by Colby Cox
CARNIVAL BASEBALL
Colby Cox
Copyright by Colby Cox 2010
Smashwords Edition
1. Baltimore, 1933
Sarge Safran sat in the corner of the diner and sipped black coffee. He sat alone. His trademark bow tie was crisply centered around his bullish neck and his pork pie hat was within arms length, hanging on the back wall. The waitress shuffled around his brown wingtips, their size fourteen simply too big to remain under his table. They spilled out into her path.
Sarge mumbled an apology her way. He always felt out of place, as if the world and everything in it was shrunken down and he was left the hulking behemoth that lived with the aftermath. The waitress smiled and told him it was not a problem. The southern twang in her voice put him at ease. It made Sarge feel less like a fish out of water and he briefly thought of home. He thought of his father.
Sarge stared through the window as the people of Baltimore passed by, crossing the street, fast-walking to the trolley stop. A small boy with a cap cocked down so low you couldn’t see his eyes hawked the morning paper to anyone within shouting distance. Sarge watched his mouth work.
“Bombers beat the Whispers in extra innings! Read all about it!”
Like most things in life, Sarge found pros and cons to his days spent living out of a suitcase. On the plus side, he did not have to take out the garbage or cut grass like a regular Joe. When on the road, he ate out all the time and dined mostly on steak dinners. Of course, the minuses were things like being away from Delilah for long stints or suddenly waking up in the middle of the night and not remembering the name of the town where he had laid his head.
A loud bang at the window startled him. Coffee slipped out of his cup and spilled into the saucer. Sarge looked up to see a street urchin’s nose pressed against the glass, the kid’s face nothing but dirt smudges and freckles. A cowlick was firmly planted on his greasy head.
“Hey, Sarge! Sarge Safran! Go suck an egg! The Whispers ain’t fit to shovel shit, much less play baseball!”
Sarge leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and chuckled. God bless Baltimore. It was the city that would always be the exception to the rule. Home town fans of the Baltimore Bombers would never let him forget the name of their beloved town, no matter how hard he tried.
Unsatisfied by the cool reaction he received from the Wilmington Whispers head coach, the juvenile went into a tirade of ugly faces. The boy threw cross-eyes and cackled like a chicken as he stuck a finger up his nose. His performance steamed up the glass. Sarge got a good laugh at the personal show and tapped his hands together in a silent clap, an action he remembered from the time he was dragged against his will to the Grand Theater.
An open palm came in view from behind the kid and soundly whacked him upside the head. The blow threw him forward and his forehead clunked loudly against the window pane. The ragamuffin turned into a snapshot of closed eyes, a scrunched nose, and hunched shoulders. With a hard shove-off, the boy’s face quickly disappeared from Sarge’s view and was replaced with the side profile of Mink wearing a pair of shades.
“Damn, kids! That’s the the problem with this godforsaken town. No parenting! Baltimore ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of winos and derelicts, so what else are they gonna spawn but more of the same.”
Seeing and hearing Mink riled up was just as funny as the kid to Sarge, but he crossed his arms and shook his head in mock disgust. Mink was too busy to notice. He watched Sarge’s harasser run down the street all the while yelling at his back and chewing gum at a hundred miles an hour. Mink’s hair fell over his eyes. In one fluid motion, he flipped it back with his right hand and smoothed it over his scalp. He planted a straw derby firmly on his head and ran his thumb and pointer finger over his pencil mustache.
Sarge yelled to be heard through the diner’s window.
“What gives, Mink?”
He saw an opportunity to start ribbing his closest friend and he could not resist.
“Poor kid ain’t got nothin’ and you thump him for a little name-calling. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
Hearing that, Mink slowly swiveled his face towards the window. He dropped his head so his gray eyes were visible behind the darkened spectacles he wore. He chewed on his gum and smiled. Mink paused a few seconds and allowed Sarge to relish the moment. He could tell the big guy was enjoying the show, so he hammed it up on his behalf. He then theatrically tightened the tie knot around his thin neck, let out a cartoonish sigh, and ambled over to the front door of the diner to join his friend inside.
