POP says, you remember, there is too much dirty language in this book. This gives me rather a jolt, for I been wondering right along whether there wasn’t too little. Him and Holly argued it over, and we asked Red when he was here. “Well sir,” said Red to Pop, “you been a ballplayer and you know how they talk. If that is the way they talk should not Henry put it down like that?”
Pop said that was the way they talked back in the Mississippi Valley League, but he rather thought there might be a different class of ballplayers come of age in the meanwhile that talked in the higher style. “After all,” said Pop, “there is a rash of ballplayers that went to college.”
Red said to Pop, “Do you not want Henry to write a true book so as to explain everything that happened just like it was? Why, a book about baseball without no swearing would be like “Moby Dick” without no whale or “Huckleberry Finn” without no Huck.”
Well anyway, you know what happened later on if you read “SPECIAL WARNING TO ALL READERS!!!”
We played poker all the way home from Washington. It was only a short trip and we did not play long. We had got out of the habit of playing all together any more. Things run in streaks like that. For awhile we was calling everybody by their name backwards, and then that left off just as sudden as it begun. Anyways, we was back to playing poker in little groups on the way home from Washington, me and Perry and Canada and Coker and Lindon up at 1 end of the car, what you might call the Queen City bunch. Maybe also Bruce Pearson. I forget about Bruce. It was either then or soon after that the boys took to riding Bruce. Him and Lucky had a scrap and that was the beginning. 1 day Swanee called Bruce a name in the clubhouse and Bruce could not think of 1 to call Swanee back. When Bruce gets riled his mouth don’t work. Lucky laughed, not meaning no harm, just laughing, and Bruce said it was a mighty sad note when a fellow got laughed at by his own roomie, and Lucky said he would as soon room with someone else anyways. So Lucky switched over and roomed with Lindon, and Bruce with Sid, and then when the club was in New York Sid lived with his mother on Riverside Drive and Bruce was all alone, and the more alone he was the bluer he become, and the bluer he become the more the boys rode him.
Tuesday night Cleveland moved in. There was a big crowd, 45,000 or better, and they got their money’s worth, both as to the time they put in and the brand of baseball they seen. Dutch give us a lecture beforehand. He praised the boys to the skies, and when he got done he ripped out against the writers and the announcers and the organization—the Moorses—and the schedule and the weather and the umpires. If I was to tell you some of the names he called these people you would never believe me. They was rip-roarers, just about everything in the book plus a few that was too spectacular for any book. Dutch said there wasn’t a thing wrong with the club itself, just with the people that messed in from the outside. He said he heard that a few of the boys was snapping amongst themselves and talking about changing roomies and all. He said he did not believe any such stories, for he had hand-chose the club with an eye to fellows getting along together come hell or hot water.
He said he was pitching me tonight because he wanted to get his rotation back on schedule and not because, like some writers said, the staff was off its form. He give Sid a rest and played Canada at first, saying Sid deserved the rest for the way he hustled all year, and he put Lucky back in center so as to let him work out the kinks and get used to the tape. The boys sung that night, and we hustled, and we would of had it easy but for a couple bad breaks.
I was hooked up with Rob McKenna. That was partly what brung the crowd, I suppose, for there was much said by the writers over which was the best young pitcher in the league, me or Rob, and 1 writer said in the St. Louis “Globe” 1 morning that it would probably be either me or him for Rookie Of The Year. As it turned out Rob won Rookie Of The Year because I won Most Valuable Player Award when the election was held around November 1 and they could not give me both. Actually MVP tops them all. I also won the Sid Mercer Memorial Award of the baseball writers association as Player Of The Year in case you’re interested.
Rob was a different pitcher at the end of July then he was back in May. He still made mistakes, but never so soon nor so frequent.
We played the kind of ball we always played against Cleveland, waiting for the mistakes. On this particular night they almost did not come, and it irritated hell out of me because we had the game sewed up 2 different times and then missed fire. It seemed like we lacked the punch when we needed it.
