Mother found a small, bespectacled man sitting behind a desk and told him she desired to have an interview with Joseph Heim.
The man, chewing on a pencil, looked up. “How ’bout Mike?”
“Joseph,” Mama said.
“What’s your business?” he asked.
“Mine,” she told him, and the man removed the well-dented pencil from his mouth. Leaning back in his chair, he looked my mother over, not even noticing my presence it seemed. When you have a mother who still looks maybe thirty and a lot like Lillie Langtry, you get used to that.
“You got a name?”
“Samantha King.”
He glanced at me, but looked back at Mother before I could open my mouth to tell him my name. Not that he had any interest in my name. Or me.
“Lady …” the man began, but a string of profanity cut off his statement.
“You call this barley? I call it horse shit, you flim-flamming son-of-a-bitch!” Not a trace of an Austrian accent.
Turning, we saw Joseph Heim for the first time. We also got a glimpse of a man in a white coat, who ducked as a jar passed just over his head, and shattered on the floor. The man in the white coat disappeared behind another door, and Joseph Heim walked out of that room, and toward us.
He didn’t look rich. If he had arrived at the office in a suit, the coat had been removed. His sleeves were rolled up, his tie loosened, and his yellowed teeth clamped a well-chewed cigar. I would not have guessed him to be a brewer of beer or an owner of a professional baseball team. He wasn’t small, but you would not call him big. He did wear an impressive cowboy hat and high-heeled boots, which got my attention, but I wouldn’t say he looked like any of the cowboys I had seen with Dan Dugdale, either.
Joseph Heim did not notice Mother, or me. He didn’t acknowledge Pencil Chewer, just made a beeline for his office. Until Pencil Chewer called out, “Mister Heim, this here Samantha King desires an interview with you!”
The beer brewer whirled, tossed his soggy cigar to the floor, and roared, “Who the hel-lo.”
Beaming, he swept off his ten-gallon monstrosity and bowed in front of my mother, took her hand in his (the one not holding that five-dollar hat), and brought it to his lips. When he released my mother’s hand, he stepped back.
“Missus …?”
“King,” Pencil Chewer informed him.
“Missus King,” Joseph Heim said. “How may I be of service?”
Mother gave the beer king her most Lillie Langtry-ish smile. “This is my son …”—the word “son” caused Mr. Heim’s smile to fade—“whom you need to sign to play baseball for your National League team this season.”
By the time she had come to the word “sign,” Heim’s hat had returned to his head. At “baseball,” he was scowling at Pencil Chewer. By the time Mother finished her introduction, Mr. Heim’s face had turned red.
“Criminy … what do I pay you for, you worthless bastard?” The beer brewer was speaking to Pencil Chewer, whose face paled—especially compared to Heim’s face—as he began stuttering one of those I-didn’t-know-what-she-wanted excuses.
“I pay you to … never mind,” Heim began, but then whirled back to Mother.
“Distillers. Farmers. Everybody in this brewery … Folks I don’t even know and never wish to know. They all come with some sure-fire, bona fide professional ballist that I just have to sign. I had to pay twenty-five thousand dollars …”
“You and your partners,” Pencil Chewer whispered, but Heim did not hear, perhaps because Pencil Chewer only mouthed the words to Mother and me rather than speaking them aloud. Not that Heim would have heard anyway, as loudly as he kept roaring.
“I pay all this money to the National League … and that’s not all. Twenty-five thousand, plus another five thousand for some stupid-ass fund those rich bastards decided they needed to cover some lame expenses and … ahem … as a guarantee against violations of any club against the league’s constitution. Five grand … but only one thousand a year. Installments, you see. Do you know how much beer I have to sell to be able to own this National League team? And then there are people like you coming in off the street to tell me who I need to sign to a contract for another thousand a year? Or more? When I can’t even sell my beer at the stadium that I’ll own?”
Heim whirled and pointed a thick finger in my face. “Look at this monstrosity. Pimples on his chin and hands the size of … Jesus, look at those mitts. How old are you, kid? Don’t answer. Let me guess. Twenty-one. Every kid whose pa … I’ll give you this, lady, you’re the first woman who came peddling her boy. Every kid brought in here is twenty-one.”
