Suitors of Spring, The: The Solitary Art of Pitching, from Seaver to Sain to Dalkowski (Summer Game Books Baseball Classics) (5 page)

Before the game that night, Peterson sat in the Waterbury dugout and watched the Pirates take batting practice. He wore a lime sportjacket, dark slacks and tasseled strollers. For long periods of time he sat motionless, his legs crossed, as he stared intently through dark glasses at the players performing before his eyes. When he saw Bruce Kison he called him over, and for almost an hour the two men talked in muffled tones before Bruce finally returned to the outfield to shag fly balls.

“Bruce is definitely a prospect,” says Peterson. “He just has to learn a few things. Three years ago we thought he was only a chance prospect, but he’s gotten considerably faster since then. And he’s not afraid to come tight on hitters like some kids are. We think so highly of Bruce that we moved him up in mid-season, something we rarely do. We prefer to let young pitchers build their confidence in the lower leagues. But Bruce already has it. He can handle any problems he’ll encounter at Waterbury without getting shook. We have a lot of older pitchers at Pittsburgh and we’d like to get Bruce there as soon as possible. That’s why I’m here today, to try to talk him into playing in the Winter League this year. He wants to go to college, though. I told him he can always go to college but that he has only about 20 good years to devote to baseball. But whenever we ask Bruce to do things like that he’s always got a thousand and one questions for us: What good will it do me? What about my draft status? How much money will you pay? What about my college degree? He’s a very well-organized boy. Other guys you can talk into doing things they don’t really want to do. They’ll stammer a lot and hesitate, but in the end you get them to do what you want. But not Bruce. He plans ahead.”

When the Pirates were almost finished with batting practice, Peterson stepped out of the dugout, brushed the dust off his slacks and walked behind the batting cage to talk with different players. One of the last men he talked to was Woody Huyke. He asked Woody about certain players on the club, and which ones would play winter ball this year. Finally he asked about Bruce Kison’s progress. The only man Peterson did not ask Woody Huyke about was himself.

“When we drafted Woody for $8000 from the Oakland system last year we had no thought that he was a major league prospect,” says Peterson. “Even he knows he’s no prospect, although I certainly wouldn’t be embarrassed to use him in the majors defensively. We drafted Woody mainly because he’s a fine, intelligent fellow with a good reputation for getting along with people. Woody is what’s called ‘an organization man.’ His job is to work closely with the manager and front office in bringing kids like Kison along. And because of Woody’s Latin background he serves as an excellent liaison man between the front office and Latin players. I know Woody’s never made any real money in this game, so I told him that if things work out there might be a job for him in our system someday—maybe as a coach or manager. But I never promised him anything definite. It’s too soon. We still have some use for him as a player. For example, we planned on using him at Columbus in the International League this year, but when Milt May came along faster than we expected we sent Woody to Waterbury. The conditions here aren’t as good as at Columbus and some other players might have balked at going down after playing five years in Triple A. But we felt Woody knew what was expected of him; and he went. We believe Woody would go to our lowest minor league club if we asked him, even though he’s already been that way 10 years ago.”

Ten years ago, in 1960, Woody Huyke was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics, given a $450-a-month salary and assigned to Monterrey in the Mexican League. The first Monterrey road trip consisted of a 28-hour ride to Tulsa, Okla., on a dilapidated school bus. It was 110 degrees in the shade when the bus left Monterrey and it got hotter as the trip went on. The bus stopped only twice, and both times the players got out and bought watermelons. The team arrived in Tulsa at 7
a.m.
, but instead of going directly to the YMCA, where the club was staying, the manager ordered the driver to go to the ball park.

“The manager was really crazy,” says Woody. “He was furious with us for losing our last game, 14–0, so he took us to the ball park and conducted a 7:30
a.m.
workout to teach us a lesson. We didn’t get to the YMCA until 11. We were supposed to get some sleep before leaving for the park again for a 7:30
p.m.
game. When we got to the YMCA there weren’t enough beds for us so we had to sleep on mattresses in the halls. It was 102 degrees inside with no fans or air-conditioners. People kept stepping over us all afternoon and looking down at us as if we were crazy. I lost eight pounds on that trip.”

