Suitors of Spring, The: The Solitary Art of Pitching, from Seaver to Sain to Dalkowski (Summer Game Books Baseball Classics) (7 page)

“Our high school girls’ team had won the State Championship in 1955, ’56 and ’58,” she says, “although we didn’t win it my senior year, 1960. It’s funny, but the boys’ teams never did win a state title that I can remember. They never could produce, I guess. When I was in high school, though, I always dated athletes and was sure even then that I’d marry someone athletically inclined. After I graduated I went to Fargo Interstate Business College for two years and then got a job as a bank teller in Fargo, N.D. The only fellow I ever dated who wasn’t an athlete was an actor from Fargo. I went out with him for about six months, just to see what it was like. But no matter how hard I tried I could never really enjoy the so-called “intellectual talk” of his set. To be honest, I couldn’t understand it at all, and I often wondered if they really understood it themselves.”

In 1966 Ann Marie and a girlfriend took their first “real” vacation away from home. They left in December for Puerto Rico, and since both were sports enthusiasts, the first thing they did on arrival at San Juan was to board a bus for an hour ride to Arecibo to watch a Winter League baseball game.

“I met Woody at that game,” says Ann, “and although we didn’t see each other too often during the next few years, we got to know each other through our letters, and were finally married in Fargo on Friday, Sept. 13, 1968. I had been a bank teller for six years, five months and three days before I quit to become a “baseball wife.” Since then I’ve become an expert at boxing our belongings in a matter of hours for a trip to a new town. But I don’t mind the traveling much. I actually like to see different parts of the country after living in Fargo and Gardner most of my life. And I think I get along well with the new people we meet at each town. I admit, though, that I still carry a picture of the house I’d like to settle down in someday.

“I can’t complain. I’ve never had any visions of Woody playing in the major leagues, so I have nothing to be disappointed about. I knew what he was when I married him. He made that perfectly clear before he even proposed. But sometimes it’s a difficult thing to explain to people who don’t understand. I mean, some of the younger wives, wives of prospects, are always making comments about when
their
husbands get to Pittsburgh they’ll do this or that, or
they
just couldn’t stand these little minor league towns if it wasn’t for the fact that their husbands will someday play in Pittsburgh. And then what can I say? You hate to have people think you don’t have any faith in your husband just because you know he’ll never make the major leagues. But you have to salt your feelings and prejudices with an honest evaluation of what he is. People are always asking me what he’s going to do when he quits baseball. ‘Is he going back to college to become a doctor?’ they say. I know what they’re hinting at, but I don’t say anything. I just give them this blank look, as if to say I don’t have the faintest idea what he’s going to do. Even if I told them, they would never understand the positions in baseball open to a man like Woody. Or those he could have had outside of baseball that he’s turned down. I would like to say to them, ‘Look, my husband could have been a doctor if he wanted to, but he gave it all up to play baseball. This is what he loves. It’s his job, and one day he’s just going to fade into another position in baseball and that’s all there is to it.’ But I never do.”

Often Ann Marie Huyke will come early to Waterbury Stadium with her husband. While he dresses in his uniform, she will pick a good, lightweight bat and step into the batting cage where a Waterbury bat boy will pitch to her for an hour. She has a smooth swing, not at all like a woman’s, and from a distance she looks like a slim, long-limbed young boy in Bermuda shorts, not like a 27-year-old woman. Ann Marie will stay in the batting cage, hitting sharp line drives, until her husband emerges from the locker room. Then she will sit and talk with him on the grassy slope behind the cage before she goes back to their apartment, changes into a dress or a skirt and blouse, and returns to the stadium to sit with the wives of the prospects.

In the bottom of the second inning against Elmira, Bruce Kison loads the bases. He walks the first batter on four pitches and retires the next two easily. But the fourth hitter of the inning lines a single to center field. The hit comes off a slow, hanging curveball that Bruce visibly pulled back on. After the pitch Woody walks halfway out to the mound and yells at Bruce to “put something on the damn ball.” Red Davis has again moved to the top step of the dugout. He says something to Woody as he gets down in his crouch for the next batter. “I think so,” says Woody. Red turns immediately to the left-field bullpen and signals for Ray Cordiero to begin warming up.

