At the Old Ballgame Page 12

  “Compliments of ‘Pebble Pop,’ champion groundkeeper of the world,” he told them, “pipe the write-up they gave the old boy.”

  The Crab opened his paper listlessly, glanced over the tribute to the veteran caretaker, and permitted the pages to slip to the concrete floor of the dugout. He was in the act of thrusting the paper aside with his cleats, when his eye caught a single word in blackface type up near the top of the column on the reverse side of the sporting page. It was his own name. Hypnotically, he picked up the page and capitals burned themselves into his brain.

  A sharp ejaculation caused McGovern to look up. The Crab’s teeth were chattering.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “N-n-nothing,” stammered the Crab. The paper rustled from his nerveless hands. He straightened up, looked around wildly and then walked up and out of the pit—straight as a chalk line to the exit back of first base. With the entire team watching him, open-mouthed, the Crab wrenched savagely at the gate. A special officer drew the bolt, and the third baseman disappeared into the crowd, uniform and all.

  Pee-wee Patterson broke the silence.

  “I knew it was coming. He’s cuckoo. Somebody better follow him.”

  But Brick McGovern was scanning the paper that the third baseman had dropped.

  “Cuckoo, nothing,” he exclaimed, “the Crab has found his wife!”

  They all saw it then—two lines of agate type that began: “Crowley—“

  The paper was eight days old.

  A sorrel-topped Irishman with a fighting face, but rather too generous about the middle for perfect condition, plodded up the steps of St. Joseph’s Hospital at dusk. One hand grasped a bouquet of pink roses.

  “Ah, yes,” said the little woman in the office, “second floor of the Annex—Room 41.”

  McGovern located the room and tapped gently on the white door.

  “Come in,” chirped a voice.

  The pilot of the Wolves turned the knob dubiously and peered into the room.

  The Smile Girl was sitting up in bed. Her eyes were bright with the look that comes to a woman who has borne her mate his first man-child. She beckoned to McGovern and then held a pink finger to her lips.

  “S-sh!” she whispered, “look!”

  In an armchair facing the window and away from the door, McGovern made out a familiar figure, still in uniform. It was rocking gently back and forth, cleats tapping on the linoleum-covered floor, and as it rocked it sang most unmusically to a rose-colored bundle held awkwardly over one shoulder:

  “Smile awhile—and I’ll smile, too,

  What’s the good of feeling blue?

  Watch my lips—I’ll show you how:

  That’s the way—you’re smiling now!”

  McGovern blew his nose. The singing stopped abruptly.

  “Honey,” said the Smile Girl, “bring William, Junior, to me. You’ve had him for most an hour and I want to show him to Mr. McGovern.”

  The Crab’s cleats click-clacked across the room. He held up the bundle for McGovern’s inspection.

  “I’d let you hold him, Brick,” he confided, “but it’s got to be done just a certain way. The nurse put me wise; see—you keep one hand back of the neck and shoulders, so you don’t do no fumbling.”

  McGovern nodded. He deposited the roses on the bed and laid the tip of one pudgy finger ever so lightly on the cheek of the sleeping infant.

  “Some kid,” he marveled, “some kid!”

  The Smile Girl emitted a cry of surprise. From an envelope attached to the roses she had extracted a hundred-dollar bill.

  “What’s that?” demanded the Crab crossly, “what you trying to put over, Brick? I haven’t touched a bean of my salary for three months. I don’t need—”

  “Shut up!” admonished McGovern. “Can’t I take an option on the little fellow’s services if I want to? Look at those hands, Bill—ain’t they made for an infielder—they’re yours all over—he’s got your eyes and your hair and—”

  The baby squirmed and moved its hands restlessly. The lusty wail of a perfectly healthy and hungry man-cub brought a nurse hurrying into the room.

  With obvious reluctance, Bill Crowley surrendered his possession. He brushed one hand hastily across his eyes.

  “Darn little crab,” he said huskily, “he does look like me just a little bit, don’t he, Brick?”

