The Kansas City Cowboys

by The Kansas City Cowboys (retail) (epub)

  I blinked. “Mother?”

  “Yeah. And, Shorty, Missus King says that if Jim gets on base, she wants you to just tap the ball back down the third-base line. Try to move Jim over.”

  All of our ballists were staring at Pete Conway, who smiled as he relayed my mother’s instructions.

  “Yeah, boys,” Pete explained. “I’m standing in center field, and I hear her voice.” He broke out laughing. “‘Pete do this … Pete tell Shorty that.’ So I’m thinking … ‘She’s God.’ Then I understand …” He gestured to the folks who filled the hilltop above the outfield.

  We stared, knowing at last that my mother had outsmarted Cap Anson, National League President Young, and everyone who hated the rough and tumble Kansas City Cowboys. She had joined the misers on the hilltop to watch, and direct the baseball game.

  Only Jim Lillie grounded out. Shorty popped out to Cap Anson. Conway lined a ball that, once again, King Kelly, even though well in his cups, caught with a diving leap.

  Eleven innings. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. I had to come out of the game by then. Even without a wind-up or the can-can move, I couldn’t pitch anymore. Stump Wiedman came in to replace me. With two outs in the fifteenth inning, Cap Anson doubled into right field, scoring Kelly from first. Once again, the White Stockings had a lead. The score was 4 to 3.

  I couldn’t have felt worse. Sitting on the bench, arm aching, clothes wet with sweat, the crowd cheering, and feeling helpless, out of the game, with nothing to do but offer your teammates comments like, “Hang tough, boys,” or “That’s all right, Cod,” or “Battle! Let’s battle, boys!”

  Stump struck out. Cod Myers walked, but was out at second on Charley Bassett’s grounder to third base. Two outs. Down by one run. Then Jim Donnelly singled to right, moving Charley to second. We had a chance. Frank Ringo, probably more frightened than he had been at bat earlier, again stepped to the plate and prepared to face Chicago’s new pitcher Jocko Flynn.

  This time, I did not close my eyes. I lacked the strength.

  Flynn wound up, and threw a fast ball. Ringo swung, walloping the ball between third baseman Tom Burns and that hard-sliding, meaning-to-maim, son-of-a-bitching shortstop Ned Williamson. Frank Ringo never ran so fast in all his life. The ball reached the outfield, but George Gore caught it on the second hop. He threw home. No, threw does not describe that cannonball fired by a mountain howitzer.

  Catcher Joe Hardie caught it, but never tagged Charley Bassett, who slid safely across the plate.

  I would like to think that Paul Grace just forgot the situation, and thought the play at home was a force out. But it wasn’t. Hardie had to tag Charley to get the out, and that never happened. We had not only tied the score, but we now had Jim Donnelly on third base and Frank Ringo on first—with Mox McQuery coming to the plate.

  I leaped up, cheering.

  But then Paul Grace began yelling, “The runner is out! The runner is out!”

  And in the stands, Fatty Briody saw something. He saw the National League president shake his head and give a solemn, Treasury Department do-as-I-say look at the umpire.

  Paul Grace knew who paid his salary.

  That’s when everything registered as I heard the umpire shout, “Ball game! White Stockings win!”

  Hell, Grace never should have said that.

  * * * * *

  Call it chaos, or insanity, a regular Donnybrook, whatever you want to call it, but no words can actually describe what happened. Benches clear in baseball games. More than a few times, I had seen it happen during that 1886 season, but never had I seen the stands empty.

  Spectators leaped up from their seats.

  Paul Grace ran for his life.

  He started toward center field, but those non-paying patrons had headed down from the hilltop and onto the field. Paul Grace had nowhere to go but to join the Chicago players. That might have saved his life.

  Cap Anson and the White Stockings had grabbed baseball bats to defend themselves, and soon they were defending Paul Grace. The Chicago railroad workers were running onto the field in an effort to defend their team. Those that made it to the bench, I mean. Others took to brawling with the Cowboys enthusiasts.

  It’s how I always thought Dodge City must be like when a trail crew pulled into town. Or some slaughter right out of the Old Testament.