Bruce bears down on the next batter, throwing all fast-balls, and gets him to hit an easy grounder to the second baseman. Bruce takes a step off the mound as the second baseman fields the ball, then stops as the ball rolls off the second baseman’s glove, up his chest and falls back into the dirt. Bruce returns to the mound, takes the second baseman’s throw and turns immediately to get his next sign from Woody. He works the next batter to two strikes and one ball, then breaks off a hard, sharp curveball that retires the batter on an infield fly. It is Bruce’s first decent curve of the night, and as he walks off the mound he is smiling faintly.

In the third inning Bruce gets two outs on fastballs and one on a hard curve. It is obvious now that he is gaining more confidence with each pitch. In the fourth inning of the scoreless game Kison cuts loose and strikes out all three batters. He is throwing considerably harder now, mixing almost an equal number of fastballs and curves on each batter. Following each strike Woody bounces out of his crouch, fires the ball back to Bruce and shouts encouragement. After the third strikeout Woody walks briskly away from the plate with a broad smile on his face. “That kid is throwing some kinda heat,” he says to no one in particular.

Unlike the other players, Woody does not go into the dugout but sits instead on a small chair beside the dugout, as is his custom. It is somewhat cooler now in the top of the fifth inning, and Woody wraps his hand in a towel. “My fingers get numb,” he says, holding up his throwing hand. The fingers are fat and discolored. They have been broken so many times that the circulation is poor and they get numb if Woody doesn’t keep them warm.

Woody seems only partially occupied with the 0–0 game in progress. He turns often to talk with the different fans behind him, and he seems particularly amused by a very fat woman in a flowered dress, with whom he has been carrying on a dialogue every half inning. The woman, who is sitting with two equally obese friends, has stacked 10 empty beer cups on the dugout roof in front of her.

“Heh, cutie, talk to me some more,” the woman says to Woody, and she smiles at him. It is a lopsided little smile that twists up into her cheek. Woody looks over at her and shakes his head. “You’re a cute one,” she says again, as she elbows one of her friends. “Isn’t he cute, Martha?”

Woody shakes his head and laughs. “You know, you remind me of Buddy Hackett. Really! So help me God, doesn’t she look like Buddy Hackett?” he says to all the fans around him. Everyone laughs at this, including the woman herself. Just as the last Waterbury batter of the inning is retired, the woman reaches across her friends and offers Woody a sip of her beer. But he doesn’t notice her gesture. He is too busy yelling at Richie Zisk, the Waterbury batter, who has just flung his bat in disgust after striking out. Woody is yelling at Zisk not to die out there, and to hustle out to his position and shake it off.

“It’s part of my job to be nice to fans,” says Woody. “When you become an organization man that’s one of the things you get paid for, bringing people into the ball park. If they like you, they come to see you play. When I was young, like Bruce, I was too embarrassed to talk to fans, but once I decided to be an organization man I had to learn a lot of new things. For instance, when I went to spring training with Kansas City in 1965 I knew my job was just to warm up pitchers and catch batting practice, but I did it with enthusiasm. It began to feel good knowing there were always little jobs I could do to help a team, even if I no longer got a chance to win ball games with hits. I liked the idea, too, that I might be able to help someone else make the big leagues, like Bert Campaneris, for instance.”

From 1965 to 1970 Woody Huyke was a bullpen catcher first for Vancouver of the Pacific Coast League and then Columbus of the International League. He only played in about half his team’s games each year, except by then it didn’t matter so much. He had reorganized his entire thinking as to what he should be as a baseball player.

“I thought I could learn to be a good organization man if I dedicated myself to every aspect of the game of baseball,” he says. “I no longer worried about my average or throwing arm, but concentrated on a lot of details other players don’t ever bother with. I stayed away from bad publicity. I never said a bad word about anyone. I tried to instill the right attitude in other guys. I was nice to the fans. And whenever I did play, I made sure I always ran 90 feet. I became a real pro, and now I can proudly say that I always do what is expected of me. I can be counted on for certain things that many players can’t. I’m always in shape. I leave parties before 1
a.m.
, instead of staying until 4:30. When I go to bed I’m always thinking of tomorrow’s game: who’s pitching, what kind of hitters he’ll face, what kind of park it is. I try to plan everything now. I even make a joke of being the old man on the club so young pitchers, like Bruce, will have confidence in me.”

