Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics) (27 page)

There was also something about Fred Talbot. Fritz said that Talbot seemed to have changed a lot in the last year and that I’d probably like him now. I showed Talbot the letter and he said, “That son of a bitch. I thought he always liked me.” I guess Fred
is
changing. The other day, after he won in Cleveland, I reminded him that he’d already matched last year’s output of wins (one). A couple of years ago he’d have gotten angry. Now he just laughed.

Of course, he was damn lucky to get that win. We had an 8–2 lead in the fifth, and when he went in to pitch I told him all he had to do to get the win was to keep from getting a heart attack. I admit he pitched well. He gave up only three hits in five innings. But I couldn’t help a feeling of jealousy stealing over me like green slime. Here I’d been scraping and scuffling, pitchin’ in mop-up situations all year long, and I end up scratching together just one win, against Boston no less, in extra innings, and here comes Fred, he’s with the club just ten days, and he absolutely waltzes to a win. Oh well, it’ll make my comeback speech at the Americana Hotel that much more interesting.

The latest adventure of Mike Marshall has him feuding with Sal Maglie about his screwball. A screwball is a curve ball that breaks in the opposite direction of a curve ball: When thrown by a right-handed pitcher it breaks in on a right-handed hitter. Mike wants to throw screwballs and Sal wants him to throw curve balls, so they’re at each other all the time.

“Why don’t you just throw screwballs and tell Sal they were curve balls?” I suggested.

“I would,” Marshall said. “But then the catchers tell Sal what I’m throwing.”

See, the catchers are angry at him for trying to call his own game. So they go back to the bench and commiserate with Sal when he complains about the way Marshall is pitching. Mike won fifteen games last year and until recently he’s been our most effective pitcher. They haven’t disproved any of his theories. Why can’t they just leave him alone?

I’m afraid Mike’s problem is that he’s too intelligent and has had too much education. It’s like in the army. When a sergeant found out that a private had been to college he immediately assumed he couldn’t be a good soldier. Right away it was “There’s your college boy for you,” and “I wonder what our genius has to say about that?” This is the same kind of remark Sal and Joe make about Marshall.

I think Sal and Joe put me right up there with Marshall in the weirdo department. They don’t believe that my kind of guy can do the job, so when I
am
successful they’re surprised. When Fred Talbot does the job, well, he’s from the old school, blood and guts, spit a little tobacco juice on it.

Another thing. When I was winning a lot of ball games my double warm-up was a great idea, an innovation, maybe even a breakthrough. After I hurt my arm, the double warm-up became a terrible idea. It was sapping my strength. In fact it was downright weird.

We came from behind three times tonight to beat the Tigers 8–7. I pitched a third of an inning, coming in with a man on second. I got Tom Matchick on a ground ball back to me on a 3-and-2 count. After the game I told Joe Schultz that the reason I went to 3 and 2 was that I needed the work. “I figured you were doing
something
out there,” Joe Schultz said.

In the clubhouse Joe delivered his usual speech: “Attaway to stomp ’em. Stomp the piss out of ’em. Stomp ’em when they’re down. Kick ’em and stomp ’em.” And: “Attaway to go boys. Pound that ol’ Budweiser into you and go get them tomorrow.”

This stuff really lays us in the aisles.

Jerry Neudecker was the umpire at third base. His position is just a few steps away from our bullpen and he stopped by, as umpires will, to pass the time between innings.

“Why is it that they boo me when I call a foul ball correctly and they applaud the starting pitcher when he gets taken out of the ballgame?” says Neudecker.

Says I: “Because, Jerry, the fans recognize the pitcher as being a basically good person.”

He laughed.

Actually I think umpires can be too sensitive. They have this thing about a word. You’d think it was sticks and stones. The word is motherfucker and it’s called the Magic Word. Say it and you’re out of the game. I have only one question. Why? Now think about that.

One of the things baseball players take pride in is their crudity. The day Brandon was sent down, for example, Gary Bell, who is his friend, asked if he would mind leaving his tapes so the guys could continue to listen to his good music while he was gone. Which is like the guy in spring training who went up to a rookie and said, “Hey, if you get released, can I have your sweatshirts?” The crudity takes other forms. Like the fellow who rooms with the great chick hustler. The hustler will spend all of his time pounding the streets, spending money in bars, working like hell at running down girls. His roommate just lounges around the room, watching television, taking it easy. And he does great just taking his roommate’s leavings.

