PHILADELPHIA landed in Aqua Clara the morning following. About 9 Coker come barging in the room along with Canada and 2 boys that been with Salt Lake the year before in the Four-State Mountain League and now was up with Philly. Philly owns Salt Lake. “You remember these boys,” said Coker.
“Sure,” I said, and I sat up in bed and stuck out my hand, and they come over and shook it. 1 of them was an outfielder that we always throwed low curves to, and the other was a righthanded pitcher with a motion like Knuckles Johnson but none of Knuckleses stuff. “Have they learned you to hit a low curve?” said I to the outfielder.
“I been working on it,” he said.
“You better,” said Canada, “for after 1 time around the circuit they will all be wise to you.” I sent down for some breakfast and an extra pot of coffee and we jawed away an hour or more.
Philadelphia is the regular springtime opposition for the Mammoths. We always play a number of games with them in and about Aqua Clara just before we break camp, and we meet them on and off all the way north, winding up with 3 either in Philly or New York, 1 year 1 place and the next year the other, about 14 games in all. We beat them 9 times last spring, and they beat us 5, and the boys get to riding them, saying we was going to write the Commissioner and ask him to please switch Philly over to our league on account of life would be so much happier that way.
We drubbed them good the first 2 days at Aqua Clara. Dutch pitched Piss Sterling and Knuckles Johnson and Lindon 3 each the first afternoon. We had the usual little meeting in the clubhouse before, going over signs and such. I spoke up and told Dutch about this kid that could not hit the low curve. “What is his name?” said Dutch.
“I forget it,” I said.
“You forget it,” said Dutch, very calm. “Very well, Wiggen, will you please do me the favor of bringing me that bat over there in the corner.”
“Which 1?” said I, for there was about 75.
“I forget,” said Dutch. A big laugh went up. I seen Sad Sam Yale grinning. Red was talking to George in Spanish, telling him what happened. Then George begun to laugh, too. I looked over at Coker, and he was sitting there looking down at his shoes.
“Coker,” said I, “what was that fellow’s name?” Coker shook his head, for he did not remember, nor did Canada nor Perry nor Lindon. Squarehead Flynn said it was on the tip of his tongue, but he could not remember.
“Oh, that is too bad,” said Dutch. “It is on the tippy tip tip of the tongue of Squarehead Flynn and 5 other goddam rookies that passes themselves off as ballplayers. Well, ain’t this just grand. I suppose it will all come back to you some day.” My face felt like it was on fire. “It may not come back until Christmas,” said Dutch, “but that will be time enough, for you can write it on a Christmas card and give me something to think about over New Year’s.”
“He bats left,” said Coker, lifting his head. “He has got the name Mother tattood on the back of his hand.”
“Ain’t that tender,” said Dutch.
“I will watch for him,” said Red, trying to get us off the pan.
“No you will not,” said Dutch. “These boys here will watch for him. I want his name and the number on his back before the game starts. Is that clear?” He looked from me to Coker to Perry to Lindon to Canada to Squarehead, and we all shook our head yes. I wished that I never brung the matter up. I would rather get knocked out of the box in 1 inning then get eat out by Dutch.
The big surprise of the spring was Swanee Wilks. Swanee been around a long time. For about 3 years everybody expected it would be his last. But now he hustled like he was 19. He bought some special-made bats in the winter. He said this was what done it plus having some teeth pulled plus getting a divorce from his wife. He was like a new man, hitting along at about a .400 clip. We felt good for Swanee all spring.
We went down to St. Pete for 2 days, whipping Detroit on both, 1 day in St. Pete and the next day over in Clearwater, and then we split 2 games with Philadelphia in Tampa, and then we doubled back to Aqua Clara for 2 with Cincinnati. When we got there we found out that Bradley Lord had kindly checked us out of the hotel, saving 4 days in rates for Old Man Moors that of course he needed to save on, him being just about in the poorhouse. Bradley Lord had all our gear moved down to the barrackses, which was where we was supposed to sleep. You can imagine what we thought of that little arrangement.
