Keystone Kids (2 page)

“Well, I’ll admit you’ve seen plenty. This kid at short covers ground pretty good.”

“And he’ll improve, too. Spike’s tall but he isn’t filled out yet. Give him another season, wait until...”

The telephone rang. “Here he is now. Yes? O.K. Send him up. Now then, Ted, you’ll see what I mean when I say he’s a cool customer. He’s good and he knows he’s good, and he won’t mind saying so, either. Y’see they’re orphans, and this one acts as business manager for ’em.”

They sat for a minute or two in silence. Then there was a knock.

Spike wore a faded sports coat with a kind of leather patch over each sleeve where his elbows had begun to come through. His sleeves were too short, his trousers were baggy, and hardly reached his shoes. But, unlike many tall boys, he had no gawkiness in his movements as he came easily into the room.

“G’d evening, Mr. Devine.” It was Grouchy on the bench and in the ballpark, but it was Mr. Devine in his room at the Andrew Jackson. Besides, he was due for a dressing-down over the afternoon’s incident, and he knew the manager didn’t like familiarity at such moments.

Then he saw the stranger.

“Ted, this is Spike Russell, our shortstop. Spike, shake hands with Ted Fuller of the Dodgers.”

Ted Fuller, the Dodger scout! They were going to ask him first-off about the Mugger. Things get around a ballclub fast, and everyone knew there were scouts in the stands that afternoon. I must be careful what I say, he thought.

“Yessir. Glad to see you, Mr. Fuller.”

“Sit down, Spike, sit down. I’ve been watching you out there some time now. You boys handle that ball nicely.”

“Yessir, thank you, Mr. Fuller. Me and Bob been playing together quite a while.”

“You sure manage to get that ball off fast, Spike. How many doubleplays you think you’ve made this year?”

Should he tell him or shouldn’t he? Was there a catch to that question? Well, here goes. “A hundred and seven so far this year, sir. We led the league last season with a hundred and thirty-two. It’s basketball, you see.”

“Basketball?”

“Yessir. We both played basketball lots back home in Charlotte when we were kids. All that quick handling and passing, the pivoting and so forth, helps a man in this game.”

“I can see it does. Never thought of that. Suppose you’re right. You like basketball better than baseball?”

“Nosir, no, Mr. Fuller. We like baseball.” When was he going to get down to business, to the Mugger and his chances? If a call-down was due, he wanted it over and done with.

“Tell me about yourself, Spike. You and Bob now, how long you been at it?”

“Why, ’bout six-seven years. We played together quite some time. Started in the Tobacco League in Carolina. Then we jumped outlaw ball and got us a job on the Greenwood team down Mississippi way.”

“Greenwood? Oh, yes, that used to be a Giant farm. Where’d you go from there?”

“To Savannah, sir.”

“The Sally League! D’ja like it?”

“Yessir. ’Cept it’s awful doggone hot there. Why, sir, you wouldn’t believe it, come August the flies and bugs are so thick you can’t hardly see the ball in the air at night. They come round in the bleachers and spray the fans with Flit for ten cents; but they don’t ever spray the players.”

“Ha! That’s a good one, Grouchy. Spraying the fans with Flit for a dime. I never heard that before. What then? Where’d you go from there?”

“Why, we got a chance with the Dallas Rebels. Next year we managed to hitch up as utility outfielders with the Little Rock Travelers, and the year after that they put us in the infield. Then we come on here with Grouchy.”

He paused and looked closely at the stranger. The visitor wore an expensively cut, beige-colored suit, and a handsome necktie. He seemed immaculate and dressy beside Grouchy, sprawled in the easy chair in shirtsleeves and slippers.

“Spike! How’d you like to come up to the Dodgers?”

A fan whirred on the wall. Otherwise silence hung over the room.

“You want us to come up to the Dodgers? Right now?” There was anxiety in his tone and firmness also.

“We want
you
to come up.”

“You mean I should leave Bob, Mr. Fuller?” Was that what the man was saying? Leave Bob, the best guy that ever lived, and go up there alone to that club? Not a chance!

The other was laughing. He shot a glance at Grouchy. Then he laughed some more. It was a pleasant, agreeable laugh, a laugh that said: I know. I am used to dealing with folks, to getting along with people.

“Well now... maybe... we could even find a place for Bob, too.”