After hanging his derby next to Sarge’s pork pie on the wall, Mink plopped himself in a chair on the opposite side of the table. He removed his small, round sunglasses and stuck them in his blazer pocket. He snapped open a newspaper that had been tucked under his arm and Sarge watched his head go left to right, glancing over the headlines. Mink’s jaw worked his gum furiously and from time to time it would crack so loudly the sound would resonate throughout the room.
“How’d you know to find me here?”
Mink never looked up. He continued to scan the pages of the Baltimore Examiner.
“Well, let’s see. You and I served in the Great War together and have now been coaching and playing baseball since what, 1921? This season makes it over eleven years. Every Sunday morning, no matter what town we are in, you find the closest grease trap to rest your brogues, watch traffic, and drink coffee. I know you better than you know yourself, Tristan.”
Mink looked up at him and smirked when he said his friend’s true, given first name. He was the only member of the Wilmington Whispers that knew Sarge’s secret and Sarge wanted to keep it that way. The now empty coffee cup burst into several shards of ceramic in Sarge’s hand. He kiddingly stared Mink down.
Mink smoothed the paper out and tucked it under his seat.
“OK, OK. Forgive me, brother. I was just joshing you. No need for the rough stuff.”
Mink’s head was on a swivel as he craned his neck in search of their server. He found her seated by the register filing her nails.
“Hey, Sugar. How’s about some more coffee over this way? The big guy needs another cup, too.”
After a few minutes, Sarge was working on a new mug of black and Mink was starting in on a piece of key lime pie.
“Sweet Georgia Brown, that is a mighty fine piece of pie.” Mink said it out loud while he glanced at the waitress so she wouldn’t miss the double meaning.
Sarge was losing patience.
“Mind your manners, you cad, and lets get to it. What’s the status of the team?”
Mink laid his fork down and dabbed at his mustache with a napkin.
“The Doc seems to think that Savoy Special will be ready to play tonight but Wonder Boy is out of the picture. Doc says that he can fix the dents no problem, but he talked about how the bucket of bolt’s reticular something-or-other is out of whack. It amounts to this: the damn thing can’t see.”
Sarge let out a grunt and ran his hand over his stubbly crew cut.
“That ain’t good, Mink. Without that robot playing right field this afternoon, lefties like Hooligan Pete and the rookie McBride are gonna run roughshod on us. They’ ll hit the ball out in the right field corner and run around the bases all day long.”
“I know, Sarge. I asked Doc if he could gear Savoy Special and switch him over from left field to right, but he said no can do. He said it would take him two days, and by that time he said Wonder Boy would be back up and running.”
Mink could see the disappointment on Sarge’s face. He always thought that the head coach took everything way too seriously. He worried too much. Mink tried to lighten the moment.
“Hey, don’t sweat. We’ll stick Biscuit in right and besides, we
got Rube Robinson on the mound today. Guys like Hooligan Pete and McBride will be sitting on their asses in the Baltimore dugout after he strikes them out. No sense of them even bringing bats today.”
Sarge held his coffee cup in both hands and stared out the window. Mink knew better to say anything at times like this, so he went back to his pie and watched women pass the window as he chewed. His gum was stuck to the side of his plate for safe keeping.
Sarge shook his head and cursed two words underneath his breath. They were the two words that changed everything for him those long years ago.
Carnival Ball.
A Brief History of the Game
Little is known about the beginnings of Carnival Baseball. If you listen to most Southern Baptist preachers, they will try to sell you on the idea that it was brought forth from the fires of hell and brimstone by satan himself. That would be only partially true.
