World Series (2 page)

The two older men nodded. “Yep, we’ll keep an eye on the kids, Dave.”

“One thing more. Tucker had that bad accident against the fence in the Polo Grounds last week. Gave him a good shaking up. I’m scared he might be a little wee bit wall-shy in this first game. Fat Stuff, you go out there and hit some fungoes that’ll back him clean up against that wall this morning. And, Rats, you sort of amble out into the field and watch him on the fence, will ya? See he don’t get too close.” The good-natured face of the old relief pitcher sobered up. He still recalled his first Series.

A Western Union messenger boy entered the big room, empty now save for the three men and Chiselbeak, the locker man, picking up discarded equipment and straightening out their clothes. The boy had a fistful of telegrams.

“Leonard... Case... Tucker... Dave Leonard... Stansworth... Roy Tucker... Leonard... Dave Leonard... Swanson...”

C
LACK, CLACK, CLACKETY-CLACK
, clackety-clack, clack-clack. Their spikes sounded the old familiar tune on the concrete walk leading to the field. But this was different.

Everything was different. Even the familiar diamond, shrouded in the strange light of early morning, was different. Usually they came out for practice about two in the afternoon; but the Series games started at one-thirty so now it was just after eleven. The field, as a rule so empty, was crowded, dotted with strange figures. There seemed to be hundreds of sportswriters, photographers, and men standing with their hands in their pockets talking to each other. Or just standing.

He walked to the dugout for his bat.

“Hey....there’s the Kid...”

“Hullo, Roy old boy...”

“Hi, Tuck, how are you feeling?”

“Hullo, Rex. ’Lo there, Sandy. I’m okay, thanks.” Rex King of the
Times
, Sandy Martin of the
Post
, and several reporters who followed the team during the season crowded round. Was he over the effects of that crash into the Polo Ground walls? Any bones broken?

The Kid started to swing the two bats in his hand and looked around just in time to save a couple of curious onlookers from being beaned. “Naw, only a shaking-up, that’s all. I’m fine.”

“How’s Stansworth?” asked a stranger, peering into the circle. The men he knew the Kid liked. But these others, the Cleveland writers and the rest he didn’t know, were what made it all so different.

“Dunno. Better ask Leonard. The Babe’s in uniform.”

Then over their heads he saw the Indians slowly filing onto the field from the visitors’ entrance. Instantly the circle about him dissolved. The Cleveland team seemed to him like mastodons. He thought he’d never seen such big men in monkey suits. The biggest of all was a young chap with enormous shoulders and long arms who was instantly surrounded by newspapermen.

That must be Miller, the guy they had to beat. Big, all right. Lots of power in those shoulders. He seemed loose and relaxed, laughing and joking with the Cleveland writers in the crowd.

Someone touched him on the arm. It was Jim Casey, the columnist. “Roy, I want you to meet Grantland Rice.” A pleasant-faced, white-haired man was at his side.

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Rice.” He looked at him curiously. The great Grantland Rice.

“How ’do, Tucker. How you feeling after that shake-up the other day? You sure took an awful tumble into that fence.” His voice was soft and agreeable.

“Oh, I’m okay, thank you, Mr. Rice. I’ll be in there playing ball this afternoon; leastways I hope so.”

“Good enough. I bet Dave Leonard wishes the rest of the boys were like you...hey, Jim? Who’s going to catch?”

“Dunno, sir. Guess Hank’ll catch. Dave caught the most of that last game against the Giants, but he said like he ached for two days afterward. Say...that man Miller, he’s sure got power in those shoulders.”

The others laughed. “Yep, he’s a big chap, all right.” The bell rang. Clang-clang, clang-clang. The Kid left them and went toward the batting cage, but before he got there someone stopped him.

“Mr. Tucker?” He held out a card.

“Yeah...”

“I’m from the J. W. Frost Agency in Detroit; largest agency west of the Hudson. You musta heard of us. We’re anxious to get your endorsement on our new Colonel cigarette—maybe you’ve seen ’em advertised—the new ten cent brand.”

The Kid turned the card over in his hand. “Uhuh.” As a matter of fact he’d never heard of the agency and didn’t know what kind of an agency it was, nor the cigarettes either. But it didn’t seem polite to the stranger to say so.

“We’re looking for you to do big things this week, Mr. Tucker. How you feeling?”

