Kid Comes Back

by John R. Tunis

  The crowd rose, stretching to peer down, anxious to discover the extent of the disaster. The stretcher came out, and he was laid on it carefully and taken away. The stands rose as he went past; there were some scattered handclaps which died away. Alan Whitehouse ran to Shiells’ spot at third.

  “Whitehouse, No. 6, for Shiells, No. 18, at third.” Now Eddie was really upset. On the 2 and 2 pitch he tried to sneak in a fast one. It was the wrong moment. The batter out-guessed him, and promptly lined it over the fence into Bedford Avenue. Three runs to the bad, and their star third sacker out of the game. While over in Chicago, as the scoreboard showed, the rampaging Redbirds were slaughtering the Cubs in the first game of their double-header, drawing closer and closer to the leaders in that hectic finish. Three runs; three runs to the bad and Shiells out, perhaps for good. The crowd was rocked. “We don’t lose to the Phillies; why, it isn’t possible!” “We don’t lose to those icemen.”

  Spencer, for Philadelphia, was at his best when he had to be. Working coolly and efficiently behind that 3–0 lead, he throttled the anxious Brooks at every turn, forcing Bob Russell to hit into a double-play with two on and one out in the third. In the fifth, after Lester Young had spanked a triple and Paul Roth sent him home with a long fly to deep center, Roy and Spike both singled, but the Philadelphia pitcher put the brakes on the rally by making Al Whitehouse and Bob pop up weakly to the infield.

  Spike masterminded all over the place. In the last of the fifth he removed Eddie for a pinch-hitter; in the seventh he took out Mike Mehaffey and replaced him for another pinch-hitter. He ordered his men about the diamond, tried hit-and-runs to squeeze in a couple of scores. In the ninth the Brooks staged one of those typical last-minute surges and came within an inch of winning. With one down and men on first and third, and the stands in a frenzy all over the park, Swanny brought a roar of delight as he belted a liner at the box which was really hit. The roar began... and died away.

  The ball struck the pitcher on the ankle, caromed off into the hands of the shortstop, and a rapid double-play snuffed out the last chance of the fighting Dodgers. Back in the clubhouse there was gloom.

  “Hey there, give me another cold compress.” “And out in Chicago, folks, those unstoppable Cards, after taking the first game, are cutting down the Cubs’ lead in the second. And, folks, what a ballclub those Cards are! They just won’t stay down. At the end of four innings, it is Chicago 4, St. Louis 3.” “Hey there, Doc! How’s Frank? He is?” “And now, folks, they musta got word about the game in Brooklyn, because those Cards really broke loose in the sixth.” “Is he hurt much, Doc?” “Losing to those hillbillies! Cripes, what luck!” “That-there Stubblebeard calls hisself an ump.” “How the Cards stand in the nightcap?” “Shiells out for good? He is?” “And, folks, in the eighth the Cards put the clincher on it. Homer Slawson plunked one over the fence with three men aboard, followed by Conlin, who... and that about ties up the pennant race.” “Hey there, doctor, can you tell me how bad he’s hurt?”

  CHAPTER 26

  “WHO, ME? ME take over the hot corner?”

  “The hot corner! The hot corner! What’s hot about it?” There was a trace of annoyance and more than a touch of fatigue in Spike’s tones. “Old Grouchy used to say a third baseman stood in the shade and handled one chance all afternoon.”

  “Yeah, I know, I understand. It isn’t that, Skipper. It’s... well, I just couldn’t, that’s all.”

  Some players you can be tough with. Some players like Lester Young can be handled rough; you merely tell them where they get off. Roy Tucker was different. “Why not, Roy?” What on earth is biting the guy, anyhow? It was the first time Spike had ever asked something of the Kid from Tomkinsville and been turned down.

  “Well, Spike, most probably you wouldn’t understand. It’s hard to explain.” Why should he understand? It’s like trying to tell folks about war; they listen and say yes at the right moment, but they haven’t been through it themselves and they just can’t realize what it’s all about. “I couldn’t manage at third base right now. I’d be saying how-do-you-do to the fast ones.”

  “What makes you think so, Roy?”