The most credible story is that it formed on the backs of traveling circuses, tent shows, and gypsies that floated from town to town, trying to eke out a living on the extra change in folks’ pockets. They were men and women who lived outside of the regular nine-to-five, the people on the fringe of normalcy - fire eaters, snake-oil salesmen, tattoo artists, cult-followers, the Irish, etc. Supposedly, a lot of those circus-type freaks brought with them a passion for America’s pastime and during precious spare moments between performances and work duties, they could be found in empty lots or train yards playing pick up baseball. There were no uniforms or organized teams and they considered themselves lucky if they could scrape together a complete side or had enough gloves to go around. It would be one troupe of oddballs against another who both happened to be working the same areas, blowing off steam.
The way the story goes, the amateur games soon drew more crowds than the carnivals that brought the players there in the first place. A lot of the small farm towns where the acts performed had never experienced honest-to-goodness baseball and they fell for the alternate version lock, stock, and barrel. They loved it.
Capitalists of the time took notice of all the attention the games received and it did not take long before the smell of money caused them to sign players and form teams. Carnival Baseball clubs popped up like ragweed across the south. Places like Walhalla, Vicksburg, Jackson, and Baton Rouge were some of the first to usher in the trend. The “Carnival Fever” (a term coined by Winston Barlow of the Wheeling Wheel Newspaper in 1917) soon spread to the north, taken there by carpet-baggers and exhibitions. Towns like Baltimore, Wilmington, and Albany soon sponsored teams and the game flourished.
Of course, the creation of Carnival Baseball was not all peaches and cream. There were many societal bigotries to overcome. Most fans of the game took no issue with a second baseman shooting lightning bolts out of his eyes, as long as he was a white second baseman shooting lightning bolts out of his eyes. The color line of Carnival Ball was finally crossed by the now-famous pitcher Tyrone “The Man Who Can’t Die” Johnson in a game between the Savannah Plague and the Lancaster Shoo-flies.
During the league’s first official season, the townsfolk of Savannah took issue with their home team being soundly defeated by the visiting Lancaster club courtesy of a black pitcher’s nasty sliders and change-ups. Only hours after the last out, under the cover of darkness, they kidnapped Tyrone Johnson from his hotel room. (It did not help matters that he was found in bed next to the hotel owner’s wife). They then lynched Johnson from the highest oak in town. The good people of Savannah admired their handiwork dangling on the end of a hemp rope for a few moments and all went home thinking that they had ended the debate over allowing blacks to play.
History records indicate that Savannah fans were quite surprised when they sat in the bleachers the next day waiting for the game to begin. They became a little suspicious when they saw Lancaster’s team laughing and grinning from ear to ear during batting practice. It was certainly not the type of behavior they imagined to be gloating over after they had murdered the northern team’s star pitcher.
When the home plate umpire yelled “Play Ball” to start the game, their jaws dropped as they watched the man they hanged, Tyrone Johnson, nonchalantly jog out of the dugout and take the mound. The crowd was eerily silent as Johnson, with fresh rope burns visible around his neck, threw a no-hitter. The Lancaster Shoo-flies won the day, ten to nothing. From that moment on, indians, blacks, catholics, jews, and even irishmen were all welcome to play.
Carnival Baseball soon became as popular as the “other league”, which was the term rabid Carny Ball fans used when referring to the Major Leagues. It was usually said with disdain and accompanied by spitting on the ground. The small ballparks built around the new teams soon boasted appearances from the rich and famous. Coco Chanel was spotted munching a hotdog on the third baseline in Albany. F. Scott Fitzgerald was seen sharing a flask with Hubert “Ghost Man” Fuski in Providence. Rin-Tin-Tin was present in Pittsfield when Duckie Jones crushed “The Grand Slam Heard Round the World” to clinch the first ever Carnival Series title for the Hellions.
