Bang The Drum Slowly (21 page)

Bruce caught again Thursday, and we won and took a split on 4. Washington split 2 that day in Pittsburgh, and we left for Cleveland 2 games to the good. The old man could not decide if he wished to go on to Cleveland with us or go out to Seattle and stay with his daughter awhile, and finally he decided on Seattle, saying “Goodby” in the clubhouse and shaking hands all around again, and some of the boys said, “Do not leave us, for we won 2 in a row since you come.”

“I believe you will start shaking Washington for good pretty soon without me,” he said.

“Besides,” said I, “if he stays and we lose everybody will start blaming it on him.”

Everybody laughed. “I will be back and luck you through the Series,” he said, and we said we hoped so, which we certainly did.

Bruce caught the west through, every day, which the paper never noticed, all the writers probably thinking tomorrow or the next day Dutch would throw Jonah back in as long as the power was on, or Goose if it was cool, and then when they noticed it they noticed it all at once and busted out in a rash of articles called
CAN THE MAMMOTHS WEATHER THE STRETCH WITHOUT A CATCHER
? There was a drawing of Dutch one day called
GETTING TO SLEEP ON HOT NIGHTS
, showing Dutch in bed counting catchers jumping over a fence, and every catcher was Red Traphagen. Bruce read them and never give them a thought, or if he did never mentioned them but only went on playing ball, and we kept floating, never gaining but at least never dropping back, 2, 2½, 2 again, 1½, back up to 2, all through the west, staying alive with pitching some days and power the others, never putting the 2 together like we should of been doing on paper, Sid blowing hot and cold, hitting 4 in 3 nights in St. Louis after not hitting one for a week, and then not hitting another until back east again, neck and neck with Babe Ruth but not libel to last, for the Babe hit 17 in September of 27, according to the paper. We knew Sid would never make it. We only hoped nobody else got as hot as Babe Ruth in September, Washington or even Pittsburgh or Cleveland, because if anybody
really
got hot it was their chips to rake in October.

He only went on playing ball, Bruce did, hitting pretty good, keeping a book on pitchers and never much getting fooled twice in a row any more. Dutch moved him up to the 7 spot and shoved Coker back to 8, Coker in a terrible slump, finally yanking Coker altogether and playing Ugly and hoping Ugly’s legs would hold up until Coker got back his eye or his timing or whatever it was made him slump. He never really knew, and in the end what I believe it was it was his nerves give out. Doc Solomon said the same and put him on sleeping pills. I do not mean Bruce busted down fences left and right, but he hit solid and he hit steady, 265 or 270, a little one way and a little the other, talking to himself up there and looking fierce and crowding in, getting dusted more than once, pitchers trying to talk him back and keep him from tagging the curve, which he done more and more now, picking it up when it broke. He begun wearing a protective helmet. Yet every time they dusted him he come back off the ground and crowded in again, same as before, hitting right-hand pitching as good as left and sometimes better, and pushing a good many drives into the opposite field.

Pasquale dropped in one night and said, “Me and my brother been thinking. Why not loosen up your grip more?” and Bruce thought about it and said, “I will try it,” and he done so, getting more wrist in his swing and driving a longer ball and saying a few nights later, “I believe I must go and thank them for the tip,” and going and never coming back until I begun getting worried and went after him and found him playing Tegwar in the lobby with Joe and a flour salesman. He played every day between Chicago when he got back from the funeral and Labor Day, baseball I mean, not Tegwar.

But he was no catcher, and many a time I wondered if maybe the one mistake Mike Mulrooney ever made was making a catcher out of him instead of an outfielder. He would of never been a top-flight outfielder neither, but not being an outfielder is not so dangerous as not being a catcher, and there were days when I was sure Dutch was about to say, “To hell with the power,” and send Jonah back in.