  “I know it, Spike. See here now, I’m as quick on my feet as ever this season, when I get started. I can run all right, once I get under way. But you must have noticed I’m slow starting. I’m... well, I haven’t got my confidence back yet; I can’t get going fast; I can’t jump in either direction the way I usta. I’m all right, but I’m not hauling in those three baggers like the old days. That’ll come in time, that’ll come as my back gets stronger and I get my confidence again, only it won’t come right away. And my back isn’t O.K. yet. I don’t feel I can take chances on it. I’m not able to do things I’ll find easy next year when it’s stronger. One twist or a sudden strain, and bang! There she goes! Twists and starts, that’s about all third base is, Skipper.”

  Spike said nothing. He sat there looking at him closely, seeing a different Roy Tucker. Why, he’s plain frightened. He’s scared to go in there at third. He’s afraid.

  Yet somehow you don’t say those things. You can’t call a fellow a quitter who’s been through what Roy has. Spike was puzzled.

  “Roy, see here, if you don’t take over at third it means bringing someone down from Montreal. You know what’ll happen with a rookie on third base and the Cards coming into town day after tomorrow. Boy, we’ll win the pennant—or lose it—in this series. In the first game, too, most likely. Give us that first game and they’ll never catch us; they can’t. If you take over, and Al Whitehouse goes to center, we’re really set. He’s a guy who may unload one into the bleachers any time. With Al in your spot, we’ll go places. Otherwise...”

  There was a long silence. He’s plain scared; he doesn’t dare to take a chance. He even admits it himself. This is sure a new Roy Tucker.

  “I’d like to help out the club, Spike, only not at third base. Any other position, sure. But third, I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t go through what I’ve been through the past year. Next season if you want, when my back is stronger and healed completely, when I’ve got my confidence again. Not this fall, Spike.” All the time Roy was thinking of those sleepless nights, of the agony under the lamp in Florida, of the bars at the head of the bed twisted inward, of the operations and the pain and that gnawing toothache up and down his hip when he had tried to play baseball before he was ready.

  No, he thought, not even for a pennant. I’ll give it everything I’ve got, everything. I’ll crash the fences and stand up there to the dusters and go round the bases with my spikes high. But not that. I won’t take chances on this leg again; that’s one thing I can’t do. I won’t risk going through what I’ve been through the past two years. That’s out. I couldn’t endure that pain. He doesn’t understand, but that’s how it is. I just couldn’t.

  All the while Spike was thinking, too. He’s frightened. He’s a different Roy Tucker. It’s the first time I ever asked him that he didn’t come across, the first time. I don’t get it; I don’t know what’s biting him. Yet when a guy like that scares, there must be a reason for it. Some players, you tell ’em what to do or else. Not this bird. He isn’t Lester Young.

  It was a couple of weary ballclubs that came almost to the end of the journey that warm September afternoon at Ebbets Field. Both dressing rooms were tense spots as the boys got ready for battle. No need for meetings or fight talks. Everyone realized the pennant was at stake in that game, and these teams had met so often during the season and knew each other so well, talking was unnecessary. They knew each other’s pitchers and batters, the pull hitters and the opposite field hitters; who was hard to throw to at the plate because he choked up on his bat; who had the arm to be feared in the field; who was so slow you could play back on the grass and nab him at first; and who was the guy to watch when loose on the sacks. Only one person was an unknown quantity. That was Steve Tracy, the new third baseman brought down by the Dodgers from Montreal. And the Cards were determ
ined to find out about him before the afternoon was finished.

  Inside the Dodger clubhouse that day, only Raz was his usual loquacious self. Notwithstanding the fact that he might have to take an important role that afternoon, he was unconcerned and voluble as ever. Not without purpose, for he was trying his best to amuse his teammates, to keep them from tightening up for the fray ahead.

  “Stubblebeard—everyone hates that mean old fella. When I was with the Pirates before the war, Jake Smith gives it to Stubble plenty. He was always bearing down, making things tough for Jake. Now one day, Jake he’s pitching to Bi Thomas of the Reds, hits him on the back and knocks him down. Bi has quite a temper, so he goes for Jake and they tangle. Well, Stubble’s the plate ump, and o’course, he’s got to put in his ten cents’ worth. So he gets in there trying to separate ’em, and they all roll in the dirt together. Jake sees his chance. Well, be darned if the old chap doesn’t come up with a black eye and a big lump behind his ear, though no one knows yet who give it to him. But he was damaged the worst of the three. Other ump, he comes along. ‘What you doing down there, Stubble?’ he asks. ‘Me?’ says the old man, rubbing that lump behind his ear. ‘Oh, jest intervening.’”

