Hanging Curve (17 page)

“I
thought
I seen you somewhere before.” The young pitcher grinned, and his eyes shone brightly. “You’re the one who tried that appeal play. You didn’t believe I touched second base.”

“Hell, I didn’t know anybody could run like you do. And even after seeing you run, I
still
don’t believe it.”

Plunk Drake said, “I room with this boy, and I swear he can turn out the light and be in bed before the room gets dark.” His sly smile suggested he might be exaggerating, though probably not by much.

Gatewood was the only one at the table not smiling. He took a long swallow of beer, then said to me, “So you played in that game at Cubs Park.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“It was after that game that Slip was killed.”

Franklin Aubury said, “That’s why Mickey is here—he’s helping me investigate Crawford’s death.”

“You a cop?” Drake asked me.

“No, I play for the St. Louis Browns.”

Gatewood asked suspiciously, “Then why ain’t you with your team?”

“I got suspended for playing against the Cubs.”

“The Browns, huh?” said Drake. “I pitched a game in Sportsman’s Park last year, you know.”

“You did?” Since colored fans were limited to the bleachers, I was surprised that a Negro player had been allowed on the field.

“Yep. Exhibition game. St. Louis Giants—that’s what we were called before we became the Stars—against the Cardinals. Against most of the Cardinals, anyway—Hornsby said he wouldn’t go on the same field with colored men. Turned out to be one of the best games I ever pitched.” Drake smiled brightly at the memory. “They beat me, but it took ’em twelve innings to do it. Not bad, being able to take a big-league club into extra innings.”

A large, sultry-voiced woman joined the band and began singing a slow, seductive blues tune. The band played at a lower volume, making conversation at our table much easier.

Big Bill Gatewood was still focused on the Crawford lynching. “You’re ‘investigating,’ ” he said derisively. “If you ask me, there ain’t much to investigate. The Klan strung Crawford up for beating a white team.”

“That very well may be,” said Aubury. “But we need to
know
what happened, not merely assume.”

“I’ve already been talking to players on the Elcars,” I said, “and I’m looking into the Klan. What I’m hoping
you
can tell me about is Slip Crawford.”

There was no trace of a smile remaining on Drake’s face when he said, “You mean you want to know what there was about Slip that would make somebody want to lynch him? That’s easy: He wasn’t the Klan’s favorite color.”

“What if it wasn’t the Klan?” I said. “What if he was killed by somebody else—maybe for some personal reason?” I could tell that the men around the table didn’t think there was much chance that it was anyone other than the KKK; and perhaps they didn’t like the idea that I might be trying to pin the crime on someone other than the Klan. I pressed on anyway, “Was Crawford tough to get along with? Did he run with a bad crowd?”

Bell answered first. “I only saw him that one game. I didn’t really know the man at all.”

“I did,” said Drake. “If he was alive, he wouldn’t be here with us tonight, I can tell you that. Off the field, Slip led a quiet life. Had a good wife in Hannah. She’s a hardworking woman—runs a hair salon and writes dreambooks on the side. They made a decent living and had a good life together. No kids, but they were hoping.”

“Dreambooks?” I asked.

Franklin Aubury explained, “Little booklets that tell people what numbers to bet on; women who write them claim the numbers come to them in a dream. It’s like fortune-telling.”

I addressed Drake. “You said off the field he was quiet. What about on the field? Did the other players get along with him?”

“All except the ones who had to hit against him—Slip was at war when he was stepped onto the diamond. No trouble with his own teammates, though.” He started to grin again. “Not like George Scales, our third baseman—that man’s not right in the head. I roomed with him for a couple weeks and never got a minute’s sleep. Had to keep one eye open all night, ‘cause now and then he’d get a mind to try to cut me with a knife. I even took to keeping a gun under my pillow, but still couldn’t sleep. Finally had to get me a different roomie.”

“Was there any problem about Crawford jumping from the ABCs to the Stars this year?” I asked.