To Bruce a pitcher is only a fellow throwing the ball and a catcher is only there to stop it and keep the game from dragging, which is not what a pitcher is and not what a catcher is except maybe in the Alabama State Amateur Baseball League, which is why it is the Alabama State Amateur Baseball League and not New York. A pitcher is a fellow with a baseball in his hand facing a son of a bitch with a stick of wood in his hand, trying to keep the man with the wood from hitting the baseball solid because if he hits it too many times the pitcher becomes a man without a job, and he is throwing with his arm and his brain and his memory and his bluff for the sake of his pocket and his family, and he needs help. His catcher must help him, must also be brain and memory and bluff, not only just stop the ball in case the hitter don’t. A man’s catcher must be eyes and ears, watching runners, watching wind, watching the lay of the land behind the box, watching the board, watching signs, picking up everything the pitcher might miss, which Bruce never was, this year nor any other in all his life, for he never loved catching that much. He loves hitting. He wishes you could hit and not be bothered with catching, loving to do only the one thing he does best, which in many a sport you can get away with. You can be a block of cement and do only the one thing a block of cement can do and call it “Football,” or you can be 7 feet tall and stand around dropping balls in a basket and call it “Basketball,” or you can whack a little ball and walk after it and whack it again and walk some more and call it “Golf.” But these are not baseball.

Catching he was never thinking, only going through the motion, only picking up his gear from the floor and strapping it on and pulling his mask down over his face and grabbing his mitt and reaching up on top of the dugout for his sponge, always putting it there to dry out between innings, and going out and taking a couple warm-up throws and firing to second and crouching down and looking for his sign, then stopping the pitch in case it got past the hitter and firing it back out, firing high or low or however the mood hit him, not saving his pitcher, only keeping the game moving, and crouching down again and spitting through his mask and picking up his sign again if he could figure out where it was coming from, half the time not knowing who the hitter was, not knowing the umpire behind the plate, only crouching there until the pitch started coming, sometimes leaning on his arms, his mitt flat in the dust, his arms hanging like these monkeys in the zoo, until when he took the pitch his mitt sent up a little puff. And when the side was down he put his sponge back on top of the dugout and sat down in his gear and wiped the juice off the chin of his mask and threw the mask on the floor. “Who swipes?” he said, and if it was his, or his soon, he jumped up and dropped the rest of his gear and grabbed a bat, loving to hit but not loving to catch, like Jonah Brooks loves catching but not hitting. What Dutch finally decided was he needed his hitting catcher the most, and shut his ears and stopped reading the paper and played Bruce on the gamble all the way home through the third swing west, and it worked, for we stood above water.

The boys mostly laid off him. If they ragged him they had not only me to answer to but Goose and Horse, and later Joe. They begun ragging Diego Roberto, believing he was bad luck. Diego believed the same, saying Josh Klang put the double whammy on him, Josh the Boston coach and a great kidder. Diego and George started scrapping but could not tell me what about. I think George thought Diego was giving away certain confidential matters behind his back in English, which he was, but whether they were the same things George thought they were or not I never found out. Diego said they were not, but George’s side of the argument I got through Diego, which probably loaded the stack against George, and in the end they never settled it, or if they did they did it without any help from me. I can say “Which way to the ball park?” in Spanish, for they told me how to say it when I went to Cuba, “Ah dondey estar el estadio bazeball?” which folks on the street understood all right, especially if I also carried my glove. I lugged my damn glove all over Cuba.

It was my turn to work Thursday night in Brooklyn, but Washington got beat by Boston in the afternoon and Dutch felt he could gamble, saving me to shoot at Washington Friday night, which I never thought a thing about until Friday morning Winston Waters called, the saloon writer, and he said, “I do believe Dutch is skipping your turn on orders from the club to keep you from cashing in too much on your bonus clause.”

“No comment,” I said.

“Is it not possible?” he said.

“No comment,” I said. “It is possible the morning dew will wash away the park.”

He hung up, and he wrote in his column that I said such a thing was “possible,” and Dutch got booed for it.

