Keystone Kids

by John R. Tunis

  “That’s what I mean.”

  Leave Nashville! Go North! It was almost like leaving home. Leave all the boys and old Grouchy; why, Grouchy wasn’t a bad guy if you worked. He didn’t stand for any loafing, but he wasn’t a bad guy. Grouchy could have insisted on keeping them there all summer. And the fans, too. The fans who were your friends, the fans who followed you every night, who shelled out when you hit a homer for them in a crucial game. Exchange all that for a possible berth on the Dodgers. Just the idea sort of took your breath away.

  The stranger was talking. “Where’s your stuff, Spike? Where you boys live?”

  “Out to the boarding-house, Mr. Fuller. It’s Mis’ Hampton’s boarding-house on McGavock Street.”

  “Think you could get out there in a taxi and grab your stuff and be ready to take the midnight plane from the airport? If I could get you reservations, that is?”

  The midnight plane for New York! Half an hour ago he was coming into the room to get a dressing-down from old Grouchy and maybe hear how much of a fine would be slapped on. Now they were talking about the midnight plane for New York!

  Hey, Bob! Hey, Bobby! We’re going up to the Dodgers!

  3

  SPIKE LOOKED OVER at Bob and Bob glanced back quickly at Spike, both thinking the same thing. Last night this time we were eating supper in Mrs. Hampton’s boarding-house on McGavock Street in Belmont Heights, Nashville. Now here we are dashing across Brooklyn Bridge in a limousine with the Dodgers, while up ahead a siren blares and snorts. That’s the police escort. Seems like in this league the top teams get a police escort when they have to make a train at the station.

  Nashville to Brooklyn. Why, it was only one day, yet a day containing a thousand hours. Surely it was a thousand hours since that supper in Nashville. First of all the long plane ride over a dozen cities, clusters of twinkling lights far below, while everyone dozed save Spike and Bob, far too excited for sleep. Then the descent into the airport at La Guardia Field in New York, with the sun rising on the horizon. A tall man who introduced himself as Bill Hanson, the club secretary, had met them there. Then breakfast at the hotel—fruit juice and cereal, coffee and eggs and bacon, wheat cakes, too, all you could eat. Next the ballpark, with the players arriving for the days doubleheader against the Giants, and Ginger Crane, the shortstop and manager, famous throughout baseball, who entered looking more like a Broadway actor or a business executive than a ballplayer. Finally the Dodger monkey suits, and the practice for a couple of hours with dozens of photographers taking their pictures, and Bob out there making one of those impossible single-handed stabs. Last of all, the doubleheader they had watched from the bench.

  All this in twenty-four hours. No, in a thousand hours. Now they were the Russell boys of the Dodgers, leaving with the team to make the last western trip of the season. It was ages since they’d sat together in Mrs. Hampton’s boarding-house on McGavock Street where the stew for supper was gone whenever the game lasted more than nine innings. A thousand hours had passed since then.

  The station in New York was a cavern, not a station. It was bigger far than anything they could imagine, yet jammed with Sunday evening travelers. In the confusion they became separated from the team. Some bad moments followed. Whichever way they looked were strange faces, everywhere strange faces, people hurrying for trains or from trains, no one they had ever seen.

  Say! Suppose we lost the club for good, suppose we missed that train! Why, we’d get shot back to Nashville pronto.

  Silently they wandered through big dome-shaped areas, into waiting rooms, edging through the crowd into telephone rooms, baggage rooms, searching vainly for someone they recognized. No team anywhere! Finally Spike went up to a stationmaster in uniform. The official looked at them curiously but there was no excitement in his voice.

  “The Dodgers? You boys with the Dodgers? They’re doing all right these days, aren’t they?” Slowly he drew a long black-covered book from his coat pocket and consulted it. “I think they’re on 24. That’s right. They’re on the American, platform 24, over there. Don’t go down the main entrance where that crowd is. Go over opposite; the ballclubs go down the back way.”

  Spike saw them then across the crowded space as they went over. The tanned, self-assured athletes were surrounded by a dozen women. Many of the players were dressed in silk sports shirts, open at the neck, and slacks; they wore no coats and had no baggage. Spike and Bob felt strangely out of place in their best suits with neckties on, and bags in their hands. Spike recognized one or two of the men: Razzle Nugent, the tall pitcher, and the swarthy outfielder, Karl Case, and Crane, the manager. Finally they discovered the secretary. He glanced at a slip of paper in his hand.