Gatewood answered, “No, we all do that. You play wherever you can get a decent paycheck.”

Plunk Drake spoke up again. “As long as you stay within the league, it’s okay.”

“What do you mean?”

Drake looked at Gatewood as if seeking permission. The manager shrugged and nodded for him to go ahead. “There’s another league starting,” the pitcher said, “the Eastern Colored League.”

“I read about that.”

“Well, to have a league, you got to have ballplayers. And the ECL is trying to recruit Negro National League players to jump to them.”

“Were they recruiting Crawford?”

“Sure were. Some thug named Rosie Sumner—works for a gangster in Harlem—was pushing him hard.”

“Was he making any progress?”

“Nah, Rube Foster says he’ll blacklist any player who signs with the ECL. Crawford wasn’t gonna take that risk.”

“Did Sumner talk to any of the other Stars about jumping?”

“To me,” Drake said. “But he didn’t push much.”

Bell shook his head no, and Gatewood said Sumner had only phoned him once.

The band launched into an up-tempo number that started my foot tapping and got Bell drumming along on the tabletop.

Drake polished off his beer and thumped the empty glass down on the table. “No offense, but I came out for fun tonight—and this ain’t fun.” He scanned the room, and another smile took over his face. “I see a young lady I’ll bet is dying to dance with me. Excuse me, gentlemen.”

With Drake gone, I asked Gatewood, “Why would Slip Crawford be the only one of the Stars Sumner was applying pressure to? You got a lot of good players from what I saw today.”

“Yeah, but we don’t got great players. Crawford was gonna be a great one. He’d been around long enough to prove himself, and was young enough that we all knew he’d get even better.” The manager nodded to Bell. “Of course, once the ECL hears about Cool Papa here, they’ll come trying to recruit him, too.”

Bell grinned at the compliment, but I worried that it might not be a good thing for the youngster to be “recruited” by Rosie Sumner. I asked Bell, “Have you had any problems after the game with the Elcars?”

“What kind of problems?”

“Crawford got killed,” I said, “and Denver Jones’s house was burned down, so I was wondering if any of the other players had trouble.”

The youngster shook his head. “I ain’t heard nothing from the Cubs—but I been on the road all season. Ain’t had no trouble myself, though. And if anybody came to our house, I got four bigger brothers at home who’d protect the place.”

“Okay.” I was out of questions, so I looked from Bell to Gatewood. “Anything else you can tell me about Slip Crawford?”

Gatewood said, “No, but I got a question for
you.
What if you find out that it
was
the Klan who killed him? What will you do then?”

I had no ready answer to that. I glanced at Aubury for help.

“One thing at a time,” the lawyer said. “First we must establish the facts. Then we can decide on an appropriate course of action.”

“If you want
action,”
Gatewood said, “you get Oscar Charleston in on it. He knows how to handle that kind. Outside a ballpark in Florida, a couple of masked Klansmen came up and threatened him. Oscar went over to them, calm as you please, and tore their hoods off. Then he stared them down till they walked away, tails between their legs.”

We all drank a toast to Charleston. Then another one to Slip Crawford.

When the waiter came around to fill our drinks again, I was ready to go, but I could tell Aubury wanted to remain with the ballplayers.

I made the excuse of being tired and left alone. This was their place, and I’d intruded long enough.

 

It was strange, I thought. When I’d first walked into the speakeasy, I’d been uncomfortable at being the only white person in the place. But while talking with the Stars, I forgot about color. Now, leaving the nightclub, I again felt like an outsider. And it was worse than before, because I no longer had Franklin Aubury with me.

I quickly headed down Indiana Avenue, noticing that every face I passed was dark. Although I didn’t know anyone at the whites-only hotel where I was staying, I was eager to see white faces again. I didn’t like being a minority.

As I walked, I recalled what Buddy Vaughn had said about people being happier among their own race. I hated to think that he could be right. I was comfortable with Aubury, though, so it wasn’t really a matter of skin color. Maybe it was just a matter of getting to know somebody.