Then there’s the tale Jim Gosger told about hiding in a closet to shoot a little beaver while his roommate made out on the bed with some local talent. Nothing sneaky about it, the roommate even provided the towel for Gosger to bite on in case he was moved to laughter. At the height of the activity on the bed, local talent, moaning, says, “Oh darling, I’ve never done it
that
way before.” Whereupon Gosger sticks his head out, drawls “Yeah, surrre,” and retreats into the closet.

After he told us the story, “Yeah surrre” became a watchword around the club.

“I only had three beers last night.”

“Yeah, surrre.”

And I’ve known ballplayers who thought it was great fun to turn on a tape recorder under the bed while they were making it with their latest broad and play it back on the bus to the ballpark the next day.

Johnny Sain returned my call this morning and we had a long talk. I told him how my knuckleball was going and he asked me what pitch I was using for my off-pitch to go with it when I needed a strike. I said fastball. He suggested I use a slider instead. His reason is that when a hitter is looking for a knuckleball and gets something else, he thinks, “Fastball!” He may have time to adjust. But if the ball does something, has a little movement to it, he’ll be fooled.

I said I’d try it, sort of cut my fastball a little and see if it would move. I asked him if he could use an elderly right-handed knuckleball pitcher in Detroit and he said, “No chance. We’ve got four pitchers now who’ve all pitched less than ten innings this year. That Mayo Smith (the manager) is not a very good man to pitch for. The last guy to pitch a good game is his man, and he overuses him and neglects everybody else. There are three or four pitchers on the club he doesn’t even talk to.”

He told about what had happened with a guy named Mike Kilkenny. He’s a left-handed pitcher and Sain had been teaching him to get left-handers out by coming sidearm on them. It can be a really effective pitch. But Kilkenny pitched in an exhibition game recently and, with the bases loaded, he came sidearm on a left-handed hitter and plunked him in the ribs. Said Smith: “When I saw you come sidearm I liked to die. You take that goddam sidearm pitch and shove it up your ass.”

So here’s another case where the manager is trying to make rules for his pitchers that go right over the head of the pitching coach.

Not long ago John went home for a day and Smith took the pitchers to the outfield and ran them hard, foul line to foul line. Sain was angry when he found out. So he went into Mayo’s office and said, “Is this the pitching staff that led all baseball in complete games last year?”

“Yes, it is,” Mayo said.

“Well, are we going to follow a formula that I used last year or one that hasn’t been successful here for twenty-five years?”

“I guess we’ll stick with what’s been successful,” Mayo said.

But he didn’t like it. I’d bet right now the Tigers don’t win the pennant again.

I told John about the trouble I’d been having getting enough work and how they always want to save me for the seven innings I never pitch. John laughed and said that he personally was a believer in throwing before a game, and that what he does is take a guy out of sight into the bullpen and let him work. He said if a pitcher is just throwing on the sidelines his arm can bounce back in 20 minutes. He’s been able to sell pitchers on that, but it’s hell selling managers.

Big meeting before the game about personal appearances and autograph signing. It was proposed that we charge no less than $100 for any personal appearance and no less than $100 an hour for autograph-signing sessions. I said I didn’t think it was a very good idea because it would work a hardship on the lesser-known player who could not command such a large fee. A player like Harper or Mincher or Davis might get that kind of money but a Gus Gil or a John Gelnar, guys who might be offered $25 or $50 for an appearance, might never get any shots at all. I suggested that it be left up to the individual what he wants to take for an appearance.

So Steve Barber said, “This is a big-league town and these people are going to have to learn to go big league.”

And Don Mincher said: “If we go for $25 and $50 we’ll never get it up there where it belongs.”

And Brabender said, “If you want to dance, you’ve got to pay the fiddler.” (This got a big laugh because it’s what we say to a guy who’s been out drinking the night before and has to do a lot of running with a bad body to get the alcohol out of his system.)