Woody opened the 1970 season as a bullpen catcher for Columbus, but when a young prospect named Milt May progressed faster than expected, Columbus was stuck with two bullpen catchers. One night Woody sat down with his wife and discussed his prospects at Columbus.

“I told her that I was going to be sent down,” he says. “It had to be me. There was no one else they could send. I couldn’t blind myself to reality. I thought about my value to the organization and what I would do in their place and I decided they could use me best at Waterbury. A few days later I was told I was being sent to Waterbury. It made me feel good, actually, to know that I understood my situation so well after all these years. When I was young I never felt I understood some of the things that happened to me. I was always too anxious about my career. But now I know where I am, and where I’m going, and what I have to do to get there. It makes life easier. I have no anxiety over things. At first when I realized I was going to be shipped out of Columbus I was a little upset because the conditions were very nice there. But you can always make yourself find things wrong if you know how. I don’t like to fly anymore, and at Columbus we flew all the time. I knew at Waterbury the team traveled by bus. I convinced myself it would be much better taking a bus. Seel It’s easy if you’re used to it. The only complaint I have about Waterbury is that some of the conditions are not so hot—like the lights at Pawtucket. You can get damaged for life or ruin a career playing under bad lights. As you get older you have to be aware of such things. Your body can’t recover from injuries like it used to. When you’re young who worries about playing conditions? You let your ability carry you. And if you are a prospect and you get hurt, the organization babies you. If you’re an organization man and you get hurt, maybe you don’t have a job anymore.”

Bruce Kison retires the side in the fifth inning, but in the sixth he gives up two singles after getting one man out. Now, with runners on first and third and the score still tied 0–0, he knows he is in trouble. He gets the fourth batter of the inning to fly out to third base, and then he fires two quick strikes past the potential third out. Woody crouches behind the right-handed batter and sticks out two fingers beneath his glove. Kison flicks his glove fingers to indicate he wants a new signal. Woody responds with a single finger and Kison nods slightly. Woody then hunches over the outside corner of the plate, but before he can set his target Kison flicks his glove again. Woody shifts himself to the inside corner of the plate and puts his glove at a level with the batter’s knees. Again Kison flicks his glove. Woody raises his target until it rests just inches from the batter’s chin. Kison goes into his motion and fires a fastball directly at the spot where the batter’s head would have been if he had not fallen to the dirt. The count is now 1 and 2.

“When I want to knock a batter down,” says Kison, “I have to do it myself. Woody doesn’t like to call for knockdown pitches. He’s afraid I might hit someone. Jeez, I hit eight batters in one game and it didn’t bother me any. And we won the game. But it bothers him. I guess he’s played against a lot of these guys and he doesn’t want to hurt them. I can’t afford to feel like that or I’ll never get anywhere. I think, too, Woody’s conscious of injuries because he’s getting older. That’s surprised me about guys like him. I’d always thought they’d be tough, but they’re more afraid to slide into second with their spikes up than the younger guys. Maybe it’s because they know what an injury can mean to a guy’s career. I just think that’s a heck of a way to play the game—always worried. That’s the trouble with a lot of these organization guys, they’ve lost their confidence over the years. They’re always looking to play it safe. But how can you expect to get anywhere that way? You’ve got to take chances.

“They even let the front office push them around because they’re afraid to speak up. I don’t think I could take that. When Mr. Peterson tried to pressure me into going to the Winter League I told him I heard it was a waste of time. I’ve been playing ball since January and my body needs a rest. I want to go home and hunt geese and duck and go to school and have a little fun for a while. That might not sound important to some people but it is to me, so that’s what I’m going to do. I need school, too, if I ever expect to get anywhere. I admit it doesn’t interest me much now, but it’s something that has to be done. For a lot of our guys it’s too late for anything but baseball. But there are three or four different directions my life can take outside of baseball, and I want to make sure I keep those possibilities open.”