  They grinned feebly to please Raz; but they couldn’t loosen up. Too much hung on it, far too much rode on every ball, hit or caught. Or not caught.

  Outside there was a high sky. No sun shining, but high clouds, making it difficult for players to sight the ball. The Dodgers got to the Card southpaw for two runs in the first, when Roy, at his best in the clutch as usual, belted one down the foul line inside fair territory. Swanny and Lester scored to put the Brooks in the lead. Razzle, always poison for the Cards, held them in check. His fast ball was alive, his curve ball had sharper bends than a pretzel. He loved it, the capacity crowd, the shouts and cheers, the importance of the moment as he mowed the Redbirds down for the first three innings. He might indeed have completed the game in safety but for his infernal vanity.

  With two down in the last of the third he managed by desperate racing to beat out an infield roller in a tight race for the bag with the first baseman, a sprint that left him gasping and puffing. Swanny promptly belted the ball on a clothesline to right, and Raz set forth. With a two-run lead there was no necessity to take any chances. The big hurler, however, fancied himself as a baserunner, and tore for third like a frightened fawn. Rounding second, he dashed for the scoring post, sliding into the bag through a hurricane of dust and dirt with all the grace of a water buffalo on the loose.

  Smart baserunners seldom took any chances on Tommy Conlin’s arm in right field, and a faster and less clumsy man on the sacks than Raz Nugent would have been nipped by the perfect throw that waited for him as he roared into third. Being the final out of the inning, he picked himself up, shook his head, dusted off his pants, and walked slowly across to the mound. Perhaps five minutes’ rest, maybe only a couple of minutes sprawled out on the bench, would have given him back his wind and saved him. But he was tired from his exertion. The Cards knew it. This was their opportunity, and being smart ballplayers they immediately took it.

  From his spot in center, Roy saw the whole drama. The first batter laid one down, a perfect dragged bunt on the grass equidistant from Razzle and the foul line. The pitcher lumbered across as young Tracy came charging in from third. Jocko called to Tracy to take it, but Raz half bent over and made a kind of stab at it. Then, seeing he couldn’t reach the ball, he straightened up. They both stood watching it roll past.

  That’s bad, thought Roy. Oh, that’s awful bad! That was young Tracy’s ball; Raz shouldn’t have tried to handle it. That wasn’t the kid’s fault, but it’s bad. It will upset him right at this moment. And we better watch this man coming up now, we better watch him carefully; he’s a mean man in a tight place.

  All three outfielders shifted toward left field. Mickey Madden was a right hand batter, able to hit behind the runner, equally good at laying it down or pasting the ball past third. Roy noticed Razzle was trying hard to keep the ball so he couldn’t bunt, but on the third pitch the big man lost control and came in low across the outside corner. Madden immediately put the wood to it and dragged the ball slowly down the third base line, a twisting, teasing roller, the hardest sort of a ball to handle.

  The whole pattern of the field shifted before Roy’s anxious gaze as he raced in toward second to back up a possible throw. He could see the runners digging in on the basepaths, and Raz’s broad back, his legs wide apart on the mound, and young Tracy tearing in toward the ball. And above the noise and excitement, Jocko Klein’s voice came to him:

  “First... first... first...”

  It was one of those plays where you do or you don’t, where the fielder has to grab the ball with his bare hand and let go underhand without a moment’s hesitation. Only a great third sacker could have handled it, and Steve Tracy was merely a rookie from Montreal thrown into the toughest kind of a baseball situation. Roy knew immediately that he would mess the play up, that he would fail to get the ball away cleanly. The boy snatched at it, reached for it, juggled it nervously. Actually he never even tried the throw at all.

  The crowd roared, and the Redbirds hugged the sacks, and their coaches danced up and down behind first and third. The battle was on. Actually there were two battles that afternoon at Ebbets Field; the one between the Dodgers and the Cards that the fans all saw, and the one they didn’t see—the battle Roy Tucker was fighting with himself. All his reason, his memory, his intelligence prevented him from taking over third base. But his instinct fought him every second. His instinct told him he was being a spectator when he should have been a competitor helping out his club in that hot spot in the infield.

