Suitors of Spring, The: The Solitary Art of Pitching, from Seaver to Sain to Dalkowski (Summer Game Books Baseball Classics) (6 page)

“I’m glad I didn’t quit. I love baseball too much to do anything else. When the season is over I’m grouchy all the time. I feel miserable. I’m always sick. I get imaginary pains, like a baby. Only when spring training comes around and I can put the uniform back on do the pains go away. Sure, I would have liked to play in the majors, but I still get fulfillment out of just going to the ball park, any ball park, every day, and putting on a uniform. I always arrive three hours before a game and get into my uniform right away. I feel at home at the park, and my uniform is like a pair of pajamas. When I have it on I relax just as if I was home in front of a fireplace with a pipe and slippers. To be like this I guess you have to be born this way, huh?”

After Bruce Kison completes his warm-up pitches Woody throws the ball to second and then walks to the mound to talk to Bruce. He tells Bruce that at the first sign of pain he should speak up. Bruce nods, although he is thinking to himself that he won’t say a word unless the pain becomes unbearable. Woody pats him on the rear end and jogs back to home plate. The opposing batter hands Woody his mask (he has played against Woody for three years now) and Woody says something to him. Both the batter and the umpire laugh as Woody picks up a handful of dirt and tosses it into the air. The wind is blowing slightly from right to left. Woody waves his outfielders over a shade, taps his metal cup to make sure it’s in place, then crouches behind the plate. Bruce gets the sign and throws his first pitch. A strike. Woody returns the ball, and Bruce looks quickly for the next sign and fires another fastball for a strike. After two more wasted fastballs, Bruce strikes out the first batter with his fourth pitch, a fastball.

On the pitcher’s mound Bruce Kison does not look so young or awkward anymore. His face shows neither anger over a bad pitch nor satisfaction at a good one. His pitching motion, which has neither the baroque trappings of one who is trying to hide deficiencies nor the barrenness of one whose motion has missing vital parts, is spare and quick. It is distilled of impurities, and so he has neither to slow nor vary its workings. He throws each pitch from the same sidearmed angle, with the same speed of delivery, and with the same amount of time between each pitch. He puts his foot on the rubber, gets his sign, delivers the ball, then waits in his follow-through until Woody returns the ball. Then Bruce turns, takes two steps back to the rubber, turns again, places his foot on the rubber and waits for the next sign. There is no wasted motion. He seldom rubs up a baseball or removes his cap to wipe off imaginary sweat or turns dramatically to contemplate the center-field flagpole. Nor does he grit his teeth, shake his head in disgust or kick the dirt with his spikes as he was doing only moments before in the bullpen. He seems to have no self-conscious desire to call attention to himself, as do most young pitchers; nor does he stop his rhythm to regroup his thoughts after a setback. He is too modest for the former, too well-organized for the latter.

Bruce works his second batter to a full count before the batter lines out to center field. Although Bruce is as expressionless and mechanical as ever, he’s obviously worried about his arm. No longer is he throwing as hard and recklessly as he was in the bullpen. And now, whenever Woody calls for a curveball, Bruce shakes him off.

“I’ve never had a sore arm in my life,” says Kison. “When I hurt it two weeks ago I couldn’t understand what had happened. There was a big knot in my elbow, and every time I moved my arm a certain way the elbow popped. I was more confused than worried at the time. I didn’t tell anyone about it during the game, although I think Woody knew because he kept asking me how my arm was. I said it was fine and finished the game, which I won. I went to the doctor a few days later and he said not to pitch for a few weeks. I didn’t tell anyone and took my next turn as usual. I walked about eight guys in three innings that game and Red came out to the mound and wanted to know why the hell I wan’t throwing any curveballs. When I told him I had a sore arm he got real upset and pulled me right out. I could see why he was so worried, though. He’s afraid if he lets anything happen to me it’ll affect his career—which it would. If I was an older pitcher, an organization man like Quezada or Cordiero, say, then Red could take any chance he wanted with me and no one would care. Guys like Cordiero and Quezada don’t have a chance to get a sore arm. That must be pretty discouraging to them, knowing that I’d get preferential treatment even though they might be as good as I am. I don’t care what they say about loving the game and all that crap. It must be kind of hopeless playing every day knowing you have no real future as a player. I don’t know whether I could stand it. That’s why if my sore arm doesn’t come around right away I think I’ll quit.”