  “Here you are! The Russell boys... you boys are H in FB-2.” He turned away.

  Now what did that mean?

  “Beg your pardon, sir.”

  “H in FB-2. Room H in car FB-2. Go down those steps, right here...”

  “Sir, how ’bout the tickets? We ain’t got our tickets yet.”

  He smiled. “You boys won’t need any tickets. Just hop aboard. I’ll take care of everything.” They walked down the steps to a platform with a long train beside it. Halfway down was a pile of baggage, rows of expensive leather suitcases and handbags, the pile guarded by an elderly man who might have been a banker. He knew them even if they didn’t know him.

  “Hullo there, boys. You’re in FB-2. Up the end of the platform. That all the stuff you got with you? I wish the others traveled light, too.”

  “Yessir, thank you, sir.” Spike then recognized him as the locker room attendant who had fitted them out with their monkey suits, a man the players all addressed as Chiselbeak. For a second he wished they had something more than their two cloth handbags, but after all those were plenty for their needs. They walked down the train. A conductor stopped them.

  “Tickets, please. The cars are not ready yet.”

  “We’re with the Dodgers. Room H in car FB-2.”

  The conductor immediately nodded respectfully and pointed ahead. Astonishing how the password worked. At last they found a window of one Pullman with the figures FB-2.

  The conductor standing at the entrance greeted them with deference and the porter took their bags and ushered them inside. A draught of cool air swept their faces, clean and refreshing after the intense August heat of the station. They were walking on a thick carpet through a passageway into the car. It was new, painted a delicate green, with soft indirect lighting overhead. Down the side by the windows was a long corridor from which opened a dozen doors. The porter pushed theirs open. It was like nothing they had ever seen; a small room, compact and complete in every detail. On the side opposite the corridor was a wide plush seat.

  “Yeah, O.K. But where’m I gonna sleep?” interjected Bob.

  The porter grinned. “You boys making your first trip with the club? Where you-all from? Where? Nashville? Sure ’nuff! That’s mah home town, yessir. See, we let this down, the upper one, like this.” He stepped up and, reaching above with a kind of key in his hand, released the upper berth which dropped down. He stood hesitating. Spike instantly guessed what he wanted and fumbled for a dime. The porter hesitated no longer. He left abruptly. While Spike stood thinking: This trip is going to cost money, a dime here, a dime there...

  Now the players were pouring in, followed by porters staggering under the luxurious leather suitcases and bags. They entered their rooms, banging doors, calling to each other up and down the corridor, the loud, cheerful sounds of healthy men off duty. They were happy after winning the afternoon’s doubleheader and pulling up within two games of the league-leading Pirates. Their voices echoed up and down the car, evidently filled with ballplayers. Strange faces passed by the room, glanced at the two boys and went on. Sitting stiffly on the edge of the plush seat, they heard the strange voices and felt like homesick boys at a new school. All that banter was something in which they had no part.

  “Hey, Jake, how ’bout a game after di
nner.... Yeah, I played Terre Haute one season. They call it Terrible Hot out there and, b’lieve me, it is hot... I was round the course in 82; yes I was, too. You ask Karl... Hey, guys, c’mon! I could eat a raw potato... Who’s for dinner...”

  Spike realized he was hungry. A sandwich would surely taste good. Then a figure brushed past, someone with a round frank face and open brown eyes who looked in at them curiously. He hesitated a minute and half smiled. Spike immediately recognized him. Bob didn’t.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Sssh. Not so loud, Bob. That must be Tucker, the boy who led the league in batting a few years ago.” The figure passed by once more and Spike hailed him.

  “Say, Mister, is there any place here we could get us a sandwich?”

  “You’re the Russell boys from Nashville, aren’t you? Heard all sorts of good things about you boys. I’m Roy Tucker.” He entered and shook hands with them. “Our dining car is up front three-four cars. We’ve also got our own lounge car, too; that’s the one beyond the diner. Say, lemme know if I can help any. I only came up myself a few years ago.”

