There was a good deal of betting in the Cosmopolitan lobby next morning. I finally went for a walk to get away from it. But there was no escape. Everywhere, I saw reminders of institutionalized greed. On Montgomery and California, following the Gold Room’s lead, the brokerage houses were closed. The papers reported the suicide of an eastern banker. Here in the Golden City, even ferries carried such names as Gold and Capital. When banker William Ralston had opened his California Theater earlier this year, the first play had been titled, appropriately, Money.
The Gilded Age indeed, with everybody on the make.
Temperatures were in the eighties at the Recreation Grounds. A fair-sized crowd, smaller than the first, showed up. One interesting feature—a ten-minute intermission—came at the end of the sixth inning. Millar sniffingly said it was a dodge to sell more liquor and concessions. A ballpark bar was conspicuously open during games here.
The Eagles played less nervously than before, but it didn’t matter. At the plate we were deadly, pounding out fifty-five hits and six homers and rounding the bases with dulling regularity. Brainard allowed only a handful of Eagle base runners. In the ninth we relented a bit—Allison went so far as to bat lefty—and they got a few gift runs.
The final was 58—4.
I should have bet.
In following days my periods of shakiness grew in intensity. At times it was a struggle to stay tuned in to anything around me. I had trouble composing my dispatches. I knew I appeared distracted, but I couldn’t seem to do much about it.
On Tuesday the additions of Champion, and Oak Taylor transformed the Stockings into a cricket eleven. Behind the bowling of Harry and George, they shocked a group of California all-star cricketers, decisively winning a seven-hour match. Champion moved surprisingly well for a man of his bulk. Harry had conducted a crash cricket seminar beforehand, and that, given the Stockings’ fielding ability and George’s formidable batting, proved to be enough.
The next day, winds near gale force whipped clouds of sand across the diamond, nearly blinding hitters and fielders alike. Opposing us were the Pacifics, who had narrowly lost the city championship to the Eagles. Diehard bettors expected them to outperform their rivals against us.
At the outset it looked like they might. In the first, a Pacific hitter spanked a ball off Gould’s frigid hands and broke for second on the next pitch. Allison had him easily, but the ball soared on a howling gust over Sweasy into center. The runner scored when Brainard uncorked a gloriously wild pitch into the wind. The crowd hooted. The Stockings looked resigned. Throughout the long afternoon they staggered beneath windblown flies like a band of drunks—but managed to catch most.
The Pacifics got only two safe hits the entire game. Meanwhile, we went to work with a vengeance. Gould slammed two homers, George, Harry, and Andy had one apiece—Andy’s a wind-aided grand slam—and the contest ended after six innings with darkness approaching and the score 66-4. I felt sorry for the Pacifics.
I talked afterward with the Shepard brothers, Pacific infielders who had played with Harry on old Knickerbocker clubs. Dedicated athletes, they were training for a ten-mile footrace at the Recreation Grounds the coming Sunday. Velocipede events were also scheduled. I decided I’d get Johnny to come out and watch them with me.
“The Base-Ball season has fairly commenced,” reported the Morning Call, “and with an energy unknown before.” Each day new clubs were formed: the Green Stockings, Silver Stockings, Gray Socks—a profusion of colors blossoming throughout the city. Others called themselves the Arctics, Young Bay Citys, Vigilants, and Young Pacifics, and were made up of clerks—often games started at six a.m., before work—businessmen, judges, bankers, draymen, and firemen; there was even a Fat Men squad whose players each topped 250 pounds.
Papers bristled with suggestions for improving hometown performance against us. Most involved imitating our play, but a few remained hostile. The Golden Era pointed out with some acerbity that, “The Red Stockings are professionals who do nothing else and are paid for doing that.”
Savvy entrepreneurs worked us into their newspaper puffs. One dry-goods establishment announced the sale of “Red Stockings and all kinds of underwear, shirts, ties, etc.” The Cliff House crowed, “Those lionized Red Stockings went out to see Captain Foster’s educated sea lions!”
Meanwhile, invitations to play poured in from clubs in Portland, Carson City, Cheyenne, Laramie, Denver, Virginia City, and Omaha; we were offered a gold medal to play at the State Fair in Stockton. Had it been up to Champion, we probably would have accepted all of them.
But the players were tired of being away from home, especially tired of San Francisco.
“We went through everything in three days,” Gould complained. “Nothin’s here but sand hills and Mongolians.”
“Chinee’re taking over everything,” Sweasy said.
“Cincinnati is smoke-clogged, but I’d choose it over this damn cold wind,” Waterman said. “No offense, Sam.”
“None taken,” I said, suspecting that he and Brainard found late-night outlets for their frustrations. The others, though tempted, were probably deterred by the risk. Except for Andy, who seemed to have tacit dispensation from Harry to float on love clouds to Elise’s show each night.
