Keystone Kids (12 page)

It was the first time one of them had addressed the new manager, and the initial contact was a refusal, almost insubordination. As the star of the team’s hurling staff, Razzle had never been forced to pitch batting practice by Ginger Crane. The others took their regular turn save the prima donna of the pitchers.

A bench creaked in the stillness. No one spoke, for everyone was watching to see what would happen. Raz stood motionless. He looked at the new manager. The new manager looked back with a steady hardness that Bob had never seen before on the face of his brother.

What’ll he say? What’ll he do now?

His voice was calm. “Razzle, from now on you’ll take your turn out there with the rest. And you’ll... pitch... batting practice... today.”

Somewhere in the rear another bench creaked as someone leaned forward to see what the big pitcher would do. He hesitated, astonished, dazed for a moment, his mouth open. Then he slapped his glove.

“O.K., Spike,” he said.

A kind of murmur went round the crowded room. Say! Maybe this kid, this rookie manager, isn’t going to be so soft after all.

W
INNING
S
PIKE’S OPENER
as manager of the Dodgers was important. They won it decisively. Winning a doubleheader on his first afternoon in charge was better still. They won those two games as a team, as a unit, something they hadn’t been lately. Now we’ve got a manager, everyone seemed to be thinking. Now we’ve got a real manager; now we’ll go places.

It was the rookie, Klein, whose lusty two bagger won the opener in the ninth and who, with the help of his keen-witted manager, saved the second game. The boy was good. He had a pair of shoulders behind his bat and back of his throws. He had more ginger than old Stansworth. He kept the pitchers alert by the manner in which he pegged the ball back to them. Also he had a head, and that day he showed he could use it in the pinches. The pinch came in the ninth of the second game, the sort of thing that often happens in a ballgame. Everything goes right, everything breaks your way—up to a point. Then nothing clicks; the play that worked a few innings before doesn’t come off; the player who made a wonderful stop the previous inning lets a ball through his legs or misses a signal in a crisis.

The Dodgers were on their toes for the new manager; they were playing as a team, giving everything they had, and for seventeen long innings were on top every minute. Then with a three run lead young Rog Stinson weakened in the ninth. While the huge crowd watched intently, the Cubs, with the top of their batting order crowding the plate, got men on first and third with no one out.

Shrieks and cries came from the stands. “Take him out... take him out... take him out...” The cruel, relentless yell of the mob, the mob that can manage a ballclub from the bleachers better than any manager on the field.

The roar grew, for the fans wanted that game as much as the team.

Would Spike call on old Fat Stuff?

The veteran in the bullpen, pretending as usual not to hear the call, threw in a few extra warm-up pitches and then waddled across to the box where Spike and Klein were waiting. It was the first time Klein had caught the old timer.

“Hope you’re not one of these pitch-out catchers!”

“No, sir,” replied the boy. “You get that ball in there and I’ll take my chances with the men on bases.”

“O.K., Fat Stuff! O.K., Jocko! Let’s go,” said Spike, slapping the pitcher on the back.

The team and the batter and the whole ballpark settled into that ninth inning tension, the tenseness that spells drama, that comes when the shadows hang over the diamond, when a tight one hangs in the balance. A hit, a throw, a close decision, and there goes your ballgame. That afternoon the tenseness was the more acute because of the young manager. Out in deep short he kicked nervously at the pebbles in the dirt.

“Strike one!” cried the umpire.

A roar went up with his hand, and all over the diamond came the chatter, especially from second base. A ball. Another strike. Fat Stuff was working carefully and confidently on the better, teasing him with a low one. Two and two.

Suddenly on the next pitch the man on first broke. Spike, in deep short, was ready. He half expected a steal and came charging into the cut-out position behind the box, anxiously watching Klein receive the ball, half seeing the umpire’s hand go up as the batter swung fiercely. How would the youngster react? Would he become the typical rookie, holding the ball for fear the man on third would dash home? Or would he crack and throw the ball into center field?

The double steal with men on first and third is one of the hardest plays to prevent. The prevention falls almost entirely on the catcher. In half a second or less he must decide whether to throw to third and hand the other man second base. This was the moment, this was the test. This might make him or break him.