Yet we was in good spirits. It come on us all of a sudden that we just won 7 games in 8 days, and of course it did not mean a thing, being only spring games and nothing riding on the outcome, and yet in a way it meant plenty, for it meant that a lot of things we was worried about was not happening, and things we thought might happen never did, meaning mainly that Sam Yale and Hams Carroll and Knuckles Johnson was all looking good, and the younger pitchers was showing up fine, and the hitters hitting, and a fellow like Swanee that figured to spend the summer on the bench was all of a sudden out there plastering the ball like nobody’s business, and everybody was down to his weight or else very close to it. Gene Park had a muscle in his heel that give him trouble from time to time, but this spring it just laid there quiet, and Horse Byrd had a crick in his elbow that usually never thawed out till June, but now it give him not an instant of pain whatever, and that was the way it was, hardly a gripe or a bitch, and I guess some of the boys was already imagining in their mind the pot of gold that laid waiting at the end of the rainbow in October.
That was the first night me and Coker and Canada and Perry was able to get together on the quartet. We had not sung in a bunch since Q. C. the summer before. If we was rusty it never showed. We was all sticky and tired when we got back from Tampa, and it was late, and some of the boys took another shower, and the 4 of us sat on Perry’s bed all wrapped in a towel, waiting for the others to clear out of the shower. We always give the older fellows first crack. We got in tune, sitting there on the bed and humming “I Love You As I Never Loved Before” real low, and going over the words, and “Carry Me Back To Old Virginny,” and the 1 about the nice girl, the proper girl, where her hair hung down in ringulets. Bing Crosby done it on a record. Then we went in the shower, and we showered, and then we begun to sing. I guess we sung for 30 minutes, and when we was halfway through we could feel how quiet it was out in the main room of the barrackses, I took a peek out once, wondering why, and I seen where most of the boys was just laying on their bed, some of them all naked, some of them fanning theirselves, some of them just sitting wet and letting the breeze come through the window and dry them off, yet all of them looking kind of peaceful, like they was enjoying the music. Gil Willowbrook and Herb Macy was playing double solitaire on an empty bed, and Herb looked up, and he said, “Go on and sing some more.”
So I went back in and we sung some more. Later, when we got to New York, we went up in the Brill Building on Broadway at 49th where all the music people hang, and we went in 1 office and out the other, telling them who we was, and they give us free copies of all the best new songs, stamped all over “Complimentary.” The night before the opener we was on a TV show, and we sang, and after that these music people called up regular at least every other day, just about down on their knees and pleading with us for God sake sing their song on the air.
I really loved singing in them clubhouse showers. The walls vibrated, and I think it would put everybody in a good frame of mind. If we lost a ball game we might not sing at first. Then someone would say, “Why not sing?” and we would sing 1 that was slow and sad, like “My Old Kentucky Home,” and then we would pick it up and sing faster, maybe “The Camptown Racers” or “Old Susanna,” and after a time we forgot that the game was lost, and we was thinking ahead to tomorrow, and I think that when you add up all the things that made the club what it was you have got to take the singing into consideration, for it done something, just like Dutch’s lectures done something, just like the hard work down in the south done something to make us what we was.
We split 2 with Cincinnati. Dutch had the pitching rotated pretty good. The fellows that was in the best shape was going 5 innings at a clip by now with Dutch every so often splitting up a game amongst the relief.
Bub Castetter started the second game against Cincy and set them down fine for 1 inning. But he got in a pack of trouble in the second, though he give up only 1 run. He was sweating like a hot-dog stand when he come to the bench, and breathing harder then he should of been. I felt sorry for him.
And then I got to thinking. Supposing he snapped back. Supposing he went along like his old self all spring or maybe clear to the Fourth of July. Then what? It was only a matter of time until he would be sent down again, like the year before. It seemed to me the best thing Bub could do was quit while still on his feet.
In the third somebody drilled 1 back through the box into center. I watched Bub. I seen him give ever so slight a look down at Dutch on the bench. Ugly took the throw in from Lucky, and Ugly and Gene both shifted over towards second, hoping to plug the gap. But you cannot cover up for another. The game has got to be played 1 certain way, and old friendship cannot matter, even though you might of once roomed with a man and drunk his beer and dealt 10,000 hands of poker, and he told you his troubles and you told him yours. You might of wrote him a letter over the winter.
But none of it matters. Only the game matters, and that is why I felt sorry for Bub, and sad, and wished him well, and yet, at the same time, I seen him falter and fail and knowed in my heart it might as well be sooner for his own sake and the sake of the club.
He never got a man out in the third, and Dutch lifted him, and we lost because we could not make back what Bub give away. That was only the second spring game we dropped.