Kid from Tomkinsville

by John R. Tunis

  Dave looked around. At the men with their arms on each other’s shoulders. At those standing expectantly in front of their lockers, arms on their hips, at the four or five seated cross-legged on the floor. He waited until silence covered them. It was an impressive silence. Something was certainly coming.

  “Been hearing talk these past few days...” He paused a moment. His start was direct, to the point, like Dave. Then he snapped out the next words.

  “About next year!” Everyone instantly straightened up. It was strange how every man was affected. Gabby’s pep talks were accepted, listened to, even heeded sometimes, but this was different. Those words cut. Someone’s feet scuffled nervously on the floor, and a pair of spikes in the back of the room made a noise. Here and there a man shifted the gum in his mouth and swallowed, and hasty glances were shot across the circle. This hurt. This was a new Dave, stern-faced, frowning, terse.

  “Now just one thing... and get this straight, every one of you. I’m not interested in next year. Is that clear? Neither is Mac. We’re interested in this year, right now, today. If anyone doesn’t get me, if there’s any man on the squad not anxious to give his best this minute, he better take off his uniform, step in at the office, and get his paycheck. Hanson’s here; he’ll be glad to give you an unconditional release.”

  The short sentences of the old player hurt, they cut into every man, into the veterans of a dozen campaigns like Jake and Fat Stuff, into the youngsters like the Kid and Harry Street, into the irrepressible rookies from the minors. There was silence before, but it was nothing to the silence now. Scowling, MacManus flipped away his cigarette which sounded like lead as it bounced along the floor. Yes, this was a new, a different Dave, and the gang began to appreciate that anyone who imagined he lacked Gabby’s force and fire was vastly mistaken. This was the boss. The boss was talking.

  “Tuesday, Fat Stuff will be ready. Razzle is back today and Doc says he can pitch this week. Street goes in there this afternoon. McCaffrey returns tomorrow or Thursday. In four-five days we’ll be at full strength again, or something like. Now this is almost the end of this season. Lots of you are banged up. I know it. Lots of you have bum arms or legs, razzberries or spike wounds. I know it. Everyone is down pretty fine. All right, so what? So are the Cubs, so are the Cards. Only difference is they’re still in there fighting. They aren’t talking ’bout next year.

  “Yes, we’ve been in a slump. That comes to the best of clubs; no one can help it. I understand, been through plenty of ’em in my time. I can make allowances for that, for men who are trying just the same. One player hasn’t been hitting and I had to bench him, but he’s still out there taking his crack at batting practice even morning. You all know who that is. He’s not talking about next year, he’s trying hard to find himself this year, right now. I think he will, too; I got confidence in him. Some of you pitchers complain you been overworked. I know it as well as you do. This week we ought to be back to a normal schedule again, with Raz and McCaffrey in the line-up. No one can help these things. But you can help this next year attitude you got into lately. A team that looks to next year is a team that has quit. I want a fighting team on that field until the last out on the last afternoon. Get me; the last out... on the last afternoon. That’s when the season ends.”

  He glanced over the men, at their tanned, solemn faces.

  “Snap out of it, you guys. Forget next year, or you’ll find that little pink slip in your mailbox tomorrow morning. Today we’re in fourth place. We won’t stay there unless we keep fighting and we needn’t stay there if we do, either. All right; line-up for today:

  “Swanny, center. Tucker, right. Red, first. Street, short. Stansworth behind the bat. Case, left. Davis, second. Strong, third. Kennedy in the box. That’s all.” There was a second or two when, stupefied by the fire of this usually mild and comradely man, they hesitated. Then they turned toward the door.

  “Wait a minute! One thing more. There’s some teams can count on their opponents losing; the Yanks, for instance. We can’t. We have to win by winning, not by hoping someone else will lose. Remember... the season isn’t over for this team until the last out on the last afternoon. Now go out there... and play ball....”

  It was the next afternoon that Jim Casey dropped in the offices of the Giants at the Polo Grounds. Outside the rain poured down in a September deluge made worse by the lack of rain during most of the long, dry summer.