  Digger Grimes, base runner par excellence, flashed past first and second in an every-widening circle and headed for third. He was well between the two bags when Pee-wee Patterson, crouched in short center, took the throw from his old and esteemed friend Rube Ferguson and with a single motion shot the ball, low and a trifle wide of the waiting figure at third.

  It was the seventh inning of the last game of the season. Thirty thousand fans in bleachers and grandstand rose to their feet. The play was close, so close that men forgot to breathe. Twenty feet from the bag, the runner made his leap. Spikes flashed in the sunlight menacingly. The Digger was coming in at an angle opposite to the guardian of the bag—charging with his fangs bared!

  At the same instant, a heavy-shouldered figure in the familiar uniform of the champion Wolves swept up the ball with one bare hand and flung himself headlong in the path of the plunging runner. The two figures thudded together—threshed a moment in a flurry of arms and legs and then were still.

  With his cleats still six inches from the bag, Digger Grimes found himself pinned to the dirt under 180 pounds of inexorable bone and muscle.

  Out from a cloud of dust, while the bleachers and grandstand rocked in a tempest of glee, came an indignant bellow:

  “He’s out—I tell you!—he ain’t touched the bag yet—he’s out!”

  The Crab catapulted to his feet and advanced on Dan McLaughlin. The umpire turned mild blue eyes on the Wolf infielder.

  “I called him out,” he protested, “what do you want—a written notice?”

  The Crab blinked a moment, and stalked back to his position. From under the visor of his cap he shot a swift glance at the crowded benches just back of third. A blur of pink and a smaller blur of blue showed up against the dark background of masculine fandom and told him all he wished to know.

  The Crab’s chest expanded, as is only proper when a man has got his two hits. Pounding the palm of his worn glove, he dug his cleats into the dirt and set himself for the next play.

  “Come on,” he called, “get the next man! Ump—it’s too bad you only got one lung—can’t call a play louder than a whisper, can you? Pipes all rusty, huh? Too bad!”

  Over in the Wolf dugout, a red-headed manager who had seen his club climb into the lead in the closing days of the grueling struggle, smiled faintly and stared with unseeing eyes across the diamond. His fingers twisted a telegram that had come to him that morning from New York.

  Ten thousand dollars cash and spring delivery is too tempting an offer for any minor-league manager to reject. But there would be a wide hole at third base next year, and Brick McGovern was already wondering how he would ever plug it.

  My Roomy

  Ring Lardner

  I

  No—I ain’t signed for next year; but there won’t be no trouble about that. The dough part of it is all fixed up. John and me talked it over and I’ll sign as soon as they send me a contract. All I told him was that he’d have to let me pick my own roommate after this and not sic no wild man on to me.

  You know I didn’t hit much the last two months o’ the season. Some o’ the boys, I notice, wrote some stuff about me getting’ old and losin’ my battin’ eye. That’s all bunk! The reason I didn’t hit was because I wasn’t getting’ enough sleep. And the reason for that was Mr. Elliott.

  He wasn’t with us after the last part o’ May, but I roomed with him long enough to get the insomny. I was the only guy in the club game enough to stand for him; but I was sorry aft
erward that I done it, because it sure did put a crimp in my little old average.

  And do you know where he is now? I got a letter today and I’ll read it to you. No—I guess I better tell you somethin’ about him first. You fellers never got acquainted with him and you ought to hear the dope to understand the letter. I’ll make it as short as I can.

  He didn’t play in no league last year. He was with some semipros over in Michigan and somebody writes John about him. So John sends Needham over to look at him. Tom stayed there Saturday and Sunday, and seen him work twice. He was playin’ the outfield, but as luck would have it they wasn’t a fly ball hit in his direction in both games. A base hit was made out his way and he booted it, and that’s the only report Tom could get on his fieldin’. But he wallops two over the wall in one day and they catch two line drives off him. The next day he gets four blows and two o’ them is triples.

