World Series

by John R. Tunis

  The old catcher leaned over and laid a hand on his leg. “Roy, it’s like this. There’s lots of injustices in life and lots in baseball, too, because baseball is part of life. We simply have to make the best of them, that’s all. This is a tough situation for you and I’m sorry; but you got yourself in it and you’ll have to get yourself out. Now go back there and try to go to sleep. You need it. Tomorrow likely you’ll feel better about the whole thing. I know, it smarts right now; but tomorrow things will seem different. Don’t let this get you down.”

  He stumbled back along the tinted green corridor. Hang it all, he hadn’t done anything. It was Casey who had begun the scrap, who had called him yellow. It was all Casey’s fault. The fine, yes, that was reasonable enough maybe, because he himself had lost his temper and slugged the sportswriter. But apologizing was different. He’d be darned if he would apologize.

  To himself he kept saying this, through the diner and into his own car and while he was undressing. But as he buttoned the curtains and finally snapped off the light, he knew in the end he would.

  9

  READY SAVE FOR the last thing of all, lacing his shoes, the Kid sat on a four-legged stool beside his locker. That catch in foul territory and the three-bagger of the previous afternoon made him happier. Once again he felt he might get into his stride, might live up to his nickname. But the Casey business was tough. Sure enough, that was tough. Ever since he had turned over in bed and seen the October sunshine streaming in the window that morning, he had been saying to himself that he would never apologize. Nope, he wouldn’t apologize. Yet all the time he knew he would.

  Staring gloomily at the wooden floor, pockmarked by the scars of thousands of spikes, he listened to the shouts and laughter across the way. A hot game of cards was in progress, with three or four kibitzers watching. Dave was walking around, a word here, a word there, talking to this man, giving advice to another, listening to someone’s comments on the Indian batters. But the Kid kept his gaze away from the old catcher. He didn’t want to talk to him.

  At last, however, Dave reached his locker, pulled up a stool, and sat down. The Kid felt that the mere mention of Casey’s name would make him burst. There was none. Instead, the manager sat there saying nothing for a moment, with a ball in his hands. He passed the ball from one hand to the other.

  “Roy...what did you hit against him yesterday? That three-bagger, I mean. A slow one by the letters? I thought so. You didn’t hit it hard, either, but it sure traveled.”

  It sure did. Dave’s confidence made him feel better. His resentment vanished. Eagerly he explained. “No, it wasn’t a hard hit ball, really, just met squarely, that’s all.”

  Dave nodded, listening. “Good. Go in there this afternoon and play for me like you did yesterday. That’s all I ask.” He rose, the ball under one armpit, and clapped his hands together.

  “All right now, boys.”

  The card game ceased. The players looked up from their lockers and formed a circle round the old catcher. Razzle came in from the washroom where he had been putting ointment on his black hair and slicking it down. Dave, a toothpick in his mouth, sat across a chair with his arms as usual over the back. While he talked he slapped the ball from one hand to the other.

  “Well, boys, what say we go out there and grab off this game? We’re back on the old home grounds at last, with our fans behind us, and you all know what a difference that can make in a tight place. This-here ballpark suits us much better than that stadium in Cleveland. Some of those hits that were caught there are going into the stands here. If he pitches Thomas, don’t worry; he can’t beat us this time. And don’t take anything off him. Go up there and hit him hard whenever you get a good one.

  “I feel this is in the bag. Those boys aren’t going to play so well here in Brooklyn. They got something coming to ’em. Just go down the line like we were talking the other day. Whatever happens, don’t tighten up. You were loose yesterday, especially toward the end of that game. I want you should stay that way, all of you.”

  He looked around the circle at his pitchers; at Raz with the slicked-down mane of hair, at old Fat Stuff, ready despite his shaking-up the day before to go out and throw to the hitters, at McCaffrey, a new man in the Series, at Rats and Speed Boy Davis and Rog Stinson, at all the men who had pitched the team into a pennant. Now the chips were down indeed. They had to have this game. Which one would he choose?

  The ball went back and forth from one hand to the other. It was the only betrayal of nerves he showed. Then with a movement of his forearm he tossed the ball over to Elmer McCaffrey who caught it in his glove. McCaffrey pitching! The signal to break up.

  Crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch, went their spikes on the wooden floor. They moved to the door. Clack-clack, clackety-clack, they sounded on the concrete outside on the stadium runway.

  The field, and especially the part back of the diamond, was black with figures of cameramen, reporters, old ballplayers, autograph hunters, and others who had come early and managed to get out onto the grass. McCaffrey stood aside as the Kid stepped out on the playing surface. Whenever he was pitching, the big boy always insisted on being the last man on the field. The Kid didn’t smile at this. Everyone had superstitions. He himself never stepped on a foul line if he could help it. Bad luck! Raz refused to autograph a baseball unless he was in uniform. Swanny always touched second base on his way to take up his position in center field. Fat Stuff wore his sweat socks until they almost fell off. Lucky, they were, he said. Red, with two strikes on him, invariably pulled the gum from his mouth and put it on the button of his cap. Even Dave never failed to pull his left shoe on before his right one.

  Then, walking toward the dugout, the Kid saw him. He was ahead, standing by the water cooler, talking to Swanny and Sandy Martin of the Post and another man. Swanny took his bat from the rack and stepped toward the plate.

  Seized by a sudden impulse, Roy went across. It’s now or never. If I don’t do it now, I never will. It’s now or never.

  Casey saw him. He stepped forward.

  “Hey...Casey...I wanna say...I wanna say I’m awful sorry about the other night in Cleveland.”

  The red-faced sportswriter grabbed his arm.

  “Sony, nuts! You got nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one should be sorry. Roy, I’m ashamed of what I said that night. It’s not true, and you didn’t need to show me up yesterday to prove it, either. Looka here, excuse me, will ya?”

  “Excuse you? Nosir, excuse me.”

  They shook hands. The Kid was filled with a feeling of regret. The man’s chest was big but his hand was flabby. He was soft and overweight and out of condition. And he was old, thirty or thirty-five maybe. Hitting a guy like that was hitting a child. He must have been insane. No decent person would have done such a thing. He was thoroughly disgusted with himself.

  Casey went on talking. “All right. What say we forget the whole thing? But I’m glad you bopped me. I had it coming.”

  “Well, Casey, I’m mighty ashamed of myself for losing my temper, and I’m much obliged to you and all that, but I’d like for you to forgive me just the same.”

  “Sure, Roy. Of course. Sure thing. Now see here. Do me a favor, will ya?”

  “You bet. What is it?”

  “Just you go out there and act like you’re Roy Tucker. Go out and play your game, your real game, I mean. Play the way you been playing all season. Heads-up ball. Go out and show these Cleveland mugs what you got. They think you’re a soft touch, Roy!”

  “You can’t hardly blame ’em. You bet I will, Casey. And thanks, you’ve helped me lots. And I mean it, too.”

  He went to the bat rack, took his bat, picked up the heavy bat, and swinging them walked behind the cage. A cloud vanished over the horizon. There! That’s over, over and done with. Now he could play ball.

  Fat Stuff was in there throwing them up to the hitters. Imagine, after the shaking around he took yesterday, too. Some players never quit. Not Fat Stuff, for one. He’s al
ways in there. What a guy to have as an example on a team.

  The Kid swung the bats in his hand, threw the leaded bat away, and stepped to the plate. The big leather ball bag was lying open on the ground between the box and second base, and Charlie Draper was feeding balls to Fat Stuff as fast as he threw them.

  Well, that was over, anyhow. He stepped into the box feeling loose and easy. The first ball was right across, it was tagged....

  WHANG. It rose in the air, deep...deep...over the fence into Bedford Avenue.

  Fat Stuff wasted the next one. Then he threw a curve which Roy fouled. He caught the next cleanly. Again the fielders backed up against the fence.

  “Hey there, Tuck,” called out Charlie Draper, “them balls cost MacManus money.” There was a joyous note in his voice. He had noticed immediately the difference in the Kid’s swing. That lad was loose once more. The whole team was loose. Now they’d move.

  Roy sent one into deep center, stepped back from the box, and stood watching the fielders scuttle after it. He walked back to the dugout, seeing Dave on the bench in conversation with one of the Cleveland sports writers. Dave was right all along about Casey. Dave was always right. Dave was his friend, the best in the business. Now they’d have to go out and win for Dave. They would, too. He’d play ball, heads-up baseball. The kind Casey wanted him to play.

