Triple Play: A Nathan Heller Casebook

by Collins, Max Allan

  But when the massive cake was rolled out onto the playing field by two of the fans’ favorite Browns, Satch Paige and Frank Saucier, and plopped down on the pitcher’s mound, Eddie Gaedel rose to the occasion. As the stadium announcer introduced “a brand-new Brownie,” Eddie burst through the tissue paper and did an acrobatic tumble across the wide cake, landing on his cleats nimbly, running to home, swinging the bat all the way, eating up the howls of laughter and the spirited applause from the stands.

  Then Eddie headed for the dugout, and the various performers were whisked from the field for the start of the second game. The fans were having a fine time, though perhaps some were disappointed that the midget-from-the-cake might be the big Veeck stunt of the day; they had hoped for more.

  They got it.

  Frank Saucier was the leadoff batter for the Browns, but the announcer boomed, “For the Browns, number 1/8—Eddie Gaedel, batting for Saucier!”

  And there, big as life, so to speak, was Eddie Gaedel, swimming in the child’s uniform, heading from the dugout with that small bat still in hand, swinging it, limbering up, hamming it up.

  Amazed laughter rippled through the crowd as the umpire crooked a finger at Veeck’s manager, Zack Taylor, who jogged out with the signed contract and a carbon of the telegram Veeck had sent major league headquarters adding Eddie to the roster.

  By this time I had joined Veeck in the special box up on the roof, where visiting dignitaries could enjoy the perks of a bar and restaurant. Veeck was entertaining a crew from Falstaff Breweries, the Browns’ radio sponsors, who were ecstatic with the shenanigans down on the diamond. Newspaper photographers were swarming onto the field, capturing the manager of the Tigers, Red Rolfe, complaining to the umpire, while pitcher Bob Cain and catcher Bob Swift just stood at their respective positions, occasionally shrugging at each other, obviously waiting for this latest Bill Veeck gag to blow over.

  But it didn’t blow over: after about fifteen minutes of discussion, argument, and just plain bitching, the umpire shooed away the photogs and—with clear reluctance—motioned the midget to home plate.

  “Look at the expression on Cain’s puss!” Veeck exploded at my shoulder.

  Even at this distance, the disbelief on the pitcher’s face was evident, as he finally grasped that this joke was no joke: he had to pitch to a midget.

  “He can’t hurl underhand,” Veeck was chortling, “’cause submarine pitches aren’t legal. Look at that! Look at Swift!”

  The catcher had dropped to his knees, to give his pitcher a better target.

  “Shit!” Veeck said. His tone had turned on a dime. All around us, the Falstaff folks were having a gay old time; but Veeck’s expression had turned as distressed as Cain’s. “Will you look at that little bastard, Nate….”

  Eddie Gaedel—who Veeck had spent hours instructing in achieving the perfect, unpitch-to-able crouch—was standing straight and, relatively speaking, tall, feet straddled DiMaggio-style, tiny bat held high.

  “Have you got your gun, Nate? That little shit’s gonna swing….”

  “Naw,” I said, a hand on Veeck’s shoulder, “he’s just playing up to the crowd.”

  Who were playing up to him, cheering, egging him on.

  Then pitcher Cain came to Veeck’s rescue by really pitching to the midget, sending two fastballs speeding past Eddie before he could even think to swing.

  “I wouldn’t worry now,” I said to Veeck.

  Cain had started to laugh; he was almost collapsing with laughter, which the crowd aped, and he could barely throw at all as he tossed two more looping balls, three and then four feet over Eddie’s head.

  The littlest Brown trotted to his base as the crowd cheered and cameras clicked; then he stood with one foot on the bag as if he were thinking of stealing, which got a huge, roaring laugh.

  Finally pinch runner Jim Delsing came over and Gaedel surrendered the base to him, giving the big man a comradely pat on the butt.

  The crowd was going wild, Veeck grinning like a monkey, as I made my exit, to go down and meet my midget charge in Veeck’s office. Eddie had his clothes changed—he was wearing a bright green and yellow shirt that made Veeck’s taste seem mild—and I warned him that the reporters would be lying in wait.

