The Southpaw (9 page)

The 1 game I missed all summer was on account of a crazy incident that was partly Holly’s fault and partly my own. It was a Tuesday in September, and it was hot, and me and her went for a swim in Silver Creek which is off the Observatory road and down in a valley where nobody goes. We discovered it years and years ago and went there often, and still do. It is the most peaceful place you will find anywheres. You can hardly hear the cars, and you cannot see buildings or people, and Silver Creek comes roaring down through the hills and gets to this spot and flattens out, and the water is clear and pure, and cold, and deep enough to swim though truth to tell we went there not so much to swim as for the sunshine and the quiet, and she would lay there and read to me out of a book of poems. There was Shakespeare and Marble and Champion and Johnson and Dunn and Milton something and Browning and Yates, and I am not ashamed to say that I took to it pretty well, for I would lay there with my head in her lap, and she would read to me with 1 hand whilst rubbing my temples with the other. Some of them poets have really got a knack of making words into music, for it soothed me and made the air smell sweet, and it made ripples run up and down my spine.

Maybe she would read as long as 2 hours, and then we would strip and go for a swim, and then we would come back and sit in the sun to dry, and she would read some of them over again, and they sounded better the second try then they done the first. Holly says just because you have read a poem once does not mean that you have got the full charge, and I agree, for the more she read them the better I got to like them, and I even got so that I felt like I could whip out a poem or 2 on my own hook, and I done so, and she read them and said they was minor league but showed promise. She said if I stuck at it I might amount to something some day. She says any lunkhead can play baseball but he has got to be something special to write a poem.

That Tuesday we laid there in the sun, and she read to me from 1 that I liked. It opens like this:

Come live with me and be my love

And we will all the pleasures prove.

That valleys, groves, hills and fields, Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

We had the valleys and the groves and the hills and the fields and the rocks and the shallow river and the birds. The only thing that was missing was the madrigals (songs) and the shepherds, but for the biggest part the poem held up fine. You would of thought the writer was on the spot, and it brought out all the love that was in me for Holly, for I loved her and believe she loved me, though what she seen in me I cannot say, for a stupider, thickheaded, stubborner smart-aleck never lived, and she read it all through and said Rawley had wrote an answer to it, and she started through the book, looking for the answer. “Here is the answer,” said I, and I kissed her, and we laid there in the sun in 1 another’s arms, and the sun was warm on our skin, and we done no more reading that day.

Soon afterwards I felt something bite me on the left elbow. We looked at it and there was a little red mark, and Holly said we should go home and put something on it, but by the time we got home I could not feel a thing, and I forgot about it.

But when I woke up in the morning the elbow was swole to the size of a grapefruit, and I rushed down to the hospital and they let out the infection and tied the arm up in a sling.

I could not pitch that night. Pop pitched and won. But I went down to the park nonetheless with my arm in the sling, and a bunch of kids crowded round and asked me what happened. “Nothing,” I said, “but this will teach you the price of fornicating in the out of doors.”

I knowed at the time I shouldn’t of said it, but I was such a big shot then, or thought I was, my head about 17 times bigger then it had any right to be, and the next thing I knowed my remark was all over town. I got a call in the morning from Bill Duffy, and he said he was give orders to get an apology. I told him go ahead and write 1 out, and he wrote a dandy. Bill Duffy is a great writer and a great friend of mine.

He can recite “Casey at the Bat” from beginning to end when sober, and it is longer then most of the poems in Holly’s book.

Chapter 7

The Mammoths finished fifth in 49, out of the money altogether.

They started off fast enough, and they led the league through May, but Boston took over in June, and Cleveland and Brooklyn crowded past in July, and they lost 7 in a row in August and dropped to fifth, just behind Pittsburgh, and they settled there and could not go up nor down.

It was the first time in many a year that the Mammoths wound up in the second division. Yet it was expected. It was an old club that had saw good days in its time, but old men cannot stand the wear and tear of baseball day in and day out and night after night. They will miss the close ones. They will be throwed out at first base by a step where 2 years before they would of beat the play, or a fly ball that in the past they would of gathered in now drops between them for a base hit, or the power that a few seasons ago would send a ball into the stands for a home run is gone, and the ball drops short and is just another long out. That is how pennants are won, by a step here and a few feet there and just that little extra power when it counts.