“He’s eighteen,” Mother said.
Which was a lie. I was seventeen. It didn’t matter. Joseph Heim didn’t hear as he kept right on raging.
“But that don’t even bring into account the one-legged Civil War veteran who swore he could swat the tar out of a baseball. Or the blind Negro. You think I’m gonna put a colored boy on my baseball team? Well, I ain’t. And I’m damned sure not gonna put this galoot you call your son on my team. I’m not out to win no damned championship, lady. I bought this team to make me some more damned money!”
He caught his breath. Had to. Or drop dead of an apoplexy right then and there.
As he retrieved a handkerchief to mop his sweaty brow, Mother gave him a courteous bow and said, “Well, Mister Heim, I thank you for your time, and now I shall go see Mister McKim.”
Americus McKim was one of Heim’s two partners in the National League team. He was a beer brewer, too. I hoped he wasn’t a shouter like Heim.
“Do that, lady. Tell that old college boy that I sent you.”
He was inside his office by then. The door slammed.
We left without saying goodbye to Pencil Chewer.
* * * * *
From the Heim Brewing Company, Mother and I walked to McKim’s office.
Americus McKim had arrived in Kansas City about a decade earlier. In polite society, people noted that he was a player in Kansas City’s malt and grain business, which meant that he brewed beer, too. I understood what Heim meant when he had called McKim a college boy. His diploma hung on the wall behind his desk. Franklin College. Athens, Ohio.
He looked fit, slim. Photos of his wife and children lined the desk of his office. I saw nothing about him that reminded me of Joseph Heim, except for a cowboy hat, lying crown down, on the left side of his desk.
“Your partner,” Mother told him as his secretary, a young man with red hair, brought mother a cup of tea, “is quite rude, sir.”
“By that,” Americus McKim said, “I believe you mean Joseph Heim, and not James Whitfield.” He grinned.
Whitfield was the other partner in the new National League team. I read his articles all the time in the Kansas City Times.
“Indeed.” Mother sipped the tea. “This is fantastic tea, sir.”
From behind his desk, Mr. McKim bowed. “I know more than beer, Missus King. And there’s one thing you need to know about Joseph Heim, Missus King.” Mr. McKim pointed to the diploma hanging on the wall. “If you go inside Joe’s office, you’ll find one portrait hanging on his wall. It isn’t Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon, or his mother or father. It’s P. T. Barnum.”
Mother set the cup on the side table. “Barnum? The showman?”
“Yes, ma’am. Tom Thumb, Jenny Lind, freaks … The Prince of Humbugs himself. My partner wants money, ma’am. And he likes gadgets. Hooks. Something that, in this case, will pull a crowd into a baseball stadium.”
McKim turned and examined me. “Your son’s far from a dwarf, Missus King. Those hands …” His head shook. “I don’t think he’s another ‘Swedish Nightingale.’ And despite those large hands, I would not call him a freak, either. In fact, he’s a rather nice-looking young man.”
“Thank you, Mister McKim,” Mother said.
&
nbsp; “Every day after work Joe complains to me that he is deluged by passersby and friends and acquaintances and total strangers who want to play for our baseball team. I get a few myself. I’m sure Jimmy Whitfield can’t get away from any ballist, as editor of the Times’ sports section. But, ma’am, the day after our purchase of the franchise was announced, a bookmaker told me that our odds of winning the championship were fifty to one. I’d like to win, Missus King. Winning means having good baseball players.”
“Silver can throw a baseball harder and with more accuracy than any ballist I have ever seen, sir,” Mother said, “and, before you ask, I have been watching baseball since 1867, before Silver was even born.”
“Silver …” McKim tested the word. “Silver King.” He grinned. “Joe Heim would love that name. It might sell tickets.”
I held my breath.
“But right now, ma’am, I am busy with the business of getting ready for a baseball season. Getting our stadium in order. Built, I might say. Besides, Heim’s the president. My title is vice president and treasurer.”