In the seventh Nat Lee slammed a home run off me that cleared the wall in right that if there was another coat of paint on the wall would of bounced back in play. When I come back to the bench after the inning Dutch was in a mood and the boys was mostly shoving down towards the far end and trying to look invisible.
We still trailed 1–0 when Ugly worked himself a pass to open our ninth. Perry went in to run. The crowd begun to sidle towards the exits by then, although a good many of them stopped in their tracks and leaned on the rails and watched. I don’t know why they come in the first place if they are all in such a sweat to get home. Perry kept prancing back and forth off first. Rob McKenna throwed over a few times and Perry slid back in safe on his chest. I was praying for him to play it smart and not do nothing that would get him eat out.
Gene struck out, and the crowd begun to move again, and it was here, 2 outs from what would of been the finish, that Rob made his mistake. He went into a full wind-up. We all seen it on the bench, and we screamed, but Perry already seen it and was off like a bullet, and it was too late for Rob to check, or else he would of balked and Perry gone down anyways, and the only hope was to throw to the plate and pray that Perry busted an ankle on the way down. But he did not, and Rob felt like a fool. He must of felt a good deal miserabler 2 pitches later, for Red lined a single to left and Perry come home on wings, and the ball game was tied.
I would like to see the face of some of them boobs that cleared out of the park and got home and then maybe flipped on their radio and found the game still going. It was still going in the eleventh, and yet again in the twelfth. Coker was down at short now in place of Ugly. Sunny Jim was in center in place of Lucky, Lucky’s back stiffening up on him in the cool of the night. It was past midnight. Horse and Gil was down in the bullpen, and they called on the phone and said don’t forget to send them down breakfast.
I cooled off awful fast between innings. Doc Loftus said later that maybe that was when my backache set in, but I doubt it. I wore my jacket to bat in the twelfth. I do not believe I ever done such a thing before or since.
Dutch asked me every inning did I need relief, and I said no. I said if McKenna could keep going I could. We was making him work, nobody swinging until there was at least 1 strike called, and still he kept pouring them through, and I admired him for that. In the last of the thirteenth Sam come over and sat beside me on the bench. He hardly ever done that, usually staying down at his own end, but he come and squeezed in betwixt Perry and me, and he give me a special salt pill all wrapped in silver paper, saying swallow it. I did not swallow it right away. I don’t know why. I put it in my pocket.
The crowd was so still my ears itched. Everything seemed unnatural, like everybody was told be quiet and the noise would be filled in later, and every sound carried far, and it was like a dream where you knowed it would all stop happening real quick, and yet it went on and on, the fourteenth, the fifteenth.
In the first of the sixteenth Barkowski opened with a single. It sounded like he hit it with a hollow bat. He danced back and forth up and down the line, and Canada covered, moving up and back with the pitches, trying to keep the runner close and at the same time play the bunt, and I throwed high to Taggart, and he tried to bunt, first fouling 1 off, and then bunting on the second pitch, and it trickled down the line towards first, and I moved over after it, and my legs was heavy and I felt like I was carrying around a sack of lead on my back, and finally I reached the ball and made the throw to Gene at first, for Gene was covering, but Taggart beat it.
McKenna batted for himself. He got a hand, but this time it was me that got the break, for he tried to bunt but popped it in the air, and I moved a few steps to the left and took it, and the runners scrambled back to their bases.
That brung up Reynolds. He is the Cleveland shortstop and been their lead-off man as long as I can remember. The books say he is 36. That would mean he broke into pro ball at 14. I would of rather it been a younger man that would maybe do something real dumb and help me out this late at night. It was the old veterans that worried me and give me the most trouble all year. Red signed for a fast 1, just blaze it through, and it seemed wrong to me but I was too weary to shake it off, and I throwed it, and Reynolds just looked it over, and Neininger called it a strike. He was trying to wait me, and tire me, and somehow that made me mad, and I remember that right about then I seen a little knot of people moving towards the exits, and that made me mad, too, for it seemed like when a fellow is in trouble people ought to at least stick it out and watch and not be in such a hurry to rush on home because it looks a little late. It was after 1 now on the center field clock, and Red called for the same, but neither so fat nor so good, and I throwed it, and Reynolds sliced it off foul down the line in right. It hooked into the stands and clattered amongst the seats, and a lady in a white dress strolled over and picked it up and stuck it in her purse.