In the winter the Mammoths cut loose 6 ballplayers. It was sad. Pop said you cannot let sentiment interfere, so I did not, but it was sad nonetheless to see those great names cut adrift, for they was my heroes for many a year.

There was talk that Dutch Schnell was through as skipper, but in the fall it was announced that he was signed on for 3 years more, and he made a statement saying he would win more pennants before he bowed out for good, and he begun to rebuild, and before long he was on his way to that pennant he had spoke of. The Mammoths bought Hams Carroll that winter, and picked up Sid Goldman for a song. Also, their farms begun to produce in a big way. The Mammoth farms are spread all over, from AA in Queen City down to these rickety leagues that play only weekends and maybe 1 night during the week. Plus this there are a dozen full-time scouts beating the bushes all over America and down in the Latin Leagues as well, including contacts in colleges and semipro ball in all the 48, plus the Legion tournaments plus private individuals that pass on information to the club. The Mammoths leave no stone unturned in their hunt for the ivory. Herb Macy and Gil Willowbrook and Piss Sterling become a part of the system that winter as well as Canada Smith and Coker Roguski and Perry Simpson and me. This is the cream that was sifted in the long run from the dozens and dozens of punks that put their name to a Mammoth contract. Mr. Moors spared no expense. He turned his pockets upside down and bought the best. If you have got the cash you can win pennants so long as you are willing to spend it. Them that has gets, according to the old saying.

(I should mention something here about the name of “Piss” Sterling, for I know that many fans will wonder how come. I see where his nickname is listed on the official roster as “Jack,” but I never in my life heard a soul call him that and I doubt that he would turn around if they did. He has got terrible kidney trouble that acts up in tight situations. 2 and 3 times a game he will rush back to the John, and in a tight game, or down the stretch like last summer, he might make that little trip just about every inning. He has also got sinus trouble. But we call him Piss, and a better fellow never lived.) That winter I worked like a fool. I suppose I had the idea I was keeping in condition, though I since realize that when you are a kid you are
always
in condition, never stiff, never above your weight, never sore anywheres from top to toe. But I read in “Sam Yale—Mammoth” in the chapter called “Keeping In Condition” where hiking was good for the legs. A pitcher’s legs are as important as their arm, so I hiked a good bit, me and Holly, up through the hills. 1 time I pulled her on a sled clear to Berrywick Mountain, 5 miles.

Also I played handball in Mugs O’Brien’s gymnasium, and I rowed the rowing machine. Mugs said he never seen anyone so faithful about keeping in condition. I topped 6 feet that winter, just 1 inch under Pop, and was 170 even on the scales.

I also played basketball at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Perkinsville with the club that finished first in the city leagues. I was supposed to join it to be eligible but I did not have the money and Albert Goldenberg, a Jew, put up the money and got me a card. I do not think much of basketball. Actually I consider it pretty nearly as dreary as football. Do you call that a game where your best bet is to put 5 men on the floor that their chief quality is that they are overgrowed? Where do your brains come in, and your speed and your lightning strategy, your planning and your figuring and your careful decisions? Compared to baseball what they call these contact games are about on a level with a subway jam. I do not wish to aggravate people that like these particular sports, but when you stop and think about it it is really tragic that so much energy is wasted in such a great deal of pushing and shoving and trampling and getting up and falling down or else some 7-foot ox standing and dropping a ball through a hoop.  Besides this I pumped gas at Tom Swallow’s Texaco station on the square. This was for the money pure and simple and had nothing to do with conditioning. I worked for Tom from after the World Series through Wednesday, December 14, 1949, when I quit him flat. It was the most boring period of my life.

All this time Pop kept saying sit tight and 1 day soon a scout would appear. Around Thanksgiving a man come from Chicago. He had reports on me from a number of people that seen me pitch, and he showed us the reports and they all had good things to say, and he offered me 1,000 to sign. Pop said 5,000 or nothing, and the man said he had no orders to pay anything like that, and Pop directed him back to Perkinsville, telling him there was a train every few hours. I did not say a word. Pop said leave it all to him.

