The Kansas City Cowboys

by The Kansas City Cowboys (retail) (epub)

  I had always wanted to own a cowboy hat, so I felt excited about buying my first—and a black one at that—but I had no clue as to where I would find one, other than atop some waddie’s head at the Armour corrals.

  “Alfred Cronkrite’s,” Cindy McKim said. “Do you know where it is?”

  Whirling, I saw Cindy, beautiful as always, and, even better, her father nowhere to be found.

  “Well,” Dave Rowe demanded, “where is it?”

  “Near the West Bottoms.”

  I could not take my eyes off Cindy McKim. Had I been able to focus on pop-ups the way I stared at her, I might have played longer in the National League. She smiled at me. I felt even happier.

  So Cindy McKim led us to the streetcar, where we journeyed down to West Seventeenth Street and walked into the general store Mr. Cronkrite had opened five years or so back. We cleaned him out of black hats, and he said he would be happy as a loon when, before tomorrow’s ball game, he would brag that he had outfitted the Kansas City Cowboys.

  Of course, I’m not sure they were all cowboy hats. Jim Donnelly, you see, opted for something called a French Pocket, and it wasn’t really black but navy blue. Most of the players grabbed men’s crushers, on account that they cost only six bits each. Fatty grabbed an old Stetson, while Dave Rowe settled for a Fedora, saying, “At least I won’t look like a complete idiot.” Charley Bassett spent three dollars on a stiff-brimmed Pine Ridge Sombrero, assuming, I figured, that it would make him look like the son of a Kansas lawman. Me? Well, I got a high-crowned hat with a silk ribbon band, fancy crease, and side dents. It reminded me of the one Dan Dugdale wore, but mine wasn’t nearly so trampled and dusty, and it was black.

  “Jesus-son-of-a-bitching-pig-shitting-asshole-damn-it-all-to-hell-bastard-loving-Christ,” Dave Rowe said as he stood at the counter to pay Mr. Cronkrite. “I hope you bastards can see to catch or hit the damned ball tomorrow.”

  Cindy McKim grinned as I stepped toward the door. I started to take off my hat. “Leave it on,” she said quickly. “I want to get used to it.”

  “I don’t look like a cowboy?” I asked.

  “I’m just used to seeing you in your new baseball cap. That’s all.” She offered me her elbow, and I led her onto the busy street, where Cindy suggested that we go find some cider at this place on Delaware Street. As Papa had tried to teach me to be a gentleman, I did not refuse.

  We sat on stools at the counter, sipping the sweet cider—even though, in May, hot cider is usually not the preferred drink in muggy Kansas City.

  “You’re not talking much, Silver,” Cindy said. Then she asked what I was thinking.

  “Did your father find any good players on his trip to Topeka?” I asked, stopping myself from asking about any potential replacements he might have found in Leavenworth or St. Joseph.

  She pushed away the empty mug of cider, and stared. It was not a pleasant stare. The smile was gone, the eyes had hardened and narrowed, and if I read her face correctly, the thought going through her mind had to be something along the lines of, This boy’s an idiot. Which made me realize: I am an idiot. An insecure idiot.

  “Well,” I began again. “I mean. We’ve only won a single game. I’m thinking about the team. That’s all. I know … Well … It’s … um …”

  “Why don’t you try not thinking about baseball, Silver?” Still no smile.

  “I just finished school,” I blurted out. “I’ve been going to Mister Stokes’ school. Where do you go?”

  That made her relax. “Mother brings in a tutor for my brothers and sisters.”

  “Oh.” Silence. Then I made myself ask another question. “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

  The radiance had returned to Cindy’s face. “That’s how you make conversation, Silver. Is it that hard?”

  I let out a sigh as Cindy answered. I ordered more cider, adjusted the angle of my brand-spanking new cowboy hat, and we continued chatting and sipping for another half hour. Afterward, I walked her to the streetcar, and she got off with me, so we wandered the streets of Kansas City, aimlessly, until we found ourselves on my street, in front of my house.

  “This …” I began, gesturing at the shotgun house, ashamed of its appearance, its leaky roof, even though the bricks—mortared into place by Papa and myself—were solid.