  “Veeck says it’s your call,” I said. “I can sneak you out of here—”

  “Hell no!” Eddie was sitting on the floor, tying his shoes—he didn’t need any help, this time. “It’s great publicity! Man, I felt like Babe Ruth out there.”

  “Eddie, you’re now what most every man in the country wishes he could be.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “A former major-leaguer.”

  Since Veeck had been talking about using Gaedel again, the little guy really warmed up to the reporters waiting outside the stadium, telling them “two guys I’d really like to face on the mound are Bob Feller and Dizzy Trout.”

  But it didn’t work out that way. First off, despite the midget ploy, the Browns lost 6–2 to the Tigers, anyway. And before Veeck could put Gaedel into a White Sox game in Eddie’s hometown of Chicago a month later, the baseball commissioner banned midgets from baseball.

  Veeck had responded to Commissioner Harridge by saying, “Fine, but first you gotta establish what a midget is—is it three foot six, like Eddie? If it’s five six, great! We can get rid of Phil Rizzuto!”

  The commissioner’s ban was not only complete, but retroactive: Eddie didn’t even make it into the record books, the Gaedel name nowhere to be seen in the official 1951 American League batting records—though the base-on-balls was in Cain’s record, and a pinch-running appearance in Delsing’s.

  Nonetheless, this stuffed-shirt revisionist history did no good at all: record book or not, Eddie was immortal over Bill Veeck’s stunt, and so was Bill Veeck.

  Immortal in the figurative sense, of course. Their fame didn’t stop Veeck from staring death in the face, nor, apparently, had it spared little Eddie Gaedel from murder.

  3

  The Keurtz Funeral Home was one of those storefront numbers, with a fancy faux-stone facade in the midst of pawnshops and bars. This was on the South Side, Ashland and 48th, the business district of a working-class neighborhood of two-flats and modest frame houses, a hard pitch away from Comiskey Park.

  I left my car three blocks down, on a side street, mulling over what I’d learned from several phone calls to contacts in the Coroner’s Office and the Homicide Bureau. The death had never been considered a possible homicide, so there’d been virtually no investigation.

  A midget had died in his sleep, a not uncommon occurrence, considering the limited life expectancy of little people. Yes, there’d been some bruises, but Gaedel was known as a rough customer, a barroom brawler, with several assaults on his record. The unspoken but strongly implied thread was that if Gaedel hadn’t died of natural causes, he’d earned whatever he’d gotten.

  The alcove of the funeral home was filled with smoke and midgets. This was not surprising, the smoke anyway, being fairly typical for a Chicago storefront funeral parlor—no smoking was allowed in the visitation areas, so everybody crowded out in the entryway and smoked and talked.

  Seeing all those small, strange faces turned toward me, as I entered, was unsettling: wrinkled doll faces, frowning at my six-foot presence, the men in suits and ties, the women in Sunday best, like children playing dress up. I took off my hat, nodded at them as a group, and they resumed their conversations, a high-pitched chatter, like half a dozen Alvin and the Chipmunks records were playing simultaneously.

  The dark-paneled visitation area was large, and largely empty, and just inside the door was the tiny coffin with Eddie peacefully inside. He wore a conservative suit and tie, hands folded; it was the only time I hadn’t seen Eddie in a loud sport shirt, with the exception of that kid-size Browns uniform. Quite a few flowers were on display, many with Catholic trappings, a horseshoe arrangement ribboned MY FAVORITE BATTER—BILL VEECK prominent among them.

&
nbsp; The folding chairs would have seated several hundred, but only two were occupied. Over to the right, a petite but normal-sized woman in black dabbed her eyes with a hanky as a trio of midgets—two men and a woman—stood consoling her. Eddie’s mother, no doubt.

  The female midget was maybe four feet and definitely quite lovely, a shapely blue-eyed blonde lacking pinched features or ungainly limbs, a miniature beauty in a blue satin prom dress. She was upset, weeping into her own hanky.

  In the back sat a human non sequitur, a slim, rangy mourner in his late thirties, with rugged aging-American-boy good looks—anything but a midget. His expression somber, his sandy hair flecked with gray, he looked familiar to me, though I couldn’t place him.

  Since Eddie’s mom was occupied, I wandered back to the full-size mourner and he stood, respectfully, as I approached.