The last day of September, a Thursday, dawned brilliantly clear. I had slept well and felt no signs of shakiness. Setting out from the hotel for the Blue Anchor, I saw that trees were beginning to lose their leaves. The air held a briskness I hadn’t noticed before. It put me in mind of neighborhood football games I’d played as a kid. And watching the World Series on TV with Grandpa—who’d let me cut school when a game was really important. I didn’t relish spending this vibrant day at the Recreation Grounds, watching the poor Pacifics get steamrollered again.
Not finding Johnny in his room, I stopped at the California Coffee Saloon for the twenty-five-cent three-egg breakfast special and set off through North Beach, past Meigg’s Wharf. The streets were a perfect grid, not yet slashed diagonally by Columbus. At Larkin, boundary of the Western Addition, I looked at the unbroken sand dunes stretching beyond.
Missing Cait badly, I opened my watch and gazed at the piece of yellow fabric for a long time. What was working on me so strongly in this city? I wondered. Something powerful enough to pull me from her? Again I sensed that whatever lay in store for me—maybe even the answer to why I’d come back in time—was waiting here, close by.
What I had to do was find it.
Fisherman’s Wharf wasn’t where I had known it, between Mason and Hyde, but instead stretched along piers at the foot of Union, Green, and Vallejo. There I saw Italian immigrants working on what looked like a large float. I stopped and asked them about it. Big celebration in two weeks, they said. The city’s first Discovery Day.
“Discovery of gold?”
That brought a laugh. “Da whole country!” a woman said, “Cristo-foro Colombo!”
The first Columbus Day! Well, all right.
“You come sing an’ dance wit’ us?”
“I’ll be there,” I promised.
As the words left my mouth I realized I’d made my decision: unless whatever was coming happened first, I wouldn’t be going back with the team.
The clock in the Bank Exchange Saloon read one o’clock. Soon the Stockings would be heading for the ball field. I ordered a stein of beer and picked up a paper. To my amazement the feature story dealt with my alma mater, the University of California. It had begun its first classes. Ever!
I snacked on the Bank Exchange’s cheeses and sourdough bread while I scanned the other columns. A gang of toughs had tied the braids of two Chinese together and beaten them savagely near Portsmouth Square; butter was scarce and dear at seventy-five cents a pound—why couldn’t the Pacific Slope, prime cattle territory, produce enough of the stuff? And why weren’t the gas company’s lamplighters doing their jobs? With days growing short, lights weren’t on in many streets until well after dark. Each item carried the same aggrieved tone.
I got up and went out from the thick walls and iron shutters of the Montgomery Block. My mind was made up: as a kid I’d cut school to go to games; today I’d cut the game to go to school. I walked to the ferry station at Pacific and Davis, where I took an open-air seat on the top deck. Crossing the bay, the boat’s churning wheel and hissing boilers made an incessant racket. As the oak-studded east bay slopes gradually neared, I could see occasional stands of redwoods on the hilltops. I looked in vain for Berkeley. Where the town and university should be were only scattered fields and foothills laced with green creek lines.
“What’s that near the shore?” I asked another passenger, pointing to a cluster of wooden buildings about where San Pablo Avenue should be.
“Ocean View,” he answered.
Ocean View? I saw a wharf, several sawmills, and—perhaps the biggest surprise I’d found on the West Coast—a gorgeous mile-long crescent of white sand framed by marshes and two slow-flowing creeks. A beach in Berkeley. Lovely, lovely.
The university was in Oakland, a tranquil town of ten thousand. Broad dirt streets were lined with oaks and whitewashed fences and houses. I took a streetcar up Seventh from the ferry slip. At Broadway workmen were finishing the Central Pacific’s impressive new depot; soon the overland journey would end here, not in Sacramento.
Near Lake Merritt—actually not a lake but an estuary named for the current mayor—stood a new girls’ school run by the Convent of the Sacred Heart. Beyond it, projecting from a grove of oaks to the northeast, rose the cupola of a university building.
I walked slowly, trying to fit my mind to the lazy afternoon. I was starting to feel disoriented again, as if the milkiness were about to come on.
The campus covered the blocks between Twelfth and Fourteenth, Harrison and Franklin. Over the largest of the white frame buildings hung a Bear flag; a sign on the portico identified it as the College of California and offered the information that university courses were now added. In the hallway I found a class schedule and faculty roster. Physics Professor John LeConte—I recognized his surname from a Berkeley street—was acting president.
The building was empty. Classes took place between ten and two. It was now almost three. I was on my way out when an apple-cheeked boy appeared carrying books in a leather strap. I stopped him.
