I SET down the first 7 men in a row in the Friday game, including the fanning of Casey Sharpe to open the Boston half of the second that brung a great ovation from the people, a louder noise then I ever heard before. I could feel the ground shiver beneath my feet.
You could not of brung your pet cat to the park. In the beginning it was a quiet crowd, considering the size, opening up once when I fanned Casey Sharpe, then quiet again until Toomy Richardson singled with 1 down in the third, the first Boston hit. Horse and Piss and Gil and Herb all went to work in the bullpen. There was no such thing no more as saving the staff. What would you be saving them for?
I got set to pitch to Fred Nance when there was a commotion behind our dugout, and I stepped off the rubber and 2 umpires went over towards the dugout to see what was up. It seemed that Sam Yale got up for a drink at the water spout and somebody potted him with a peach or a pear and the crowd become very abusive towards Sam. Zinke talked over the top of the dugout at the crowd, and they hooted and jeered until finally Zinke got a hold of some cops and ordered them up in the stands in the section behind the Mammoths. They insulted Sam all day, ignorant farmers from Brooklyn and Boston mostly I suppose, though probably some from New York as well that thought we should of clinched it weeks ago and lit on Sam as the main cause of the slump.
Nance bunted, not a good bunt, too much towards the box, and I pounced on it and made the play at second, the long throw that Ugly took, forcing Toomy Richardson and putting Nance on first. It was a gamble but I tried it, hoping to keep Nance on his feet, not to mention keeping Richardson from being in scoring position. Dutch said he believed we would get to Nance if we worked him hard.
Sid played wide of the bag, and Nance led off long. Then Sid cut back in and Nance had no choice but follow. Sid done this twice until Nance finally stood resting with his foot on the bag and never led a-tall, and I went to work on Black. With a 2–2 count Black caught a hold of 1 and drilled it in the hole between Sid and Gene. Sid dived and missed, and Gene come over fast and took it deep in the hole and fired to me, covering at first, the kind of a play you seldom see, and the throw beat Black by a half a step and the crowd come to its feet applauding, for they had saw good baseball that inning, and they knowed it for once, which they so seldom do, and Dutch said “Good boy” to me when I come in the dugout, referring both to the play on Black and the quick thinking on Nance’s bunt.
I believe we tired Nance at that. Red opened our third with a cannonball blow that Tubs Blodgett leaped for at third. It nicked his glove and skittered over in foul territory, a fair ball, however, on account of Tubs making contact with it, and Red went clear to second.
I tried like hell to hit, but the best I could do was a fly to short left that Heinz took on the run, holding Red at second.
Nance kept throwing low to George. I don’t know why most clubs have got the idea that George ain’t a low-ball hitter. Boston and Brooklyn both try to low-ball George and never seem to get wise to theirselves. The second pitch George walloped to the opposite field, a real drive that climbed up the bullpen awning, good for 2 bases, and Red scored and the ice was broke.
Neither Canada nor Vincent could bring George home.
I struck out Casey Sharpe for the second time to end the Boston fourth.
I also struck out Heinz to open their fifth, but Chickering followed with their second hit, a sharp blow that got past Ugly by inches, and I lost Tubs Blodgett, passing him and getting in hot water for the first time that day, having previously give up only 1 hit. Tubs grinned at me with that Santa Claus face on his way down the line to first, and then he said 2 words to me.
I will tell you exactly what he said to me, for folks have asked me many times since. “Thank you,” he said, but Chickering, jogging down the line from first to second, must of thought something different passed between us, and he shouted at me—no need to repeat it. Ugly was over behind me, moving in for a conference at the hill, and he glared at Chickering and said the same thing back. Ugly was never much on thinking up original remarks. Then Chickering come sauntering towards Ugly, and I merely stepped over and tagged him out. He did not seem to care. He kept walking towards Ugly, and they stood head to head for several seconds, never a word passing between them, and Ugly slid his glove off his hand and begun to swing. But Chickering swang first, just once, and he busted Ugly’s jaw in 2 places.
I moved out of it quick. I shouted at Perry, “Grab a glove,” and we stood in front of the dugout throwing back and forth to keep warm whilst the players and the umpires and a whole hoard of cops moved out on the field, and the Commissioner come down out of his box, for he was there that day, and I stood warm, just throwing. The noise was almost too much to bear. The crowd comes for the ball game, but give them a busted jaw besides and they feel like they doubled their money.
