Makes you wonder how anybody ever finds out anything about what happened a long time ago, or even day before yesterday. How can you tell? Even if you’re sure your memory’s perfect, wouldn’t somebody else call you a lying fool and be just as sure about something completely different? You’d have to put together dozens of people’s stories, wouldn’t you, to have any idea of what really went on? Even then, it wouldn’t be a neat jigsaw puzzle. Some of the pieces wouldn’t quite fit no matter how you pushed them around. Others would stick out over the edges.
What is history, then? Whatever enough people say history is, that’s what. If they make you believe their story, then it’s true for you.
Enough. Too much, I bet. The Falcons took us back to Lincoln Park. We’d said we’d meet up with Harv there. He was sitting in the bus waiting for us and smiling like Santa Claus. “Well, boys,” he said, “I know where we’re going.”
“Where?” Fidgety Frank sounded worried. Harv looked too cheerful for his own good, and maybe for ours.
“Salt Lake City tomorrow,” he answered. “Go to bed early tonight, everybody. We’ll be up early tomorrow. We’ve got a long trip ahead of us.”
* * *
We had to get through one more roadblock before we could head on toward Salt Lake City. This one was just on the Utah side of the border with Colorado. The cops in charge of it were just as jumpy as any of the farmers with shotguns a lot closer to Denver.
“We don’t want any of them zombie things sneaking into our state out of Colorado,” one of them said.
I wondered how many were already in Utah, working in mines and factories and other places where all you needed was stupid muscle. Every one of them saved some boss the expense of paying a live man’s wages. The accountants with the glasses and the green eyeshades had to love them.
They had to love them till the zombies rose up and started slaughtering people, anyhow. That would put some red ink in your books in a hurry.
We stopped in Price, Utah, about seventy-five miles this side of Salt Lake City, for gas and a stretch. Price was a coal town. Some of the dust there was black from the mines. Some was red from the desert we’d been driving through. Desert and mountains, mountains and desert—we didn’t seem to do anything else. It was all pretty country, but too rugged for me to want to live there.
Now the Great Salt Lake and the salt flats around it, that was something to see. Harv was practically cackling when he drove past Lehi and Provo on the last lap toward Salt Lake City. “We are going to make money like bandits in these parts,” he said. “Like bandits, I tell you!”
“You mean we carry guns instead of bats?” Wes always tried to let the air out of Harv’s imagination.
“Shut your face.” Harv wasn’t gonna let anybody rain on his parade. “Do you know where the closest pro teams west of here are at? In the Coast League, that’s where! In California—well, Oregon and Washington, too. From here to there, semipro’s the best ball folks can watch. And who’s the best semipro team around?”
“We are!” we all chorused. And we were, too. We’d proved it in Denver. Fewer people knew we’d won the Post’s tournament than they should have. Other headlines came out of Denver instead. But that didn’t make winning it any less real.
“Right!” Harv nodded, luckily without turning his head. “The Coast League was in Salt Lake for a while, but then they pulled back to the coast. Town didn’t draw well enough to suit their Majesties.”
Harv sounded snottier and less charitable than usual. I think he was jealous. The Pacific Coast League is Class AA ball, only one level shy of the bigs. And because they are way out there on the West Coast, they get to do as they please more than any other minor league. They think of themselves as just about a big league, and maybe they aren’t so far wrong.
After that, Salt Lake City was in the Utah–Idaho League, in Class C, for two or three years. But it went under, so no pro ball was left around there any more. They had what they called the Utah Industrial League. In fact, we were playing the Salt Lake City Industries, the local team that had gone to Denver.
Salt Lake City was bigger than I expected, bigger not just for number of folks but for size, too. The blocks were long and the streets were wide. It spread out; there weren’t many tall buildings.
That meant you could see the State Capitol from a long way off. The Mormon Temple, too, with the gold angel on the spire. I didn’t know much about the Mormons then. Come to that, I still don’t. I wondered whether Harv was jealous in a different way, though. Utah made me think of what the House of Daniel might be like if it had a whole state to play with, not just part of a small town in Wisconsin.
