At the Old Ballgame

by Jeff Silverman

  VI

  We went to Boston first, and that crazy bunch goes out and piles up a three-run lead on us in seven innin’s the first day. It was the pitcher’s turn to lead off in the eighth, so up goes Elliott to bat for him. He kisses the first thing they hands him for three bases; and we says, on the bench: “Now we’ll get ’em!”—because, you know, a three-run lead wasn’t nothin’ in Boston.

  “Stay right on the bag!” John hollers to Elliott.

  Mebbe if John hadn’t said nothin’ to him everythin’ would have been all right; but when Perdue starts to pitch the first ball to Tommy, Elliott starts to steal home. He’s out as far as from here to Seattle.

  If I’d been carryin’ a gun I’d of shot him right through the heart. As it was, I thought John’d kill him with a bat, because he was standin’ there with a couple of ’em waitin’ for his turn; but I guess John was too stunned to move. He didn’t even seem to see Elliott when he went to the bench. After I’d cooled off a little I says:

  “Beat it and get into your clothes before John comes in. Then go to the hotel and keep out o’ sight.”

  When I get up in the room afterward, there was Elliott, lookin’ as innocent and happy as though he’d won fifty bucks with a pair o’ treys.

  “I thought you might of killed yourself,” I says.

  “What for?” he says.

  “For that swell play you made,” says I.

  “What was the matter with the play?” ast Elliott, surprised. “It was all right when I done it in St. Louis.”

  “Yes,” I says; “but they was two out in St. Louis and we wasn’t no three runs behind.”

  “Well,” he says, “if it was all right in St. Louis I don’t see why it was wrong here.”

  “It’s a diff’rent climate here,” I says, too disgusted to argue with him.

  “I wonder if they’d let me sing in this climate?” says Elliott. “No,” I says. “Don’t sing in this hotel, because we don’t want to get fired out o’ here—the eats is too good.”

  “All right,” he says. “I won’t sing.” But when I starts down to supper he says: “I’m li’ble to do somethin’ worse’n sing.”

  He didn’t show up in the dinin’ room and John went to the boxin’ show after supper; so it looked like him and Elliott wouldn’t run into each other till the murder had left John’s heart. I was glad o’ that—because a Mass’chusetts jury might not consider it justifiable hommercide if one guy croaked another for givin’ the Boston club a game.

  I went down to the corner and had a couple o’ beers; and then I came straight back, intendin’ to hit the hay. The elevator boy had went for a drink or somethin’, and they was two old ladies already waitin’ in the car when I stepped in. Right along after me comes Elliott.

  “Where’s the boy that’s supposed to run this car?” he says. I told him the boy’d be right back; but he says: “I can’t wait. I’m much too sleepy.”

  And before I could stop him he’d slammed the door and him and I and the poor old ladies was shootin’ up.

  “Let us off at the third floor, please!” says one o’ the ladies, her voice kind o’ shakin’.

  “Sorry, madam,” says the bug; “but this is a express and we don’t stop at no third floor.”

  I grabbed his arm and tried to get him away from the machinery; but he was as strong as a ox and he throwed me agin the side o’ the car like I was a baby. We went to the top faster’n I ever rode in an elevator before. And then we shot down to the bottom, hittin’ the bumper down there so hard I thought we’d be smashed to splinters.

  The lades was too scared to make a sound durin’ the first trip; but while we was goin’ up and down the second time—even faster’n the first—they began to scream. I was hollerin’ my head off at him to quit and he was makin’ more noise than the three of us—pretendin’ he was the locomotive and the whole crew o’ the train.

  Don’t never ask me how many times we went up and down! The women fainted on the third trip and I guess I was about as near it as I’ll ever get. The elevator boy and the bellhops and the waiters and the night clerk and everybody was jumpin’ round the lobby screamin’; but no one seemed to know how to stop us.

  Finally—on about the tenth trip, I guess—he slowed down and stopped at the fifth floor, where we was roomin’. He opened the door and beat it for the room while I, though I was tremblin’ like a leaf, run the car down to the bottom.