  “This is all your damned fault!” Fatty Briody was yelling as he punched National League President Young in the mouth. Mr. Bayersdörfer tackled Fatty. Mr. Bill’s cowboys and sons surrounded the trio to protect them from a handful of Chicago railroad men, their pistols drawn. The railroad men turned tail.

  Mr. Americus McKim was about to leap over the balustrade to join the fracas when Cindy McKim grabbed his shoulder. Mr. McKim turned, not realizing who was trying to stop him, to save him, and I yelled as that crazed father punched his daughter. Cindy somersaulted over the balustrade, and I dived, running faster than I ever had, somehow managing to catch her with my aching, battered arms. We toppled onto the dirt.

  Gunshots echoed in my head as my heartbeat picked up speed.

  Mox McQuery cried out, “Can’t we all try to get along?”

  Police whistles blew. More gunshots. Fists connecting to flesh. Curses. All those noises, while I just held my breath, staring at Cindy McKim, waiting for her eyes to open.

  “Cindy,” I whispered as I tried to cover her head with my body as beer bottles began pelting the field. One hit my back.

  Then I could hear my mother’s voice. I guess she had leaped down into the Hole in center field. “What are you doing?” she was crying out. “Look at yourselves! This is a game. A child’s game. Stop it! Stop this!”

  “Silver?” It was Cindy murmuring as her eyes fluttered open.

  Then directly behind me, over the cacophony of the fight, I heard Cindy’s father say, “My God, what have I done?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  In his room at St. Joseph Hospital, Dan Dugdale held up the Times, so Cindy and I could see the headline:

  CHEATED!

  “You’re taking this pretty well,” I told him.

  He shook his head. “Silver,” he said, his voice now serious, “you’ll learn one thing about baseball. It’s a game. Not life or death. Not even real life. All it is … is a kids’ game.”

  “That’s what Silver’s mother said,” Cindy said.

  “She was right,” Dan said.

  “Folks did not think so yesterday,” I told them.

  They most certainly had not. Cindy McKim’s eye was black and blue, swollen, but the nurses and doctors at the hospital said she need not fear anything, that the bruise would fade, and her eyesight would not suffer.

  “I think,” she said, smiling, “I got my father back.”

  Yes, Americus McKim had stopped the riot, him and Mox and twenty or thirty of Kansas City’s finest police officers. And Mother. Hell, Cap Anson and the White Stockings had done their part, too, keeping Paul Grace from being drawn and quartered.

  A few years later, I would see that famous lithograph that some lithographer named Becker did of a painting called Custer’s Last Fight for Anheuser-Busch. And I wondered if Becker, or the original artist whose name I can’t remember, had been at League Park that afternoon and drawn his inspiration from that melee. I can still close my eyes and picture Cap Anson and those ballplayers, eyes wide, staring at the horde charging them, believing they were about to die.

  In the end, only fifteen men were arrested—nary a ballplayer among them—and ten were deposited at various hospitals. Most importantly, National League President Young agreed not to press any charges, providing we accepted his terms.

  “Expelled from the league?” Dan Dugdale said, shaking his head as I told him Young’s terms.

  “They get to finish the season,” I told Dan. “After we forfeited the remaining games against Chicago.”
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br />   “Because,” Cindy said, “the Cowboys were supposed to finish the season on the road, anyway. Mister Young didn’t think there would be many problems as long as no more games are played in Kansas City. He said our team and our spectators are … are … hooligans.”

  “He’s likely right,” Dan said. “And Fatty?”

  “McKim, Heim, and Whitfield had to release him,” I said sadly. “No way Young was going to let Fatty off without punishment. But Fatty said it was worth it. He said he saw Young give Paul Grace a nod, and that must’ve been a signal for Grace to make that terrible call.”

  Dan stared off into space as if he was deep in thought, and then it was if he finally registered what I had said several minutes earlier. “You said they … ‘They’ get to finish the season’ … not we.”