“Gee!” The anxiety left his voice and the heaviness dropped from his heart. Imagine! Exchanging twelve hundred dollars for three thousand a year. “Gee! That’d be fine. But look, you don’t mean to tell me the Dodgers are getting rid of guys like Ginger Crane and Eddie Davis?”

The stranger passed his hand over his forehead. “I don’t know what’s in their minds up there. I haven’t any idea what they plan on, Spike. They don’t let me in on their confidence. It’s a very different outfit from what it was under Dave Leonard; it’s run differently since he went to the Browns. All I know is I had orders to check on you boys again and see whether you were ready for the big time. Grouchy says you are. I guess I’d have to agree. How they’ll play you, or where, I don’t pretend to know. Ginger Crane isn’t the man he was around short five years ago for the Cubs. No secret about that. He can’t take it any more when the diamonds get hard and sun-baked toward the end of the season. His legs are going. Then there’s Street on third; well... they’ll work it out some way, I guess. When do you think you could get off?”

“You mean to go... to leave... to go North?”

“That’s what I mean.”

Leave Nashville! Go North! It was almost like leaving home. Leave all the boys and old Grouchy; why, Grouchy wasn’t a bad guy if you worked. He didn’t stand for any loafing, but he wasn’t a bad guy. Grouchy could have insisted on keeping them there all summer. And the fans, too. The fans who were your friends, the fans who followed you every night, who shelled out when you hit a homer for them in a crucial game. Exchange all that for a possible berth on the Dodgers. Just the idea sort of took your breath away.

The stranger was talking. “Where’s your stuff, Spike? Where you boys live?”

“Out to the boarding-house, Mr. Fuller. It’s Mis’ Hampton’s boarding-house on McGavock Street.”

“Think you could get out there in a taxi and grab your stuff and be ready to take the midnight plane from the airport? If I could get you reservations, that is?”

The midnight plane for New York! Half an hour ago he was coming into the room to get a dressing-down from old Grouchy and maybe hear how much of a fine would be slapped on. Now they were talking about the midnight plane for New York!

Hey, Bob! Hey, Bobby! We’re going up to the Dodgers!

S
PIKE LOOKED OVER
at Bob and Bob glanced back quickly at Spike, both thinking the same thing. Last night this time we were eating supper in Mrs. Hampton’s boarding-house on McGavock Street in Belmont Heights, Nashville. Now here we are dashing across Brooklyn Bridge in a limousine with the Dodgers, while up ahead a siren blares and snorts. That’s the police escort. Seems like in this league the top teams get a police escort when they have to make a train at the station.

Nashville to Brooklyn. Why, it was only one day, yet a day containing a thousand hours. Surely it was a thousand hours since that supper in Nashville. First of all the long plane ride over a dozen cities, clusters of twinkling lights far below, while everyone dozed save Spike and Bob, far too excited for sleep. Then the descent into the airport at La Guardia Field in New York, with the sun rising on the horizon. A tall man who introduced himself as Bill Hanson, the club secretary, had met them there. Then breakfast at the hotel—fruit juice and cereal, coffee and eggs and bacon, wheat cakes, too, all you could eat. Next the ballpark, with the players arriving for the days doubleheader against the Giants, and Ginger Crane, the shortstop and manager, famous throughout baseball, who entered looking more like a Broadway actor or a business executive than a ballplayer. Finally the Dodger monkey suits, and the practice for a couple of hours with dozens of photographers taking their pictures, and Bob out there making one of those impossible single-handed stabs. Last of all, the doubleheader they had watched from the bench.

All this in twenty-four hours. No, in a thousand hours. Now they were the Russell boys of the Dodgers, leaving with the team to make the last western trip of the season. It was ages since they’d sat together in Mrs. Hampton’s boarding-house on McGavock Street where the stew for supper was gone whenever the game lasted more than nine innings. A thousand hours had passed since then.

The station in New York was a cavern, not a station. It was bigger far than anything they could imagine, yet jammed with Sunday evening travelers. In the confusion they became separated from the team. Some bad moments followed. Whichever way they looked were strange faces, everywhere strange faces, people hurrying for trains or from trains, no one they had ever seen.

Say! Suppose we lost the club for good, suppose we missed that train! Why, we’d get shot back to Nashville pronto.

Silently they wandered through big dome-shaped areas, into waiting rooms, edging through the crowd into telephone rooms, baggage rooms, searching vainly for someone they recognized. No team anywhere! Finally Spike went up to a stationmaster in uniform. The official looked at them curiously but there was no excitement in his voice.