I gave up thinking about the race issue, and for the rest of the walk to the hotel I reviewed what I’d learned from the St. Louis Stars.

The only real news was about the Eastern Colored League trying to sign Slip Crawford. This was nothing unusual in baseball; whenever a new league formed, the established leagues were raided for ballplayers. When the American League started in 1901, National League stars were enticed to jump. And both the American and National Leagues had lost marquee players to the fledgling Federal League in 1914.

The difference this time was using somebody like Rosie Sumner to do the recruiting. Why a strong-arm man? Perhaps to threaten instead of entice. The more I thought about it, though, the less I thought Sumner would have actually hurt Crawford. If he wanted him for the new league, he’d need to keep him healthy. Unless, of course, Crawford gave him a firm no; then hurting him would be a blow to the Negro National League.

Okay, I decided, if Sumner was going after the top players, then he must have approached the ABCs—everyone agreed they had some of the best in the game. So let’s see if Aubury can set up a meeting with them.

F
ranklin Aubury was tied up in meetings at the local NAACP office the next morning, so I was free to explore Indianapolis on my own.

I started in the heart of the city, at Monument Circle, where the towering Soldiers and Sailors Monument rose three hundred feet above the ground. After a walk around the circle, I headed two blocks west, where the domed state capital building, a small mountain of limestone, dominated the view. I continued my tour in a widening circle around the center of town, trying to get a sense of the place.

I had never spent much time in Indianapolis. Since the city didn’t have a big-league ball club, I’d never thought of it as much more than a place to pass through on my way to a city that did. But as I strolled around the downtown area, I was impressed. The roads and sidewalks were in excellent repair, the parks were green and groomed, and the buildings well maintained. Altogether, the capital of Indiana appeared clean, modern, attractive, and prosperous.

Part of the prosperity was due to the thriving automobile industry, which was second only to Detroit’s. Locally manufactured automobiles were much in evidence, from luxurious Deusenbergs and Marmons to sporty Stutz Bearcats to the lower-cost cars produced by the National, Premier, and Cole factories.

The city’s automobile heritage was also prominently heralded in the numerous posters that advertised the upcoming race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The tenth Indianapolis 500 would be held on Decoration Day—the same day that Evansville Klan No. 1 would be enjoying its “Dazzling Day of Diversified Delights.”

It became clear as I walked that Indianapolis had a strong Klan presence of its own. No one wore hoods or robes on the street, but almost every other business carried a KKK or TWK slogan on its sign, and many storefronts displayed placards for a Fourth of July Klan rally on the capital steps.

I kept walking, and continued to wonder why the Ku Klux Klan would thrive in this idyllic part of the heartland. What was its appeal to the men who lived here?

 

When I checked back in at the Harrison Hotel, the desk clerk handed me a message from Franklin Aubury. The lawyer wanted me to meet him at one o’clock at the corner of West Fifteenth and Holtan Place. He was apparently expecting trouble, because the last line of the note read:
I can use some muscle.

I had only twenty minutes to get there, so I asked the clerk for the quickest route.

“You don’t want to go there,” he said, with a prissy shake of his head.

“Why not?”

“That’s a colored part of town.” He whispered the word
colored
as if one didn’t even mention that race in polite company.

“I didn’t ask who
lived
there. I asked how to
get
there.”

The desk clerk again cautioned me against venturing into “that neighborhood” and I decided it would be faster to take a taxicab anyway. Outside the hotel’s front entrance, I hailed a cabby, who proved no more eager to take me to my destination than the clerk had been to give me directions. But for double his usual fare, he agreed.

It turned out there’d been no need to hurry. The location Aubury had given me was a vacant lot. The only trouble he was having was in keeping order as twenty or so colored boys, ages from about eight to fourteen, warmed up for a baseball game.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

“These young men,” Aubury said, “are newsboys for the
Indianapolis Freeman.
One of their reporters mentioned to me this morning that they were playing a game today, and I volunteered to umpire.”

