The Southpaw (19 page)

In the morning I was up and gone. I parked in my slot in the depot, and I got the early train out. I had 100 dollars in my money belt, and I still had it tucked in my belly when I undressed the following night in the hotel in Aqua Clara. I was no more a green punk.

Chapter 16

You can tell a ballplayer from a punk by the cut of his clothes and the way he walks and the way he handles himself, not only on the field but off. I remember the first morning in Aqua Clara last spring I was woke by the train and I went over to the window and stood there looking down when the train drawed to a stop at the station below. About a dozen got off plus 4 colored chaps way down in the last car, and you could tell they was punks by the way they piled off, spilling out like marines in a newsreel and standing there blinking in the sun, looking all dazed and bewildered. You could tell they was rooks by the seedy old bags they toted, all wore and cracked and hung together with straps and cord. You could tell by their clothes. Mostly they wore jackets, and there was names and numbers on the jackets standing for high schools and clubs where the boys played before, and some of them wore sneakers without no socks. They set out across town, straggling along together like you seen school kids do, going down the street in a pack.

There was twice as many on the noon train, and I watched them again, except that there was 1 that was different, and I knowed the instant I laid eyes on him that here was a ballplayer, and the way I could tell he was dressed in the best and his bag had a bright shine, and he walked cocky. He did not come diving off the train like a marine. He come down slow, after all the rest, and he carried his bag easy and swung away from the punks and towards the hotel.

It turned out that it was Bub Castetter that been sent down to Q. C. when I come up. He was back for another try. I never met him before, but I knowed him when I seen him close, just before he went under the awning in front. Except for me he was the first of the club in camp.

I thought maybe we might grab a bite together, and I timed it right and met him on the stairs coming up. There was a bellboy with him, carrying his bags, all dressed up like an Admiral like they do down there, and I give Bub a hello and a big pleasant smile. “Hello punk,” he said, and he went on past me and up the stairs.

That first night I had the regular blues, lonesome as the moon and not a soul to talk to. I halfway thought of going and asking Bub what bug he was bit by. But I give up that idea and stripped down. I read the Aqua Clara paper through twice, and I read some in the hotel Bible, about 20 chapters. 1 thing I will say for that book, a chapter ain’t no trick a-tall. About 10 o’clock another train come through, and I stood at the window. There was the usual gang of punks, plus a dozen or more that headed towards the hotel, but it was too dark to see who. I was sure there was ballplayers amongst them, for I could tell by the way they walked, and there was some writers, too, waddling along with their machines in their hand. Then I could see that 1 of the ballplayers was Sad Sam Yale, and I dressed quick and shot out of there and met him on the stairs and stuck out my hand, and he stuck out his and give me a shake. “Hello punk,” he said, and he went on past me.

I would of followed but I seen Red Traphagen behind, and he seen me and winked and asked me how my flipper was.

I remember to this day Red standing there and asking me how my flipper was. I do not know why I remember, yet I do. You will have pictures in your mind of certain ballplayers doing certain things. I remember Sad Sam with his hat over his heart and the band playing the day me and Pop went to the Opener in New York, and I remember him standing and watching from the dugout door the day I relieved against Boston, the first inning I ever pitched for the Mammoths.

And Red I remember coming back towards the screen, all loaded down in his gear, his mask and cap throwed off and his hair in the wind that very same day at the Opener, and I remember him standing there that night, his hair all red and asking me how was my flipper. Then he asked me up to his room, and we went. Red used to room with Monk Boyd until Sid Goldman eased Monk out of a job and Monk got traded away to Washington. Now he rooms with George Gonzalez, and they talk Spanish together. Sometimes I sit around and listen to them talk and never understand a word. George was not yet in camp, so there was only Red and me, and he asked me what I done all winter, and I told him, and he told me what he done, which was mostly play handball in California to keep his weight down.

He was in good spirits that night, and I forgot how lonesome I was. He said he believed we would have a good year. “If the youngsters come through,” he said. “That is the big thing.” He asked me did Ugly Jones sign yet, and I said no, not according to the papers, and he asked me who all was in camp, and I told him. He told me some stories about Ugly, and some about George, and some about the club in general.