From the little bits I did find out, a lot of what I think the Mormons believe seems pretty silly. But whatever they believe, they mostly turn out nice people. Which counts for more? You’ll have to decide that for yourself.
Bonneville Park probably held about as many people as Merchants Park had. But when they built Merchants Park, they at least remembered they were high up and made you hit the ball a long way before it went over the wall. Salt Lake City’s about a thousand feet lower than Denver, but Bonneville Park would’ve been a hitters’ heaven at sea level … or below it.
Left was 308; right went 320. And out to dead center? Only 360. The fences were at least twenty feet high—I will say that. Advertising signs, some fresh but more old and faded and peeling, covered them.
Wes shook his head when he looked out there. He’d pitch today, and he was as thrilled as you’d think. “I always try to forget ballparks like this,” he said. “Somehow, they keep coming back to haunt me.”
“Their guy has to pitch here, too,” I reminded him.
“If he’s a Mormon, he can’t even drink afterwards, the poor son of a bitch,” Wes said. “What’ll you do out there? I don’t need a center fielder—I need another second baseman.”
One thing I will say is, the fans enjoy an 11-9 game more than one that ends 1-0. They want to see the ball flying around and the runners scurrying every which way. A pitchers’ duel may be more interesting to play in, but not for the folks who shove quarters at the ticket-sellers.
Oh—I did find out how come the Industries had bees on their sleeves. To the Mormons, the bee stands for industry. The Salt Lake City PCL team was called the Bees, as a matter of fact.
We got the same kind of introduction and the same kind of big hand at the start of the game as we had in Grand Junction. One of the Industries said to me, “We were lucky to get out when we did, but I wish we’d been playing against you in the finals.”
“I know what you mean. You always want to do as well as you can,” I answered. He nodded.
When the Industries ran out to take the field, the crowd cheered them even louder than it had for us. Well, they were the town team, so that was all right. Getting hands on the road felt funny anyhow.
And the game was … what I thought it would be as soon as I got a look at that silly center field. Ordinary fly balls zoomed over the fence. When they didn’t go over it, they banged off it. Wes hadn’t been kidding about wanting a second baseman in center. The Industries’ shortstop ran out and got a ball that caromed back over the left fielder’s head. He grabbed it so fast, Eddie had to jam on the brakes and scamper back to first. The short fences gave bases, but sometimes they took them away, too.
Never a dull moment out there, and that’s an understatement. I could state some other things, but I won’t. When the smoke cleared away and the dust finally settled, we ended up on top, 13-10. Not a tidy way to win a ballgame, but you take what you can get.
“Beat ’em by a field goal,” I said to Eddie when we went in after the last out.
“I wouldn’t have minded a football helmet today,” he said. “All those balls coming and going … I thought I was in the middle of a shooting gallery.” He ducked, as though another line drive whizzed past him.
“Scary out there,” I agreed.
Some of the Industries came over and told us
what a good game it was. Mormons are polite and friendly. They work hard at it. It gets annoying every once in a while, but only every once in a while.
I nodded to the guy who’d talked to me before we played. “This park must drive you nuts,” I said.
“Only if you’re a pitcher,” he answered. “To me, it feels like the happy hunting ground.”
“I guess it would.” If I played all my home games in Bonneville Park, I’d start thinking I was a power hitter. That’s the kind of place it was.
We had a hotel in Salt Lake City. One step up from a boarding house, though Harv said it didn’t cost any more. On the way there, we passed two different soup-kitchen lines, one at some government kitchen and one at a Mormon church. They did try hard to fight the mess that had the whole country wrapped up in spider webs. But when there aren’t enough jobs for the people who need ’em, what can you do? Keep folks from starving—that’s about it.
The main way the hotel was different from a boarding house was, the rooms had a bathroom with a toilet and tub. We didn’t need to go down to the end of the hall to clean up. I liked that. I wished we’d live it up more often. If it was the same price, why not? But most of the time it wasn’t. And Harv was a great man for tossing nickels around like manhole covers.