  “Is this where you live?” she asked, sounding excited, as if she was staring at a castle. Cindy McKim, I had to believe, lived in the best house in Kansas City’s richest neighborhood.

  “Well … we’re moving … sometime soon,” I explained.

  “Can I meet your parents?” Cindy asked.

  I did not have a chance to answer, for Mother had opened the door and stepped onto the porch.

  She was not smiling, either.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Girls and baseball do not mix.”

  I cocked my head and stared at Mother.

  Papa had just left with Cindy McKim to catch a streetcar and make sure she got home. Apparently my parents decided I could not be trusted, and so Mother, still not smiling, had begun her lecture.

  Oh, I guess the first meeting of Mother and this girl I fancied went well enough. After all, no insults had been traded, and Mother had given Cindy a courteous if stiff nod when I introduced her. Papa, on the other hand, practically danced with joy when he saw her. Of course, Mother put a quick end to that jig. She did serve coffee and slices of pound cake she had baked, muttered a few pleasantries, before glancing at our Seth Thomas clock and proclaiming, “Oh, dear, look at how late it is. Your parents must be worried sick over you, so, Papa, you must take her home. Besides, Silver, you have a baseball game tomorrow … and there shall be little rest for any of our darling Cowboys now that the schedule will begin in earnest.”

  Cindy could take a hint.

  “They just don’t mix,” Mother now told me.

  The Seth Thomas ticked loudly in what passed for a parlor in the shotgun shack. I hated that damned clock.

  “Didn’t you and Papa go to a baseball game?” I gambled on this strategy. “Wasn’t that the first time he courted you?”

  “That’s different,” Mother snapped. “Your father is a kind person, a good provider, but he never showed the talent you have on a baseball diamond, Son. Your future belongs in baseball.”

  “Mister Stokes thinks otherwise,” I said.

  “Who?”

  My head shook as a wry smile found its way across my face. Mother could tell you the starting nine for the Chicago White Stockings, but she could not remember the name of my schoolmaster. Without answering her, I found another angle of attack.

  “Cindy’s the daughter of Mister McKim,” I said. “You know … the vice president and treasurer of the Cowboys … the reason I’m on the team … for now.”

  Mother pressed the tips of her fingers together, a signal that never bode well for me. “And that is another reason girls and baseball do not mix. Especially this girl. Baseball is not just a game of manly skill, Son. It is a game of politics.”

  My head cocked the other way. “What?” I asked.

  “Politics. Americus would be within his rights as a protective father to void your contract, outright release you, send you off to stacking bricks or slaughtering bovines with your father were you to … well … let’s just say … well … what happens to you if Cindy decides you are not to her liking? Or what happens if Americus decides that he likes you fine enough as a ballist but not as a suitor for his daughter?”

  “Americus?” I asked.

  Her eyes rolled. “Americus McKim,” she said, stressing every syllable. “The owner of the Kansas City Cowboys.”

  She had missed my meaning. He was Americus now. Not Mr. McKim.

  “Baseball,” I said, “and women do not mix.”

  “Exactly,” Mother said.

  I dismissed the unholy
thought that Mother might be doing something immoral with Americus McKim to further my baseball career. Mother was quite naïve in some things, and even if Mr. McKim flirted with her, she would remain oblivious to such acts. I could picture her sitting beside him in the stands at the Hole.

  “Call me Americus, Missus King.”

  “And you must call me Samantha.”

  “May I tempt you with an ice-cream cake, Samantha?”

  “Oh, thank you, Americus, but I must watch my figure.”

  “Yes. Must we all.”

  “You should turn in now, Silver,” Mother told me. “Tomorrow will be an important game for you. You need rest. And for goodness sake, take that monstrosity you call a cowboy hat back to that store and demand a refund.”

  “That,” I said, “I cannot do. It’s one of Mister Heim’s notions. We’re all to wear black hats for the game tomorrow.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You’re not real cowboys.”

  “We’re not real baseball players, either,” I said, and pushed myself up from the table. “Not at one-and-six.”

  “Hush. Baseball is a long season. You shall improve. To bed,” she demanded, and repeated, “It’s an important game for you.”