They led Ugly off with his face in his hand, his jaw broke at last and later re-set in the natural way, Coker going in at short, taking up a great burden at a most strenuous time, and the game commenced again. Chickering was thumbed out. He was later fined and suspended. I pitched 2 pitches to Tocmy Richardson, Tubs then trying to steal second and getting throwed out, Traphagen to Roguski.
In the sixth the wind shifted. It blowed in from center and washed against the back, and the back tightened, and in the seventh I throwed 1 very bad ball to Granby to open the inning that he went flat on the ground to get out of the way of. He turned and said something to Frank Porter, and Porter said something to Red, telling Red to warn me there was to be no monkey business, and Red shouted out something that seemed to satisfy Porter and squatted quick, hustling me now, knowing that if I could keep warm we would get through the day on the long end, and we pitched high and fast to Granby, fast because it was cloudy and high because we did not care if they lifted them in the wind because the wind was in strong from center now. There is a factory not far from the park belonging to the Mendenhall Nut & Bolt Works that you can see the smokestack standing on the dugout step, and Red always watches it, for it blows smoke every day but Sunday and Red can tell from the drift of the smoke which way the wind will hit the park, and Granby poled 1 high that the wind took and played with and dropped it where Pasquale was standing and waiting.
We worked with the greatest care on Fielding. Except for Casey Sharpe he is the only first-class power hitter in the Boston line-up, and we finally got him on a roller to Gene Park, and Casey Sharpe himself come up. “Leave us get him,” said Red, “and then maybe not face him again today,” and we mapped the strategy, and then Red went back and settled down in his crouch. We did not work long on old Casey. He is not usually a first-ball hitter, but he went after it now, and he caught it good with the fat of his bat—a high, fast curve—and it went towards the sky, and far, and Pasquale and Canada moved backwards and forwards under it, according to the ways of the wind, and then Canada called and lunged, for when it dropped down out of the wind it come fast, and he took it, and it seemed like the worst was over, 6 men to get and the lower end of the order coming up. The crowd stood for the stretch.
Only Horse Byrd was warming now. Dutch moved Canada to first in the top of the eighth, Scotty Burns going to center with full instructions concerning the wind, the crowd silent again, the back aching in a dull way. But I was sure it was good for the 2 more innings. Dutch asked me, and I said I was sure.
Heinz opened the eighth with what seemed to be orders to tire me if he could. He did not take his bat off his shoulder until the count was 2 and 2, and then I struck him out with the screw. Plainfield, playing second now in place of Chickering, went down in the same way on 4 pitches, coming full around on the last and throwing himself to the ground by the power of his own swing, and he swore a mighty oath and hurled the bat clear to the screen behind home.
Tubs Blodgett come up, hitting with a heavier stick now, the only time I ever seen him use anything but the black bat, hoping maybe to beat the wind with extra drive. We played him straight away, Vincent Pasquale maybe a few steps more towards left then usual, but never more then a few, Tubs a cool and veteran customer, the crowd still very quiet, or at least as quiet as 87,572 people can be in 1 place, nobody budging nor moving for an exit, the loudest sound being a couple jet planes overhead that come and was gone before you could glimpse them. I looked up, and there was 1 plane writing in the sky. Then I looked up again, holding my head that way because it seemed to rest the back where it hurt at the knob of the neck, and I went to work on Tubs, full speed and screws, twice speed that he swang at and missed though my heart give a tumble each time he come round with that over-weight bat, and then 1 screw, and he nicked the screw and it popped in Red’s mitt, and then out, and up, and Red went after it with his bare hand and juggled it like a chunk of slippery soap and then clapped the big mitt over the hand, and that was all for Tubs, and the crowd give out with a thunderous din. For an instant I did not know why the ovation had a certain extra energy to it, and then it occurred to me that I had fanned the side.
There was 3 men to go to clinch the tie.
We went down in order in our half of the eighth. “3 to go,” said Perry when I got up and slipped out of my jacket, and I said “Yes, 3 men to go,” and the hill looked far away, and high, a long climb up, and I strolled out, knowing that 1 way or another in the next 10 or 15 minutes the pressure would be off for good—off me at least—and that was something to look forward to.
The wind whipped in from center, and it was dark. The lights went on.
A speck of dust blowed in my eye, and I called time and worked around in my eye with my finger, but I could not get it out. Red looked in my eye and seen it and yelled for Doc Loftus, and Frank Porter come down and looked in the eye and said there was no speck. He said it was all a stall. I said I was every bit as anxious as him to be out of the park, and the crowd howled for action, all in a hurry to get it over with, and finally Doc come with cotton sticks and a little bottle and dabbed in the eye and got hold of the speck once or twice but could not draw it out. His hands shook, for the howling of the mob made him nervous, and finally he hooked it, and I held my head back and he poured the bottle in my eye. “Good luck, Wiggen,” he said, and off he run like he was glad to get out of sight again.
