by Wes Tooke
Red Haley opened the back door of the Chrysler, and Nick and his father squeezed inside. Satch turned around and grinned from the front seat.
“Next stop Fargo,” he said.
From the moment Nick got in that car seat, his life felt like a blur. The team played nine games in seven days in eight towns. They headed east to Fargo and then south from Watertown to Sioux Falls to Sioux City to Norfolk to Fremont to Grand Island to Hastings. The towns and games quickly blended together, and Nick wouldn’t have remembered any details except that Mr. Churchill told him to record every statistic that he could find.
And so Nick knew that by the time they rolled into McPherson, a town near the center of Kansas, they had traveled 987 miles while compiling an unbeaten record of 9–0. Satch accounted for six of those wins, giving up only four runs—three on a fluke double that Moose Johnson lost in the sun—and striking out forty-five batters. The team’s bats were also hot, and they collectively hit .322 with six home runs and fifty-two runs scored. In fact, they were so impressive that by the end of the game in Sioux City, the home crowd had been cheering for every Satch strikeout or diving play made by Red Haley.
But Nick kept some unofficial statistics too, and by those measures the crowds were getting a little bit nastier with every mile they drove south. People were yelling names from the stands at Satch and the other black players—names Nick had never heard—but he knew they must be bad because once when he turned around on the bench to look at the person who was shouting, his father had put a firm hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t give that idiot the satisfaction,” he said.
They pulled into McPherson late on a Friday night—the game in Hastings had taken more than three hours because Bismarck put men on base in every inning. Nick was sitting in the back of the Chrysler with most of the black players, and as they pulled up in front of a ramshackle hotel in the center of town, he noticed that a group of men across the street were staring at them.
“Those people don’t look very friendly,” Nick said.
Red Haley glanced over at them and shrugged. “Life on the road, kid,” he said. “You should see how they treat us in Cuba. Satch near got killed one night out in the country.”
Satch glanced up from untying the rope that held down the trunk’s flap. “That’s no joke. Those people were lighting up a bonfire to roast old Satch about the time I slipped out of town.”
“What did you do?” Nick asked.
“It was a language problem,” Red said.
Satch laughed. “Yeah. See, they speak Spanish down there, and I don’t know more than ten words. But I always like to play along when people talk to me. So one night we lost, and after the game a guy came up and was talking in Spanish, fast as a typewriter. I figured he was telling me how well I pitched, so I just kept nodding my head.”
“Except he was a mob boss,” Red said. “Who had lost a lot of money betting that we would win.”
“He sure was sore about losing the money,” Satch said. “But he got even more sore because it turned out he was asking me whether I had thrown the game.”
Red burst out laughing. “And there was Satch, nodding and smiling like he’d just pulled the perfect con.”
Satch laughed too. It was a funny story, but Nick was too preoccupied with the men across the street to smile. They were clustered together, talking quietly and occasionally glancing at Satch and Red. Something about their expression made the hair on the back of Nick’s neck stand up, and as soon as Satch finished untying the trunk’s flap, Nick grabbed a bag and hurried into the hotel. But it turned out that things were just as uncomfortable inside—Mr. Churchill was standing at the front desk, his face bright red.
“You ought to be embarrassed,” he was half shouting at the skinny desk clerk. “My boys are playing tomorrow in this town, and they deserve a place to sleep.”
“I’m sorry,” the clerk said in a tone that made it clear he wasn’t sorry. “It’s just a rule.”
Mr. Churchill’s hand slammed against the desk. “It’s a ridiculous rule. And I won’t stand for it!”
“I don’t know where you’re from,” the desk clerk said, his eyes narrow. “But around here we do things our way. And we don’t take to white folks and colored folks sleeping under the same roof. Understand?”
“Then I’ll take my business elsewhere,” Mr. Churchill said.
The clerk shrugged. “You’ll get the same answer from every hotel in town.”
Mr. Churchill turned away from the desk, his hands on his hips and his mouth pursed. Satch and Red had come into the hotel just in time to hear the last few lines.