I beat Washington Friday night, probably the best job I turned in since the 2-hitter Memorial Day. I give up 4 hits, and Sid hit 39 and 40. I was now 17–8 on the year. It was the largest Friday night crowd in August since Friday night, August 12, 1949, according to the paper. Van Gundy beat them Saturday, another great crowd, but we lost Sunday. It was the largest 3-day crowd for weekend singletons in August since August 17, 18, and 19, 1945, and the cushion was now 3 full games. Everybody breathed a little easier than they breathed in a long time.

After the Sunday ball game we sat around drying off and not feeling too sorry for ourself, quiet, not ragging anybody and not scrapping, which I rather hear quiet than horseshit, although too much quiet puts me in the gloom after awhile, and Ugly said, “Exactly when in hell will it all be over?”

Lindon had a schedule taped on his locker, and he looked at it and said, “The 25th.”

“That gives me 6 weeks,” said Sid, “to hit 21 home runs in 42 days and beat Babe Ruth.”

Everybody laughed.

“Probably we can hang on for 6 weeks all right at that,” said Coker.

“I wish it was tomorrow,” said Canada.

“I wish it was yesterday,” said Lawyer Longabucco.

Bruce spoke to me in a quiet voice. “Tell them they are wishing their life away,” he said. He never speaks up in front of everybody but says it to me first, saying, “Tell somebody this or that,” never lifting his voice unless asked.

“You are wishing your life away,” I said.

“I am only wishing 6 weeks away,” said Canada. “Not my life.”

“I wish I could go to sleep tonight and wake up on the 25th and be done with it one way or the other,” said Lindon. “We should of been on Easy Street by now.”

“We should of shook the son of a bitches by July,” said Pasquale. “Who have they got? What keeps them on the up?”

“That Revak is not a bad ballplayer,” said Vincent, “nor that Opper nor that kid that pitched Friday night.”

“That is 3,” said Pasquale. “You would not wish to sweat blood until you can name another.”

“It could go on,” said Bruce, speaking up now. “I even do not mind catching too goddam much any more.”

”Nobody ever accused you of catching,” said Jonah.

“You shut your fat black mouth,” said Goose.

“Shut up, boys,” said Ugly.

“It was only a little joke,” said Jonah.

“Little jokes wind up in big bloody messes,” said Goose.

“I said
shut up
,” said Ugly.

“I like sweating,” said Bruce. “I like hitting. Sometimes I even like popping out, looking up there and seeing how high you drove it.”

“I do not like popping out,” said Sid. “Even high.”

“Still and all I do not mind,” said Bruce.

“He is in love,” said Herb.

“With a pure bride,” said Perry.

“I love stinking,” said Bruce, “and coming in and ripping off your clothes and getting under the shower and thinking about eating,” and he sat thinking over what he said, and the more he thought about it the better it sounded, and he went and showered, and the boys all done the same.

MONDAY WAS open, and we drilled. Dutch was not at the drill. Somebody said his Mrs. hit town, and Clint run the drill.

Afterwards we went and sung on Charles Marschand’s TV Supper Club, 60 apiece, peanuts, me and Bruce and Horse and Goose, calling ourself The Mammoth Quartet. A lawyer called me up a couple days later and said he was suing me on behalf of Coker and Canada for stealing the name unless I wished to settle out of court, and I said, “Go ahead and sue me, pal,” and I hung up the phone and never give it another thought until just this minute. It all comes back. On the same show they had these Three Harmonettes, pretty little blondes that swang their ass while they sang, and Bruce got all hotted up and went up to Katie’s, and I went back the hotel and done some writing, whipping through Aleck Olson in Minneapolis and down to where I was eating away in that kosher restaurant in Rochester, Minnesota, actually the last meal I ever ate before I knew about Bruce when you stop and think about it, and the telephone rung, and it was Red from San Francisco, California.

“Author,” said he, “what is up? I got 2 wires and 2 telephone messages saying call Dutch, and I wish to be filled in before I do. The first wire says he wishes me to come and coach the summer through for some exceptional wages which I will not mention on the telephone, and the second wire doubles it. I hate leaving here in the middle of things, although to tell you the truth this ain’t a very fancy paying racket as far as the money goes.”