With its burgeoning popularity, a scouting system the likes of which had never been seen was created. Men and women were put on team’s payrolls to find the best and the brightest from every corner of the globe. The invention of the airplane was taken to its limits as the quest for players went to remote locations in South America, Africa, and Asia. No one was off limits, as the ever-expanding rules of Carnival Ball allowed players with all sorts of talents, supernatural or otherwise. Although never confirmed, some say that a scout for the Baltimore Bombers was secretly working with Lord Carnavon in 1923 when he located King Tut’s Tomb. Since all attempts to resurrect Tutankhamun in hopes he could play shortstop failed, the scouting records were destroyed. It was one such expedition for talent that brought “Sarge” Safran and Anthony “Mink” Cosgrove into the Carnival League’s fold.
3. Mink, Sarge, and the War
Clyde Decker scouted for the Wilmington Whispers (the Wilmington, Delaware Whispers - not to be confused with the Wilmington Wombats of North Carolina) when he was called to the front office. Decker pulled in talent for the Whispers and at least six of his recruits started for Wilmington over a three year period. He was schooled as an expert in art history, but a special talent of his made him the perfect Carny Ball scout.
Clyde Decker saw people’s auras. Ever since he could remember, he observed colors surround people like mystic fuzz. It was so matter-of-fact to him that as a teenager growing up in Kent County, Delaware, he was somewhat shocked to learn that not everyone possessed the ability. Clyde could just glance at others and determine whether they were sad or happy or worried. He could tell by the shape and size of the color rings if people were compassionate or mean or what type of work ethic they held. He could determine all sorts of things with his power, but more importantly, he learned how to benefit from it.
By the time he was seventeen, Clyde was sweeping up on the east coast underground poker circuit. He made big money betting on boxing matches based on auras and invested it wisely with bankers that had the right colors floating around them. Using his winnings to travel through Europe, Clyde attended the finest art schools in Paris where he learned fluent French. A lady’s man who swore off marriage and the trappings of the normal lifestyle, Clyde kept an apartment in Wilmington and utilized the small city as a jumping point for his travels. Besides, it was only a ninety minute train ride from his mother in Dover.
Clyde Decker quickly became “the man to know” in the circles of Wilmington’s upper echelon. He was handsome, dressed smartly, and was well-versed in art and literature. He was invited to all of the A-list dinners and cocktail parties. It was at one such soiree when he was introduced to Mark DuCane, sole owner of the Whispers Baseball Club and the man whose family owned half of Wilmington.
Not knowing why, Clyde was quickly convinced by DuCane to enter his employ as a scout for the Whispers. It could have been DuCane’s charm but Clyde was not a man easily swayed. Mark offered th
e bachelor a decent, stable salary, but Clyde was doing quite well financially. There was always the adventure of travel, but again, Clyde already lived the life of a well-traveled man. More than likely, Clyde’s handshake deal with DuCane for the scouting position had more to do with the fact that Mark DuCane possessed his own “special talent” that entailed entering people’s minds and swaying them to his point of view. Regardless, Clyde enjoyed the job and the adventures it brought his way.
The scout was given orders from the Whispers front office to check out the potential of three United States soldiers who were currently stationed in France. They were part of a special task force formed after the World War. Clyde was told that his assignment was a personal request by Mark DuCane. He was more than happy to return to France, the only country he loved as much as his own. What Clyde found there when he finally arrived one month later, however, was not what he had been expecting at all.
After a litany of questions from all types of government bureaucrats and an oath of secrecy to anything he observed, Clyde was transported to a town called Cordes-sur-Ciel, a sleepy place near Albi. He would have loved to roam its streets and bask in its beauty, but he was kept under guard his entire stay by American military personnel who refused to speak with him. Clyde was whisked away to a small, hill-top cottage which had been converted into the office of one Captain Robert Astor.
Upon meeting the Captain, Clyde was somewhat relieved. Astor was the first polite U.S. officer he had met and his aura resonated purple, blue, and gold - a good sign. Astor explained to Clyde that he was an old college chum to Mark DuCane and DuCane had promised that he would send his best Carny Ball scout to take a look at Astor’s soldiers. From what Decker surmised, his employer owed Astor a favor thanks to a huge government contract the Captain secured for DuCane’s ammunitions company during the war years.