The Kid wasn’t quite sure. All this difference, all these strange people, big shots like Granny Rice, the Cleveland writers, and now this chap, sort of made him uneasy. Nor did he like the man who was a little too smooth. “Who? Me? I’m all right. But looka here, I’m sorry, Mr.... Mr....”

“Swan. Norman F. Swan of J. W. Frost. I’m a great fan; saw you play several times in Detroit this season.” Now the Kid knew he was a phony. The Dodgers, being in the National League, had never played in Detroit. They’d played the Tigers a few practice games in Lakeland, in Florida; but never in Detroit. No, the man was a phony. He kept on confidently. “Oh, yes, the boys all know me. I just signed up Sammy Hammerstein and Gene Miller of the Indians; like to get one or two of you Dodgers, just to make it official, heh-heh...”

“Sorry; fact is I don’t smoke.”

The man threw back his head and laughed. While he was laughing the Kid wondered how he got on the field. Who let him on, anyhow? It made the Kid nervous; he was afraid someone standing near by back of the plate would hear the conversation. In any event, he didn’t like the chap.

“Heh-heh! Say, heh-heh, that’s good, that is.” Men standing around turned curiously. “Don’t smoke. Don’t worry about that, Roy. Neither does Hammy, neither does Elmer Kennedy of the Sox or Sig Schecter of the Cardinals. Don’t smoke...say, that’s a scream!” He put one hand on the Kid’s arm and yanked an official-looking document from his pocket.

“Just you sign here...on this line here...I witness your signature below...and you’ll have a check for five hundred smackers round at your hotel tomorrow.”

Now he was annoyed. This was baseball, a Series game, the
first
Series game. Why didn’t they let a guy alone? “But I tell ya, I don’t smoke. You want me to say I like those cigarettes of yours, don’t ya...with my photo, and all...”

“Sure! That’s the idea, Roy. You don’t hafta smoke ’em. Now that Whispies crowd, they tell me a man stands right over the boys and makes ’em eat the darn things. Yessir. We don’t go in for foolishness of that sort. You sign here, and that’s as far as...”

“No, thanks...”

“No, thanks what?”

“Just no, thanks.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause I don’t smoke. That’s why not.”

A frown came over Mr. Swan’s face. As an account executive of the J. W. Frost Agency he had met many strange types. But these ballplayers sure were queer. Imagine a boy of nineteen holding up the agency that way. “Well, now, er...maybe we could...I mean...say, if you have a good Series...and it sure looks like you will...we might raise that...a little, say six fifty...”

Roy swung his bat. Gosh, how he’d like to smack it down on that expensive gray hat. “No, thanks.” He turned toward the diamond where Harry Street, his roommate, was hitting balls over the fence.

“But, Mr. Tucker, here, wait a minute.” The man grabbed him by the arm. “Wait just a minute; don’t be so hasty about this. Let’s say seven fifty. There! That’s as far as I’m authorized to go. That’s the limit. Seven fifty.”

“Sorry. Nothing doing.”

“You mean to say you’ll chuck seven fifty smackers out the window because you don’t happen to smoke?”

“I guess
so
. Anyhow, I’m not interested.”

He walked away, the man following like a little dog, trying to hold on to his sleeve, to his arm. Roy stepped up to the plate.

He dug in his spikes, faced Speed Boy in the box who was tossing them up, took a toehold and put the wood on it cleanly. There! And there! And there! The balls sailed far, deep into the field. That was something like. It shook off the bad taste of that man from the J. W. Frost Agency. As he went back to the bench he saw him deep in conversation with one of the Indians.

Half an hour later Roy came back after fielding practice to the bench and watched the Indians run out.

Yessir, they were a good team. Nine old men...well, maybe. But they had lots of pep and ginger. And that second base combination was a dandy. Not as good as Harry and Ed; nosir, no one was as good as Harry and Ed. Those boys could get the ball away.

The stands covered with flags and bunting were filling up, and the swarm of reporters, radio men, and camera fiends on the field hadn’t lessened either. Some of them sat on the bench surrounding Dave, kidding and joking with him. Dave laughed as if it was merely another game instead of one of the most important of the year.

Important to him, too, for if they won the Series he’d have a three-year contract as manager. If not, well, if not...Taunton, maybe, or Elmira, or maybe nothing. Dave was old. He was forty, someone said. Yep, it was important, this game. If they got off to a good start, they’d win. That’s what Casey said, and all the sportswriters. If you won the first; the team that won the first game always won the Series. So on the first game was the difference between two thousand and four thousand. He thought of what it would mean; Grandma listening in on the farm, and the boys at the drugstore, and prob’ly old Mr. Haskins, the president of the First National Bank, who advised him not to leave his job and go wasting his time playing ball. Four thousand! Think what he could do with that. Oil the road past the house, bring in electricity from the state highway, get a new oil burner for Grandma, and an electric cookstove, maybe, and...

