Fear Strikes Out (7 page)

Smitty and I walked into the Tiptoe a couple of nights later, and Tony was sitting at his big table with a group of girls and boys. He waved to us, then came over to say hello. After a while he said, “I’ll see you guys later. I’ve got to go back to my date.”

“Which one’s your date?” I asked.

“The little one over in the corner.”

“You mean the redhead?”

“I guess she’s sort of redheaded, at that,” Tony remarked. “Funny—I’ve known her for years and never noticed. Well—I’ll see you.”

I wanted to follow him and meet the redhead, but I didn’t dare. I hadn’t had much experience with girls. The only one I’d ever gone out with much was a Waterbury schoolmate named Pat Delaney. She and I grew up together. Our folks were friends, and I guess they hoped maybe we’d get married some day. We liked each other all right, but if I ever had the remotest idea of getting serious with her, I forgot all about it one night during my senior year in high school.

“What are you going to do after you graduate?” she asked.

“Gee, I don’t know. Play ball, I suppose.”

“Ballplayers are traveling all the time, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t want to marry a ballplayer. Ballplayers aren’t home enough.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m going to be a ballplayer.”

And that was that.

Every so often I stole looks at the little redhead with Tony. Her hair was really light brown, I suppose, but it had a reddish cast to it. She had huge china-blue eyes, shining white teeth, high cheekbones, and soft white skin. I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, but all I could do that night was sit and admire her from a distance.

“Nice, huh?”

Smitty was pointing towards her. I reddened and clenched my fists but I didn’t say anything.
I’m mad at Smitty and I don’t even know the girl. And all he said was what I was thinking.

At the Tiptoe the next night, I said to Tony, “That your girl—the one you were with last night?”

“Heck, no,” he replied. “I don’t have any girl. She’s just an old friend.”

“Who is she, what does she do, and when are you going to introduce us?”

“Her name’s Mary Teevan. She’s training to be a nurse. You like her, eh? She’s a nice girl. I’ll take her to the ball game and introduce you to her later if you’ll promise to hit a home run tomorrow night.”

“I’ll promise anything.”

The next night I hit a home run my first time up. When Smitty and I walked into the Tiptoe after the game, Tony beckoned to us. His cousin Bob Howley, who drove us home every night, was with him, along with Mary and a couple I’d seen before but had never met. The girl’s name was Ann O’Brien and the boy with her was Dan Kuchar. I didn’t pay much attention to either of them. I was too busy edging Tony away from the chair beside Mary. He caught on quickly and made room for me. I sat down, tried to think of something sensationally clever to say, grinned foolishly at Mary, took a deep breath and finally managed a brilliantly conceived, “Holy cow!”

Mary laughed.

“I liked your home run,” she said. It was the first time I’d ever heard her speak. Her voice sounded just the way I expected—neat and small and calm, yet clear and direct.

“So did I,” I replied. Then I said, “I wouldn’t have hit it except I wanted to meet you.”

“Tony told me. He knows lots of girls. Get him to introduce you to one a day. It’ll make you the greatest home-run hitter of all time.”

A day or so later, I was walking along Washington Street, the main thoroughfare in Scranton, when I heard a girl say, “Holy cow! Look who’s here.”

It was Mary, smiling as she used my favorite expression. She was on her way to the hospital with Ann, who was also in training to be a nurse. I persuaded them to stop in at a soda fountain, but they were in a hurry and only had time for a Coke. While they were drinking, I gobbled up two sundaes and was just starting on an ice-cream soda when they got up to leave. The last thing Mary said as she walked out was, “Holy cow! What an appetite!”

I may not have liked the way he said it, but Smitty was right. This is a nice girl. This is more than that. This is the girl for me. Mary Teevan. Catholic—like me. That’s good. I’m going to marry a Catholic. Marry? How can I think of marriage? I’ve got enough other responsibilities without taking on any more. I have to take care of Mom and Dad. But I wonder. Maybe I can’t think of marriage now. But I want to know more about Mary Teevan. What does she like? What doesn’t she like? Where is she from? How about her people? When can I see her again? I’ve got to call her up and make a date—for tonight. She’ll be through at the hospital at just about the same time the ball game’s over. But where does she live? I don’t even know the name of her hospital.