“Meaning that you control the money,” Mother said. “Who gets paid and how much.”
“In time. But baseball affairs will be left to Jimmy Whitfield and our manager, Dave Rowe.”
“You’ve hired Dave Rowe?” Well, I had found my voice.
Americus McKim and Mother stared at me. “You’ve heard of Dave Rowe?” the beer man asked.
I swallowed, but made myself talk. “More about his brother, Jack.”
They both waited for more, so I said, “Jack’s a catcher, mostly. Been playing with Buffalo. Dave played with the White Stockings in ’77, but he was with the Maroons in St. Louis the past two years. I think the National League blacklisted him … but for just a year.” I caught my breath and, with a grin, added, “They say he has a bit of a wild side.”
Mr. McKim grinned at me. “Well, you know a bit about some of the players, I see. Rowe will manage and play center field for us. And his brother Jack has been signed by the Detroit Wolverines. I’m sure that’ll please Heim whenever Detroit visits us. Brother against brother. A way to promote the game. Gimmicks. That kind of thing. That’s what Joe loves.”
The humor left him, and he looked at my mother. “I seriously doubt if even Joe Heim will try to stage some open tryouts. We are, after all, in the National League. We are a professional baseball team, not a bunch of muffins trying to play ball. And right now, my business is coming up with a name for our team. Anything but the Onions.”
“Cowboys.” I had been admiring McKim’s hat.
Again, I found myself being stared at.
Again, I swallowed. “Well, we are in Kansas City. There are a lot of cowboys here. At the packing houses, I mean. Rail yards. There won’t be a National League team farther west. West. Cowboys. That’s …”
“Synonymous,” Mother said.
“It is,” Mr. McKim agreed. “Quite.”
“Mother’s first ball game she ever watched was here in Kansas City,” I told Mr. McKim. “Wild Bill Hickok was the umpire.”
“Indeed,” Mr. McKim said. “That’s a story I have never heard.”
He heard it now. Mother told him the story that she had told me many times. It was her first date with Papa.
“A beautiful afternoon in August back in …” She gave Mr. McKim that fabulous wink that was the envy of any coquette. Mr. McKim laughed, and Mother went on without telling him the year.
I knew the year. 1867. I knew the story by heart.
How the Antelopes of Kansas City played their biggest rivals, the Pomeroys from Atchison, Kansas, on a vacant lot between Fourteenth and Oak. How Wild Bill Hickok wore a wide-brimmed sombrero as he called balls, strikes, and everything else. How no one disputed any of his calls during or after the Antelopes’ 48 to 28 victory—because Wild Bill wore a brace of Navy Colts stuck, butt-forward, in his sash during the game.
“It was the first, and the greatest, baseball game I ever saw,” Mother concluded. “And afterward, a nickel-plated Columbus phaeton drawn by two of the most beautiful gray Connemara stallions ever born, pulled up behind home plate. And Wild Bill turned to face the crowd, tipped his hat, and climbed into the carriage.”
By then, she had closed her eyes, picturing her gallant hero. The only thing missing from her version of the event that day at Mr. McKim’s office was Papa’s epilogue that he would typically add with a wink: “Wild Bill weren’t alone in that carriage. No, sir. He had a soiled dove hanging on each arm.”
“Fascinating,” Mr. McKim said. “A story for the ages.”
“So you see, Mister McKim,” Mother told him, back to business now, her eyes open and hard, “there is a connection with cowboys to our city. And we are the West. Besides … the Kansas City Cowboys … there is a ring to it.”
“Not the Onions,” I said. “Not the Unions.”
“The Kansas City Cowboys.” Mr. McKim tested the name on his tongue, and then he found a sheet of paper and a pen and wrote down the words. He stared. He looked at his hat. He picked up the Stetson and placed it on his head.
He looked like a clown, but I just nodded with approval.
“What are you doing on Saturday the Twentieth of this month?” Mr. McKim asked.
“Nothing,” I said, before Mother could answer.
He wrote something on another sheet of paper, which he handed to Mother. “Ten in the morning, Independence and Lydia. Show this to the guard. And Dave Rowe.”