  They looked at each other. Private diners, private lounge cars. Boy, is this a life!

  “Let’s go, Bobby.”

  They went out and moved toward the front of the car, pulling and tugging on the door until they discovered that the handle pulled sideways instead of directly backward. From the platform of the car they noticed several players saying good-by to elegant ladies beside the train. Porters with more baggage shoved past. Then the next car, another softly lighted interior, and the next. Spike read the names as they passed, Boerlikon, Carlton Club, Wiscasset, Lorna Doone, Loch Lomond. At last the diner, even more elaborate than the sleeping cars. They were dazzled for a second by the white tablecloths, the silver, and the pink lamps on every table.

  The waiter seated them and handed each one a menu. “Anything to drink?” asked the chief attendant, dressed in a uniform like a rear admiral. They both shook their heads and then began to study the menu, as long a menu as they had ever seen.

  Bob glanced across the table at Spike. What prices, his eyes said. Nothing to eat for less than a dollar seventy! Why, we’ll be bankrupt if we have to eat in Pullmans.

  Other players sauntered in, sat down, and ordered with a casual air. Spike noticed large steaks brought to them, and some drank beer with their dinners, meals that must have been even more expensive than their own. Spike and Bob ate silently and quickly. Then the former paid the bill and left a quarter on the table. No, it wasn’t a dime here and a dime there, but a dime here and a quarter there.

  They went out, eyed by the bored-looking players at the tables in the ornate diner. Loch Lomond. Lorna Doone. Wiscasset. Carlton Club. Boerlikon. The train seemed never to end. At last they reached their room.

  Spike sat down to figure the cost of the meal. Why, it was about what two meals a day for a week cost in Mrs. Hampton’s boarding-house in Nashville.

  A figure stood in the doorway. “You boys eaten?” It was the secretary. He had a handful of papers in his hand and looked weary.

  Spike stood up. “Yessir. We were just out to the diner.”

  “Good! The newspaper boys want a story tonight, and I’ll bring ’em back a little later most likely.”

  It was a command. “Yessir. Mr. Hanson, please, now these dining cars, seems like they’re mighty expensive. You reckon me and Bob could get us a sandwich or something on these trains?”

  Hanson stood rocking back and forth with the motion of the car, not saying anything at all for a minute. Then a grin came over his face. “You don’t mean to say you paid for your grub?”

  “Yessir. Four sixty, counting the tip.”

  Four sixty! And two meals a day at Mrs. Hampton’s boarding-house only cost four bucks fifty a week!

  “You shouldn’t have done that. You boys have signing privileges. You see, you sign for your meals. Just write your name and Brooklyn Baseball Club on the checks.”

  “You mean we should order whatever we want from the menu and then write our names down?”

  “That’s it. I’ll try to get you your money back tonight. But in the future you sign for all your meals.”

  He went on down the car. Bob was fumbling on the wall where a row of gadgets and buttons were placed. “Wonder what some of these things do?” He pushed a button. Far off in the distance was a soft tinkle like the sound of temple bells. Spike had heard it before supper and wondered what it meant. In a few seconds the porter stuck his nose in their doorway.

  “You gentlemen call?” Bob’s expression was blank. The porter disappeared.

  An hour later the secretary was back again. He had half a dozen men at his heels. They filed into the small bedroom, filling it completely until there was no space whatever to stand in, and one or two of them blocked the doorway, looking over each other’s shoulders. Strangers, all of them, strangers and more strangers. It was like a kind of secret service examination. If only someone they knew had been there, Grouchy, for instance.

  “Spike, shake hands with Jim Foster of the Times. You’ll see plenty of him before Christmas. And this is Rog Stevens of the Tribune, and here’s Stan King of the Telegram and Tommy Heeney of the Brooklyn Eagle and Ed Morgan of the Sun. Boys, this is his brother Bob. Bob, meet the boys.”

  They shook hands all round. They made the two boys dizzy as they eyed them queerly, got out pencils, and began writing on the backs of envelopes or on folded sheets of paper. What did they find to write about?

  The Russell boys of the Dodgers....