“We’re driving back to Hastings,” Mr. Churchill said. “I’m sure some hotel up there will be happy to take our money.”
Satch shook his head. “There’s no sense in driving all the way back there. Not with a game here tomorrow.”
“We’ll skip the game.”
“No game, no money,” Satch said. “And we sure didn’t come to McPherson just for the lovely company.”
Mr. Churchill still looked uncertain, and Red stepped forward. “This ain’t our first rodeo,” he said. “We’ll find a place to sleep. Sometimes there are boardinghouses or other colored folks who will take us in for the night. It usually comes with a good meal, too.”
Satch glanced at the small restaurant adjacent to the lobby of the hotel. “Definitely better than the pig slop you get in a dump like this.”
He said it loudly, and the desk clerk’s head whipped around. Red noticed and grabbed Satch by the elbow. “Let’s go,” he said. “Before those boys outside decide to stick their nose in it.”
“It’s just not right,” Mr. Churchill said, shaking his head. “We’re a team.”
“Right don’t have nothing to do with it in a town like this,” Satch said. “Now, you go upstairs and go to sleep and don’t think on this for one more minute.”
Red and Satch started toward the door. Nick’s father, who had been standing silently near the desk during the entire exchange, looked at Nick.
“Come on,” he said.
Satch paused and looked at Nick’s father. “You and your boy ain’t colored. Unless there’s something in your family history that you haven’t told us.”
Nick’s father avoided Satch’s gaze. “I’m not staying if my teammates can’t stay.”
“I appreciate it,” Satch said. “I surely do. But we might end up sleeping outdoors, and your son . . .”
Nick’s father and Satch both looked at Nick, and he tried not to squirm under the attention. “He’ll be fine,” Nick’s father finally said. “He’s a tough kid.”
Nick’s mouth fell open—that was the first nice thing his father had said about him in a long time—and he was still glowing a minute later when they all piled back into the Chrysler.
“You know anywhere around here?” Satch asked Barney Morris as they pulled out into the street. “We got about two minutes before it’s dark.”
“Nope,” Barney said. “Looks like we’re staying in the Cornfield Ritz.”
Satch smiled. “Greatest hotel room God ever created.”
They drove until the lights of the town had faded behind them and then pulled off into a field. Nick’s father got a bunch of towels from the equipment bag, which they rolled up to use as pillows, and Nick lay down on a little patch of grass between the rows of corn and yanked his jacket over his torso like a blanket. It had been a long day of carrying bags and running for water and shagging balls, and he felt himself drifting off to sleep as soon as his eyes closed. The last thing he remembered was the sound of a harmonica and the laughter of Satch and a few of the other men.
Nick awoke before sunrise, shivering because the coat had fallen off him in the middle of the night. He wanted to get a little deer oil from the car and rub it on his leg before everyone woke up—that had been his routine during the trip—but Satch was standing a dozen yards away, lit by the bluish glow of the dawn as he stretched his neck. He look
ed so tired that his face was almost drooping at the edges, and when he noticed that Nick was awake, he stared at him for a long moment, the usual twinkle gone from his eye.
“They ain’t hitting nothing today,” he finally said. “Nothing.”
The game against McPherson started at one. It was a perfect afternoon for baseball—blue skies and just a hint of a breeze blowing out toward center field. The field had only a basic grandstand, but it was packed by the first pitch, and as Nick put the tar and a rag out by the warm-up circle, he realized that the men who had been standing across the street the previous night were sitting directly behind home plate. When he mentioned that to Satch, who was carefully lacing his shoes on the bench, Satch just smiled.
“Good,” he said. “They’ll have the perfect view to watch me embarrass their team.”
In the top of the first, Red made it to second base with two outs. Moose got a fastball on the inside corner that he muscled into left field for a sharp single, and Nick’s father, who was coaching third base, waved Red home. The throw was late and the catcher also appeared to bobble the ball, but the umpire called Red out. As Satchel and the rest of the defense trotted onto the field, Mr. Churchill waddled out to home plate. Nick, who was rearranging the bats, was close enough to hear the exchange.