Some of them I could not follow exactly. Red is fairly deep, and sometimes he will set his tongue to wagging and I can no more follow him then Aaron Webster, and he might as well be talking Spanish to George for all of me. He asked me this and that about Mike Mulrooney—did Mike still head for church all the time? I said he went fairly regular. I remembered what Mike said about steering clear of Red off the field, but I said nothing to Red about that, besides which I liked him and like him yet, though many people do not. He told me he believed I depended too much on too many screwballs.

“Dutch says I throw too many
fast
balls,” I said.

“When did he say that?” said Red.

“2 springs ago,” said I.

“At contract time?” said Red.

“Yes,” I said, “2 springs ago at contract time.”

“That is what I thought,” said Red. “The bastard. He knows better.”

That seemed a poor way for a ballplayer to talk about his own manager. “He was just doing what he considered best,” I said.

“Best for who?” said Red.

Well, that’s Red for you. He can be very sarcastic at times. You got to get used to him. His motto is: never be cheery if you can possibly be gloomy, and I passed it off and went on to other things. Before we knowed it it was midnight, and we sent down for sandwiches and Coke, and then I went back to my room. I felt good.

By Monday all the pitchers and catchers was in camp plus Dutch and the coaches and Patricia Moors and Bradley Lord and Doc Loftus and Doc Solomon and Mick McKinney and about 2 truckloads of writers plus a slew of people that hung around the park and the hotel but never, so far as I could see, had any sort of a job to keep them occupied.

All except Bruce Pearson. Bruce is the third-string catcher. He might catch 5 or 6 games a year, but mostly he warms pitchers in the bullpen. Every year he comes 2 days late to camp because he ties 1 on on the way down. He don’t drink except once a year, and then he goes the whole hog and drinks for 2 days in Jacksonville and Dutch has got to send Bradley Lord, and Bradley has got to hunt around for Bruce and find him and wait till he is done. Then he puts him on a bus to Aqua Clara, and when he gets there Doc Loftus works him over awhile and Mick McKinney works him over some more, and after about 6 hours Bruce is as good as new.

The sad part is that there is never much work for him. Yet a ballplayer has got to play ball like a singer has got to sing and an artist has got to draw pictures and a mountain climber has got to have a mountain to climb or else go crazy. That’s the way it is, and that is why things look so dark for Bruce every spring.

Dutch called the first workout for 10:30 that Monday, and we worked 2 sessions, from 10:30 to noon and then again from 1 to half past 2, sandwiches and milk in between plus a special energy orange drink Doc Loftus invented. I guess you would hardly call it work. At least it did not seem to be work to me, although it hit some of the others harder. We done some exercises, and we jogged about a bit, halfway around the park and walked the rest. Then we laid down in the clubhouse awhile. Those that needed a rub from Mick McKinney got it.

It is always the older fellows that need their rub the worst, Sad Sam and Hams Carroll and Knuckles Johnson and Horse Byrd, and 1 after the other they laid on the table and got the works.

The second day we went at it a little harder, and the third day harder still, and my arms and neck browned up a good bit from the sun. All the rot that gets in you in the winter begun to seep away. I could feel it, and I said to Lindon I could go 9 innings right then, and he said so could he, and Bub Castetter told Lindon he could blow it out his ass, and Lindon shot back with a smart remark, and then Knuckles took up for Bub, saying it was these damn punks that work so hard in the spring that throwed the whole thing out of gear every year. But we never got any deeper in the matter because we was back in the clubhouse by then, and it was just at that moment that Bradley Lord brung Bruce Pearson in.

You never seen such a sight. I could scarcely recognize him, for he did not look a-tall like the ballplayer that I had throwed to in the bullpen the September before. He is blondheaded, and it was pasted down over his eyes now, and there was blood in it, and the way I remembered him he was meek and mild and never said a word unless he was spoke to. But now he was ranting and raving. He had Bradley Lord by the back of the neck, and he called Bradley every name in the book plus a few that I suppose is special to Bainbridge, Georgia, and his shirt was tore clean in 2 and the fly of his pants was wide open and all the buttons gone. Bradley Lord was screaming at Dutch to take him off his hands. Dutch just laughed. “He will quieten down,” he said.