  The night clerk knowed me pretty well and knowed I wouldn’t do nothin’ like that; so him and I didn’t argue, but just got to work together to bring the old women to. While we was doin’ that Elliott must of run down the stairs and slipped out o’ the hotel, because when they sent the officers up to the room after him he’d blowed.

  They was goin’ to fire the club out; but Charlie had a good stand-in with Amos, the proprietor, and he fixed it up to let us stay—providin’ Elliott kep’ away. The bug didn’t show up at the ball park next day and we didn’t see no more of him till we got on the rattler for New York. Charlie and John both bawled him, but they give him a berth—an upper—and we pulled into the Grand Central Station without him havin’ made no effort to wreck the train.

  VII

  I’d studied the thing pretty careful, but hadn’t come to no conclusion. I was sure he wasn’t no stew, because none o’ the boys had ever saw him even take a glass o’ beer, and I couldn’t never detect the odor o’ booze on him. And if he’d been a dope I’d of knew about it—roomin with him.

  There wouldn’t of been no mystery about it if he’d been a left-hand pitcher—but he wasn’t. He wasn’t nothin’ but a whale of a hitter and he throwed with his right arm. He hit lefthanded, o’ course; but so did Saier and Brid and Schulte and me, and John himself; and none of us was violent. I guessed he must have been just a plain nut and li’ble to break out at any time.

  They was a letter waitin’ for him at New York, and I took it, intendin’ to give it to him at the park, because I didn’t think they’d let him room at the hotel; but after breakfast he come up to the room, with his suitcase. It seems he’d promised John and Charlie to be good, and made it so strong they b’lieved him.

  I give him his letter, which was addressed in a girl’s writin’ and come from Muskegon.

  “From the girl?” I says.

  “Yes,” he says; and, without openin’ it, he tore it up and throwed it out the window.

  “Had a quarrel?” I ast.

  “No, no,” he says; “but she can’t tell me nothin’ I don’t know already. Girls always writes the same junk. I got one from her in Pittsburgh, but I didn’t read it.”

  “I guess you ain’t so stuck on her,” I says.

  He swells up and says:

  “Of course I’m stuck on her! If I wasn’t, do you think I’d be goin’ round with this bunch and gettin’ insulted all the time? I’m stickin’ here because o’ that series dough, so’s I can get hooked.”

  “Do you think you’d settle down if you was married?” I ast him.

  “Settle down?” he says. “Sure, I’d settle down. I’d be so happy that I wouldn’t have to look for no excitement.”

  Nothin’ special happened that night ’cep’ that he come in the room about one o’clock and woke me up by pickin’ up the foot o’ the bed and dropping it on the floor, sudden-like.

  “Give me a key to the room” he says.

  “You must have had a key,” I says, “or you couldn’t of got in.”

  “That’s right!” he says, and beat it to bed.

  One o’ the reporters must of told Elliott that John had ast for waivers on him and New York had refused to waive, because next mornin’ he come to me with that dope.

  “New York’s goin’ to win this pennant!” he says.

  “Well,” I says, “they will if some one else don’t. But what of it?”

  “I’m go
in’ to play with New York,” he says, “so’s I can get the World Series dough.”

  “How you goin’ to get away from this club?” I ast.

  “Just watch me!” he says. “I’ll be with New York before this series is over.”

  Well, the way he goes after the job was original, anyway. Rube’d had one of his good days the day before and we’d got a trimmin’; but this second day the score was tied up at two runs apiece in the tenth, and Big Jeff’d been wabblin’ for two or three innin’s.

  Well, he walks Saier and me, with one out, and Mac sends for Marty, who was warmed up and ready. John sticks Elliott in in Brid’s place and the bug pulls one into the right-field stand.

  It’s a cinch McGraw thinks well of him then, and might of went after him if he hadn’t went crazy the next afternoon. We’re tied up in the ninth and Matty’s workin’. John sends Elliott up with the bases choked; but he doesn’t go right up to the plate. He walks over to their bench and calls McGraw out. Mac tells us about it afterward.