That was a terrific way for a fella who ran a semipro team to be. The guys who played on the team? Maybe they didn’t enjoy it quite so much.
* * *
After we went over and up to Salt Lake City, we went partway back down to Provo. It’s about fifty miles south of the bigger city. Would’ve been better if we could’ve played there before we went up to Salt Lake, but it didn’t work out like that. Harv was still untangling the knots the Great Zombie Riots tied in our travel plans.
Provo’s the home of BYU, the Mormons’ college. There’s a big Y on a mountain east of town that the students whitewash every year. Nobody on the bus got real excited when Harv told us about it, though. I don’t think any of us had taken college classes. Some of us went to high school, but I don’t think many came away with a sheepskin.
There was more to Provo than the college. We played the Timps at Timpanogos Park. They belonged to the Utah Industrial League. I expect the name of the ballpark gave them their own handle. It was a fine place to play in, especially for a town that never had a pro team. The stands held 2,500, maybe 3,000 people. The outfield was a lot bigger than the one at Bonneville Park. That would warm the cockles of Fidgety Frank’s heart.
And Timpanogos Park—the ballyard—was set smack in the middle of Sowiette Park, with trees and grass and tennis courts and a swimming pool and I don’t know what all. Nice place to go on a hot summer afternoon. You could sit in the shade of the trees and enjoy a picnic. Or you could come to Timpanogos Park, set down half a dollar, and bake your brains out in the bleachers. Plenty of people did. If it wasn’t a sellout, it came close.
The Provo Timps were like the Industries—like most of the teams in the Utah Industrial League. Some of their players worked in town. Some were pros who hadn’t wanted to move away when the Utah–Idaho League folded: found work they liked, had a wife or girl close by, or came from around there and didn’t feel like pulling up stakes. They played for the Timps to keep their hand in and to help keep the wolf away from the door.
Their pitcher, a lefty, had gray streaks in his sandy hair. He wouldn’t beat himself—we’d have to do it to him. The whole team was like that. They knew what they were doing. Maybe the Crawdads could have rattled them with speed, the way they rattled the Industries in Denver. We didn’t have that kind of speed ourselves, though. We had to play our game and hope we came out on top.
I did notice that their pitcher fell off the mound toward the third-base line more than some. So when I led off the top of the third, I pushed a bunt to the first-base side. As soon as it got past the mound, I knew I had a hit. Their second baseman picked it up and hung on to it.
A single and a sacrifice fly brought me home. “Yeah, Snake!” Harv whacked me on the behind when I came back to the dugout. “That bunting drives ’em bonkers. They aren’t looking for it, and you fatten up your batting average.”
“It needs some fattening up.” I was just about good enough to play for the House of Daniel. Harv hadn’t gone beating the bushes to flush out another center fielder. But he hadn’t moved me up from eighth in the order, either. I didn’t scare anybody with a bat in my hands. I could hurt people: I was fast, I knew how to bunt, and I could hit some. Scare ’em? Nope. That was a different kettle of crabs.
Then the Timps got a couple of runs. We tied it up, and it stayed tied at two into the ninth. About as different a game from the one at Bonneville Park the day before as you could imagine.
We had a guy on third with one out—a double and a long fly to right to move him along a base—when I came up. The Timps brought all their infielders in tight. Their third baseman was practically in my lap. He’d already seen that I could drop one down, and he didn’t want me squeezing in the lead run.
More than one way to skin a cat, though. First pitch, I shortened up as if I was gonna bunt, then let it go by for a ball. That pulled their third baseman and first baseman in another half a step. I shortened up again on the next pitch, but instead of bunting I chopped down on the ball, hard. The bouncer went over the third baseman’s head and out into left. The run scored.
“Butcher boy!” Harv yelled from the dugout. “Didn’t know you had that in your bag of tricks!” I grinned over at him.