I took out the pill Sam give me. I tore off the paper and popped it in my mouth, and it stuck in my throat, and after awhile it went down, and I remember thinking maybe Sam was giving me poison for all I knowed, and I remember that I wondered if anybody ever wrote a murder story where 1 ballplayer murdered another. This was about the time I begun to read murders quite a bit. Then Red give me the sign, and I throwed, and Reynolds swang and lashed it into right, and I knowed that I should of been backing up a base somewheres, but I could not think where to go. So I just turned around and watched the play. I seen Pasquale come charging in and diving and skidding along on his belly and making what they call a shoestring catch, and then all in the 1 motion he was up on his feet and firing down to second. Barkowski was halfway to third, not thinking Pasquale could make the catch, and now he was stopping short and turning and heading back towards second, and Coker took the throw, stretching out toward right with 1 foot on the bag like a first baseman, and Barkowski was doubled easy and the inning was over. I never told Pasquale what the catch meant to me, and I never asked Sam what was in the pill. I always meant to. But soon it was another day and another ball game and I guess I never did.
Sunny Jim opened our half of the sixteenth with a single. Lindon pinch-run for him, and Canada bunted Lindon along.
Pasquale was up there it seemed like years. He run the string out and fouled off a couple. And then I seen him shift his feet just the barest trifle, and I seen where Reynolds seen it, too, and shifted over himself and shouted to the rest of Cleveland to do the same, and Joe Lincoln yelled from the bench. But it was too late, for Pasquale drove 1 into right, and it fell close to the line and Levette Smith come over as fast as he could from where he was playing Pasquale more or less straight away, and he grabbed it and done the only thing he could do, firing it home with all he had, and the ball was still in the air when Lindon slid across.
I looked out at Rob. He was standing with his hands on his hips and his head bowed. He took 1 very deep breath, and then he looked over towards me 1 time, and then he turned and walked towards the Cleveland clubhouse. I felt very sad for him.
In the night I felt a little crick in my back. I noticed it several times before, beginning in the west, but never like this. I turned over a couple times, thinking maybe it was just from the way I was laying, but it did not go away, and I woke Perry and told him so, and he said what did I expect after working 16 innings. He laid in bed with his arm over his eyes. Then he said several dirty words and pulled the pillow over his face and fell asleep again. I pulled the pillow off his face and told him did he remember waking me in the middle of the night in St. Louis to crack his neck. He said he did, and he stumbled up out of bed and stood there swaying and trying to open his eyes, and he said there was some liniment on the shelf in the bathroom, and I went in and brung it back. It burned, and he rubbed it on where the crick was, mumbling and swearing and saying it could of waited till morning, and after a bit I felt that he was not rubbing, and I turned, and he was sitting there dead asleep with the bottle cockeyed in his hand and dripping down over his leg. I waited to see how far up it would drip. If it dripped far enough he would of woke again in a hurry. But it did not, and I give him a little push and he fell backwards on the bed and never woke up.
The next day I drilled a little, but it still hurt, and I went back in the clubhouse and down the stairs where Doc Loftus has his office. On a hot day it is the coolest place in the park. Piss Sterling was laid out on the table with 2 cotton sticks up his nose. He has sinuses something awful, and it got worse on the trip west. He laid there reading a paper with his arms stuck in the air. He give me a hello and Doc said for him not to talk or the medicine would all run down in his mouth. “Well, Wiggen,” said Doc to me, “I do not see you here very often.”
“I got a crick in my back,” I said.
“That was a great game last night,” he said. “It is no wonder you have got a crick.”
“It sure run long,” I said.
“Leave me see your back,” said Doc, and I pulled off my shirt and he felt around with his hand where I told him to. He said he could not feel nothing, no bump nor no break. He said if it did not clear up in another day or 2 he would shoot some X-rays.
“Maybe it is all in your mind,” said Piss.