Alf Keeler had sent Hampden up to hit for Toomy Richardson. Hampden is a young kid, barely 20, and he was up there with a good deal riding on what he might do, tight and tense and anxious. He is a righthanded pull hitter, and we played him pretty much to the left side, throwing close. The count leveled at 2 and 2 and then we gambled with the jughandle curve. He did not swing, and it nipped the corner, and it was good and he knowed it was good and he turned in a fury on Porter and opened his mouth and never said a word, just closed it again and walked off, trailing his bat behind. That was the fourth straight man I fanned.
Bob Boyne hit for Fred Nance, a man of near 40 that I bought bubble gum as a kid with a card in every chunk and once had a card for Boyne, his picture and his history. He was a cool customer, like Tubs Blodgett, a switch-hitter, swinging righthanded now. He choked way up on his bat and stared at me and tried to face me down until it was like my eyes was glued to him, and I stepped out and broke the spell, and then I stepped in and he stepped out, and the mob howled and the wind whipped my back, and the back ached like blazes.
We stuck mostly to curves. Boyne choked up, hoping to punch 1 through and get a man on base and play for the breaks, a wild throw or an error or some sort of a general collapse in the field. He lashed at 2 curves and sliced them foul, for I throwed them with the full motion of my whole body and they broke sharp and fast, 2 pitches as good as any I ever delivered, and he fouled them along the line in left, George and Coker and Vincent all giving chase and never quite making it.
Boyne moved his hands an inch or more down towards the handle of the bat, and he shifted forward in the box, hoping to meet the curve before it broke full, or the screw if we throwed the screw. But we done neither. Instead we poured the fast 1 through, and he drilled it back and a little to my left. I got the tip of the middle finger of my left hand on it as it went by. It bloodied the nail. Gene come clear over and speared it backhand close to second, and the play at first was close, Canada stretching and splitting and Boyne not so young no longer or he might of had it beat. Toft called him out. I believe it was the right decision.
Boston thought otherwise. Boyne pulled up quick and turned and raced for Toft and spit in the old man’s face, and Keeler stormed out and stood wrangling with Toft until he throwed them out, Boyne later fined by the League besides. Toft has heard plenty over the years but I rather imagine that this was the equal of any, and he took out his watch and give them 30 seconds to be out of his sight, and 20 they spent in further discussion and the other 10 drifting back towards their dugout and through the door to the clubhouse.
The Boston bench was loud. Toft heard them, too, and after a minute it become too much and he went and cleared the bench, all but those that was still in the game plus 2 coaches, and they went back behind the dugout door and now and then flung out a remark and then closed the door quick before you could see who it was. Every oath was wilder then the 1 before. I got so interested in seeing what they could possibly come up with next that I forgot about my bloody nail and never thought about it until after the game was over. And then it didn’t matter.
The boys sung. I had not heard them in many weeks, and now they sung at last, and I could hear them clear from the outfield, their voice carried in on the wind—“1 more man, Henry baby, 1 more man”—and above them the voice of the crowd rolling like waves in an ocean. It would rise until I thought it could rise no more, and then it would rise even higher, and then as I pumped and pitched it died, and it was like every man and woman in the park was holding their breath, and then after the pitch there was the noise of all hell broke loose, beating against me like it was a solid thing, like waves in a genuine ocean, and when it hit I felt it in my back from knob to knob, from the back of my neck to the base of my spine.
I pitched 1 pitch to Black. I do not know if I could of throwed another. I pitched it in noise and pain that I will never forget, letter-high and hard, the full wind and the full pump and the full motion, and he swang, and the wood on the ball made a thin slim sound like a twig you might break across your knee, and the ball went upwards and upwards, almost straight up, halfway down the line between home and third, and Red called, not that you heard him but that you seen his mouth move, and the ball hung in the air and then fell, down through the lights, Red weaving, dancing first 1 way and then the next, his big mitt waiting, and then it hit, soundless, and he clapped his meat hand over the ball and turned and raced for his mask and picked it up and headed for the clubhouse, and I followed, and a dozen hands held me—George and Coker and Perry and Canada and Sid and I do not know who all—thumping me and lifting me clear of the ground, and then they set me down quick because the crowd busted loose from the stands and come swarming down on the field until in 5 seconds or less the green field was covered with people, and the boys turned me loose and we raced for the dugout and forced our way down and through the door to the clubhouse. Somebody amongst the crowd stole my hat for a souvenir.