When Bruce retires his third batter on another well-hit ball to center field, he immediately walks off the mound. He takes long, determined strides that carry him into the dugout before any of the other Waterbury players arrive from their positions. Red Davis, who was smoking on the top step of the dugout, leaps onto the field just as Kison arrives and walks quickly to Woody Huyke, who is waiting for him by home plate. Davis and Huyke confer for a few seconds, and Woody can be heard saying, “I think it’s still sore, Red.” Davis’ head bobs up and down nervously and then he trots out to his third-base coaching box.

John Humphrey (Red) Davis was born 55 years ago in Laurel, Pa. Since he began playing professional baseball, at the age of 20, he has lived in over 25 U.S. cities, not to mention the few foreign countries, such as India, where he served in the Air Force during the war years of 1942-45. Presently he lists his home as The Hotel Jefferson in Dallas, Texas.

Red is gaunt-looking, with the slack, mottled skin and excessively sharp features of a man who has lost too much weight too quickly. His once bright red hair and blue eyes are now faded, and his thin fingers are permanently stained with the nicotine of a thousand doubleheaders. After 35 years in professional baseball, of which only 21 games were spent in the majors, Red Davis has acquired an assortment of twitches and gestures that give him the appearance not of a former athlete but of some anxiety-ridden drummer who has stopped too often in Greenville and Mayfield and Corpus Christi.

The year 1970 marked Red’s twenty-fourth consecutive season as a minor league manager. He has managed in leagues as low as the Class D Kitty League and as high as the Triple A International League, and yet his front office has never given him complete authority over certain of the players he was managing. His year at Waterbury was no exception. And Bruce Kison was one such player.

A few days before the Pirates were to leave for Elmira, Red decided to pitch Kison in his team’s last home game. When Harding Peterson found out he immediately told Red it would be best to give Bruce a few extra days rest. Even though his team was fighting for a pennant, Red was perfectly willing to comply.

“Bruce is a fragile piece of property,” says Red, “and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be the one to ruin his career. If he gets hurt it’ll be my fault for not holding him back longer. If Bruce was an organization man I could take a chance on him. That’s their job, to play when hurt. An organization man knows that will impress the front office in case a coaching or managing job comes up in the future. Often that’s the only reason they have a job in the first place, because we can do things with them we’d never think of doing with a prospect. This makes it easier on them, too, in a way. An organization man doesn’t have to worry about his batting average or his ERA. He’s not getting paid for those things. For instance, if Huyke is hitting only .230, it doesn’t bother him that much because he knows he can help the team in other, less obvious ways, like keeping the guys in good spirits or helping Bruce along. Now, if a prospect was hitting .230, he’d be useless. He’d be worrying so much about his average that it would affect his fielding and base running, and eventually he’d hurt the whole team. The only thing that really matters to a prospect is his own success. But that’s understandable, too, because that’s all the front office judges him on. An organization man is evaluated by how much he helps the team. If he has any kind of personal success, that’s it. That’s why an organization man takes the pressure off a manager while a prospect puts it on him. I’d as soon have eight organization men in the lineup anyday. Most of the time they’re better players, too, which makes you wonder why they never made the major leagues. Maybe they never got the breaks or didn’t have anyone behind them. Who knows? Hell, that’s been my problem, too. I should have been in the majors by now, as a coach or manager or something. I’d sure as hell rather be there than where I am. But there are some things you can’t explain, I guess.”

Red Davis began his playing career as an infielder with Greensburg of the Pennsylvania State League in 1935. Like so many ballplayers during the late Thirties, he worked his way to the major leagues in the early Forties only to be drafted and serve his best playing years overseas. When he returned to the States in 1945, he was 30 years old and no longer a prospect. Red played for three more years as an organization man with Dallas of the Texas League before he finally decided to become a minor league manager in 1948. That same year he married Estelle Nicholas of Fort Worth, a girl he had met during his playing days. After their marriage they moved to over 15 cities, from Portland, Oreg., to Waterbury, Conn., while waiting for him to be offered the major league job that never came. Like so many baseball wives, Mrs. Davis absorbed so much baseball during those 21 years that she finds it impossible today to stray far in her conversation from talk of her husband’s profession.

