Hattie Ever After

July 29, 1919

Dear Leafie,

I write you because I could not worry Perilee with news of a sick child. Ruby’s little Pearl took ill a week or so ago. I wish you’d been there in Santa Clara with your black bag of potions. You would’ve known what to give her to get her back in the pink. Ruby has reported that some small improvement was noted yesterday, for which I am very grateful. Such glad tidings help me walk with a lighter step.

In a sunnier frame of mind than I’d had in days, I stepped out into the newsroom, searching for Ace McCovey, sporting writer for the Chronicle. One of the office boys had found me downstairs the day before to report that Ace needed help with a baseball history question. Though it was to be my day off, I’d said yes. One thing I’d quickly learned was that there are no regular hours for reporters. No time like the present to get used to that notion. My two-week probation was nearly up. And every reporter I’d done research for had been pleased with my efforts. Ned was so certain Mr. Monson would continue the arrangement that he was hosting a dinner for me with Maude and her new beau to mark the occasion. But I’d hung around long enough now to know that it might please Mr. Monson to give me the boot simply because that was what the reporters didn’t want.

I paused a moment, on the edges of the newsroom. That anyone got any work done with all this noise and commotion was nothing short of miraculous. How I loved my small role in this miracle! I fervently believed that one day I would have a larger role. I might never be a Nellie Bly, but wouldn’t it be better to be Hattie Brooks? In daydreams, my writing life was replete with glories.

“Daydreams” was the word for it. I’d already ascertained the kinds of stories a young woman reporter would likely be assigned: “Get a Turban—Don’t Be Dowdy,” or “The Monocle: Fashion Fad?” or “A French Theme Is Planned for Mrs. So-and-So’s Annual Luncheon.”

“Well, you’re the sporting news. Who else should do it?” Mr. Monson switched his damp cigar to the other side of his mouth. “If you don’t want this job, I can hire someone else.”

Ace loosened his loud tie, answering Mr. Monson’s threat at length, with a few colorful expressions thrown in for good measure. If Aunt Ivy’d been in the vicinity, there would have been a bar of soap applied to Ace’s mouth. With vigor.

“Oh, for crying out loud.” He swabbed his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief the size of North Dakota. “I didn’t see you there, Hattie. Sorry about the language.”

I’d heard worse in the newsroom. “No offense taken. Did you have something for me?”

He nodded, pawing around on his messy desk until he found the proper scrap of paper. As I walked away with it, he and Mr. Monson resumed their “discussion.” Each appeared determined to win the argument by sheer volume alone.

“I have a solution for you,” Ned called when they both stopped to take a breath.

“What?” Mr. Monson snarled.

“Who,” Ned replied.

The cigar switched sides again. “Don’t get smart with me, buster.”

“Heaven forbid I should do that!” Ned pushed back from his desk. “What I meant was that my solution is a who.”

“Who?” Ace and Mr. Monson echoed together.

Two heads pivoted as one, eyes looking first at Ned and then at me.

“Har-di-har-har,” Mr. Monson said in a flat voice. “Very funny.” He slapped the assignment book shut.

A buzz erupted from the crew by the elevators. “I’ll cover it,” some brave soul called out.

Ace tapped some notes I’d given him last week against his desktop. “She’s got a way with words,” he said. “I can vouch for that.”

Mr. Monson chomped hard on his cigar. “I am not running a kindygarten here!” he blustered. “And what in tarnation does she know about baseball?”

Heaven only knows what possessed me. Maybe the good report about Pearl made me think anything was possible. Maybe it was Ned’s taking up my cause. Or maybe it was like Aunt Ivy said: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

“I know a goodly amount,” I said, clear and strong. “Not only that, I am a fairly respectable pitcher.” That was thanks to Charlie, who’d taken it upon himself to teach me, a southpaw, to throw the ball.

“Oh, my ulcer.” Mr. Monson grabbed his middle. “Get my Bromo-Seltzer!”

“Stupendous idea.” Gill, the police beat man, slapped his hands together. “I can’t wait to read the little lady’s breathless prose. ‘Oh, it was so much fun to watch those nice men run all around those darling little bases,’ ” he intoned in a falsetto.

“Don’t you think she can do it?” Miss D’Lacorte asked, her tone a dare and a vote of confidence all in one. This was the closest I’d come yet to her actually speaking to me.

“That doesn’t seem to stop Ace,” someone called out, and the room bubbled with laughter. Even Ace joined in.

“Mr. Monson, if I strike Gill out, will you give me the game assignment?” The question slid out of my mouth, completely bypassing the common sense part of my brain.

He rubbed his hand over his mouth, forgetting about the cigar. He barely managed to catch it before it went flying. “Out of the question!”

“Where would we get the equipment?” one of the hangers-on shouted. The gaggle of them had crept away from their usual spot by the elevator, venturing into heretofore forbidden territory. One particularly bold hopeful now leaned against Ned’s desk.

Ace jerked open a desk drawer and called out, “Play ball!”

Gill ducked as the ball bolted toward us. I snagged it. Left-handed.

Mr. Monson’s cigar waggled.

“What will I use for a bat?” Gill was beginning to sound like a whiny schoolboy.

The words were no sooner out of his mouth before office boys began scouring the premises. They not only came up with a bat—left over from the last newsboys’ picnic—but with a right-handed glove. “You’re a southpaw like me,” said the elevator boy. He told me that he stored his glove in his work locker to keep it out of reach of a sticky-fingered younger brother. “But I’d be glad for you to use it.”

“Looks like we’ve got all the necessary equipment,” said Ace.