Bruce give Dutch a ferocious look. Yet drunk as he was he knowed better then to mix with Dutch, Dutch being the skipper and all, and he looked around like he was trying to decide who to scrap with, and his eyes lit on Sad Sam, and he charged across at Sam, and Sam stepped aside as neat as you please and wandered out the door with his sandwiches and milk, and Bruce went down in a heap by the lockers and laid there a minute.

Then he begun to cry, and it was pitiful, and he cussed out Bradley Lord some more, and he cussed out the Greyhound Bus Company and the City of Jacksonville and the whole State of Florida and the game of baseball and Mike Mulrooney and Q. C. and all the cities in the Four-State Mountain League, cussing and crying all the while.

Dutch said he never seen him quite so bad before, and he sent Bradley Lord out for Doc Solomon and for Mike Mulrooney, Mike being over working with the rooks.

After a little bit he stopped. He was sobbing and shaking, but he seemed better, and he rose and went rather wobbly over to the water fountain and took a drink and come back and sat on the bench in front of the lockers. He seemed deep in thought, and then he rose and went very deliberate to the water again, and he filled his mouth and shot a stream across at Red, and it caught Red square in the face, and Red wiped it away.

2 men come in for the empty crate of milk, and Bruce begun to give them hell and call them all sorts of foul names, “n—r” and such, and some of the boys made him quieten down and chased the men out of there so as not to cause any more disturbance then was necessary, and then Bruce begun a torrent, running down the colored people and milk companies and Bradley Lord. He dove for the bottles and would of upset the crate but me and Lindon pulled him off. He got hold of 1 bottle, however, and looked around for someone to fire it at, but by this time the clubhouse was cleared out and there was nobody left but me, for all the boys was eating their lunch on the grass outside. Bruce smashed the bottle on the floor, and I finally got him under a shower, and he shivered and shook and vomited something awful. Doc Solomon come then and said leave him vomit. I said there was little else you could do, for you can not give a man an order not to vomit.

Doc Solomon left, and Bruce shook and shivered and vomited, and between times he laced into Doc Solomon, calling him a Jew and what not else.

He was at the heights when all of a sudden in walked Mike Mulrooney and it was Mike that calmed him down, handing out the sweet talk and saying what a great ballplayer Bruce was. He went right in there under the shower and turned it off and crouched down on the wet floor with Bruce, and they talked about the good times they had back in Q. C.

Soon Bruce come out just as calm as if he was sober, and Mike talked to him some more and held his hand and patted his shoulder.

Then Dutch yelled “Back to work!” and I went.

That night I seen Bruce at the hotel, and he was as nice and polite as ever, and quiet, and when he spoke he spoke soft, and you could hardly believe it was the same man. From that day onwards he settled down and done his work like he was told, and you never heard so much as a peep from him the season through.

Chapter 17

Otherwise it was mostly work. I mean work. I do not mean a dozen push-ups and a couple turns around the park and a shower and a rub and the rest of the day back in the sack at the Hotel Silver Palms or a round of golf or the dogs at night.

I will say this for Dutch: he laid down the rules and they stuck. He give us a speech before the Saturday drill, and he give another when the rest of the club reached camp—the infield and the outfield—and he give several more as time went by just in case your memory went bad.

“You will leave them goddam dogs alone,” he said, and he would jump on a bench so you all could see him. “You will be in your goddam rooms at 11 o’clock and your goddam lights will be out at midnight and there will be no goddam monkeyplay afterwards and no goddam sneaking around them halls in the dark after these goddam women that would as soon steal you blind as not,” and his face would get all red, and he would run his hand through his hair that had growed gray over all the summers and growed grayer yet before the season was out.

“You will steer clear of these goddam dudes that hang about. You will not play cards with them nor drink their drinks, not even a little drink, not even if it is such a little drink that it would not cover a thimble because them goddam bastards would as soon f—up my ball club as not. They are on vacation and here for the kicks. But you ain’t on vacation. If there is anybody that thinks they are on a vacation down here in the sunny goddam south I will give them a little extra work so as to help them get over the idea. I ain’t worked you hard yet, but I mean to.” A groan went up, for he had worked us hard all along.