  Big Tommy Conlin lumbered up to the plate, an aggressive hitter facing a panting, worried man in the box. The batter took one, fouled off another, looked calmly at the third that was bad, and then teed off on the next pitch. It was a wicked liner, low and at the third baseman’s ankles, a bit to his right so he had to reach. It was coming toward him, it was at him, it was through. It was rolling and bouncing and sizzling through the grass toward Paul Roth in left field.

  Roy raced across but Paul got there first, with a perfect stop and a peg to third, a peg calculated to hold the runner on the bag. But the rookie was upset now and nervous. He was all thumbs, and the ball got away from him. Just a few feet out on the grass it rolled, out by the Cardinal coaching box, and the dancing St. Louis coach, hands in the air. Just a few feet it rolled, but enough. Like a shot the baserunner was off and away for home.

  On the bag stood the bewildered third baseman. His head turned, now this way, now that, glancing hastily around, searching for the ball.

  “Behind you!”

  “Behind!”

  “Behind you!”

  Spike yelled. Jocko shouted. Swanny shrieked and Roy called out.

  By the time Tracy recovered it, one run was over and the other runner was on third, while the batter was sliding desperately into second base. The Cards were on the warpath again, fighting back, taking chances and coming through as they had done all summer long.

  Roy could stand the agony no more. Instinct triumphed over intelligence. Slowly he walked through the tumult toward Spike Russell. Forgotten were the sleepless nights and the days of pain, the bent bars at the head of the bed, the suffering and the agony and the uncertainty whether he would ever play baseball again. Or even walk once more. All he could see was the diamond before his gaze, and the triumphant Redbirds on the sacks, and the one run over and the pennant going from their grasp.

  So he came slowly into the infield, instinct conquering reason, the instinct of a competitor forcing him over to his manager at short. He said nothing, he merely reached out and put one hand on his skipper’s arm as he went by. Then he stepped in at third, and Jocko, who understood, rolled the ball silently into the dirt at his feet. He scooped it up and laced it over to first.

  “Tucker, No. 34, now playing third base for Brooklyn. Whitehouse,
No. 6, in center field.”

  CHAPTER 27

  THERE WAS A CONSULTATION around the box. Spike and Jocko and Raz and Roy stood together. Then a figure sauntered across from the bullpen, and once more the loudspeaker boomed out:

  “Hathaway, No. 9, now pitching for Brooklyn.” The score was 2–1, there were runners on second and third, and no one down. A tough spot for a pitcher. But Bonesey was as cold as a landlord’s heart. He took plenty of time, struck out the first batter, and got the second on a fly to Whitehouse, although the man from third scored to even things at 2–2. On the hit-and-run, the next batter dropped a lucky blooper into right which brought in another tally, and when the inning was over the Cards were leading, 3–2.

  This was the score up to the end of the fifth. But the Dodgers had been coming from behind all season; this was nothing new, just a bit harder because so much hung on it. They went to the woodpile with determination; they grasped their bats and stepped in to get that run back. Swanny racked it up, lining one down the right foul line, only great fielding holding him to a single. Feet wide apart, arms outstretched, he danced off the base while the stands erupted. As usual, their favorites were refusing to stay down for the count.

  Lester, his batting eye back, promptly rifled a single through the hole between short and third. Pandemonium reigned as Roy jammed on the batter’s cap and stepped to the plate. The crowd above rocked, roared, stamped, shrieked. They knew he wouldn’t fail them. Two on, none out, an automatic warm-up situation. Out in right under the fence the Cardinal bullpen went furiously into action.

  The first ball was wide. A shout rose, half anger, half delight. But the Redbirds were taking no chances. They weren’t having any of Roy Tucker. There it goes, ball four! Roy slung away his bat, trotted to first, exchanging caps with Red Cassidy in the coaching box. The ballgame rode on a single pitch.

  The canny lefthander in the box worked on Spike Russell, who was batting fourth, with everything he had: all his skill, all his control, all his brains. His side-arm curve made the batter step into the ball, made him reach out clumsily. Few hitters ever did much with Sam Chase’s curves. But on the full count, Spike managed to lace an inside pitch on a line into the hole between center and right, going fast, not dropping, either. Vic Fleming, the great Cardinal speedster in center, came burning over like an express train, reached out, and speared the liner waist high with his gloved hand. His throw-in was at second before Lester could turn and backtrack to safety. Then Roth popped up and the inning ended without any score.