  “I won’t be going with the Cowboys, Dug,” I said. I almost felt relief when I answered him, rather then disappointment. “Dave Rowe’s back as manager,” I added. “He told me to draw my time. And …”

  Dan reached over to the table by his hospital bed and showed me a telegram in response. “He told me the same thing,” he admitted.

  My fists clenched, but Dan laughed. “Silver, don’t take it personally. I figured this sprained knee would end my season with you boys. I knew my season was done.” His face saddened. “Maybe my career in baseball, too. We’ll have to see how this knee heals.”

  “Rowe said he’d use George Baker as catcher,” I told him. “His busted hand’s about healed.”

  “George is a good guy,” Dan said. “You sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m better than all right, Dug,” I told him, and could not contain a grin. “Mister Bill said that … well, once he and his sons and a few of his hired men get out of jail, that he’ll put in a word for me with the team in Saint Joseph. I’ll finish the season with them, I hope. See what happens after the season’s over.”

  “You won’t be in the Western League for long,” Dan told me. “Another National League team will track you down. Trust me.”

  “That’s what Mother says, too,” I said.

  “That was one hell of a game,” Dan reflected. “Wish I could’ve seen the finish.”

  The nurse came in, reminding us that we needed to be on our way, so Dan could get some sleep. I helped Cindy out of her chair. Even with her shiner, she looked beautiful.

  We were just outside the door when Dan called out, “Silver!”

  Letting go of Cindy’s hand, I stepped back into the room.

  “Baseball season’s almost over in Saint Joe, too.” He patted his leg. “I got a case of the fiddle-foot, you know, but I got an idea.” He paused and I waited, remaining silent. “When your season’s over in Saint Joe, take a ride over to the Diamond Nine. That’s where I’ll be, and I bet I can get you a job for the winter. Play a little baseball. Nurse some cattle. Till the snows come.”

  I could not contain my grin. I had a girl. I had a loving mother and father. I had a great friend. And memories of a wild and woolly summer of baseball and cowboys. And all of those, I thought in my youthful naïveté, would last forever. And some of those did last forever … like the saddle sores that still cause me to limp.

  Epilogue

  So there you have it. We Kansas City Cowboys went our myriad ways after that 1886 season. After cowboying for the Diamond Nine in Kansas that fall and winter, I wound up in St. Louis the next year, pitching for the Browns in the American Association—had my best year in ’88 when St. Louis won another championship. After that, I bounced around—Chicago’s Pirates of the short-lived Players’ League (where I threw a no-hitter, and lost, 1 to 0), Pittsburgh, the Giants, the Reds, took a few years off and went back to helping Papa with masonry, then came out to hurl a couple of seasons for the Senators.

  Dan Dugdale did his share of bouncing around, too, mostly in leagues like the Western, although he did play some for the Senators in ’94, but that problem knee shortened his career on baseball diamonds, though he could still ride a horse better than most men. He drifted from ball team to ranch and ranch to ball team. I think that’s the way Dug liked it, wandering. He did turn into a pretty good baseball manager, I hear, back in his hometown of Peoria. Always lured by gold, Dug took off for the Klondike in ’98, but he only made it to Seattle. Last I heard, he was managing a team there and doing well. I guess he finally realized that the only gold he’d ever find would be on a diamond.

  League President Young did make sure the Cowboys got kicked out of the National League on the grounds of “hooliganism.” He told Mr. McKim, Mr. Heim, and Mr. Whitfield that perhaps he might find a better fit in that “beer and whiskey league,” and indeed the Kansas City Cowboys were resurrected into the American Association a few years later. But Mr. McKim never attended any of those games, although he kept baseball alive in Kansas City. He spent the rest of his life brewing beer, and doting on Cindy—guilt, I’d call it—and later spoiled his grandchildren.

  Paul Grace never returned to Kansas City or the National League. He got out of the Hole that September day, though, and I read in the Sporting News that he became a lawyer in Baltimore. Last year, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him to some highfalutin position in Washington.