And O’Donoghue said: “We made that mistake in Kansas City, where the guys went for $25 or $50 and that’s all we could ever get.”

So I said: “Well, if a guy doesn’t want to go for $50 he doesn’t have to. He can pass it on to one of the lesser players. Besides, suppose it’s a friend, or a good cause or something.”

Then Joe Schultz said: “Well, whatever you do, I think you should all get together on it and everyone do the same thing. Hell, you guys are big-league ballplayers. Just make it a club rule and everybody will stick to it.”

So much for my doctrine of laissez faire. The tyranny of the majority over the minority will always be with us. The vote was unanimous, except for my abstention. If someone offers me $25 or $50 and can’t afford more, I’ll take it.

The next thing we talked about was signing autographs for kids before the ballgame. Apparently there is a league rule that supposedly prohibits players from signing autographs when they’re in uniform on the field. The rule is ignored. Some players were upset by this. Said Brabender: “If you don’t feel like signing and you say you’re not allowed to and some other guy comes up behind you and starts signing, you look like an ass.”

So Joe Schultz said: “Make it my rule—no autographs once the gates open. No autographs at all.”

Great. If a kid comes to the ballpark and wants an autograph, when the hell is he going to get it if not before the game starts? Of course, he can stand around outside in the dark for an hour or so after the game and hope he can stop us when we’re rushing to get home. Who wants an autograph that bad? Especially from a Seattle Pilot.

At the end of the meeting Gary Bell brought up the fact that when we’re in Baltimore next time we’ve been asked to go to Washington to attend a clinic Ted Kennedy is running for underprivileged children. Did anyone want to sign up? Mike Marshall signed, and Marty Pattin signed, and I signed. But before I did I stood up and said, “Now, wait a minute. We’ve got a free clinic here, right? For underprivileged kids? Well, isn’t there some way we can get these kids to kick in their lunch money or something to us?”

Almost everybody laughed.

Ah, the ballgame. Steve Barber started. The last time he got a big lead but had to leave in the fifth. That’s how Talbot got his quick win. The rule is that the starter can’t get credit for the win unless he pitches five full innings.

Sure enough we score three in the first, two in the second and another in the third. We’ve got a 6–0 lead and it looks like Barber is having trouble out there. He’s twitching his arm and cranking it around and doing a lot of fussing. So Talbot goes down and tells Maglie, as a joke, that he’s absolutely ready, that his arm never felt better, just in case they should need him. Now every time Barber throws a ball Talbot holds up his hands in the sign of a T—for Talbot.

In the fifth, when Barber walks a couple, the call comes—for me. With two out I’m all set to go in and collect my Big W when Barber, the rat, goes ahead and gets the third out on a pop-up. Says Talbot: “Ah, sit down. No chance now. All you can get is a save or your ass kicked in.” And he went down and told Sal his arm felt terrible.

I pitched the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth, gave up three hits, one home run—Ken Harrelson took me over the left-field wall on a high knuckleball. And all I wound up with was a save.

I had a great knuckleball when I went in, but I lost it in the eighth. I got by on fastballs. In the bottom half we took an awful long time hitting so I asked Sal if I could try throwing a little to get the feel of the knuckleball back. “Nah,” he said. “You’re doing all right. Besides, it would look horseshit.”

I was rooting for Steve Barber to look horseshit tonight and get his ass shipped out. Instead he had good stuff out there, good enough for them to keep him another month even if he can’t pitch. I suppose down deep I’d like him to do well enough to make a contribution to this club. I think we have a chance to move now. We’re in third place, only four out of first. And we’re scoring all kinds of runs—six, seven a game. And we haven’t been shut out. Not once. If we get some decent pitching, why, for goodness sakes, maybe we can win the pennant.

Talbot is in rare form these days. Like he was telling us how it used to be in the sheet-metal shop of the industrial school he went to. When they were taught how to weld, the first thing they did was weld the door shut when the teacher left the room. The next thing they did was weld every tool in the place onto a metal tractor, which was kept in the center of the room. And for kicks, they’d heat a steel bar until it was red hot, let the color cool out of it and then ask the new boy to bring over the metal bar. All it would cost was the skin off his hand.