The Kansas City Cowboys

by The Kansas City Cowboys (retail

  “You took one card,” Charley Bassett said. “If you don’t mind my asking, which one did you get?”

  “The six of diamonds,” I answered.

  “Christ, boy.” Mox McQuery emptied the flask. “You don’t draw to an inside straight, Silver. The odds are against it.”

  I frowned. “Does that mean I lost?”

  Fatty, Bassett, and even Mox laughed.

  By then, Cod Myers and Jim Donnelly, sitting across the aisle, had joined in our game. Our card-playing Cowboys and some other ball players, including Dave Rowe and Stump Wiedman, had another game going on at the far end of the rocking coach.

  Cod Myers took the cards, and began shuffling. I knew he was no amateur from the way his fingers moved over those paste cards.

  “Let’s see if five-card stud can change my luck,” Myers said.

  Getting the five of spades in the hole and eight of clubs up, I folded on the first bet.

  “I can’t get my money back, Silver, when you pass that quickly,” Jim Donnelly said.

  “Yeah,” Mox McQuery agreed, “and the bet was only a quarter.”

  “Five cards,” I said. “I’ve seen 40 percent of my hand, and everyone’s up card is higher than that lousy eight.”

  Fatty whistled. “You done all that cipherin’ in your head?” Grinning, he nudged me, but Mox McQuery did not seem amused.

  “But you could pair up,” the first baseman said.

  “So could any one of you,” I answered.

  McQuery cursed underneath his breath, shook his head, and looked at his hole card as if it might have changed.

  Charley Bassett laughed. “You sure you never played poker, kid?”

  I grinned across my hard-shelled suitcase at him.

  “How ’bout you, Bassett?” Fatty Briody opened the new flask a porter had brought him. “Where’d you learn to play poker?”

  “Brown University.” Immediately Bassett realized he had answered too quickly. And too honestly.

  “Brown … University?” Fatty said.

  Shortstops, I had learned, have to think quickly when they’re in the field, and Charley Bassett was a good shortstop.

  “That’s right,” he said. “It’s a saloon in Dodge City. Right across from the …”

  “Long Branch?” I fed him.

  “You’ve been there, kid?” Bassett asked.

  “No.” I shook my head.

  “Don’t you worry, kid,” Fatty said as he passed the flask across the aisle to Jim Donnelly. “Wait till I show you Joe Burns’ saloon on Rose Street.”

  * * * * *

  “I’ve been inside buckets of blood worse than this place,” Charley Bassett said. He looked uncomfortable as he squeezed between Fatty and me at the long, crowded bar at 804 Rose Street in Philadelphia.

  The beer-jerker stepped up to us, dabbing his busted lip with a beer-soaked bar towel. His right eye was beginning to swell shut, and one of his incisors resembled a fang now more than a tooth. Behind us, two burly men dragged an unconscious man out through the doorway.

  Charley grinned at the bartender.

  “What’ll it be?” the beer-jerker said in a thick Irish brogue.

  “Draw us three beers, Paddy,” Fatty answered, “and top mine off with a wee shot of Irish, only not too wee.”

  As the banged-up barkeep moved toward the taps, Charley Bassett turned to Fatty and whispered, “But I’ve never been back to those places.”

  “Don’t worry, Kansas,” Fatty said. “Between what you and the kid took us for on the trains, you’ve got more than enough coin to cover any doctor’s bills. Besides, ballists and thieves are two peas in a pod. We stick together.” He nudged the tall man next to him. “Ain’t that right, pickpocket?”

  The pickpocket glowered. “Bugger off.”

  Quickly I patted my pockets for my change purse and Illinois key-wind watch.

  We made it out of Joe Burns’ saloon, fully roostered, but alive—and with our wallets and other valuables. We even had struck up a pleasant conversation with two of the thieves, though not the one who had told us to bugger off. The two wished us luck in the game the next afternoon.

  Which we needed.

  Truthfully, I don’t remember much about those four games we played in Philadelphia against a team that seemed to be officially named the Quakers but that everyone called the Phillies. As for the “Quaker City” itself?