“Smart poke,” the Timps’ first baseman said when I took my lead. A second later, he added, “Dammit.”
Their pitcher was wearing down. Two more singles brought me home. Fidgety Frank went out for the bottom of the ninth with a two-run lead. When he could smell a win like that, nobody was tougher. He set the Timps down in order. We had ourselves another one.
The crowd applauded us as we came off the field. Yes, Mormons are polite people. The Timps’ pitcher came over to me. He already had a towel soaked in water and ammonia around his neck to help him cool off. “You oughta be against the law,” he said. “Wasn’t for you, we woulda won.”
“You play with nine,” I said. “You need all of ’em.” I guess I sounded modest. But I meant it. Baseball’s a team game. If Frank hadn’t pitched well, if we hadn’t made the plays with the leather, if there hadn’t been a man on third for me to bring in … If, if, if. We would’ve been a different team then, and it would’ve been a different ballgame.
“Well, I hope they’re paying you what you’re worth,” he said.
“Hey, Harv!” I sang out. “This guy says you oughta give me a raise.”
Harv looked over to make sure I wasn’t talking about anybody from the House of Daniel. When he saw who was standing next to me, he said, “Sure—long as it comes out of his pocket.”
“See ya,” the Timps’ pitcher said, and walked away quick. We all laughed.
I wasn’t really grousing about what Harv gave me, and he knew it darn well. I had more cash in my grouch bag than I’d ever had in my life before. Part of that was because I was getting paid more regularly than I ever had. And part of it was because I didn’t have much to spend my money on. I still steered clear of the card games. If you know you’re a sucker, that’s the best thing you can do.
So I’d shell out for suppers and breakfasts and snacks. Now and then, I’d buy a paper or a magazine to read on the bus and make time go by. But that was about it. I hadn’t visited a sporting house even once, the way some of the guys did now and then. Like I’ve said, if I end up with a girl, I want it to be on account of she likes me. Plenty of men don’t care, or there wouldn’t be any sporting houses. Hey, when I get horny enough, I don’t care so much, either.
Sometimes after a game, the team you played doesn’t want anything to do with you and you don’t want anything to do with them, either. Sometimes you go out to supper with them and hoist a few. We went out to supper with the Timps. They were nice folks. We ate at a place with pot
roast, meatloaf, fried chicken, that kind of thing. I had the chicken. It was fine—I’ve eaten plenty worse.
We told more stories about the Great Zombie Riots. Or rather, we were starting to tell the same stories over and over. One of the Timps said, “We don’t have many zombies in Utah. They aren’t against the law, but only gentiles use ’em here. If we do it, we get disfellowshipped.”
That took some straightening out. When he said gentiles, he meant any people who weren’t Mormons. Even the old Jew who ran the Enid pawnshop counted for a gentile in Provo. And being disfellowshipped was the last step before you got tossed out of their church.
“Do some folks care more about money than about church rules?” Wes asked. I wondered the same thing, but he came out with the question.
The Timp didn’t look happy. Neither did his teammates. “It happens,” he said after a pause. “Not too often, but it does. We’ve got greedy people, too.” They were human beings just like the rest of us. Not a great big surprise, I guess.
(XVI)
We went through Salt Lake City again, this time on the way north to Ogden. “Yes, I know it ain’t the smooth way to do things,” Harv said, sounding put-upon. “I had it set up so we’d play Provo–Salt Lake–Ogden till the zombie riots knocked things sideways. Then the Timps had a game set for a day when the Industries were free, so we’ll put some more miles on the bus, that’s all.”
Ogden is bigger than Provo, smaller than Salt Lake City. It has long blocks and wide streets running north-south and east-west, same as they do. The mountains spring up off to the east; the Great Salt Lake is fifteen miles or so off to the west. That stretch between the mountains and the Great Salt Lake, that’s where most of the people in Utah live. It’s pretty enough and then some. Mountains make a horizon interesting, don’t they? Back in Enid, you could see every which way as far as things ran. Not like that in Utah, I found out.
The House of Daniel Page 27