Despite all this, however, Woody hit well at Monterrey and was batting about .350 three days before the Mexican League All-Star game, in which he was to play, when he suffered the first of a series of injuries that would hamper his career for the next 10 years. “I broke my finger sliding into second base on a double. I went to the Monterrey Hospital after the game and they said it was fine. The owner of our club said there was no reason to pay for an X-ray and advised me to go home and soak it in hot water. At 4
a.m.
the finger was throbbing so bad I thought it would fall off. When I went to the owner next morning he said, ‘Exercise it and it’ll be okay.’ I argued with him for 20 minutes before he finally agreed to have it x-rayed. The X-ray showed the finger was broken after all. At the hospital the doctor said he had no anesthesia so he would need two nurses to hold me while he straightened it. I said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m a tough guy,’ just to impress the nurses, who were very pretty. Naturally, when the doctor touched the finger I fainted. When I woke up he had put a cast on it and told me I wouldn’t be able to play for eight weeks. The Monterrey owner, who was not too happy over the hospital bill he had to pay, said that was fine with him but he wasn’t going to pay me for not playing. When the Kansas City farm director found out about it he told the owner to send me to an American doctor in Shreveport, La. The owner didn’t like that idea, either, so he bought me a bus ticket. It was a 12-hour bus ride and I refused to go. I said I wanted to fly to Shreveport. I knew, at the time, why the owner was giving me such a hard time. When I first got to Monterrey he had been very nice to me, letting me use his car whenever I wanted. Then I found out that he was a queer, and after that I wouldn’t have anything to do with him. He got furious with me and now he was getting even.”

In 1961 Woody was given $525-a-month and sent to Shreveport of the Double A Southern Association. He was batting .307 and his fielding was just beginning to be respectable when he was sent down to Portsmouth, Va., of the Class A Sally League. “That hit me real hard,” says Woody. “I thought I would make the All-Star team at Shreveport. I was leading my team in average, doubles and RBIs. I later found out that the Kansas City farm director had signed a kid he wanted to play at Shreveport. My manager said he had tried to prevent it but he couldn’t. He said I was a real good prospect and should make the big leagues except for the fact I didn’t have anyone behind me pushing me.”

Despite his despondency Woody batted .307 with 43 RBIs in only 68 games. By the end of the season he had regained his enthusiasm to the point where he couldn’t wait to start the 1962 season, one he felt sure would be his biggest ever. But in the fall of 1961 he was drafted into the Army, and in the spring he was driving tanks instead of baseballs.

The following spring (1963) Woody was invited to the Kansas City major league camp, along with another Latin prospect, Bert Campaneris. In three weeks there Woody got into only one ball game, against the Dodgers. He went 3 for 4 against Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. “I was so scared with all those big-leaguers around that I never went out of my hotel room, but when it came to hitting that was another story. I had all the confidence in the world. I didn’t give a damn who was pitching. I felt I could hit them. It was the confidence of being young, I guess. I didn’t know any better.”

When Woody was finally sent to the Kansas City minor league camp, the first thing his new manager, Clyde Klutz, did was convert him into a catcher. “I hated it,” says Woody. “All day long they fired baseballs from a bazooka at my shins. I was all bruises but I was too afraid to complain. I was afraid they’d send me home if I did. After a few weeks Klutz bought me a catcher’s glove and told me how I had a much better chance to make the majors as a catcher. When I realized he was right, I actually began to enjoy it.”

Woody was supposed to go with Klutz to Binghamton of the Class A Eastern League, but on the last day of spring training he was sent instead to Lewiston, Oreg., of the Class B Northwest League. Again Woody threatened to quit and go back to college, but Klutz and Hank Peters, the team’s farm director, talked him out of it. They said it would be better for him to be a starting catcher at Lewiston rather than a second-string catcher at Binghamton. The next day Woody and five other Spanish ballplayers boarded a train for the three-day ride to Lewiston.

“In Minot, N.D., we saw our first snow,” he says. “We got out and began throwing snowballs at each other while all the passengers stared at us as if we were crazy. When I got to Lewistown I lived with this old man, Roy Miles, who had dogs, cats and parakeets all loose in the house. Every night there was a different animal in my bed. I liked Roy, though, and made friends with a lot of other people in Lewiston. I used to have Sunday dinner at a different house each week, and I still get letters and cards from people out there. That’s the way I’ve always been, I guess, easy to get along with, especially with fans.”