“Just call it fair,” Mr. Churchill said. “That’s all I ask.”
The umpire waved a finger in Mr. Churchill’s face. “You come up and talk to me again and I’ll have the cops drag you off this field. We don’t put up with bellyaching in this town.”
Mr. Churchill stared at him for a long moment and then just nodded to himself and returned to the bench. After Satch finished his warm-up, McPherson’s first batter, a skinny kid with pale skin, carefully dug into the box. Satch’s first pitch was a curveball that snapped sharply just before it reached the plate. The batter swung wildly, missing the ball by at least a foot, but before Quincy could throw it back to Satch the McPherson player turned and looked at the umpire.
“That ball is funny,” he said.
As the crowd hooted, the umpire tapped Quincy on the shoulder. “Let me look at that.”
Quincy shrugged and handed him the ball. The umpire made a big show of inspecting it before turning and throwing it toward the home team’s bench. He pulled another ball out of his pocket, and after he handed it to Quincy he stared out at the mound and wagged his finger again.
“Keep it clean,” he said. “None of your big-city tricks down here.”
Nick expected Satch to get mad, but instead he just smiled a smile so wide that his teeth glinted in the midday sun.
“You may as well throw ’em all out because they’re all going to jump like that!” he shouted.
The umpire ignored him and settled back behind Quincy, his eyes dark behind his mask. Satch’s next pitch, a fastball, cleaved the heart of the plate. Nick waited for the umpire’s hand to go up, but instead his voice rang around the stands. “Ball one!”
Satch turned on the mound and stared at Mr. Churchill, his hands on his hips. Mr. Churchill responded by hopping up as quickly as Nick had ever seen him move and striding across the diamond toward the opposing bench. The umpire took a few steps forward to intercept him.
“What did I just tell you?” the umpire asked, his face red. “Stay off my field!”
Mr. Churchill ignored him and pointed at the opposing manager. “You find a real ump or me and my boys are getting in our cars and leaving.”
“One more word and I’m calling in the cops,” the umpire said. He waved at the stands near third base, where three giant deputies were standing, their arms folded across their chests.
“I’m not talking to you, greaseball,” Mr. Churchill said. His eyes were locked on the opposing manager. “A fair ump. Now. Or we hit the road.”
The opposing manager pushed himself off the bench and ambled out toward Mr. Churchill. Despite his deliberately casual walk, there was an unmistakable glint of menace in his eyes. “I think you want to finish this game,” he said when he reached Mr. Churchill. He nodded slightly at the stands. “If you and your boys walk off this field, I won’t be liable for what these people do.”
Mr. Churchill snorted. “And then what? Do you think that any traveling team will ever come back to this pathetic cow patty of a town if you run us out on a rail? In fact, I’ll bet most folks won’t even drive down your main street if they hear you were dumb enough to hire a crooked ump just so you could say you beat Satchel Paige.”
“I ain’t crooked,” the umpire said defensively.
“Then you’re blind,” Mr. Churchill said. “And either way my boys aren’t playing with you behind the plate. So get off this field, you dirty chiseler.”
Mr. Churchill’s voice had risen, and his last words carried clearly into the stands, sparking a cavalcade of catcalls. The group of men behind home plate were half leaning onto the field, their faces ugly and contorted, and the Bismarck players in the infield instinctively moved toward Satch on the mound. Nick’s father got up from the bench and sidled over to the on-deck circle.
“If this gets ugly, you go stand by those deputies,” he said to Nick, his voice low. “You hear me?”
Nick glanced at the three deputies, who were still standing in a cluster, stone-faced. “I don’t think they’re on our side.”
“Of course they aren’t,” his father said. “But if they got a decent bone in their body, they ain’t going to stand for a kid getting hurt. So you go over by them, understand?”
As Nick nodded, his father crouched down, his fingers curling around the handle of a bat. And that was when Nick got really scared; his father wasn’t the kind of man who was prone to exaggeration. Nick started to sidle toward the deputies, but just as he got near home plate—
“Fine,” the opposing team manager said, the word ringing around the infield. He pointed into the stands. “Get down here, Bobby.”