  Boy, bring on that man Thomas. Thomas, shucks! Bring on Gene Miller!

  10

  DAVE SAT IN the dugout surveying his team, watching the men at bat, keeping an eye on the fielders chasing fungoes.

  “Rog,” he called down the bench. “Tell someone to relieve Fat Stuff. The old boy’s tired.”

  “I’ll tell you, George...” He continued talking to one of the Cleveland sportswriters he had known in other days, but all the while he was sweeping the field with his eyes, missing nothing that happened. Dave on some subjects was uncommunicative. When, however, it was a matter of young players he himself had trained and brought along, he was apt to be expansive. “I’ll tell you one thing. He isn’t overrated the way you folks think; fact is, he’s underrated. Why, you fellas haven’t seen him yet; maybe you won’t, maybe he won’t come out of it this year after that beaning. But I sure wish I could do some of the things he does. There! D’ja see that? D’ja see him come in there and take that sinker off his shoes?”

  “Yeah.” Grudgingly. “Oh, he’s fast, all right, all right.”

  “He’s fast and he’s got a pair of hands. ’Nother thing, he’s a hustler. Take it from me he’s in there every second. After each inning he comes back here to the dugout with the same question; ‘Did I make the right throw then, Dave?’ ‘Did I play that man right, Dave?’ And I don’t need to holler at him, either. He’s always watching when a hitter comes up. Just between you and me that’s one reason I had to let Scudder go last season. Now this boy isn’t that way. I give it to him once and he has it for good. First game...no, wait a minute...first game he played in Cleveland it was, I moved him toward center for Hammy. When Lanahan comes up I shove him over to the foul line. Next game I don’t even have to signal. That’s the kind of ball he plays.... Why, Harry! Hullo, Harry, how are you? It’s good to see you again.”

  An older man advanced into the dugout, hand extended. “Hullo there, Dave. Good to see you, too. How’s everything?”

  “Just fine, Harry, except we can’t seem to hit these Cleveland pitchers. How’s tricks with you out on the Coast?” The Cleveland reporter listened to the two old friends talking. You never knew when you would learn something which would be valuable.

  “Congratulations, Dave! Your boys are putting up a grand good fight.”

  “Congratulations my eye! We haven’t begun to play our game yet.”

  “Considering you got one of your best men beaned in the first game and your catcher’s been out the whole Series, I think you’re doing first rate. How’s it feel, Dave, to be back in there again?”

  “Well, it was tough at first. Every time I bent down to give the signal I could feel it all over my body. Bones would creak and muscles groan until I figured I’d been wired for sound. But the worst thing of all, Harry, were those high fouls. The first game I caught, everything was swell until the ninth. I’d had one pop but it was right over my head, didn’t move out of the box. I began to think catching had become easier since I quit. Then came the ninth.

  “First guy rolled out. Next man hits a high foul and I had to run way over to our dugout to get it. You can imagine how high it must have been when I finally grabbed it. That left me winded and tired out, and I stalled around before going to work on the next batter. What’s he do? Darned if he doesn’t hit another high one that carries me over to their bench. I can’t tell you how or why, but I got that one, too. Afterward they almost had to carry me off the field. I took a good hot salt bath last night for an hour, but just the same I got a couple of bad charley horses this morning....”

  The bell rang. The Cleveland sportswriter rose and sauntered across the field to the Indian bench. Cleveland went into the field and the Dodger dugout was filled with sweaty men in uniform, slapping their bats in the rack, going to the water cooler, or watching the Indian fielders throw to bases. Elmer was warming up with West alongside Rats Doyle and Kennedy. Dave still sat on the bench nursing his charley horses, saving himself as much as possible. He needed all the energy he could command.

  On third base Al Schacht began clowning around, running for a ball, falling on his face, trying to catch one with his silk hat, and generally drawing laughter from the crowd. Then suddenly the clown disappeared and there was that tense moment before the start, each man in both dugouts thinking of one thing—the difference between $6,400 and $4,400. As the papers had announced that morning, this was the difference between the winner’s and the loser’s share. And nearly every player had the same thoughts at the same time: my misplay may make that difference.