  “Hullo there, Jim. How’s things?” The caustic Irishman managing the Giants was in an unusually mellow mood. He saw another pennant and a chance for one more crack at his old rivals coming. Offering his visitor a long Havana cigar, he lit one himself, exhaled the smoke, and stared at the ceiling of the office which once had belonged to the illustrious John McGraw.

  “Well, Bill, things look pretty good for you fellas.”

  “Yep, I guess so. We have eight or nine tough games ahead, a doubleheader account of this rain with the Cubs tomorrow, then four with the Bees. Bees are tough now, they’ve won nine out of fourteen; funny thing, that club’s way down, too. Then we can ease up a little, we finish with three games against the Dodgers over here. Well, it’s been a tough fight, but so far we haven’t felt the strain too much; we been loose and none of the boys have tightened up. Trick now is to stay loose, to be on our toes, to hustle. If we could only forget we were leading the League; but of course that’s mighty difficult, especially when you get near the end.”

  “How about the team? Everyone okay?”

  “Yeah, everyone except the pitchers. Honeyman and Kleinert aren’t in such good condition. But say, the fellows have been great. Casey, they’ll do anything; you know, I don’t have to worry about anybody staying out late at night, or breaking training rules, or other things. I’ve told ’em all they can drink beer, and I’ll bet there isn’t one who has gone in for the hard stuff. Never saw a bunch co-operate the way these lads have. If we can only stay loose and keep playing the kind of heads-up ball we been playing, it’s in the bag.”

  “Yeah. Well, Bill, you gotta watch the Cubs; they’re hot. And maybe the Dodgers, too. Looks like they might have snapped out of that slump. Did you notice what they did yesterday to Pittsburgh, 17 to 3? Knocked three Pirates out of the box. Young Tucker came back into the line-up, got three for three. About time they worked themselves from that slump, the Dodgers...”

  “The Dodgers!” He put his feet on the table opposite the desk, leaned back in his swivel chair, and roared. His laughter was full and hearty.

  “The Dodgers! Say—is Brooklyn still in the League?”

  22

  USUALLY THE DRESSING ROOM before a game was a noisy spot. Not this time. Usually there were shouts of laughter, loud calls for the Doc or old Chiselbeak. Not this time. Usually there was horseplay and wisecracks too. But not that afternoon. Already, an hour before the game, the team had been obliged to fight their way through a mob outside the gates to reach the locker-room entrance, and the ticket sale had stopped at every box office. So it was a grim and tight-lipped crowd of boys who started getting ready for the last game of all, the game on which the season and the pennant depended. Everyone attended to the business of dressing with determination and dispatch. Now they were sitting round, tying the final shoelace and doing those last-minute things that have to be done before taking the field. A few were glancing carelessly at newspapers, others were nervously chewing gum or staring at the floor, a few were rubbing oil into the pockets of well-oiled gloves. Overhead on three sides of the big room where no one who entered could possibly miss them, Chiselbeak had tacked three large printed signs.

  “THE TEAM THAT BEATS BROOKLYN WILL WIN THE PENNANT.” It was Murphy’s wisecrack when the season opened come back to roost in the visitor’s dressing room at the Polo Grounds.

  Roy, tense and tightened like the rest, sat on the bench before his locker and tried to read Casey’s column in the early edition of the afternoon paper. The words of the chunky sportswriter danced before his eyes, and he found
himself obliged to read and reread sentence after sentence to get their meaning.

  “Well, lads, you could have knocked me over with a Flatbush trolley yesterday. The Dodgers are on the move again. More than that, they come to the final game of the season in the one place baseball wouldn’t expect to find them, half a game behind Murphy’s Giants. Don’t ask me how they’ve done it. The team that looked like a joke in fourth place a few weeks ago suddenly snapped out of it and started to function. Nothing could stop them. In succession they whaled the Pirates and then the Cubs, took two out of three from the Cards and in the last two games against the league leaders they’ve battered four Giant hurlers from one end of the Polo Grounds to the other.