I feel that that was the greatest game of my life. I had it all the way, the little old pill doing what I wanted it to from first to last. It was greater then the 1-hitter against Brooklyn, greater then the 16-inning duel with Rob McKenna, the tops. Above everything else it was the 1 that had to be won no matter what, and no 2 ways about it, and the cushion was 2 with 2 to go.
Ugly was lost. That was for sure. Doc Loftus was back from the hospital and said there was no question that Ugly was lost, his jaw hanging loose on his face, broke as neat and as clean as the best of your big-time doctors could of did, and I was glad for Ugly in a way I can not explain, envying him that the pressure was off, like maybe you would envy some poor soldier that in the midst of a fierce battle got a little nick and was carried back by the ambulance out of action. I figured that as far as Ugly went he already done what he could do. Win or lose the blame was off his shoulder now, and there was nothing left for him any more but lay there in the clean white bed and follow the papers.
“They will re-set it, and in the spring he will be handsome,” said Doc, and the boys all laughed.
Gene said, “If there is 1 thing that eats on Ugly it is the fact of being ugly. I cannot imagine him different.”
“We will change his name from Ugly to something more fitting next year,” said Hams.
Then the whole thing begun to eat on Gene. Gene was Ugly’s roomie for many a year, and probably in the excitement of winning the ball game he forgot, but now he said he was about to pay a visit to a fellow name of Chickering, and he started out the door and down the alleyway that leads under the stands to the visiting clubhouse. Many a fight has took place in that alley in years gone by. Dutch and a Pittsburgh catcher name of Roy Pink many years ago had 1 of the bloodiest fights on record down there. In August of last summer Coker and Canada had a date to meet there and battle out a personal argument that to this day I do not know the reason for. But I got there first and busted it up. I think they was both just as pleased. I did not want Gene getting involved neither, and me and some of the boys blocked his way and closed the door and told him forget it and keep his mind on the business at hand, and right about then Clint and Egg come in by the alley and told us that Chickering was fined 500 and suspended by the Commissioner. That squared things a little as far as the boys was concerned, though Gene swore he would murder Chickering when next he seen him, and the boys all swore the same.
Yours truly swore right along with the rest, and this hands me a laugh because of the following:
I left the park alone after the crowds cleared off some, and on the way I stopped to pick up some cleaning at Gordon’s Quick-Way Cleaners, located down the block from the hotel. It is owned and run by a fellow name of Gordon that the boys all call “Flash” after Flash Gordon. I walked up to the counter and slid him my ticket, and about 1 second later in walked Chickering himself.
“You son of a bitch,” I said.
“Flash?” said he. “Did you hear what the boy just called you?” He slid his ticket across the counter after mine.
“No fighting, boys. No fighting,” said Flash.
“Who is fighting?” said Chickering. “We ain’t fighting.”
“You son of a bitch,” I said. I was really at a loss for words and couldn’t think of a damn thing else.
“I have just been fined 500 dollars and suspended by the Commissioner,” said Chickering, “so do not call me another name, for my nerves are on edge.”
“You son of a bitch,” I said.
“You must have a fairly small vocabulary,” said Chickering.
“No fighting in here boys, please,” said Flash. “Mr. Chickering, have you not done enough fighting for 1 day?”
“Yes,” said Chickering, “I have done enough fighting for 1 day. It is all over for me for the present time. The Commissioner says I must not even be at the park tomorrow. But I will buy my way in with dark glasses and sit like a gentleman. The Commissioner says my action is detrimental to the best interests of baseball.”
“You son of a bitch,” I said. That was the fourth time. But this time there was no sting to it, and Flash laughed, relieved, and Chickering stuck out his hand, and before I could even think what I was doing I stuck out my hand and was shaking the hand that busted the jaw of Ugly Jones.
“Easy, Wiggen,” he said, “for I believe I sprained a knuckle,” and I stood there shaking hands in a tailor shop with the fellow that an hour before I swore I would kill him if ever I seen him.
But it dawned on me that me and him was more or less in the same happy boat, and all of a sudden I was feeling good and would of shook hands with anybody. I would be sitting it out, like him, because it was all over for me, like it was for him, like it was for Ugly, and besides all that it never cost me nothing, neither a busted jaw nor 500 cash, and I felt good, and I stood there pumping his hand like he was an old friend that I had not saw in 8 years. He give me a queer look. “They tell me you are an odd sort of a kid,” he said. “I believe them.”
Then I took the pants that Flash give me, and I went out the door and up the street towards the hotel, whistling like a madman.