He introduced himself as George Beaver—“Eager,” of course, to his classmates—and was a proud member of the freshman or “first” class, one of eight boys who had passed the grueling entrance exams. I asked what they involved.
“Oh, the customary,” he said airily—a young Millar in the making, I thought. “Higher arithmetic, including metrics, square and cube roots, algebra as far as quadratic equations, the first four books of Loomis’s Geometry. English grammar, U.S. history, and geography.”
“Is that all?” I said wryly, impressed.
“Those’re to enter the regular colleges,” he said disdainfully, explaining that to get into the elite Harvard-style curriculum, one had to pass additional tests.
“Such as?”
“Latin Grammar: four books of Caesar, six of Virgil’s Aeneid, six of Cicero’s orations. Greek grammar: Exenophon’s Anabasis, three books.”
He rattled them off like items on a shopping list and added that so far they’d spent class time debating such subjects as who was the greater general, Caesar or Napoleon. “Of course, in the common university technical colleges,” he finished, “standards are less exacting.”
“Of course,” I said, thinking that he seemed more like Stanford material. “How much is tuition?”
“Sixty dollars, plus admission fees—they said our yearly costs could reach five hundred.”
Clearly not for the masses. He said that no dorms existed yet; students roomed with Oakland families. Freshmen had to be at least sixteen—his own age—and provide testimonials of sound moral character.
“Any women enrolled?”
He looked at me as if I were from another planet.
“Tell you what, Eager,” I said. “Here’s what I think. You’ve got to get some coeds in here, move the campus to Berkeley where it belongs, and start calling yourselves the Golden Bears.”
“Golden Bears? Whatever for?”
“For when beanies and bonfire rallies come in.”
He gave me the outer-space look again.
I got back to the city—already San Francisco was called that—around five and decided to catch the end of the game. Waiting for a horsecar at the ferry station, I glanced at a bulletin board. In stunned surprise I saw a flyer headed: CAPTAIN F. J. O’DONOVAN. It advertised the speech I’d heard him make in Cincinnati. It was sponsored by the local Wolfe Tone Fenian Circle and was to be held the next night.
McDermott and Le Caron had failed.
So he had come himself.
I arrived in time to see Sweasy field a bouncer and flip to Gould for the final out to nail down a 54-5 victory. While the teams cheered each other I looked over Millar’s shoulder at the score book. “Is this right?” I said. “Eleven homers for us?”
“George alone had four.” Millar gave me his owlish look. “Enjoy your day?”
“Mostly.” I was trying to fight off thoughts of O’Donovan. “How about filling me in on the highlights?”
“Why me?”
“Hell, you know players can’t be trusted to give us hard-working press guys the straight stuff.”
“You know, Fowler, the Enquirer didn’t have the slightest inkling of what they were getting in you.”
“Aw, you’re just saying that.”
“No, I’m not.”
The next morning, Friday, October 1, New York’s Gold Room finally reopened. I cashed my certificates at Wells Fargo, barely able to cover Twain’s thousand. I sent him a draft with a note saying I didn’t think the Avitor was a good investment.
That afternoon we met the Atlantics, the third San Francisco club to test us. Only four hundred turned out—the result of cold driving winds and lack of excitement over the Atlantics’ chances. Among them was Elise Holt, who caused a stir in her lacquered carriage.
She left after Andy’s first time up. Which was just as well, for the game was truly awful. The Atlantics muffed everything. Their hurler issued eleven walks despite our desire to swing at anything in reach. With darkness falling and the contest only in its fourth inning, we went to ridiculous lengths. Allison batted with one hand and George leaped to swipe at pitches over his head. At last the requisite five innings were completed. The score was 76—5. Our record was a neat 50-0.
Next day we faced the California Nine, made up of the best players from local clubs. This was the contest many had awaited, and over three thousand turned out. Betting was heavy on whether we’d win by as much as a two-to-one margin.
The Stockings were ravenous for some genuine competition. All but Andy, that is, who was red-eyed and irritable. He told me that Elise’s show would leave town that night.
“You know,” I said tentatively, “there are lots of—”
“Don’t start, Sam. I fancy her.” He eyed me defiantly. “She fancies me, too.”
“I’m sure she does, Andy.”
He trudged off. I felt bad for him, guessing that he’d never before mixed love with sex. I wondered what Elise actually felt for him.
The all-stars came on as though they meant business, warming up with dispatch, winning the coin toss, sending us to bat, and sprinting to their positions. Unfortunately for them, George’s lead-off double was the first of a string of solid hits, and the California Nine trailed 10-0 before even coming to bat—a deficit they could not overcome, although they played well. The final was 46-14. George slammed three homers and Andy, clubbing the ball angrily, added two more. Despite the offensive barrage, the contest moved quickly. For once we were out of the ballpark before sundown.