“Shut up and lay down,” said Doc, laughing. That was a big joke amongst the Mammoths. When Doc Loftus could not find something wrong with somebody he sent them down to the Navy hospital or some other big hospital, and it usually wound up with a report that it was all in your mind. Then you went and seen Doc Solomon. They said that Pisses sinuses was all in his mind. Sometimes Piss would run at the nose for an hour or more, and if you told him you would be glad to do something if you could he would say, “Oh, it is nothing. It is only my mind that I am blowing out my nose.”
“Maybe it is at that,” said Doc.
“Nuts,” said I, and I put my shirt back on.
In come Patricia Moors for a bottle of pills. “I have not slept in a week,” she said. I believe that was the first time I seen her since I heaved a glass at her over Memorial Day in Boston. “You ain’t ill?” she said.
“I got a crick in my back,” I said.
“Dutch says he hears by the grapevine that some of the boys is beefing about a doubleheader after a night game,” she said.
“They got a right to,” I said. “It was 3 o’clock before anybody got to bed.”
We went out of Doc’s office together, and then instead of going back up in the hot park we sat on the ledge there and looked out through the little slit in the fence where Doc himself generally sits. It give us a sort of a worm’s view, and we seen 2 rough and ready ball games plus a fist fight betwixt Goose and Johnny Libby on a play at third plus some dandy language from Dutch on the play that cost Sam the first game. Sam lost it 5–4, a tough 1. Somebody on the Cleveland bench brung along a trumpet and every little while give out with “The Old Gray Mare She Ain’t What She Used To Be” and then quick hid the trumpet until Carrera went over and found it and made them put it back in the clubhouse.
“Poor Sam,” said I.
“I do not feel sorry for Sam,” said she. “Sam is 1 of the few people I really and truly admire.” She was in a very confidential mood that afternoon, though dog-tired after not having slept in a week. “Is it not odd that after putting thousands of dollars in sprucing up the park I wind up down here?” she said.
“It is out of the hustle and rush,” I said. “Though Dutch will probably wonder where I am all day.”
“I will square it with Dutch,” she said. “Dutch is another I admire.”
“Do you admire me?” I said.
“It is too early to tell,” said she. “1 thing I like about you is you say what you think. You are a very frank type of a person. Most ballplayers I admire as ballplayers only. I admire Red. I admire Red as both ballplayer and man.”
“I admire them all,” said I.
“You go around admiring everybody you lay your eyes on,” she said. “That is 1 of the things I admire about you. Yet you need not do it, for you are in debt to no man, and you never need be. In your job you need only deliver the goods. You are not forced to act like you admire those who you do not. I am your boss, yet you are frank with me. You do not admire me, yet you make no secret of it.”
“I admire you as to sex,” I said.
“Well, that is something,” said she. “There goes the Boston score,” and we crouched down for a better look at the board, and Boston beat Chicago, and that meant a full game sliced from our lead.
“Boston is getting the pitching lately,” I said.
“A ballplayer need only do his job,” she said. “He need never throw a party for a politician by way of selling the army the product of Moors. He need never entertain the owner of a paper so as to get a decent treatment in the press. It does not matter what the press says. A home run is a home run and no 2 ways about it. A pitcher pitches a 16-inning game and not 5,000 writers can take it from him. He never need care what people think or say. All that he does is open and public.”
“Yet there must be people to keep the organization running on all fours,” I said.
“That is the part that is closed from sight,” said she. “That is the part that any cluck can do. There is 5,000 people in this park this minute that can step in and do what I do. But it is mine because I was born to it. My name is Patricia Moors. What gives me the chills is suppose my name was Betty Brown.”
“You need some sleep,” I said. “You ain’t slept in a week.”
“Nor am I libel to sleep for another,” she said. “My mind is too full of a number of thoughts, and none of them pleasant.” Then we rose and headed back up. Knuckles Johnson was coasting through to a win in the second game, and I suppose that might of put her in a better frame of mind. Yet I don’t know. She is 1 of these women caught halfway between keeping house for some cluck and really doing something in life. Holly says the same.