Woody batted .317 at Lewiston, although he was near the bottom in fielding percentage for catchers. By mid-season, however, his fielding picked up and he was recalled to Binghamton. He was handed a plane ticket and told to fly directly to Charleston, W.Va., to meet the team. He was almost delirious with joy.

“It seems like just a little thing, flying,” he says. “But by then I had taken so many trains and buses that I felt the organization had no interest in me, that they didn’t consider me a worthy enough prospect to waste a plane ticket on. Now that they wanted me to fly I felt they must care something.”

Woody caught his first game with Binghamton and his toe was broken by a batter’s foul tip in the tenth inning. When Woody returned to the lineup a month later he hit two home runs in one game, but the next day he caught a foul tip off his throwing hand and broke his little finger. He was through for the season.

“I was going to return to college that fall,” says Woody, “but Hank Peters asked me to go to the Winter Instructional League in Tampa. I said I’d rather go to college, but he said that this might be my big chance, that maybe next year I’d get a shot at the majors. I believed him because I always believed farm directors had the best interests of the players at heart. My mother had written a letter asking me to go back to college and become a doctor. But I ignored her and I went to Tampa instead. As it turned out, Peters was right. It was the turning point of my career, only not how he said it would be.”

In one of the early Winter League games Woody attempted to throw out a runner at third base and felt something snap in his arm. The pain was unbearable, but he took a couple of Darvon pills between innings and continued to play. Although the pain disappeared temporarily, the next morning his throwing arm had turned purplish and was swollen twice its normal size. Woody rested three days and then played.

“I was ashamed to tell my manager I was hurt again,” he says. “I had been hurt so often. But after a few weeks I couldn’t even throw the ball back to the pitcher. They found out about it and sent me home. I went to 14 different doctors in Puerto Rico and each one said there was nothing he could do, the inflammation would be there for the rest of my life. In the spring of ’64 the pain was not so bad, although the arm was still swollen, so I went to another doctor in the States. He said he thought I had cancer. I almost jumped out of my skin—I thought he was going to cut off the arm. After that I never again told anyone about the arm. I learned to live with it.”

Despite his bad arm Woody was given $750 a month and sent to Dallas of the Triple A Pacific Coast League in 1964. His contract called for him to remain there at least 30 days before he could be shipped out. But after only one week, in which he went 2 for 7 in two games, Woody was told he was needed at Birmingham, Ala., of the Double A Southern Association.

“I couldn’t understand why they wanted me there,” he says. “But Peters asked me to go so I went. When I got there I found out why. They wanted me to room with Bert Campaneris and a few other Spanish and colored players who were finding life very rough down South. Because I was white and could speak both English and Spanish, Peters felt I could make life easier for those guys. They even gave me more money than most players get in that league. Ever since then I’ve roomed with the colored or Spanish guys. At first it didn’t dawn on me what was happening, and then gradually I began to realize I was no longer a prospect. They were using me as an organization man, although I still felt I was a prospect. But what I felt and what I knew was true were two different things. And the irony is, I had a good year at Birmingham. I batted .289 with 10 home runs. But I still couldn’t throw the ball. It was embarrassing to have runners steal second every time they got on first. Sometimes I wouldn’t even throw to second, because when I did the ball took three hops to get there and the fans would laugh at me. It was terrible for my pride, and after awhile I wanted to go hide.

“It got so bad that ever since that season I’ve been too ashamed to ask the front office for a raise, no matter what I hit. I’ve always felt I owed them for just keeping me each year. I mean, why should they have kept me? I was 27 and they had decided I would never play in the majors. I knew that. It didn’t matter that I still thought I was a prospect. It had been decided. The only use I had to the organization was as an organization man. Now, I realize this was an honor, really. They were complimenting me by telling me I had other talents besides hitting and fielding. When you get old your hitting and fielding go, but the things I could do would never leave me. Not everyone can become an organization man. Lots of guys don’t have the right temperament. They worry too much about their batting average and such. They’re not smart enough to adapt, to change their thinking, to forget about their own success. You have to be a certain type of guy to be an organization man, and it makes me feel good to know I’m that kind of person. But at Birmingham in 1964 I wasn’t so sure that’s what I wanted. I thought there was no sense playing baseball if you have no chance of making the majors. I often wonder today why I didn’t quit right then and there. But for some reason I didn’t. Maybe I still thought I could make them change their minds. Foolish!