  “The Brooklyns are fielding and they’re hitting also. Roy Tucker, for instance. Three weeks ago the Connecticut farm boy was just another guy named Joe, and then after going fifteen games without a hit he silenced the fans as he used to, getting a single and two doubles out of three times at bat against the Pirates. Since then he hasn’t gone hitless in a single game. The Kid from Tomkinsville is pretty far behind in home runs now, but he’s hitting .325 and he’s bringing in runs in that second slot. So is Swanson, so is big Babe Stansworth, a pretty reliable man behind the bat.

  “The pitchers are all in one piece at last and they are pitching heads-up ball. Dodger pitching all summer has been good; last two weeks it’s been sensational. That combination of Street and Davis around second base is just about the best in the League. You think you’ve got the team in a hole and then one of them comes up with a doubleplay ball that nips a rally and saves another game. This rookie Street is one of the main factors in the Dodgers’ sudden rush to the front. You look up to see him behind second on one grounder and somewhere back of third on the next. They ought to put a cowbell on his neck so folks can tell where he is. Honest, the way this ballclub is going now would bring tears to the eyes of a rocking horse.”

  That wasn’t all. But the door banged and everyone jumped. It was Dave followed by MacManus, strangely quiet and calm. Dave had a ball in his hands, slapping it from one fist to the other as the Kid’s paper slid to the floor and he rose with the others, ready to go. MacManus stepped forward. Taking off his eyeglasses, he twirled them in his hand. His voice was low.

  “Just want to say one thing. I’ve been in this game ever since I left college and played semi-pro ball up in northern Michigan, and I never seen a better fight or a finer ballclub than this one. I hope you win today. Gosh, I sure hope you win. I want to see you go in there next week in the Series and trim those Yanks the way you did in the exhibition games last year, and I think you can do it, too. But whether you win or lose this afternoon... I’m for you... all... everyone... understand?...

  “One thing more. The manager of the team we play today doesn’t think much of Brooklyn. Maybe you remember the crack he made to Casey the sportswriter several weeks ago when we were in that slump in fourth place. He said...” For the first time his voice became vibrant and there was passion in his tone. “He said, ‘Is Brooklyn... still... in the League?’

  “Don’t forget that crack out on the field today.”

  There was silence for a few seconds when no one seemed to breathe. Then they turned and went out for the last time, a team that three weeks previously had been in fourth place and now, half a game behind the leaders, was fighting for the pennant.

  Clack-clack, clackety-clack, clack-clack their spikes sounded on the concrete runway leading to the field.

  The crowd rose with a roar as the first man appeared at the entrance of the runway. There they are, there they are... the Dodgers!

  Sixty thousand frenzied human beings packed the stands behind the plate, jammed into the upper tier which encircled the playing field, stood up two or three deep in the rear. A sell-out. A sell-out at the Polo Grounds. Not for the Series itself could another person have jammed in. Because sport offers no more inspiring spectacle than the man or the team who comes back, who takes the cracks of fate and pulls together to rise once more. Down-and-out, the Dodgers were on the way back. And the roars of the throng which beat about their ears was proof of the tribute of the fans.

  While they spread upon the field, another but a derisive cry arose. It had a jeering, taunting note; it was bitter and it was hostile because it came from the Brooklyn crowd behind third, many of whom had been in line all night. Like a wave it rose, fell, rose again, stomp... stomp... stomp... as the men with GIANTS on their shirts took the diamond.

  “IS BROOKLYN... STILL... IN THE LEAGUE?... IS BROOKLYN... STILL... IN THE LEAGUE?...”

  A roar of sound swept into the quiet and orderly living room on the farm. It was late September and there was a chill in the air, and Grandma was sitting before the radio with a cup of tea in her lap. Tea without milk, too. Tea without milk in the late afternoon always kept her awake, but that redoubtable old lady felt the need of something strong. Tea without milk was the strongest thing she could think of. That roar filled the room, it swelled and grew, as Grandma, the tea in her lap, her face flushed, rocked back and forth.

  The telephone rang.

  For a moment Grandma sat there, then with decision marched into the other room and, taking the receiver off the hook, set it face down on the table. The jangling of the bell instantly stopped and a voice from the radio came into the room.