I called Tony Howley, and he said I could reach Mary at St. Mary’s Hospital, so I phoned her just before I left to go to the ball park that night. As I waited for her to come to the phone I nearly hung up. My hand was shaking so much that I couldn’t get a firm grip on the receiver, and suddenly I seemed to be swimming in perspiration. When she finally answered in her small, firm voice, I could only stammer, “Meet me at the Tiptoe after work?”

“Holy cow!” she said. “It’s Jimmy again. How are you?”

“O.K. Meet me, Mary?”

“Sure. I’ll meet you, Jimmy,” she said, softly.

“And if the game’s not over—”

“I don’t have to go back on duty until tomorrow afternoon, so I don’t care how late I get in. If the game’s not over, Jimmy, I’ll wait for you.”

There was a caress in her voice, and somehow I didn’t feel nervous any more. I wanted to stand in that phone booth and talk to her, but I had to get to the ball park.

“Mary—” I said.

“What?”

“Uh—nothing. I’ll see you at the Tiptoe.”

My heart was pounding when I hung up.
What’s the matter with me? I never felt this way about a girl before.

At the Tiptoe, Mary was sitting at a table in the corner, with Ann and Tony and Dan and a couple of other people. She waved when I walked in, and motioned me to an empty chair beside her. I was annoyed. I’d hoped to find her alone. I nodded to everyone else, and greeted Mary with a somewhat thin “Hi.” Then I sat down.

The conversation was general, but I didn’t have much to say, even though everyone was talking about the ball game. I couldn’t take my eyes off Mary. I saw now that her hair wasn’t really red at all, but quite definitely brown. I loved to watch her smile, for she smiled with more than just her mouth. Her eyes twinkled and her whole face lit up, and she smiled often. For the first time, I noticed the curve of her chin. She had a look of determination, and I saw now that it was because of her chin. It was a beautiful chin and it went well with the rest of her face because it didn’t jut out, but it just missed being square.
I wonder if she’s stubborn. Does she have to have her own way all the time? She smiled and I relaxed. How can a girl with a smile like that be stubborn?

“Are you always so happy?” I asked.

“Are you always so serious?” she countered.

We both laughed. Then I said, “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

“Can’t we talk here?”

“Not really,” I said. “All these people—”

“We can’t very well break away.”

“Why not?”

“Wouldn’t it be sort of obvious?”

“What if it is?”

“Jimmy—”

“What?”

“After tomorrow, I go back on duty days.”

“Then we can get together Sunday night. There’s no ball game.”

“Holy cow, you’re a real bright boy, aren’t you?”

We both laughed again. It wasn’t until after Bob Howley had driven her home and then dropped me off at my rooming house that I realized my tensions and pressures had eased up so much that I was almost completely relaxed.

At the time, Mary was living with an aunt, Mary Holleran. We sat on the porch Sunday evening, and talked softly while a full moon played hide-and-seek with passing clouds. One minute it would be almost pitch dark and the next the whole porch would be glowing. I remember that evening very well because it was the first time I ever talked frankly about myself to a girl my own age; in fact, before I was through, I told Mary things I had never told another living soul. I told her about my headaches and my fears and my mom’s trouble and my dad’s temper and my need for security and my everlasting quest for release from the pressures that plagued me. I tried to tell her everything at once. I was terribly anxious for her to know and understand me—the sooner the better.

Suddenly, I realized what I was doing and stopped, embarrassed because I had poured my troubles into her lap.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Why?”

“I’ve talked all about myself. I must have been boring you.”

“You haven’t bored me, Jimmy. I want to know more.”

“What about you? I don’t know anything about you—except that you’re in training to be a nurse. Tell me about yourself now.”

“There isn’t very much—”

She told me about her dad in Wilkes-Barre, and her younger brother Harry and still younger sister Ann. Her mother had died when she was eleven, and from then on there had always been a housekeeper. Her father had a good job. He was a dragline operator at a surface mine. A dragline, she explained, was a sort of super-steam shovel which was used to scoop up piles of coal residue. It took a skilled man to operate one—a man with keen long-distance eyesight and quick reactions.