  “Nate Heller,” I said, extending a hand. “I take it you were a friend of Eddie’s, too. Sorry I can’t place you….”

  “Bob Cain,” he said, shaking my hand.

  “The pitcher!”

  His smile was embarrassed. “That’s right. You’re a friend of Bill Veeck’s, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. I’ve done a number of jobs for Bill…including body-guarding Eddie for that stunt, way back when.”

  Cain smiled again, a bittersweet expression. Then he moved over one and gestured to the empty chair, saying, “Sit down, won’t you?”

  We sat and talked. I was aware that Cain, after a contract squabble shortly following the midget incident, had been traded at Veeck’s request to the Browns. Cain played the ’52 and ’53 seasons for him.

  “Bill’s a great guy,” Cain said. “One owner who treated the players like human beings.”

  “Even if he did embarrass you?”

  “That’s just part of the Veeck package. Funny thing is, in the time I played for him, Bill never mentioned the midget thing. But I always wondered if he’d traded for me to make it up to me, or something. Anyway, I had a fine career, Mr. Heller.”

  “Nate.”

  “Beat the Yankees fifteen oh, in my first major league start. Pitched a one-hitter against Feller. I had a lot of good experiences in baseball.”

  “But you’ll be remembered for pitching to a midget.”

  “At least I’ll be remembered. It’s part of baseball history, Nate—there’ll never be another midget in the game…just Eddie.”

  “Did you stay in touch with the little guy?”

  “Naw…. I haven’t seen him since I pitched against him. But when I read about this, I just had to pay my respects, as a good Christian, you know—to a man who was so important in my life.”

  “Are you still in the game, Bob?”

  “Not since ’56…got a calcium deposit on my wrist, and couldn’t get my pitch back. I drove up from Cleveland for this—felt kind of…obligated.”

  I didn’t hear anything but sincerity in his words and his voice; but I would check up on Cain’s whereabouts—and see if he’d driven up from Cleveland before or after Eddie’s murder.

  The petite blonde was standing at the casket, lingering there, staring down at Eddie, weeping softly into her hanky. The two men had gone back out to the alcove.

  This left Mrs. Gaedel free, and I went over to her, introducing myself.

  “Mrs. Gaedel, Bill Veeck sends his condolences,” I told her, taking the seat next to her.

  A pleasant-looking woman of sixty, salt-and-pepper hair in a bun, Mrs. Gaedel sat and listened as I told her how I’d been involved with Eddie in his famous stunt. I left out the part about the college girls in the lounge car.

  “Mr. Veeck was wonderful to Eddie over the years,” she said, her voice bravely strong. “Gave Eddie so much work. Eddie supported me, after his father died, you know.”

  “Eddie kept busy.”

  “Yes. TV, movies, stage…. He lived with me, you know—had his little apartment with its little furnishings in the attic…ceiling so low I had trouble cleaning up there, but he loved it. That’s where I found him…in bed….”

  I slipped an arm around her as she wept.

  Then after a while I said, “You spoke to Mr. Veeck on the phone, I understand.”

  “Yes—this morning.”

  “I’m a private investigator, Mrs. Gaedel, and Bill asked me to talk to you about these…doubts you have, about the circumstances of your son’s death.”

  “Oh! Are you willing to look into that for me?”

  “Bill has hired me to do that very thing, as long as we have your blessing.”

  “Of course you have my blessing! And my eternal thanks…. What do you want to know, Mr. Heller?”

  “This is hardly the time, Mrs. Gaedel. I can come to your home, after the service sometime, in a day or two perhaps—”

  “No, please, Mr. Heller. Let’s talk now, if we could.”

  I was turning my hat in my hands like a wheel. “Actually, that would be wise, if you’re up to it. The sooner I can get started—”

  “I’m up to it. Start now.”

  We were interrupted several times, as Eddie’s friends paid their respects. But her story was this: Eddie had been drinking heavily lately, and running with a rough crowd, who hung out at the Midgets’ Club.