I carried the derringer. I scanned faces at the ballpark and around the Cosmopolitan. I didn’t anticipate an attack as open as Le Caron’s and McDermott’s, assuming, that O’Donovan wanted the money more than he wanted me. But I couldn’t be sure. He had definitely arrived—the papers carried accounts of his speeches—and he could find me easily. What was he waiting for?
I busied myself working up a piece that compared George’s individual stats for the six San Francisco games against all opposing players’. George came out ahead in every offensive category: 48 hits to their 45 (his in only 62 at bats, for a gaudy .774 average); 45 runs to 36; 106 total bases to 55; 13 homers to 0. His slugging percentage for the series was an incredible 1.710. Several Stockings, including Andy with six homers himself, were not far behind. I concluded that the message was as clear here as it had been around the country all summer: to contend with pros, teams would have to find outstanding players, skilled managers—and money enough to hold them.
Millar read it and scowled. He said it rubbed our courteous hosts’ noses in their defeats. And what on earth was a slugging percentage?
Johnny’s face was a mess. He’d been worked over, he mumbled, several nights earlier by a sailor.
“You gotta get out of that dive,” I said.
“Pay’s too good.”
“What do you do for it?”
“Clean up, different things.”
I parted the curtains. Sunlight poured in. Sunday morning. I’d come to see if he wanted to catch the velocipede races that afternoon. But he’d made it clear he didn’t intend to get out of bed.
“You’ll get yourself killed in the Barbary Coast.”
He shrugged fatalistically.
“I’m coming down there tonight.”
“You won’t fancy it, Sam.”
No smoking. No spitting. No standing. Strict limit of sixteen passengers. Well worth a dime—double the usual fare—to travel like that. The streetcar was normally reserved for ladies, gents riding only as escorts. And it existed strictly to carry patrons to Samuel Woodward’s amusement park. Twentieth-century Americans take for granted padded seats, dirt- and spit-free surroundings—not to mention body soaps and deodorants. Back here I’d learned that anything reserved for women meant superior conditions. Even in horsecars.
Woodward’s Gardens was a Victorian Disneyland; more aptly, a Xanadu. Picnickers thronged the sunlit lawns, flowered terraces, palm-shaded nooks. Children rode ponies and camels, were pulled in carriages by goats, petted tiger cubs, and threw peanuts to caged bears. The Second Artillery Band played on a platform decorated with streamers and baskets of roses.
In a different mood I would have enjoyed the picture-book world. Andy and I walked in silence past stuffed reindeer and grizzlies and watched giggling children leap to touch the end of the Chinese Giant’s braided cue. With the other Stockings we sat in a pavilion and watched Major Burke’s rifle drill, Japanese acrobats, and Jaguarine the Swordswoman.
“Let’s get out,” Andy said as Herman the Great was about to explode from a cannon.
At the edge of the lake, where men readied a balloon ascension, we watched a couple drift by in a boat. The boy plucked water lilies from the surface. He handed them to the girl, who smiled. I remembered first kissing Cait in such a boat. God, I wanted to be with her. Andy sighed. I knew Elise was on his mind. What a couple of lovesick wimps, I thought.
“Hey,” I said abruptly, “I’ve made up my mind to stay out here a little while.”
He looked at me. “Why?”
“Some business to settle.”
“Does Cait know?”
“Not yet.”
He stopped walking and faced me. “Are you coming back to Cincinnati, Sam?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Season ends in only six weeks. I’ll be heading for Newark. You’ll be back before?”
“I imagine so,” I said. “I’m sending Cait a telegram tonight.”
“What is it you need to take care of here?”
“I’m not sure. I mean, it’s still developing.”
“There’s a hell of a lot you’re not sayin’, Sam.”
“If I understood it and could tell anybody, it’d be you and Cait.”
He looked worried. “Are you wanted for not being on the straight?”
I was about to make a wisecrack, but he was in no mood. “No, nothing like that. I just need to sort out a few things, tie up some loose ends.”
“Is it connected, your life out here . . . before?”
For a second I was stunned, thinking he meant my twentieth-century life. Then I realized he meant my amnesia.
“I’m not sure, but I think O’Donovan’s involved.”
He pondered that. “Over Cait?”
“Partly,” I said. “Maybe mostly.”
He waited for more, then sighed noisily. “O’Donovan’s mean, Sam. More than mean . . .” He hunted for a word. “He’s twisted inside. Cait’s been wise not to fancy him.”
I said nothing.
“Okay, I’ll let it drop,” he said; then, a few seconds later, “Sam, you know how you have a way of disappearing? Don’t ever forget to pop up again, you hear?”
“I won’t, Andy,” I said, moved by his earnestness. “I promise.”
Even then I wondered if it was a promise I could keep.