  “I can bust up this game right here!” says Elliott.

  “Go ahead,” says Mac; “but be careful he don’t whiff you.”

  Then the bug pulls it.

  “If I whiff,” he says, “will you get me on your club?”

  “Sure!” says Mac, just as anybody would.

  By this time Bill Koem was hollerin’ about the delay; so up goes Elliott and give the worst burlesque on tryin’ to hit that you ever see. Matty throws one a mile outside and high, and the bug swings like it was right over the heart. Then Matty throws one at him and he ducks out o’ the way—but swings just the same. Matty must have been wise by this time, for he pitches one so far outside that the Chief almost has to go to the coacher’s box after it. Elliot takes his third healthy and runs through the field down to the clubhouse.

  We got beat in the eleventh; and when we went in to dress he has his street clothes on. Soon as he seen John comin’ he says: “I got to see McGraw!” And he beat it.

  John was goin’ to the fights that night; but before he leaves the hotel he had waivers on Elliott from everybody and had sold him to Atlanta.

  “And,” says John, “I don’t care if they pay for him or not.”

  My roomy blows in about nine and got the letter from John out of his box. He was goin’ to tear it up, but I told him they was news in it. He opens it and reads where he’s sold. I was still sore at him; so I says:

  “Thought you was goin’ to get on the New York club?”

  “No,” he says. “I got turned down cold. McGraw says he wouldn’t have me in his club. He says he’d had Charlie Faust—and that was enough for him.”

  He had a kind o’ crazy look in his eyes; so when he starts up to the room I follows him.

  “What are you goin’ to do now?” I says.

  “I’m goin’ to sell this ticket to Atlanta,” he says, “and go back to Muskegon, where I belong.”

  “I’ll help you pack,” I says.

  “No,” says the bug. “I come into this league with this suit o’ clothes and a collar. They can have the rest of it.” Then he sits down on the bed and begins to cry like a baby. “No series dough for me,” he blubbers,” and no weddin’ bells! My girl’ll die when she hears about it!”

  Of course that made me feel kind o’ rotten, and I says:

  “Brace up, boy! The best thing you can do is go to Atlanta and try hard. You’ll be up here again next year.”

  “You can’t tell me where to go!” he says, and he wasn’t cryin’ no more. “I’ll go where I please—and I’m li’ble to take you with me.”

  I didn’t want no argument, so I kep’ still. Pretty soon he goes up to the lookin’ glass and stares at himself for five minutes. Then, all of a sudden, he hauls off and takes a wallop at his reflection in the glass. Naturally he smashed the glass all to pieces and he cut his hand somethin’ awful.

  Without lookin’ at it he came over to me and says: “Well, good-by, sport!”—and holds out his other hand to shake. When I starts to shake hands with him he smears his bloody hand all over my map. Then he laughed like a wild man and run out o’ the room and out o’ the hotel.

  VIII

  Well, boys, my sleep was broke up for the rest o’ the season. It might have been because I was used to sleepin’ in all kinds o’ racket and excitement, and couldn’t stand for the quiet after he’d went—or it might of been because I kep’ thinkin’ about him and feelin’ sorry for him.

  I of’en wondered if he’d settle down and be somethin’ if he could get married; and finally I got to b’lievin’ he would. So when we was dividin’ the city series dough I was thinkin’ of him and the girl. Our share o’ the money—the losers’, as usual—was twelve thousand seven hundred sixty bucks or somethin’ like that. They was twenty-one of us and that meant six hundred seven bucks apiece. We was just goin’ to cut it up that way when I says:

  “Why not give a divvy to poor old Elliott?”

  About fifteen of ’em at once told me that I was crazy. You see, when he got canned he owed everybody in the club. I guess he’d stuck me for the most—about seventy bucks—but I didn’t care nothin’ about that. I knowed he hadn’t never reported to Atlanta, and I thought he was prob’ly busted and a bunch o’ money might make things all right for him and the other songbird.