  The Liberty Bell … Independence Hall … Carpenters’ Hall … Christ Church … Betsy Ross’ house? I saw none of those historic sites, merely the miserable room I shared with Fatty Briody and its ticky mattress on Arch and Seventeenth, Jim Burns’ grog shop on Rowe Street, the train station, and, of course, Montgomery, Ridge, and Columbia Avenues and 24th and 25th Streets, which surrounded Recreation Park.

  That’s what I learned on my first cross-country road trip with the Kansas City Cowboys. You saw hotels, a lot of cheap cafés, saloons, and train stations, and baseball diamonds. We won one game in Philadelphia, a 15 to 1 rout, lost the other three, boarded the B&P, and made a relatively quick trip to the station at Sixth and B Streets. I did not see much of anything in Washington City, either, except for the hotel, where I made an embarrassing mistake.

  After checking into the nice, multi-storied stone building—our nation’s capital certainly offers better hotels than Philadelphia—I followed Fatty and our bellman across the lobby. I stopped when the man hauling our grips paused before being joined by another dude, who motioned us inside a tiny cubicle.

  To my amazement, Fatty stepped right inside, turned, and, backing up against the paneled wall, said to me, “C’mon, kid.”

  “Fatty,” I said, and, lowering my voice into a whisper even though the two hotel employees could certainly hear me, added, “There’s not even a bed in that room.”

  Behind me, Pete Conway, Grasshopper Jim Whitney, the bellman with their luggage, and a lady in a blue dress carrying a parasol laughed out loud. The lady turned, shook her head, and gave me a pathetic look before she moved on toward the dining room. Even the two men next to the door grinned. Blood rushed to my head, and I felt my face flush.

  Fatty chuckled. “Kid,” he said, “this is an elevator.”

  * * * * *

  I almost got to play in our one game at Swampdoodle Grounds.

  After we took a 2 to 1 lead in the top of the ninth, Dave Rowe yelled at me to get ready to pitch, that if the Senators tied the score in their last at-bat, then I’d have to come in to relieve Grasshopper Jim. I leaped off the bench and began doing my stretches to loosen up.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Rowe said as he pulled his cap low on his head.

  “Loosening my muscles,” I answered, somewhat embarrassed.

  “Jesus-son-of-a-bitching-pig-shitting …” Rowe marched off to center field, adding several new oaths to his usual string of blasphemy.

  It didn’t matter, and I think Dave Rowe knew the Senators had no chance to tie the score. Grasshopper Jim struck out Paul Hines and Ed Crane, and then got Barney Gilligan to ground out to Cod Myers at second base to end the game.

  The Senators were even worse than we were. They had won four games out of twenty. We had won six and lost twelve.

  We packed our gear, went to the depot, and caught a train heading for New York City.

  * * * * *

  Fatty Briody picked up the two cards Charley Bassett had dealt him, cursed, and tossed his hand onto the deadwood.

  I drew three.

  “Dealer’s pat,” Charley Bassett said, and craned his neck. “Your bet, Mox.”

  McQuery shrugged. “Check.”

  Our two card-playing Cowboys had joined us on the train trip to New York. The red-headed Irishman bet one dollar, and the pockmarked, dark-haired one smoothed his mustache, stared at the redhead, and finally chipped a coin onto the pile.
r />   “Well, what do you want to see when we get to New York?” Fatty asked.

  Sliding my bottle of beer between my legs, I scratched my bottom lip with my left thumb, studying Charley Bassett, then the redhead, then the dark-haired one, and then I saw the look on Mox McQuery’s face.

  “Pass,” I said, and tossed in my hand, looking at Fatty. “I’d really like to see that Statue of Liberty they’re putting up.”

  “No foolin’?”

  “Yeah. I’ve only seen the woodcut in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper back when the statue was still in Paris.”

  The rest of the poker players laughed at my naïveté.

  “Fatty ain’t thinkin’ ’bout bein’ no tourist,” one of the poker-playing Cowboys said.

  “Yeah, kid,” Fatty said. “Hell, I was there when they unloaded that gal’s head last June. But let me tell you this … she ain’t nothin’ to look at, kid. I mean, she’s frownin’ somethin’ harder than even Dave Rowe on his worst day. Cold, she is. Like … stone. You want to see a girl, a good-lookin’ one, I’ll take you over to Five Points, kid. You ask Charley, here. He’ll tell you that I know where to find the chirpies.”