  They swarmed from the dugout. In just a minute their voices chattered across the field from every position.

  “Atta boy, Elmer....”

  “Okay Elmer-boy, le’s go....”

  “Here’s the easy man, Elmer....”

  The big pitcher smoothed the dirt from the front of the rubber and burned in his first pitch. Lanahan, the batter, hit it, a fast grounder which Harry scooped up and shot across to Allen. So the Indians weren’t going to take the ball either! They were out to win from the start, too.

  In the field the Kid watched Dave adjust his mask and go to work with Elmer on McClusky. They pitched carefully, and finally he popped to Ed Davis back of second. Old Gardiner came loping to the plate. Gardiner, the Kid remembered, except in the second game, had been taking all through the Series, wearing down the Dodger pitchers as much as he could. Elmer would recall this also and would try to sneak over a first strike. Elmer did exactly that. And the veteran, catching the ball squarely, drove a hot liner over third for a clean single.

  Crossed him up! That’s the reason he’s such a grand ballplayer, that man.

  Two down, Kenny Rock at the plate. May be a hit-and-run. The Kid pulled the dirt from his spikes, adjusted the sunglasses pushed back over the visor of his cap, and stood ready for anything. On a ball team every man expects every ball to be hit at him and the Kid was no exception to this rule. He tried to figure what to do and where to throw on any kind of a hit ball.

  A run sure would be bad for us now, he thought. It sure would.

  Rock hit a rasping grounder to the left of first base. Red was over, reached it, knocked it down, and threw to McCaffrey covering first. But the pitcher, always a slow starter, lost the race for the bag.

  Shoot! Two on and two out. Now that’s bad! Why, we practiced that a million times. I’ve seen the pitchers practicing that play by the hour. He recalled the time in Clearwater in spring practice which they had devoted to that simple play. He could see Dave batting grounders from the box, the pitcher wheeling, running to first for the ball. This error might mean an important run because Hammy was at
the bat; Hammy, the powerhouse of the Cleveland team. Fat Stuff would have had that man. Fat Stuff was heavier than McCaffrey, but he never made slips of that kind. No use worrying. No use thinking over others’ mistakes. Let’s go to work on Hammy.

  Elmer pitched to him with care. He smoothed out the dirt before the rubber, hitched up his pants, and looked round the bases.

  A strike, high inside. That’s a good sign, thought the Kid. Shows Elmer’s ahead of the hitters today. A ball, wide. He wound up; another ball wide of the plate, in fact very wide, yet Dave was ready for it. Without even shifting his stance he shot it to first. Rock was caught by a foot sliding back to the bag and the side was out.

  Say what you like, Dave Leonard was a great ballplayer. He sure pulled Elmer out of that hole. “He certainly picked Elmer up that time, didn’t he, Red?” Yessir. No wonder they all liked to pitch to Dave. He was always in there trying to help out his pitchers, to keep them in a good frame of mind.

  “Nice work, Dave.”

  “Nice throwing there, Dave.”

  “Snappy work, Dave.”

  “All right now, gang, le’s go.”

  But they couldn’t seem to get going. Red Allen grounded to the shortstop, and the Kid stepped to the plate. He caught the first pitch on the nose and drove it back hard at the man in the box who stuck out his glove and grabbed the ball before he could even get away from the plate. Hang it all! A little higher and it would have been a clean single.

  “Shoot,” he said, bouncing his bat on the plate. “Aren’t we ever going to get any breaks at all?”

  “It’s not how hard you hit ’em, it’s where you hit ’em in this man’s game, sonny,” said McCormick, the catcher, as he turned away.

  “Yeah? All right, baby, we’ll get to you guys yet; see if we don’t.”

  Then Swanny flied to center and the inning was over.

  McCaffrey was pitching well, but Dave continued to pull him out of holes. In the third Lanahan led off with another single, his second of the game. Elmer threw a wild pitch at McClusky, the next batter, that Dave knocked down. On first Lanahan was dancing away, not daring to risk the throwing arm of the old catcher. That would have meant another base if West had been in there, thought the Kid. It gave him confidence to see the fear Dave commanded in the opposing team.