  So Tom comes back and tells John the guy is a whale of a hitter and fast as Cobb, but he don’t know nothin’ about his fieldin’. Then John signs him to a contact—twelve hundred or somethin’ like that. We’d been in Tampa a week before he showed up. Then he comes to the hotel and just sits round all day, without tellin’ nobody who he was. Finally the bellhops was going to chase him out and he says he’s one o’ the ballplayers. Then the clerk gets John to go over and talk to him. He tells John his name and says he hasn’t had nothin’ to eat for three days, because he was broke. John told me afterward that he’d drew about three hundred in advance—last winter sometime. Well, they took him in the dinin’ room and they tell me he inhaled about four meals at once. That night they roomed him with Heine.

  Next mornin’ Heine and me walks out to the grounds together and Heine tells me about him. He says:

  “Don’t never call me a bug again. They got me roomin’ with the champion o’ the world.”

  “Who is he?” I says.

  “I don’t know and I don’t want to know,” says Heine; “but if they stick him in there with me again I’ll jump to the Federals. To start with, he ain’t got no baggage. I ast him where his trunk was and he says he didn’t have none. Then I ast him if he didn’t have no suitcase, and he says: ‘No. What do you care?’ I was goin’ to lend him some pajamas, but he put on the shirt o’ the uniform John gave him last night and slept in that. He was asleep when I got up this mornin’. I seen his collar layin’ on the dresser and it looked like he had wore it in Pittsburgh every day for a year. So I throwed it out the window and he comes down to breakfast with no collar. I ast him what size collar he wore and he says he didn’t want none, because he wasn’t goin’ out nowheres. After breakfast he beat it up to the room again and put on his uniform. When I got up there he was lookin’ in the glass at himself, and he done it all the time I was dressin’.”

  When we got out to the park I got my first look at him. Pretty good-lookin’ guy, too, in his unie—big shoulders and well put together; built somethin’ like Heine himself. He was talkin’ to John when I come up.

  “What position do you play?” John was askin’ him.

  “I play anywheres,” says Elliott.

  “You’re the kind I’m lookin’ for,” says John. Then he says: “You was an outfielder up there in Michigan, wasn’t you?”

  “I don’t care where I play,” says Elliott.

  John sends him to the outfield and forgets all about him for a while. Pretty soon Miller comes in and says:

  “I ain’t goin’ to shag for no bush outfielder!”

  John ast him what was the matter, and Miller tells him that Elliott ain’t doin’ nothin’ but just standin’ out there; that he ain’t makin’ no attemp’ to catch the fungoes, and that he won’t even chase ’em. Then John starts watchin’ him, and it was just like Miller said. Larry hit one pretty near in his lap and he stepped out o’ the way. John calls him in and ast him:

  “Why don’t you go after them fly balls?”

  “Because I don’t want ’em,” says Elliott.

  John gets sarcastic and says:

  “What do you want? Of course we’ll see that you get anythin’ you want!”

  “Give me a ticket back home,” says Elliott.

  “Don’t you want to stick with the club?” says John, and the busher tells him, no, he certainly did not. Then John tells him he’ll have to pay his own fare home and Elliott don’t get sore at all. He just says:

  “Well, I’ll have to stick, then—because I’m broke.”

  We was havin’ battin’ practice and John tells him to go up and hit a few. And you ought to of seen him bust ’em!

  Lavender was in there workin’ and he’d been pitchin’ a little all winter, so he was in pretty good shape. He lobbed one up to Elliott, and he hit it ’way up in some trees outside the fence—about a mile, I guess. Then John tells Jimmy to put somethin’ on the ball. Jim comes through with one of his fast ones and the kid slams it agin the right-field wall on a line.

  “Give him your spitter!” yells John, and Jim handed him one. He pulled it over first base so fast that Bert, who was standin’ down there, couldn’t hardly duck in time. If it’d hit him it’d killed him.

  Well, he kep’ on hittin’ everythin’ Jim give him—and Jim had somethin’ too. Finally John gets Pierce warmed up and sends him out to pitch, tellin’ him to hand Elliott a flock o’ curve balls. He wanted to see if lefthanders was goin’ to bother him. But he slammed ’em right along, and I don’t b’lieve he hit more’n two the whole mornin’ that wouldn’t of been base hits in a game.