  I knew this bar, which was over on Halstead, and dated back to the ’40s; it had begun as a gimmick, a bar where the customers were served by midgets, mostly former members of the Singer Midgets who’d played Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. An area was given over to small tables and short stools, for midget clientele, and eventually the midgets essentially took over. But for the occasional tourist who stopped by for the oddity of the joint—to pick up the trademark half-books of matches, see a few framed Oz photos, and get some Munchkin autographs—the Midgets’ Club became the cultural center of midget activity in Chicago.

  “I thought the Midgets’ Club was pretty respectable,” I said.

  “It is—Elmer St. Aubin and his wife still run the place. But a rough element—carny types—hang out there, you know.”

  “That blonde you were talking to. She doesn’t seem part of that element.”

  “She isn’t, not all. That’s Betsy Jane Perkins…she worked with Eagle’s Midget Troupe, does a lot of television, personal appearances, dressed and made up like a doll…the ‘Living Doll,’ they call her.”

  “Were your son and Miss Perkins good friends?”

  “Oh yes. He’d been dating her. She was wonderful. Best thing in his life…I was so hopeful her good influence would wrest him away from that bad crowd.”

  “Do you suspect anyone in particular, Mrs. Gaedel?”

  “No, I…I really didn’t know many of my son’s friends. Betsy Jane is an exception. Another possibility are these juvenile delinquents.”

  “Oh?”

  “That’s what I think may have happened—a gang of those terrible boys may have gotten ahold of Eddie and beaten him.”

  “Did he say so?”

  “No, not really. He didn’t say anything, just stumbled off to bed.”

  “Had he been robbed, mugged? Was money missing from his wallet?”

  She shook her head, frowning. “No. But these juveniles pick on the little people all the time. If my son were inebriated, he would have been the perfect target for those monsters. You should strongly consider that possibility.”

  “I will. Mrs. Gaedel, I’ll be in touch with you later. My deepest sympathies, ma’am.”

  She took my hand and squeezed it. “God bless you, Mr. Heller.”

  In the alcove, I signed the memorial book. The crowd of midgets was thinning, and the blonde was gone.

  Nothing left for me to do but follow the Yellow Brick Road.

  4

  The Midgets’ Club might have been any Chicago saloon: a bar at the left, booths at the right, scattering of tables between, pool table in back, wall-hung celebrity photos here and there, neon beer signs burning through the fog of tobacco smoke, patrons chatting, laughing, over a jukebox’s blare. But the bar was
sawed-off with tiny stools, the tables and chairs and booths all scaled down to smaller proportions (with a few normal-sized ones up front, for tourist traffic), the pool table half-scale, the celebrity photos of Munchkins, the chatter and laughter of patrons giddy and high-pitched. As for the jukebox, Sinatra’s “Tender Trap” was playing at the moment, to be followed by more selections running to slightly dated swing material, no rock or R & B—which suited me, and was a hell of a lot better than “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead.”

  I had known the club’s proprietor and chief bartender, Pernell “Little Elmer” St. Aubin, since he was, well, little—a child entertainer at the Midget Village at the Chicago World’s Fair back in ’33. He’d been tap dancing and I’d been busting pickpockets. Elmer had been in his teens when he appeared in The Wizard of Oz, so now—as he stood behind the bar, polishing a glass, a wizened Munchkin in an apron—he was probably only in his midthirties. But as was so often the case with his kind, he looked both older and younger than his years.

  I selected one of the handful of somewhat taller stools at the bar and said to Elmer, “For a weekday, you’re doing good business.”

  “It’s kind of a wake,” Elmer explained. “For Eddie Gaedel. People coming over after visitation at Keurtz’s. You knew Eddie, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. I was over there myself. Paying my respects, and Bill Veeck’s.”

  Elmer frowned. “Couldn’t Veeck make it himself?”

  “He’s pretty sick. So was Eddie ornery as ever, up to the end?”

  “Christ yes! I hated serving that little bastard. Sweet enough guy sober, but what a lousy drunk. If I hadn’t been secretly watering his drinks, over the years, he’d have busted up the joint long ago.”

  “I hear he may have been rolled by some juvies. Think that’s what killed him?”

  “I doubt it. Eddie carried a straight razor—people knew he did, too. I think these young punks woulda been scared to get cut. Funny thing, though.”

  “What is?”

  “His mama said that straight razor didn’t turn up in his things.”