  Fatty Briody never quite recovered from that gunshot wound, or his drinking, or his weight. He did play for Detroit for a few games in ’87, and returned to Kansas City the following year to play for the new franchise called the Cowboys, but that was for the American Association. I saw him some that year while I was doing well for the Maroons, and we often ate supper together after one of our games. Our paths never crossed again, and I was saddened to hear from Charley Bassett that poor Fatty had died in Chicago earlier this summer. He was only forty-four years old. Charley didn’t say how he died. He didn’t have to. Too many ballists have died from John Barleycorn, and I fear Fatty was no exception.

  Liquor, though, did not kill Frank Ringo in 1889. Most people called it a suicide from an overdose of morphine. He had stopped drinking for a while, but never could keep that cure. Ask me, and I’d say Cap Anson, Paul Grace, and Nick Young had a hand in Ringo’s death. They sent him back to lushing and taking morphine to forget about the heroics those bastards denied him. So don’t ask me.

  Mox McQuery moved over to the American Association for a couple of seasons and finally found his dream job as a police officer in Covington, Kentucky. I hope you read about him, and saluted him. I did. One evening about three years ago, Mox stopped a streetcar in Covington and tried to apprehend two murderers. They shot him down, and he died a few days later. I can’t think about Mox without tearing up.

  Most of my other teammates, and some friends I made with other teams, I’ve forgotten. Baseball does that. Like cowboying, I guess, at least the way Dan Dugdale used to say it went. You rode for a brand, made some friends, moved along, and probably never saw those friends again. Like Mert Hackett. Maybe one of these years, baseball will stop this ridiculous enforcement of keeping men of color out of America’s greatest game. I doubt if I’ll live to see it, though.

  Charley Bassett moved to Indianapolis after the Cowboys went belly-up and spent three seasons with the Hoosiers, then three more with the New York Giants, and finished his season with the Louisville Colonels in 1892. He stopped pretending to be kin to a Dodge City lawman. In Indiana, New York, and Kentucky, no one much knew anything about Dodge City or the West.

  Cap Anson and his Chicago White Stockings won the National League in 1886, and went on to play the American Association’s St. Louis Browns in the World’s Championship Series. I took great pleasure in the fact that the Browns, of that “beer and whiskey” league, won that series, four games to two.

  Dave Rowe returned to Denver, and managed and played some ball around there. As far as I know, he’s still in the game, though certainly you won’t be finding him in this best-of-nine-game series that starts tomorrow that pits the National League’s Pit
tsburgh Pirates against this new American League’s Boston Americans in another one of these World Championship Series.

  Cindy told me I should go. When she added that I should take Mother, I just laughed.

  That got us talking about 1886 and my time with those Cowboys. Surprisingly, most of what I remember makes me smile.

  We live on a few acres outside of St. Louis. We have horses—and not one damned cow or steer. I got my fill of those at the Diamond Nine. Mother and Papa live in the city, but come to visit us on the weekends. Papa tries to show his grandchildren how to lay bricks. Mother teaches them the finer points of baseball.

  “What was your favorite year, Silver?” Mother just asked me.

  “Well, that’s easy,” I told her. “It was 1886.” I grinned and winked at Cindy. “When I met my beloved wife.”

  “I meant baseball,” Mother said. “What was your favorite year in baseball.”

  “Same,” I said.

  “Why? You pitched better and your team won more when you played for St. Louis.”

  “Yeah, but in ’86, I got to play baseball and I got to be a cowboy.”

  the end

  Author’s Note

  “The history of baseball is filled with incredible tales of heroic feats and tragic twists of fate,” Dashiell Bennett wrote for Business Insider in 2011.

  The same, I think, is true of the West.

  “Unfortunately,” Bennett continued, “not all of those amazing stories happened quite the way that everyone thinks they did.”

  Just like stories of the West.

  With that in mind, I tackled this novel. Nothing much about it is true.

  The myth, of course, is that the Kansas City Cowboys were kicked out of the National League after the 1886 season because of “hooliganism.” Yet, while stories of umpires being harassed and threatened are factual, the Cowboys’ 30–91 record and lack of money likely led to their ouster, not to mention how long it took teams from the East Coast to reach Kansas City by train. Things, however, indeed got Western in Kansas City. Kansas City police escorted an umpire off the field, and a cowboy did escort the New York Giants to the ball park.