  “... yes, folks, and believe me, that one run looks big, awfully big right now... and here comes Tucker, ‘Bad News Tucker’ as the boys call him because he’s been breaking up so many ball games with that little old stick of his; just hear those fans give him a hand; yep, even the Giant rooters...” And once again the noise echoed across the room in that little Connecticut farmhouse.

  “Moe Kleinert looks round the diamond... he brings up his leg... throws... and it’s a strike! Strike one against Roy Tucker, men on first and third, one out and the Dodgers leading by a single run in the first half of the fourth inning, and is this crowd nuts? Listen to ’em howl. Half of ’em want Tucker to crack it and the other half don’t. There it goes... there it goes... a beautiful single into right... Tucker slaps a single into right sending Davis across with run number two.” The noise drowned out his voice, the noise beat against the walls of the little room, and the announcer was silent for several seconds.

  “Yeah... there he comes... there comes Manager Murphy in from third... yep, Kleinert’s going out... Moe Kleinert, the Giant pitcher, is knocked out of the box, as the second Dodger run comes over with Tucker’s clean single, the fourth this inning. That means two runs on four hits, both runs earned. Men on third and first... and... one out... le’s see who’s coming in... I think it’s Delaney... no, it’s Honeyman, Sam Honeyman, the star lefty of the Giants who won twenty-two games this season. He’s taken four and only dropped one to the Dodgers. But those two runs sure do look big right now... here goes Kleinert... Moe Kleinert going to the showers... and Red Allen, the Dodger first baseman, swinging two bats in his hand comes to the plate.”

  Watching the game from the stands, from the press quarters, or from his own box just back of the Dodger dugout, was impossible. The strain was too much, so MacManus paced up and down in a small office back of the press box, which had been assigned him for the three days of the Series. Every once in a while he stepped through a corridor and into the press coop where he looked down over the heads of the newspapermen at work, onto the field. Onto Razzle hitching his trousers and stuffing in his shirt with that familiar gesture, onto Harry Street dancing around at second, and Roy Tucker nervously fingering his cap in right, at Eddie Davis scooping up dirt with his fingers back of second. At Babe behind the plate, at the outfield shifting a little to the left as Dave from the bench moved them around for each batter. He wanted this game, Mac did, he wanted it as he had never wanted anything in his life before. Mustn’t let the boys know and that was one reason for keeping away from the field.

  “... so coming into the eighth, and old Razzle looks kinder tired out there on the mound... it’s tw
o to one for Brooklyn, two men out, men on first and third, and Muscles Mulligan, the Giant first baseman, at the plate.”

  From his little office MacManus snapped the dials of a small portable radio. He could have sat beside the announcer had he wished, but that would have meant being too close. It was easier like this.

  “Here’s the pitch... low and inside... ball one. The infield’s playing a little to the right... here it comes... IT’S A HIT...” The roar drowned his voice; it came over the radio and it also came through the closed door, telling the stocky freckle-faced man of disaster. He stood in the middle of the room, sweat coming out on his forehead. “Mayerson is coming in with the tying run... Ronsek going round second... coming into third... he’s going home... he’s trying for home... he makes it... another run and Muscles takes second on the throw-in.”

  The noise of sixty thousand insane spectators again blanketed the announcer’s voice. The Giants were ahead, three to two, and the man alone in the room passed his fingers across his wet forehead. “And there goes old Razzle... the crowd’s giving him a great hand... but Nugent is tired... just plain tired... Leonard’s pitchers haven’t had enough rest these last few weeks, they’re beginning to feel the strain... and here comes a relief pitcher from the bullpen... wait a minute... I can’t see... yes, it’s Leonard’s star, Elmer McCaffrey, in for Razzle Nugent, with the Giants leading three to two, one out and a man on second, the last of the eighth. We now pause for station identification.”

  Down on the sunbaked field Roy kept repeating those words he had been saying to himself all through the game. Until the last out... on the last afternoon of the season. Ever since he’d heard that sentence on the day Dave took a chance and shoved him into the line-up again, the Kid had repeated it. Dave was right, Dave was certainly right. It was the ninth. One man was out and the Dodgers were a run behind. But the season wasn’t over until the last out....