  And it was, but not for me, though I had a fine view from my perch on the bench for those wild nine innings. No, the game was important for the Kansas City Cowboys as it set the tone for how our season, and our fans, would go for the next couple of months. Here, let Mr. James Whitfield tell the story. From one of Mother’s scrapbooks, I have pulled out the article from the Kansas City Times and pasted it below.

  * * * * *

  COWBOYS GIVE GIANTS KC WELCOME

  REAL COWBOY ESCORTS NY BUS

  TO LEAGUE PARK, WESTERN STYLE!

  Gunshots outnumber batted balls

  McKim lashes out at umpire

  New York manager outraged

  ‘Go back to New York, crybabies’

  Wildest baseball contest ever

  Our gallant heroes fall, 7 to 2

  “Truthful” Jim Mutrie’s ballists from New York arrived at League Field under a mounted escort that had even these players formerly known as the Gothams cheering yesterday.

  “Well, I’ve always wanted to see a real cowboy,” said Buck Ewing, New York’s powering catcher.

  This resolute editor was unable to catch the name of the cowboy riding a wily black mustang steed. The cowhand, clad in a gray hat, fired rounds from his Colt revolving pistol as he galloped alongside the omnibus taking our visiting opponents from the Lindell Hotel. When the frightened omnibus driver set the brake to his conveyance in front of our new baseball facility, his face remained pale, and he refused to release his trembling grip on the brake lever. Perhaps he feared he was witnessing again the daring hold-up that Jesse James pulled at Kansas City’s fairgrounds back in 1872 at our annual Exposition. Perhaps our steady city policemen thought the same as they chased our unnamed cowboy and former, we surmise, Pony Express rider. Or maybe our intrepid policemen merely wanted to cite that dashing young rider for violating our city firearms ordinance.

  In any event, before I could ask the wild and woolly chap his name, he raked those silver spurs over his mustang’s ribs, and like a thunderbolt dashed out of our city, away from the chasing policemen, waving their night sticks, and toward the East Bottoms.

  A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!

  Withdraw, my lord; I’ll help you to a horse.

  “Kansas Citians,” roared Truthful Jim, who had his Giants (don’t call them Gothams anymore) off to a 6–2 record before being blasted by the Detroit Wolverines and Chicago White Stockings to drop them to a 7 and 6 win-loss record. “That is as fine a welcome as we have received and made that long train trip from Chicago worthwhile. And when your Cowboys come to see us in New York City, I promise to ride … how is it put … shotgun … for your coach, only I shall ride my big-wheeled velocipede!”

  Then, to roars of citizens, Truthful Jim led his players into our stadium, and as men, women, and children paid their fifty cents to watch baseball, they continued stomping their approval. By our best guess, some twelve hundred pairs of cowboy boots practically stomped the stadium even deeper into the hole in the ground.

  Yet smiles on the faces of our brethren from New York, New York, quickly disappeared when, in the bottom half of the first inning, third baseman Jim Donnelly sent a high ball tossed by the southpaw hurler Jim Devlin into deep center field, well over Danny Richardson’s head. That hit scored Al “Cod” Myers, who had reached first base on an error, and by the time these Giants had the ball back into Devlin’s left hand, Donnelly stood on third base. Moments later, Donnelly scored on a weak roller by Charley Bassett that allowed our noble shortstop to reach first base safely.

  Thus, the Cowboys, newcomers to the National League, had a two-to-nothing lead. Above the din of stomping boots, came the mocking, singsong chant: “Gi-ants. Mid-gets. Gi-ants. Mid-gets. Goth-hams. Go home. Goth-hams. Go home.”

  Such taunts apparently are unheard of back East, as Truthful Jim stepped off the bench, yelling back at our fans, and even taking up his protest with the umpire. Tom York said he was powerless to do anything about yelling fans. Though presence of that bearded man with the black slouch hat, who, standing behind home plate, shot his pistol empty during the Kansas City offensive surge might have tempered umpire York’s resolve.

  Our hardy policemen, Kansas Citians should take note, escorted the black-hatted man out of League Park—but only after his pistol was empty.