“The Dodgers? You boys with the Dodgers? They’re doing all right these days, aren’t they?” Slowly he drew a long black-covered book from his coat pocket and consulted it. “I think they’re on 24. That’s right. They’re on the American, platform 24, over there. Don’t go down the main entrance where that crowd is. Go over opposite; the ballclubs go down the back way.”

Spike saw them then across the crowded space as they went over. The tanned, self-assured athletes were surrounded by a dozen women. Many of the players were dressed in silk sports shirts, open at the neck, and slacks; they wore no coats and had no baggage. Spike and Bob felt strangely out of place in their best suits with neckties on, and bags in their hands. Spike recognized one or two of the men: Razzle Nugent, the tall pitcher, and the swarthy outfielder, Karl Case, and Crane, the manager. Finally they discovered the secretary. He glanced at a slip of paper in his hand.

“Here you are! The Russell boys... you boys are H in FB-2.” He turned away.

Now what did that mean?

“Beg your pardon, sir.”

“H in FB-2. Room H in car FB-2. Go down those steps, right here...”

“Sir, how ’bout the tickets? We ain’t got our tickets yet.”

He smiled. “You boys won’t need any tickets. Just hop aboard. I’ll take care of everything.” They walked down the steps to a platform with a long train beside it. Halfway down was a pile of baggage, rows of expensive leather suitcases and handbags, the pile guarded by an elderly man who might have been a banker. He knew them even if they didn’t know him.

“Hullo there, boys. You’re in FB-2. Up the end of the platform. That all the stuff you got with you? I wish the others traveled light, too.”

“Yessir, thank you, sir.” Spike then recognized him as the locker room attendant who had fitted them out with their monkey suits, a man the players all addressed as Chiselbeak. For a second he wished they had something more than their two cloth handbags, but after all those were plenty for their needs. They walked down the train. A conductor stopped them.

“Tickets, please. The cars are not ready yet.”

“We’re with the Dodgers. Room H in car FB-2.”

The conductor immediately nodded respectfully and pointed ahead. Astonishing how the password worked. At last they found a window of one Pullman with the figures FB-2.

The conductor standing at the entrance greeted them with deference and the porter took their bags and ushered them inside. A draught of cool air swept their faces, clean and refreshing after the intense August heat of the station. They were walking on a thick carpet through a passageway into the car. It was new, painted a delicate green, with soft indirect lighting overhead. Down the side by the windows was a long corridor from which opened a dozen doors. The porter pushed theirs open. It was like nothing they had ever seen; a small room, compact and complete in every detail. On the side opposite the corridor was a wide plush seat.

“Yeah, O.K. But where’m I gonna sleep?” interjected Bob.

The porter grinned. “You boys making your first trip with the club? Where you-all from? Where? Nashville? Sure ’nuff! That’s mah home town, yessir. See, we let this down, the upper one, like this.” He stepped up and, reaching above with a kind of key in his hand, released the upper berth which dropped down. He stood hesitating. Spike instantly guessed what he wanted and fumbled for a dime. The porter hesitated no longer. He left abruptly. While Spike stood thinking: This trip is going to cost money, a dime here, a dime there...

Now the players were pouring in, followed by porters staggering under the luxurious leather suitcases and bags. They entered their rooms, banging doors, calling to each other up and down the corridor, the loud, cheerful sounds of healthy men off duty. They were happy after winning the afternoon’s doubleheader and pulling up within two games of the league-leading Pirates. Their voices echoed up and down the car, evidently filled with ballplayers. Strange faces passed by the room, glanced at the two boys and went on. Sitting stiffly on the edge of the plush seat, they heard the strange voices and felt like homesick boys at a new school. All that banter was something in which they had no part.

“Hey, Jake, how ’bout a game after dinner.... Yeah, I played Terre Haute one season. They call it Terrible Hot out there and, b’lieve me, it
is
hot... I was round the course in 82; yes I was, too. You ask Karl... Hey, guys, c’mon! I could eat a raw potato... Who’s for dinner...”

Spike realized he was hungry. A sandwich would surely taste good. Then a figure brushed past, someone with a round frank face and open brown eyes who looked in at them curiously. He hesitated a minute and half smiled. Spike immediately recognized him. Bob didn’t.