“My dad’s a little man, but he runs one of the biggest machines at the mines,” she said. “And you know what, Jimmy? He’s a great baseball fan. He goes to all the Wilkes-Barre games he can. He’s seen you play.”

“I can’t have your dad rooting for Wilkes-Barre.”

“He won’t be. He’s coming here to live in a few weeks—as soon as the kids get out of school.”

I liked Mary’s father. As she had explained, he was a small man, but he didn’t seem small, for he carried himself with dignity. He had merry eyes which glinted with good humor, and a leisurely manner of talking which gave the impression that he never was in a hurry to finish a sentence. It was easy to see where Mary had acquired her smile. Her dad’s eyes never stopped smiling, and his mobile face relaxed often into a wide grin. His real name was Harry, but for no particular reason, I started calling him George. Mary and I both call him George to this day.

I went with Mary all summer. Realizing my hunger for peace of mind, she was always trying to quiet me down and softly telling me to take it easy. She knew I was moving too fast, and time and again she said, “It’s a long life, Jimmy. Don’t try to use it up all at once.”

We grew closer and closer, and I was happy in the knowledge that I had found the girl I wanted. Mary was my kind of person—a member of my faith, a child of a working-class family and a product of a medium-sized city. We understood each other so well that we drifted into talk of marriage as naturally as we talked of everything else.

One night I said, “We could be happy together.”

“Could we?”

“Yes. Only—”

“Only what, Jimmy?”

“Well—I don’t have very much money. And I’ve got to take care of my folks.”

“I know.”

“We might even have to live with them.”

“That’s all right.”

“Someday, Mary—not this year, but maybe next—all right?”

I went back to work for the silver company in Meriden during the winter of 1948–1949, and, to make sure that Mary wouldn’t forget me, I bought a second-hand car and commuted between Waterbury and Scranton every other weekend. It was a tough, eight-hour trip over winding, mountainous roads. I would drive to Scranton Saturday, stay there until Sunday evening and then go directly to Meriden, walking into the plant on Monday morning without any sleep. It was not recommended routine for a boy suffering from nervous tension, but, even though I was usually too tired to take Mary anywhere after arriving in Scranton, I thrived on it. I was more relaxed that winter than I had been for years.

I was apprehensive about my father’s reaction to Mary, so I didn’t tell him how serious I felt about her. But between his illness and my own new-found independence, he no longer could frighten me with his roaring temper. He told me what he thought I should do, and if I thought his advice was good, I followed it.

When it came time for spring training, I reported back to the Louisville club. I was looking forward to it because Mike Ryba had been made manager of the Colonels. To make me feel even more at home, Ed Doherty, who was president of the Scranton club when I played there, had also been promoted to Louisville. Doherty, a tall, friendly, prematurely gray man who always treated me well, is now president of the American Association.

A month after the 1949 season started, Mary flew to Louisville to see me. She stayed with friends for several days, and just before she flew back I said, “How about setting a date?”

“Like right after the season’s over?”

“Yes—sometime in October.”

The next time she came to Louisville, my dad was there. He had met Mary in Scranton, and was not upset when I told him we were going to get married. It wouldn’t have made any difference, of course, but I was relieved because I had been apprehensive about his reaction. I knew there’d be no trouble with Mom. She and Mary got along very well, and, in fact, Mom already was aware of our plans and approved of them.

I was very happy, even though assailed by vague worries over finances. I was assuming a new responsibility, but Mary was so willing to co-operate that I almost felt that I was taking advantage of her. Each time I started to tell her about my obligations in Waterbury, she put a finger to my lips and said, “Don’t worry about it, honey. Whatever you say is all right with me. Don’t you know that yet?”

I did know it, but I still couldn’t help worrying about money. Occasionally, while I tossed around trying to get to sleep at night, I’d be plagued by simple mathematics, as I tried to figure out how much I’d have to give the folks, how much we’d need to live on, how much I could put into the bank and how much more I could make over my baseball salary.

One day I asked my father, “How much do you need every week? Tell me exactly.”