With one glance over his left shoulder at third, the catcher took the hard way. He pegged high at Spike in the cut-off position, just as the man on third broke for home. The manager caught the ball shoulder high and burned it back to the plate, nabbing the runner by yards. Klein tagged him as he slid in, jumped aside, and shot the ball to second where the base-runner was four feet off the bag toward third. Bob, waiting, slapped the ball on him for the second out.

A roar broke out all over the stands, and Spike, turning, saw his brother toss his glove back onto the grass. It was the third out, for the man at the plate had swung on the third strike. They had made a triple play. The game was won.

They came charging in from the field while the crowd stood roaring above. Hands slapped at them as they rushed under the dugout and into the locker room.

“That’s heads-up ball there, Buglenose,” said old Fat Stuff affectionately.

“That’s the angle, Jocko.”

“Nice work, Buglenose, nice work there! That’s keeping your eyes peeled.”

Everyone had a good word for the rookie except Karl Case, who sat beside his locker muttering. “Howsat for luck? This kid breaks into a triple play his first month in the league! I never been in on a triple play and I been in the majors eleven years. Howsat for luck?”

Everyone else was happy; happy, loose, and warm. The warmth came from inside, not from the exercise in the hot July sunshine.

Now we’ve got a manager, we’ll go places. We’ve got a manager and a catcher, too. Stansworth was so old he wasn’t getting down to the low ones half the time.

“Boy,” said Spike, “you like to burn my hands off on that cut-off play. You can throw all right, and you get ’em off quick, too. O.K., gang. Train leaves Pennsylvania at eight-thirty. We gotta hustle. Don’t forget to take your jackets. It gets cold out on that lake front there...”

They piled into the train and assaulted the dining car. An hour and a half later they returned in twos and threes. Spike and the coaches were together in a drawing room working over the Reds’ batting order. As usual, Red Allen turned to the evening newspaper and a crossword puzzle. Case and Street and Swanny, the card players, broke open a pack. The door of their compartment was ajar as the young catcher passed by on his way from the diner. He paused a moment in the doorway.

“Nice work, Buglenose, nice work on that cut-off play,” said Swanny. The rookie stood leaning against the doorway while Harry Street pulled a suitcase onto their laps and Swanny began to shuffle the cards.

“What’s that?” asked the rookie. “One down and four up?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s for letting me in on it? I played that all over the Middle West these last years.”

Swanny looked at Case and Case glowered at Swanny. There was a moment of silence which some would have noticed. But the young catcher, feeling himself a part of the team, exhilarated by the warmth of their approval, by his play in the last inning, did not perceive Case’s glowering glance, nor understand the hesitating silence that followed his request. On a ballclub the rookies all play cards together and the veterans have their own game. The old timers usually have a higher stake and don’t want to take money the youngsters can’t afford to lose. For a minute or so no one answered the young catcher.

Then Swanny replied, “Why, sure! What the hell! Here, sit over beside me.” And he made room for the youngster.

Two hours later Spike was turning in, tired but happy. Manager at last, with two games to his credit, and the team really taking hold. Being manager wasn’t so bad at that! Unable to sleep, he lay thinking over the game and especially the last inning, feeling the satisfaction of finding that hole behind the plate well filled, looking ahead to the trials of the road trip in the July heat, half listening all the while to the roaring of the train and the occasional voices of passers-by in the corridor.

Then a familiar voice came to him. It was Karl Case. Karl, as usual, was complaining.

What’s biting that guy now, thought Spike. He got four hits this afternoon; he ought to be happy.

“Yeah, well, we had no business letting a kid like that in the game. Anyhow, who ast him? Nobody ast him, that’s who ast him. He shoulda minded his own affairs. The fresh young Jew-boy! He butts in and takes all our dough. Sixty-six bucks it cost me, the nervy busher...”

He moved along the corridor, still grumbling. The door of his compartment slammed shut.

F
ROM THAT MOMENT
Case had it in for young Klein. Karl Case, the wickedest bench jockey in the league, was by no means the most popular man on the club. His tongue was an asset when turned on their adversaries, a liability when he went after a teammate, which he often did. Once he got “on a man” he could be really mean.