On the night of Waterbury’s last home game before the trip to Elmira, Estelle Nicholas Davis, a skittish little woman with a high puff of white hair, stood in the darkened runway under the stands and waited for her husband to emerge from the locker room after the game. The ball park had emptied quickly of its 300 or so fans, and now, at close to midnight, only a few scouts and the wives of some of the players remained. Mrs. Davis smiled at three of these women, who stood off by themselves, and they returned her greeting. Then she continued her conversation with a tall, tweedy man named Buddy Kerr.

“Oh, yes,” she was saying in a high, Blanche DuBois voice, “I root for all of Red’s old boys. I’ve always rooted for Willie McCovey and little Marichal ever since Red had them. But Marichal is having such a bad year, isn’t he? I feel so bad for him.”

Kerr stooped over and said something to Mrs. Davis and she smiled.

“Oh, the hip’s coming along just fine. You know, I had this terrible accident last year. But it’s coming along fine. I certainly wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop me, now, would I? I’m still the same as ever. By the way, did you notice the crowd tonight? Do you think they’ll draw here? I do hope they draw or else they’ll have to pack up and move elsewhere.”

A few minutes later, when her husband emerged from the locker room, Estelle Davis took his arm, said goodnight to Buddy Kerr and the three wives, and left the ball park.

Of the three remaining wives, one was a heavily made-up blonde clutching a gray toy poodle; another was a well-built brunette in a lavender pants suit; and the third was a slender, athletic-looking girl in a plain green dress. The blonde and the brunette were in their early 20s and the athletic-looking girl was close to 30, although she actually looked younger than the others because of her short, boyish haircut and because she wore little makeup to mar her fine, straight features. The blonde and the brunette were talking animatedly to each other about the poodle, which they both referred to as “Baby” and which seemed quite used to being the topic of conversation. The girl in the green dress, however, said little. She stood slightly apart from the others, and only smiled faintly now and then, as if she, too, was used to her role—the third party in a two-party conversation—and not only did it not cause her any anxiety, but was actually much to her preference. Three years ago the girl in the green dress had become Mrs. Elwood Bernard Huyke, and in that span of time she had adjusted nicely to being the wife of a perennial minor league baseball player.

When Woody Huyke finally decided to get married at the age of 30, he wondered whether he would ever be able to find a “proper baseball wife” such as Estelle Davis. “A baseball wife is very important to an organization man’s career,” says Woody. “She can make life miserable for him if she’s always nagging him to quit. That’s why I waited so long. But it worked out all right. I’ve even saved a little money in the two years I’ve been married, which was more than I ever did when I was single. My wife and I are very compatible, really. She knows I’m impossible to live with when I’m not playing baseball, so she encourages me to play. That’s one of the reasons I married her. Really, it is! I knew I would stay in baseball for the rest of my life, and I had to find someone who loved the game and could stand the traveling. I explained to her before we were married that baseball was everything to me. She accepted that. For example, one night a few weeks ago she had very bad pains in her chest. I took her to the hospital right away because I know she isn’t the kind of woman to complain. I stayed with her all night and most of the next day until around 6
p.m.
She didn’t mind when I left. She knew I had to be at the park for that night’s game. I have never missed a game in my life, except for injuries.”

Ann Marie Keckler Huyke always knew she’d marry an athlete, even when she was 13 years old and combining wheat on her father’s farm in Gardner, N.D. Because Gardner was a town of only about 100 people, and there was very little to do with her free time, Ann Marie gravitated to sports, as did most other girls and boys in the area. She was tall and slim even then, so it was only natural that she turned to basketball, where she competed on equal terms with some of the boys. Ann Marie played basketball all through grammar school and high school, and in her senior year led the girls’ team with a 21-point-per-game average. (She still plays basketball, and had a chance to compete with the Puerto Rican girls’ team in the Pan-American games last winter.)