  I made quite a speech to the fellers, tellin’ ’em how he’d cried when he left us and how his heart’d been set on gettin’ married on the series dough. I made it so strong that they finally fell for it. Our shares was cut to five hundred eighty apiece, and John sent him a check for a full share.

  For a while I was kind o’ worried about what I’d did. I didn’t know if I was doin’ right by the girl to give him the chance to marry her.

  He’d told me she was stuck on him, and that’s the only excuse I had for tryin’ to fix it up between ’em; but, b’lieve me, if she was my sister or a friend o’ mine I’d just as soon of had her manage the Cincinnati Club as marry that bird. I though to myself:

  “If she’s all right she’ll take acid in a month—and it’ll be my fault, but if she’s really stuck on him they must be somethin’ wrong with her too, so what’s the diff’rence?”

  Then along comes this letter that I told you about. It’s from some friend of his up there—and they’s a note from him. I’ll read ’em to you and then I got to beat it for the station:

  Dear Sir:

  They have got poor Elliott locked up and they are goin’ to take him to the asylum at Kalamazoo. He thanks you for the check, and we will use the money to see that he is made comf’table.

  When the poor boy came back here he found that his girl was married to Joe Bishop, who runs a soda fountain. She had wrote to him about it, but he did not read her letters. The news drove him crazy—poor boy—and he went to the place where they was livin’ with a baseball bat and very near killed ’em both. Then he marched down the street singin’ ‘Silver Threads Among the Gold’ at the top of his voice. They was goin’ to send him to prison for assault with intent to kill, but the jury decided he was crazy.

  He wants to thank you again for the money.

  Yours truly,

  Jim—

  I can’t make out his last name—but it don’t make no diff’rence. Now I’ll read you his note:

  Old Roomy:

  I was at bat twice and made two hits; but I guess I did not meet ’em square. They tell me they are both alive yet, which I did not mean ’em to be. I hope they got good curve-ball pitchers where I am goin’. I sure can bust them curves—can’t I, sport?

  Yours,

  B. Elliott.

  P.S.—The B stands for Buster.

  That’s all of it, fellers; and you can see I had some excuse for not hittin’. You can also see why I ain’t never goin’ to room with no bug again—not for John or nobody else!

  The L
ongest Game

  Ralph D. Blanpied

  The Robins and the Braves celebrated May Day in this ordinarily peaceful city by staging a prolonged, heartbreaking struggle for twenty-six innings at Braves Field and bombing to bits all major-league records for duration of hostilities. When darkness drew its mantle over the scene, both teams were still on their feet, interlocked in a death clutch and each praying for just one more inning in which to get in the knockout blow.

  As far as results in the chase for the pennant go the game was without effect, for the final score was 1 to 1. In the matter of thrills, however, the oldest living man can remember nothing like it, nor can he find anything in his granddad’s diary worthy of comparison. Heart disease was the mildest complaint that grasped the spectators as they watched inning after inning slip away and the row of ciphers on the scoreboard began to slide over the fence and reach out into the Fenway.

  Nervous prostration threatened to engulf the stands as the twentieth inning passed away in the scoreless routine and word went out from the knowing fans to those of inferior baseball erudition that the National League record was twenty-two innings, the Robins having beaten the Pirates by 6 to 5 in a game of that length played in Brooklyn on Aug. 22, 1917.

  The twenty-second inning passed in the history-making clash, and then the twenty-third, with a total result of four more ciphers on the scoreboard and a new National League record.

  Now the old-timers in the stands began to whisper that the big-league record was twenty-four innings, established in an American League game in the Hub on Sept. 1, 1906, on which occasion the Athletics downed the Red Sox by 4 to 1. The Robins and the Braves didn’t care. They didn’t even know it. They simply went along in their sublime ignorance and tied this record, then smashed it, and by way of emphasis tacked on a twenty-sixth session.

  At this stage of the proceedings Umpire McCormick yawned twice and observed that it was nearly bedtime. He remembered that he had an appointment with a succulent beefsteak and became convinced that it was too dark to play ball. Thereupon he called the game.