  4

  GINGER CRANE CAME into the hotel room with Johnny Cassidy, the third base coach. The manager was dressed in a delicate fawn-colored gabardine cut by an expensive tailor. He threw a newspaper on a table, one of the few tables unoccupied by papers, suitcases of leather with silver fastenings, magazines, and other belongings. The room was large with elaborate furniture, a davenport with a silk brocade covering, heavy armchairs, and fancy tables. Ginger was entirely at home in this luxury. He walked across to an adjoining bath and presently reappeared, wiping his hands on a towel.

  “Shoot! We needed that game the worst way. That’s a tough one to drop right at this point.”

  “Can’t win ’em all,” rejoined the coach philosophically.

  The manager was hardly in a philosophical mood. How can you be philosophical when you’re the one who carries the team on your shoulders, when you sit out there on the bench and see your men helpless and almost hitless in a critical game against the leaders, when you sweat under a hot September sun as your chances for the lead dwindle and dwindle before your eyes?

  “We oughta had that one! The team isn’t hitting. When a team isn’t hitting, what can you do? Look at Case! Look at Red Allen! Look at Harry Street! I suppose he’ll claim he can’t hit because he was moved to third! Roy Tucker’s the only man who’s hitting.”

  Cassidy sank into an armchair. He tried to be consoling and cool the boss off. The boss hated to lose and of all games this was surely a tough one to drop. “Aw, they’re not playing bad baseball, Ginger. They’re playing good ball, only they’re facing hot pitching. Everywhere we go we have to meet the hot ones. That’s why they aren’t hitting.”

  “Shoot! When a team has no pep, when they just play all-right baseball and nothing more, well, what then? What you gonna do?” He sank into an easy chair himself. “We should have had that game. Leaving New York last week we were only two games behind. Now look; we’re three and a half!”

  “Well, we still got a month, haven’t we?”

  “A month! A month! Six months wouldn’t do if we don’t start to hit. It’s enough to make a guy nuts when you consider a train wreck is better than a nice, sunshiny afternoon.”

  Was the boss really getting the jitters? Cassidy looked up. “How do you figure that one?”

  “Why, in a train wreck a man at least has an even chance of getting out alive. But baseball always hits a team in its most vulnerable spots. We went into th
at tailspin on that sunny day in Boston when Swanny and I both picked up charleyhorses the same afternoon. Train wreck, my eye! We wouldn’t have lost both of us at the same time!”

  Cassidy tried to change the subject from gloomy things. “Well, I like this boy out there at short. The more I see of him the better I like him. He’ll do. That was a smart move, Ginger.”

  Cassidy flipped open a newspaper and turned to the sports pages. He reached up to pull on the light of a lamp over his shoulder. It didn’t go on. He yanked again with no result. This was sufficient to set off the explosion. Ginger jumped from his chair for the telephone.

  “Manager!” There was anger in his voice and on his face the same hard, cruel look as when he edged up to umpires in a close game, his jaw out, stuck up to theirs. “Hey, Clarkson! This is Crane talking. How about fixing the light in this room, in the big room to my suite?”

  There was a reply, the usual reply.

  Ginger immediately went to work. “Now, look, that’s the old runaround, the same old runaround, see, and I’m sick and tired of it. I don’t want any more of it. I spoke to the room clerk last night; nothing doing; I speak to the room clerk this morning; still nothing doing. Never mind what they said... I don’t care what they told you... that’s your funeral. If my ballclub doesn’t win games, the boss takes it out on me, not the players. And I want that light fixed and fixed now, y’understand? This club brings you a good many thousand dollars every summer, and this is not the only hotel in town, nosir; we can go to the Schenley, we can go to the Fort Pitt, we can go to.... Never mind that, you get an electrician here and get him right away.”

  He slammed the phone down. “There, now let’s see if we can get a little service around this place.”

  Cassidy in the meanwhile, used to the explosions of his boss, had changed quietly over to another chair where the light functioned, and was reading the sports pages. “Hey, listen, Ginger! Here’s what Foster says about this Russell boy. ‘He wasn’t very impressive the first night out from New York as he sat in a drawing room on the train with his kid brother and “mistered” the baseball writers. But as soon as Spike put on his monkey suit and started working at short, you didn’t have to look long to realize the Dodgers had a find. Tall and lanky and quick, he’s as fast or faster getting back for the short ones as anyone in the league.’ ”