“What’s that? Who? Miller starting for them?” Someone was talking at the other end of the bench.

“Yeah. Least that’s what Sandy Martin says. Says Casey said Baker told him so.”

“Those ginks! What do they know?”

Back of home plate Razzle was warming up, slowly, leisurely, as if this was just another game. The Kid admired him, admired the way he rolled the ball round in his hand, glanced out over the diamond, lifted his head when someone yelled from the stands, and then burned the ball into his catcher’s mitt. He was warming up all right, but so were Elmer McCaffrey and Rats Doyle.

A clown in a monkey suit with a dress coat over it and a battered silk hat appeared on the third base line. Cheers, especially from the bleachers. “Schacht!” Yes, it was Al Schacht, the famous baseball comedian, tripping, falling, stumbling through his act. The groundsmen were white-washing the batter’s box, dusting off the infield.

Inside his stomach the Kid had the same sinking sensation he had the first time he came out to pitch at Ebbets Field. He suddenly wished that it was over. With all his heart he wished he was on the farm, back in MacKenzie’s drugstore on South Main, in a Florida training camp; that he was any place anywhere save in that dugout.

The crowd seated above the big diamond, now empty save for Al Schacht going through his tricks, roared with delight as he ran to spear a liner, stumbled, and fell on his face. Even Harry on one side and Red Allen on the other laughed. The Kid couldn’t. He was all tight inside.

“...for Brooklyn...Nugent, No. 14, pitching...” A roar from the stands. With Raz in the box, they couldn’t lose. Razzle was the favorite of all Dodger fans. “...West, No. 18, catching. For Cleveland...Miller...” The roar rose again. So the big boy was going in. He was out there to win the first game...“and McCormick, No. 2, catching.”

Somewhere a band began playing. Everyone stood, so the Kid stood, mechanically, without realizing it was “The Star-Spangled Banner.” As the last note died away, a burst of chatter rose up and down the dugout. Dave stood facing them on the step.

“All right now, boys. Get out there and upset ’em. Hustle every minute, hustle....”

Like a wave they jumped up the step and onto the sunny diamond. The stands rose, cheering. Well, here it was, two, four thousand...

Once out in the field he felt better. The old familiar noises came to him through the haze of his concentration. “Score card...twenty-five cents...can’t tell the players without a score card...anyone else wanta...popcorn and peanuts...five centsa...anyone else there...cold drinks, ice cold drinks...who wantsa ice cold...root beer, CocaCola...” And the half-heard, half-understood shouts from the bleachers to his left, from the Knot Hole Gang, fans who had sat there through blazing summer heat and knew him for their friend.

Yep, it was something to start at home. And there in front were the same figures; Eddie Davis mechanically scooping up dirt in the basepaths, the broad back of Red Allen with the number 3 on it directly ahead, and the dancing figure of Jerry on the hot corner. And over all the noises and the chatter from the dugouts and the field came the voices of men he knew, voices he could pick out even in the crowd-roar as Razzle mowed down the batters...one...two...three...

“Atta boy, atta boy, Raz, old boy old kid...tha’s pitching...that is, Razzle...give ’em the old dipsy doo, Raz...” “Hurry up...take yer time....” Harry Street’s favorite cry rose above the others as the side was out on a slow bounder to Eddie Davis and almost before he knew it half the inning was over.

“All right, gang, le’s get us a run now. Roy, you’re on deck.”

Red Allen was up. The Kid watched the big man in the box wind up, noticed his ease and grace, the smooth motion of his shoulder as he swung into the pitch, the tremendous speed as the ball smacked into the catcher’s mitt.

Crack! A hit! Nope; just another can of corn.

The ball settled lazily into the center fielder’s hand as Roy, swinging two bats, stepped to the plate.

Well, here goes. Whew! Fast! It was high, inside, but awfully fast. The old scout hadn’t exaggerated. The big boy in the box shook off his catcher, half opening his mouth as he did so and exposing an empty space in front where a tooth was gone. Gosh, he was big; big as all outdoors. Ball two! Ah, that’s it. Wait him out. The next one came...right across. He shouldn’t have taken it. That was a dilly to hit.