“Independence and Lydia,” Mother repeated.
Mr. McKim’s smile returned. “That’s where we’re building our baseball stadium,” he said. “League Park. Short for National League. The home of the Kansas City Cowboys.”
Chapter Five
March 20, 1886. Cloudy, warm, humid. Mr. McKim had told us to be at the ball park at ten in the morning. Mother and Papa drove me there in their buggy. We arrived at seven fifteen.
Of course, the place looked deserted—no Mr. Heim, Mr. McKim, not even the guards—and since League Park remained under construction, my parents and I just walked in.
“Criminy,” Papa lamented, “they done drained Ranson’s Pond.”
“It’s in the name of progress,” Mother told him.
Progress. Baseball. No difference.
Yet Papa was right. For a number of years, this had been a popular swimming pool—named after some old-timer who had settled here back before Kansas City became such a metropolis. When the city decided to build Independence Avenue, the workers had used tons of dirt for the roadbed. That left the hole, which soon became a pond, and now was a baseball field. Loosely speaking, if you asked me.
Granted, my first view of what would become my first professional home field, came before League Park had been finished, but I could see some problems. The playing field lay about twenty-five feet below the ground level, and a high hill surrounded the area. Mr. McKim and Mr. Heim both had said how much they wanted to make money, but I could visualize people parking up on the hilltop to watch the ball game so they didn’t have to pay fifty cents to sit in the ball park. Not a good view, maybe, but many Kansas Citians were … well … skinflints.
“Hey,” Papa said, looking around, “we could take the buggy up the hill, just cut off Admiral Boulevard or Virginia, park up yonder, and watch for free.”
Like I said …
“You’ll do no such thing,” Mother scolded.
She smiled at me, though, and pointed at a ladder, apparently left by the carpenters, that led from the grandstands, still under construction, down to the playing field. “Go on, Silver,” she said, and pulled a baseball from her purse. “Warm up.”
“With whom?” I asked.
“Why that nice-looking man down there.”
That’s when I noticed some fellow standing along the third-base line, doing some trick with a baseball. Nothing fancy, just
tossing the ball up lightly, then knocking it with the inside of his forearm to his biceps, which would kick the ball back to his hand. He was right-handed.
“He must be a ballist, too,” Papa said. “Maybe he got invited here to join the team.”
“Go down, Silver, and introduce yourself. Get ‘loose,’ as that nice Mister Dugdale always said.”
Shyly, I made my way to the ladder, dropped my ball and baseball cap over the side, and carefully descended into the hole. Gathering my ball and placing the straw hat back on my head, I walked across the field—which was dirt, except for a few mud puddles from the most recent rain—and stopped a few feet in front of the other player.
The blond mustache, neatly groomed, made him look older than he was. His blue eyes locked on me, but he never blinked. His ears were big, but I figure most ladies would have considered him handsome, even if he was of average height and rail-thin.
“Howdy,” I said.
“Yeah.” He kept right up with his baseball trick. I wondered if he could juggle, too.
“You here to try out for the team?”
He didn’t answer.
“My name’s Silver King,” I told him.
That caused him to muff the baseball, which landed a few feet in front of me.
“I got it.” After picking up the ball, I held it out for him.
Finally, he blinked. “Gee willikins, look at them hands of yours.”
My cheeks reddened. He gaped for a few more seconds, then carefully plucked the ball from my massive paws, but he did not resume his one-armed juggling act.
“Name’s Bassett,” he said. “Charley Bassett.”
Now it was my turn to gape. “Are you related to the Charlie Bassett?” I sang out.
His eyes narrowed, and he pursed his lips. “Who the hell is the Charlie Bassett?”
So I told him what I knew, not letting on that all I had heard came from those stories Dan Dugdale had told me a couple of years ago.
“Why, he’s one of the lawmen who helped clean up Dodge City, Kansas. Helped start the Long Branch Saloon, and played poker with the likes of Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Dug Dugdale. He was sheriff of the county and a deputy marshal, or something like that. Chased train robbers, too.”
The Kansas City Cowboys Page 4