Someone clucked like a chicken.

“If you’re afraid …,” Ace started.

Gill glowered at him. “Let’s get it over with.”

Flash Finnegan followed us out the door.

“No cameras!” Gill blocked his way.

Flash pointed to the Graflex around his neck. “Camera,” he said, emphasizing the a at the end of the word. “Singular.”

Gill’s growl caused Flash to cackle gleefully. “On our way, then, men!” Flash called. “Oh, I should say, men and lady.” He bowed deeply to me, bracing his precious camera against his chest. We were quite the parade, winding through the composing room and down several flights of stairs to the dingy metal doors on the backside of the building. Out in the alley, Ace threw down a copy of yesterday’s front page to stand in for home plate and then paced off the distance to my pitcher’s mound, which was last Sunday’s funnies.

“This okay, Hattie?” Ace asked.

I nodded.

“Do you want to warm up?” He pounded his left palm with his right fist.

It seemed a long way to home plate. Farther than I was used to. But I knew he was being fair. I shook my head.

Flash hooted. “That’s crust for you!”

It was then I noticed that Mr. Monson had followed us outside as well. In fact, he was carrying the newsboys’ bat. He presented it to Gill. “Play ball!”

The first thing I did was unbutton the sleeves on my shirtwaist and roll them up. Ladies’ clothes are not designed for baseball. Then I put my foot on the funnies, smack dab on Mutt and Jeff. I took a deep breath, reminding myself of what Charlie had taught me. “The first rule in pitching,” he always said, “is never to aim the ball.”

Down the alley, Gill jabbed at the air with a few powerful practice swings. I imagine his goal was to intimidate, but he was accomplishing quite the opposite. His performance was akin to sending a telegraph from Western Union. Watching him, I was betting that he’d go after the high heat. I decided to save my specialty, the snake ball, to use only if needed. Well, and maybe to show off a little. I hid a grin behind my borrowed glove.

Even though my body was in a narrow San Francisco alley, my head was back in Iowa, on one of the sweetest fields ever, at the back of the Hawley barn, where Charlie had painted a target. Those had been sunshine days, all glow and easiness, without one care in the world. When Charlie had been my pitching coach and nothing more.

I couldn’t afford such distracting thoughts right now. I had a batter to face down.

As if it were just me and Charlie, behind their barn, I went through my motion and released the ball.

“Strike one!” Ace called.

“Lucky break.” Gill tapped the bat against his shoe. “Watch out,” he taunted. “This one’s going for Oakland!”

“Stee-rike two.”

Gill dropped his bat and glared at Ace. “That was no strike!”

Ace folded his beefy arms across his chest. “I calls ’em as I sees ’em.” He motioned for Gill to turn around and stand up to the plate.

I wasn’t one to brag. I was a good pitcher. But games we played back home weren’t regulation. This was the first time I’d ever had to propel a ball sixty feet. My shoulder ached. And it showed.

“Ball one!” Ace called it fairly. I’d known it was a ball as soon as it left my hand. The next two pitches were ball two and ball three.

“Full count,” someone murmured, as if I didn’t know. Full count. I was in a heap of trouble with one last chance to strike Gill out. I could almost hear Aunt Ivy sniping: “Pride goeth before a fall.” Was it prideful to believe I could do a good job with that baseball game assignment? No. But claiming that I could strike Gill out was purely prideful. And purely foolish. I thought back to a similar situation at that one Fourth of July picnic. My confidence—no, my pride—had landed me in the same kind of predicament. And in that instance, the batter had won the day. Then it had been for fun; this time a part of my dream was at stake.

Here is what I did: shifted the ball so that the seams rested crossways against my fingers. Rolled back my shoulders and took a deep breath. Cast a hard look in Gill’s direction. Then I let the ball fly. It slithered out of my hand and hissed through the air.

Gill never saw it.

“Strike three!” Ace clapped his leg. “If that don’t beat all!”

There were a few cheers for me and a few slaps on Gill’s back. He walked out to the “mound” and stuck out his hand. “I can’t say I enjoyed having a girl strike me out, but well done.”

I toned my grin down to a modest smile and shook. “You’re a good sport, Gill,” I told him. The elevator boy reclaimed his precious glove and the crowd dispersed. I’d worked up some heat with the exercise. Even though it might be true that “horses sweat, men perspire, but ladies merely glow,” I’d gone well beyond glowing. I fanned myself and moved inside to get a drink of water.

Mr. Monson caught me on my way to the ladies’ room. “I guess you have yourself an assignment,” he said. “Earned fair and square.”

• • •

The San Francisco Nine Rout Portland

By DORA DEAN

Baseball is a true equalizer of men. Where else does the banker share a wooden bleacher with a newsboy, a preacher with a police officer, a lawyer with a longshoreman? And where else but at the new Old Rec Park can Dora Dean and her fellow females be accepted as one of the crowd?

Maude stopped reading aloud, marking her place with a finger. “You’re going to need to start a scrapbook. Ned says this is four whole column inches. Not bad for a novice!”

“Notice that it’s hidden on the last page of the sporting section.”

“Last page is better than no page at all,” she scolded.

“Agreed.” Though I’d done my best to persuade Mr. Monson to let me use my own name, he’d saddled me with the Dora Dean byline, a nom de plume shared by any number of Chronicle women reporters. I took the clipping from Maude. My words in print! It was a thrill, byline or no. I had miles to go before I earned the right to use my own name, like Miss D’Lacorte. But look at that! Four column inches! I was moving up in the newspaper world.

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