To be sure, everyone on the club addressed the rookie catcher as Buglenose. That was his nickname, his name on the bench and in the clubhouse, just as Fat Stuff and Spike and Rats were nicknames. There was comradeship in it, affection almost. After the card game on the train, however, there was a note in Karl’s voice which made the young catcher look up flushing when the swarthy outfielder spoke to him. Naturally Case didn’t miss this sign.

“Hey there, Buglenose, lemme get a cut at that-there grapefruit.” Or, “Looka, Buglenose, save me a rap for a change, will ya?”

At first only a few of them noticed his tone. But by that sudden reddening the rookie catcher confessed he had felt it from the start.

Next came the clash, the clash that was probably inevitable, given that incident on the train and the temperaments of the two men, yet damaging to the team at that critical moment in the season. Perhaps had it all happened in private the trouble would have blown over. Flare-ups of that kind often help settle a team that is trying to find itself. A manager makes the men shake hands and get it all off their minds. Case would then have forgotten the loss of his sixty-six dollars and, more important still, the injury to his vanity when, as the best poker player on the team, he was taken over by a rookie from Rochester.

Unfortunately the whole thing took place in the worst spot of all—on Forbes Field where the Pirate coaches missed nothing. It happened before the game and during practice where those old-timers on the Pitt bench observed its full significance. Coaches make it their business to use every available weapon.

The Dodgers were at batting practice. Case swaggered to the plate, took his cuts, and on the last ball laid one down just inside the first base line, a bunt that was fair by inches. Klein, the rookie catcher, instinctively dashed for the ball. Case saw his chance and took it. As the two thundered toward first, nearing the ball, Klein leaned over to pick it up, and as he did so the outfielder charged through, stepping on his bare hand and at the same time cracking him on the thigh with his rising knee.

The two men tumbled to the grass, rolled over, picked themselves up, and went for each other. There was a moment when they stood face to face, the hot-tempered Case spoiling for a fight as revenge for his hurt pride, ready to receive a punch or give one; Klein wringing his hand, uncertain. The second was there; it came and passed. The punch was never delivered.

“Back to yer tools, Buglenose. And the next time clear out of my way, see?”

This even reached Bob on second base who caught the sneer in Case’s tone. He watched them stand, faces a few inches apart, saw the catcher still shaking his bleeding hand turn slowly away and move back toward the plate. As the rookie leaned over to pick up his mask, it flashed on Bob. Why, the guy can’t take it!

Back on the bench the Pirate coaches observed the incident with pleasure and instantly filed it for future use. The exact moment to use it came two hours later.

The Dodgers were behind that afternoon, and toward the end of the game had a three run lead to overcome. In the eighth they had loaded the bases, with two out, when the rookie catcher shuffled to the plate. Suddenly, without warning, the barrage broke in full force from the Pirate bench.

“Hey! Hey there, Buglenose...”

“Watch out, Jew-boy, watch out or you’ll get yerself kilt up there!”

“Oh, you Buglenose!”

“Danny, show up that kike. Let him look at your fast one. He won’t dare offer at it.”

The last shot made the boy wince. He betrayed his emotion by a quick turn of his head toward the opposing bench. His bat waved menacingly but this was merely an act. That shot got home and the Pitt coaches knew it immediately. So did the scattered substitutes along the dugout seat who joined in the pursuit. The bench jockeys were off in full cry.

“Better duck, Buglenose, better duck...”

“Watch yerself, Buglenose, watch yerself there, or he’ll pare that beak off’n ya!”

The pitcher threw in a strike. The bat never moved from Klein’s shoulder. From the opposing dugout the torrent of noise increased. On the coaching lines behind third Spike saw what was happening, cupped his hands and shouted, trying to encourage the red-faced rookie at the plate. Again the pitcher tossed in a fast ball. The batter leaned but didn’t offer. Once again the bat remained in his hands, motionless.

“Get your bat offa your shoulders, Jocko. You can’t expect to hit if you don’t swing at ’em.” Spike yelled as loud as he could, but his voice was lost in the clamor of abuse from the dugout of the home team.