A short man wearing a dark suit emerged from the crowd. The deputies opened a gate in the fence, and he marched over to Mr. Churchill and stuck out his hand.
“Bob Bonner,” he said. “I used to ump over in Kansas City for the regional tournaments.”
“Just call it fair,” Mr. Churchill said. “That’s all I ask.”
Bob nodded and then turned to the previous umpire and raised an eyebrow. After a long moment he tore off his chest protector and dropped it and his mask on the ground before stalking into the stands. Bob picked up the mask and then looked out at the pitcher’s mound, where Satch was calmly watching the scene.
“Let’s play ball,” Bob said.
It turned out that Bob was as fair as the previous umpire had been crooked, and through eight innings Satch gave up only two hits—a soft roller down the third baseline and a dying quail to center field. By the top of the ninth, Bismarck was winning 5–0. With two outs and Moose at the plate, Satch strode up to the on-deck circle and lazily swung a bat a few times before taking a knee and then gesturing to Nick for a towel. When Nick reached his side, he waved a hand at Moose.
“You know how to read a batter?” he asked.
Nick stifled his surprise—Satch rarely talked to anyone during a game when he was pitching. “No, sir.”
“Watch his front knee. That tells you everything.” Nick looked at Satch skeptically, and Satch made a little cross over his heart. “I promise . . . that knee is like peeking at a man’s cards. Is he tense because he’s getting ready for a fastball? Is he sitting on that back leg because he’s waiting for the curve? You read that knee the right way, and you’ve beaten the batter before the ball even leaves your hand.”
Just as Satch finished speaking, Moose hit a hard grounder right at the second baseman, and the top half of the inning was over. As the Bismarck players started running onto the field for the last half of the ninth, Satch stepped in their way.
“Everyone stay on the bench,” he said. “Except Quincy.”
The team froze. Moose glanced at the stands and then back at Satch. “Com
e on,” he said. “Not today.”
“I’m going to embarrass this town,” Satch said. “And boy do they deserve it.”
“I want to get out of here alive,” Red said.
“Me too,” Moose said.
“Trust me,” Satch said. “After these last three outs everyone in these stands is going to slink home without another peep.” He pointed at Quincy. “Just us. Nobody else.”
Everyone looked at Mr. Churchill, who just shrugged. “Better to be famous and dead than boring and alive,” he said.
And so Satch and Quincy trotted onto the field, alone. The crowd had been subdued for several innings, lulled to a stupor by Satch’s relentlessly overwhelming pitching, but when they realized that the rest of the team wasn’t coming out of the dugout, they rose to their feet, the catcalls suddenly surging with renewed intensity. As the first McPherson batter walked to the plate, Nick shook his head; it looked strange to see a field without a single fielder other than the pitcher. Nick glanced at his father, who was watching Satch with a hint of a smile on his face—which was surprising since he hated showboating. But maybe his father agreed with Nick that this town deserved whatever it got.
Satch started off with a fastball, and the batter swung and missed—wildly. Someone from the opposing bench shouted that he just needed to get his bat on the ball to get a hit, and he nodded to himself and shortened his grip. The second pitch was also a fastball, this one up around the bottom of his armpits, and he managed to nick the ball as it whistled past. As the batter settled into his crouch to face the third pitch, Nick followed Satch’s advice and stared at his knee. He looked tense, like he was waiting to be bitten by a snake, and curveball flashed through Nick’s mind just as Satch reared and threw. He was right—it was a curveball—and the batter was so far in front of it that he probably could have swung twice. Three pitches; one out.
The second batter tried to bunt the first pitch, but it was a breaking ball in on his hands and he skidded it foul. On the second pitch he tried to bunt again, but Satch threw a curve in the dirt and he couldn’t pull his bat back in time. The third pitch he had to swing, and he was six inches under a Rising Tom. Six pitches; two outs.