About a week afterwards a man come from Cincinnati. He said he had signed up 25 young ballplayers between October and December.

“How much are you paying a young fellow to sign?” said Pop, and the man said he was not paying a cent except fare to spring training, and Pop said if Cincinnati had such splendid habits of saving money they might just as well save their breath besides because I was not signing up free like somebody’s slave. The man hemmed and hummed and said he might pay 500 as a starter. Pop said he did not care where he started so long as he ended up at 5,000.

“There are boys all over the land that would give their right eye to put their autograph on a Cincinnati contract,” the man said.

“I am pleased to hear these remarks,” Pop said. “I am sure you can win many pennants on sheer enthusiasm.”

They could not get together, and then finally it was December 14 when the telephone rung early in the morning, and it was Jocko Conrad down at the railroad, and he said could I meet him there, and Pop said no but I could give him a few moments here at home. Jocko is an immortal that played with the Mammoths from 1919 to 1931 and had a lifetime average of .323. I was nervous, and I shook, and then he pulled up in front of the house in a big red 1950 Moors Special. He climbed out with a brown envelope in his hand. He was a little fat around the middle. If you did not know who he was you would of took him for some ordinary business man and not an immortal in the Hall of Fame. He rung the bell and Pop left him in. “I am Jocko Conrad,” Jocko said.

“We was expecting you,” Pop said. “We are also expecting a man from Cleveland.” (A lie, though Pop carried it off. All the time Jocko was there Pop give him the impression he was practically run ragged entertaining scouts.)

“I am glad to meet you,” said I to Jocko. “What can I do for you?”

“Leave us put it the other way around. It is me that has come to do something for you,” he said. He took some papers out of his envelope and begun to fire questions at me, my age and my height and weight and married state and the condition of my teeth and general health and was I ever arrested or inside an institution, and at last he popped the question. “Young man,” said he, “how would you like to belong to the Mammoth organization?”

“I might not mind,” I said.

“Do you not like to play ball?” he said, studying me real close.

“Sure I do,” I said. “I love baseball. It is a great game.”

“We are looking for boys that really want to be in the organization,” said he.

“I would just as soon play in Perkinsville,” I said.

He did not act like he heard me. He dug down through his papers and come up with a letter from Bobo Adams. “I have a letter from Bobo Adams,” he said.

“I struck Bobo out on 4 pitches,” I said.

“Bobo says you are a good boy,” said Jocko.

“Anybody will tell you the same,” I said.

We must of talked above an hour. He had letters on me from Jack Hand of the Scarlets and Mr. Gregory N. Oswald of Perkinsville High as well as Bobo, plus a raft of clippings from the Perkinsville “Clarion”.

The sum and total of it was he asked me would I sign a contract agreeing to sign a
new
contract if I produced the goods at Aqua Clara in the spring and was kept by the Mammoth system. I said I would like to help him out by signing such a contract but that I could get
cash
from the Perkinsville Scarlets and never be put to the trouble of traveling. “Well,” said Jocko, “suppose I was to throw in a little bonus for signing?”

“That might help,” said I.

“1,000,” he said.

Pop snorted.

“2,000,” said Jocko.

I begun to think fast. I thought and thought, and while I done so my eyes roamed about, and Jocko said, “Maybe 2,750,” and my eyes kept wandering and went clear out the window and lit on the 50 Moors sitting in the sun. The figure 4,000 jumped in my mind.

“4,000 and your 50 Moors,” I said.

“Done!” he said, and he screwed open his pen and filled in the contracts and handed them to Pop, for I was a minor and under 21 and could not sign, and Pop looked them over and signed them and I signed underneath. “By golly,” said Jocko, “that was quick work and we will never be sorry. You will get your check in the mail. Could I use your telephone?” and we said yes, and he went over and telephoned Detroit, which is where the head office of the Mammoths is, reversing the charges and telling them to send me a check, and he said he needed a new car for he had give away another.