and Gabby’s slapping him on the back; they’re still behind him. Here comes Chick Duffy, the Braves’ right fielder, bats .285....”
“Strike one....” Again that terrific roar filled Grandma’s sitting room. “There’s the old Tucker, burning his fast one in there for a called strike. Here’s the pitch, wide... a ball... one and one... nobody down, first inning in this game between the Dodgers and the Braves here at Ebbets Field.... Here it comes... he hits... down the left foul line... Scudder’s after it... Duffy rounding first... he takes second safely... Duffy cracks a double to left, that’s the fourth straight hit against Tucker.... Just hear that crowd yell.”
Grandma wiped her face nervously. Outside from the meadow the sounds of the mower persisted, “click-click, click-click, click-click,” as though nothing mattered but the cutting of the hay.
“Rubino, Boston catcher... bats .305... a dangerous man. Duffy dancing off second... the Kid watches over his shoulder... his leg goes up... here it comes... Tony hits... a clean single to center... Duffy on third, coming home... Swanson throws to the plate... but Gabby cuts it off to prevent Rubino taking second on the throw-in. Say... the fifth straight hit, fifth run scored...”
Kid from Tomkinsville Page 9