  They sent him out to the outfield again in the afternoon, and after a lox o’ coaxin’ Leach got him to go after fly balls; but that’s all he did do—just go after ’em. One hit him on the bean and another on the shoulder. He run back after the short ones and ’way in after the ones that went over his head. He catched just one—a line drive that he couldn’t get out o’ the way of; and then he acted like it hurt his hands.

  I come back to the hotel with John. He ast me what I thought of Elliott.

  “Well,” I says, “he’d be the greatest ballplayer in the world if he could just play ball. He sure can bust ’em.”

  John says he was afraid he couldn’t never make an outfielder out o’ him. He says:

  “I’ll try him on the infield to-morrow. They must be some place he can play. I never seen a lefthand hitter that looked so good agin lefthand pitchin’—and he’s got a great arm; but he acts like he’d never saw a fly ball.”

  Well, he was just as bad on the infield. They put him at short and he was like a sieve. You could of drove a hearse between him and second base without him gettin’ near it. He’d stoop over for a ground ball about the time it was bouncin’ up agin the fence; and when he’d try to cover the bag on a peg he’d trip over it.

  They tried him at first base and sometimes he’d run ’way over in the coachers’ box and sometimes out in right field lookin’ for the bag. Once Heine shot one acrost at him on a line and he never touched it with his hands. It went bam! right in the pit of his stomach—and the lunch he’d ate didn’t do him no good.

  Finally John just give up and says he’d have to keep him on the bench and let him earn his pay by bustin’ ’em a couple o’ times a week or so. We all agreed with John that this bird would be a whale of a pinch hitter—and we was right too. He was hittin’ ’way over five hundred when the blowoff come, along about the last o’ May.

  II

  Before the trainin’ trip was over, Elliott had roomed with pretty near everybody in the club. Heine raised an awful holler after the second night down there and John put the bug in with Needham. Tom stood him for three nights. Then he doubled up with Archer, and Schulte, and Miller, and Leach, and Saier—and the whole bunch in turn, averagin’ about two nights with each one before they put up a kick. Then John tried him with some o’ youngsters, but they wouldn’t stand for him no more’n the others. They all said he was crazy and the
y was afraid he’d get violent some night and stick a knife in ’em.

  He always insisted on havin’ the water run in the bathtub all night, because he said it reminded him of the sound of the dam near his home. The fellers might get up four or five times a night and shut off the faucet, but he’d get right up after ’em and turn it on again. Carter, a big bush pitcher from Georgia, started a fight with him about it one night, and Elliott pretty near killed him. So the rest o’ the bunch, when they’d saw Carter’s map next mornin’, didn’t have the nerve to do nothin’ when it come their turn.

  Another o’ his habits was the thing that scared ’em, though. He’d brought a razor with him—in his pocket, I guess—and he used to do his shavin’ in the middle o’ the night. Instead o’ doin’ it in the bathroom he’d lather his face and then come out and stand in front o’ the lookin’ glass on the dresser. Of course, he’d have all the lights turned on, and that was bad enough when a feller wanted to sleep; but the worst of it was that he’d stop shavin’ every little while and turn round and stare at the guy who was makin’ a failure o’ tryin’ to sleep. Then he’d wave his razor round in the air and laugh, and begin shavin’ agin. You can imagine how comf’table his roomies felt!

  John had bought him a suitcase and some clothes and things, and charged ’em up to him. He’d drew so much dough in advance that he didn’t have nothin’ comin’ till about June. He never thanked John and he’d wear one shirt and one collar till some one throwed ’em away.

  Well, we finally gets to Indianapolis, and we was goin’ from there to Cincy to open. The last day in Indianapolis John come and ast me how I’d like to change roomies. I says I was perfectly satisfied with Larry. Then John says:

  “I wisht you’d try Elliott. The other boys all kicks on him, but he seems to hang round you a lot and I b’lieve you could get along all right.”

  “Why don’t you room him alone?” I ast.

  “The boss or the hotels won’t stand for us roomin’ alone,” says Johns. “You go ahead and try it, and see how you make out. If he’s too much for you let me know; but he likes you and I think he’ll be diff’rent with a guy who can talk to him like you can.”