  Charley Bassett was staring at Mox McQuery probably as stiffly as the Statue of Liberty’s head.

  “You checked,” Bassett said.

  “That’s right,” our first baseman answered. “And now I’ve raised.”

  Fatty Briody turned away from me, wetting his lips. “That ain’t friendly, Mox,” he said.

  “This ain’t baseball, boys,” McQuery said. “It’s poker.”

  The card players tossed in their cards, and, swearing, Charley Bassett called the raise.

  McQuery laid down a straight.

  Bassett shook his head, and dropped his cards on my grip. “Yours is higher,” he said.

  McQuery leaned his head back and laughed like a coyote, but as he started to rake in the money, I opened my big mouth.

  “Charley,” I said, “you don’t have a straight. That’s a flush.”

  Fatty Briody leaned over. “Sumbitch,” he said, “and a jack high straight flush at that.”

  Charley’s eyes lit up, but Mox McQuery hurriedly tried to slide the cash and coin into his lap. “He called it,” McQuery said. “You got to call your hand right. He called a straight. So I win.”

  “No,” I said, and the card players excused themselves, explaining that they were going to the smoking car, but thanked us for the friendly game. Only it wasn’t so friendly anymore.

  “The hell do you know about poker, boy?” Mox McQuery snapped. “You never played a hand till you got on the train in Kansas City.”

  So I reached into my other satchel and pulled out the book that I had purchased at a store on Arch Street in Philadelphia. Maybe I had not seen Betsy Ross’ home, and probably I would not get to see to see the Statue of Liberty as she was being erected, but I had seen Salzer’s Books & Sundries.

  Fatty picked up the book, looked at the cover and read slowly, “The American Hoyle; or Genleman’s Hand-Book of Games.”

  He looked at me, and I took the book, opened it to the entry on poker, found my place, and read, “‘Thirty-Two: Upon a show of hands, a player who miscalls his hand, does not lose the pool for that reason, for every hand shows for itself.’”

  “Sumbitch, kid.” Fatty opened his flask and drank. “You learn poker … from books? How’d you learn to pitch?”

  “He hasn’t!” McQuery snapped, and I figured I had a new enemy as a teammate.

  Fatty chuckled, nodded at Charley Bassett, and said, “Reckon, the kid’s right, Kansas. Take your winnings.” He handed the flask toward McQuery, who snatched it. Then Fatty turned to me, “What’s it say ’bout checkin’ and then raisin’?”

  “Nothing,” I said, “but it’s not the latest version of the book.”

  McQuery slammed the flask on my luggage. “So … maybe that ain’t the rule now. Maybe …”

  “Shut up, Mox.” Fatty grabbed his flask. “Poker ain’t like baseball. They ain’t changin’ the rules every year to help all them Eastern teams.”

  Now McQuery pointed a finger in my face, and, as a longtime first baseman, he had cruel-looking fingers. “You’d done passed, boy. Wasn’t none of your affair. I ought to thrash you like a reaper.”

  “Careful, Mox,” Fatty said. “You’ll never get to become no copper if you get arrested for whuppin’ up on a kid.”

  “Actually,” I said, thinking back to Dan Dugdale’s stories, “a lot of Western lawmen once rode outside the …” Mox McQuery’s face and crooked fingers silenced me. He was dead serious. He really wanted to kick my arse.

  McQuery rose, dumping my grip onto Fatty’s and my lap, pushed the passing conductor out of the way—without any apology—and moved like a charging bear to the door and through it, making his way to the smoking car.

  “For the son of a Dodge City lawman,” Fatty said, staring at Charley Bassett, who was picking up the scattered coins Mox McQuery’s tirade had left on the seat and on the floor, “you sure don’t know how to read a poker hand.”

  “Sorry.”

  I looked at the conductor, smiled meekly, and said, “Mox didn’t … um … see you.”

  “He didn’t see any of Dupee Shaw’s fast balls today, neither,” Fatty said. “That’s what got him into such a foul temper. Don’t worry, boys, there’s more to the National League than poker. But I think I’d best gather up these paste cards for a spell.”

  I obliged him, realizing I had learned an important lesson. Poker and baseball do not mix. After that, I never played cards again—at least, not with my teammates. But Fatty Briody was right. There was more to do on the road than play poker on a train. I found the bottle of beer between my legs and took a sip.