  Alas, New York’s fine ballists did not stay small for long.

  Buck Ewing, of course, saw to that, with a towering hit that cleared not only the center-field wall but also a phaeton on the hilltop, where a blonde girl in a blue dress and a dapper man in a flat-brimmed straw had parked to watch the contest and avoid paying the one dollar it would have cost them to enter. Here, I thought our mustang-mounted cowboy could have earned his keep, for had he stayed nearby he could have galloped up the hill, roped the baseball with his fine lariat, and returned the ball to the playing field. Instead, however, the boy in the straw hat leaped from his buggy, and, after two feeble attempts, managed to snag the baseball, thoroughly dented by Buck’s bat, which the young man dropped into sulking Dave Rowe’s meaty hands.

  With Danny Richardson already on second base, Buck’s big hit tied the score at two runs apiece.

  Dude Esterbrook gave the Giants the lead in the next inning, when his single scored Joe Gerhardt.

  In the fifth inning, Mike Dorgan belted a ball that bounced off the wall in right field, then off the corner, then off Paul Radford’s knee, and off Mox McQuery’s fingers. Two more Giants née Gothams, making the score five-to-two, and McQuery ripped his big black Stetson hat (or whatever lid he happened to be wearing) off his head, dashed it to the ground, and pointed a finger in the general vicinity where Joseph Heim is known to sit and watch our contests. “I can’t see with this foul hat on my head, Heim!”

  After that, those black Western hats were retired, replaced by maroon caps.

  But, alas, neither big black cowboy hats nor red with black-striped baseball caps seemed to make much of a difference for our National League ballists.

  It was then 6 to 2 when the Mighty Buck tripled home Pete Gillespie, and scored on Roger Connor’s wounded dove that landed just out of Mox McQuery’s reach.

  And in the ninth inning, the Giants tallied yet another run when Esterbrook singled home Roger Connor.

  Yet our valiant Cowboys made things interesting in their last at-bat.

  After Radford and Fatty Briody weakly grounded out, McQuery doubled, Myers walked, and Jim Donnelly reached first on a hit straight back to the Giants pitcher whose fingers refused to cooperate and come up with the baseball, although McQuery, playing wisely with two outs and down five runs, remained at the third bag.

  This made the bases full, and bro
ught the dashing Jim Whitney, who had pitched a fine game but for some sound knocks by some fine Giants, to home with a chance to cut Kansas City’s deficit to one run on one swing of the bat.

  Grasshopper Jim looped the first pitch from the crafty Devlin over second base, and it seemed certain that two runs would score and bring Charley Bassett to the plate. Yet somehow center fielder Richardson was running at the sound of the bat striking the ball. Catching the ball on the bound, Richardson ran—faster, we think, than that cowboy’s mustang steed earlier in the afternoon—and let his forward momentum carry him to the bag at second. Yes, the play was close, but it appeared that Donnelly reached second a split second before the New York center fielder.

  That valiant umpire, a veteran of many National League contests, however, ruled that Richardson had won the sprint, yelling that Donnelly was out and that the ball game was over.

  Our city’s fine malt and barley man, Americus McKim, did not agree with York’s call.

  Boots began stomping in the stands, shaking the nerves of York and the Giants. More pistols roared—but these two revolvers were fired by two policemen, who, like most of the Cowboy-cheering crowd, favored the home team. McKim hurled his black hat over the third-base fence and pointed a finger at York. Unsuitable language followed.

  Truthful Jim came over from first base and began pointing back.

  More unsuitable language left ladies at the ball park covering their ears or running for the exits.

  And here it is to our relief that our six-shooter, mustang-riding escort was by now, in all likelihood, raising dust toward Lawrence, Kansas, and not in the vicinity with six chambers filled with leaden shot. Instead of bullets, only insults flew after the two constables had emptied their revolvers—words like “crybabies” and “cheaters” and “roughnecks” and “outrage.” Cowboy boots stomped. But in the end, York’s call stood, the Giants left victorious, the Cowboys went home with yet another loss.

  And one wonders if Truthful Jim will have the nerve, and umpire Tom York the audacity, to show up for tomorrow’s game at League Park.