  “Wait till I show you two boys Five Points,” Fatty said, and repeated his mantra, “Cure or the clap. I’ll make sure you get one or t’uther.” Then, leaning back in his seat, he took my book of poker rules, and began reading.

  * * * * *

  Truthful Jim Mutrie, despite his boast in Kansas City, did not greet us at Pennsylvania Station and escort us to our hotel with his big-wheeled bicycle.

  I did not see the Statue of Liberty, but I was learning. I did not hesitate stepping into the elevator at our hotel, and by the end of our three-game series, I no longer sweated or thought I might vomit when the contraption began its ascent or descent. And I knew better than to take off with Fatty Briody and Charley Bassett to some brothel in Five Points. I remained faithful to Cindy McKim.

  But I did drink beer. A lot of it, and the saloon at the hotel was a good place to do it.

  “Are you of age?” the barman asked on my first night in New York.

  “Hell, yeah,” said Stump Wiedman, who beckoned me down the long mahogany bar. “He’s older than me, Myrt.”

  That’s all it took. Myrt drew me a foamy beer, and I spent that night drinking with a few of my fellow ballists. Stump and Cod Myers on the first night. Pete Conway and Grasshopper Jim on the second. And Fatty Briody and Charley Bassett on the train to Boston. And, to tell the truth, I don’t know who I got drunk with in Boston.

  The Giants swept us, by the way, and the Beaneaters took two of three, and, honestly, they should not have lost the game on the 7th of June, 3 to 2.

  So we boarded yet another train after the Tuesday loss and rode to Chicago.

  I drank on the long train trip west, too.

  I probably would have become just like Fatty Briody, Mox McQuery, or most of my teammates: a boozing, brawling ballist if not for a player I met in Chicago.

  His name was Mike Kelly.

  Chapter Fifteen

  You’ve heard of him, I know. Even if you never picked up a copy of the Sporting News or New York Clipper. Join me in the chorus, and don’t fret if you cannot carry a tune:

  Slide,
Kelly, slide!

  Your running’s a disgrace!

  Slide, Kelly, slide!

  Stay there, hold your base!

  If someone doesn’t steal you,

  And your batting doesn’t fail you,

  They’ll take you to Australia.

  Slide, Kelly, slide!

  We won the first game when Charley Bassett scored on Pete Conway’s bloop single for a one-run victory, but lost the next day, 8 to 2, in a contest in which I finally stepped onto the diamond during a game to play ball.

  Of course, the game was pretty much over by then—we trailed by six runs in the ninth inning—but as Stump Wiedman had just been hit in the groin by Cap Anson’s line drive, Grasshopper Jim was drunk, and Dave Rowe wanted to save Pete Conway for the contest the next day, he reluctantly told me to take the mound as Cod Myers and Mox McQuery carried Stump from the pitcher’s lines to the side of the bench.

  “And don’t waste time with that loosening-your-muscles horseshit,” Dave Rowe grumbled before he walked to the umpire to inform him of the substitution.

  Two games I had played in, and only because the pitcher had been drilled with a hit ball.

  Fatty trotted up to me before I made my first pitch, pushed back his cap, and spit tobacco juice into the West Side Park dirt.

  “Kid,” he said, “you gotta show Dave your stuff. Don’t mess ’round. Just get these blokes out.” He shifted the quid to his other cheek. “This is Chicago, kid. Lots of folks read the Chicago newspapers. Fire ’em in to me.”

  I glanced at his hands.

  With a smile, he spit out more juice. “Don’t worry ’bout my hands. I been doin’ this a long time.”

  “You want to go get the mitt Dug gave you?”

  “Hell no, kid. Have everyone call me a girlie? That’s bullshit. I’ll catch whatever you throw me.”

  And he did, though even the umpire and Abner Dalrymple grimaced at the sound my first pitch made on contact with Fatty’s meaty hands.

  Dalrymple struck out, yet Fatty somehow managed to hold onto the baseball.

  I struck out George Gore, too, on three consecutive pitches, and that brought King Kelly to the plate, with Tom Burns on second base and Anson on first. Not that the White Stockings needed any more runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, but professional ballists do not quit scoring runs on purpose. There was no mercy in baseball. Especially in a city like Chicago.