“Perfect job for a guy who wears glasses,” I kidded. “Your note said you needed muscle; I thought you were meeting some tough guys or something.”

Aubury smiled. “I
can
use extra muscle.” He tossed me a bat. “You mind hitting them infield practice?”

I took off my hat and coat and proceeded to do as he asked. I rapped grounders to half the boys while Aubury, similarly coatless, hit fly balls to the other half.

After practice, Aubury called all the kids in, and announced, “You’re in luck today. This is Mickey Rawlings; he’s a major-league baseball player, and he’s going to give you some coaching today.”

I was so flattered that I didn’t mind that Aubury hadn’t talked to me before volunteering my services.

A small boy in a sleeveless undershirt asked me, “You know Oscar Charleston?”

“No,” I had to admit. “But I saw him play once.”

Another kid asked, “How about Pop Lloyd?”

“Uh, no. I don’t know him, either.”

They shouted the names of several other Negro stars, and I had to keep giving the same disappointing answer. The nature of the questions wasn’t unusual for me; most people, when they found out I was a utility player they’d never heard of, asked me about more famous players they
had
heard of. But at least when I was asked about Ty Cobb or Tris Speaker, I could say I knew them. With the Negro League players, I was at a loss.

Aubury tried to come to my rescue. “Mr. Rawlings played in a game against Slip Crawford last month.”

One of the boys called out, “You get a hit off him?”

“No. He struck me out three times.”

Several cheers went up for the dead pitcher. I took no offense; Crawford was obviously a hero to these kids.

Aubury then appointed the two tallest boys captains and told them to choose up sides. As they did, he said to me, “I love working with kids. You have any?”

“No, I was hoping ... I thought I might someday, but now ...” Jeez, I was getting no end of awkward questions today. “What happened was, the girl I thought I was gonna marry left me a couple of weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Aubury said. “A good woman will make you or break you.”

“I’ll find another.” To myself, I added, “I hope.”

The game began, with Aubury umpiring from a standing position behind the pitcher. I piped up often with playing tips for the members of both teams. Now and then, Aubury would stop the game so I could demonstrate a particular point.

I’d never seen the lawyer so relaxed. I was having a great time, too, until one of the boys asked me how he could become a big-league ballplayer. The present reality was that he’d have to change his skin color. What I told him was, “Keep practicing.”

For the rest of the game, I kept looking around at the boys, all playing their best. It pained me to realize that with the current state of Organized Baseball not one of them, no matter how hard he practiced or how well he played, would be signed by a major-league ball club. But I continued to give the best playing advice I could, hoping some of them might be able to put it to use someday in the Negro League.

When the game ended, Aubury asked me, “Do you feel like swinging a bat some more?” He flexed his arm. “I’ve got a pitch or two in me that are dying to get out.”

“Sure!” I said eagerly. I remembered he’d mentioned playing in college, but I assumed college boys were all as devoid of athletic ability as Karl Landfors.

Aubury removed his vest and went to the mound, yelling for the kids to go back out on the field.

I grabbed the heaviest bat I could find. I’d batted against lefties and righties, fastball pitchers and curveball artists. This was the first time I would be facing a
lawyer,
and I figured the only challenge would be that, since the kids were sure to be rooting for Aubury, I shouldn’t make him look too bad.

I called to him, “You want any warm-up throws?”

When he didn’t answer, I stepped to the plate.

The lawyer went into a windmill windup, swiveling his body until at one point in his motion he was facing centerfield. Then he spun around, hurling a fastball directly at my head.

It wasn’t much of a fastball, but I was so surprised that I hit the dirt, causing a roar of laughter and cheers from the boys.

“Okay!” Aubury said, smiling. “I’m all warmed up!”

Good, I thought, because I’m all
riled
up. No longer worried about how he might look to the kids, I wanted to wallop every pitch he threw.

It turned out to be no easy task. Aubury was a masterful junk-ball pitcher; he wrapped slow curves around my bat almost as deftly as Slip Crawford had.

I hit some solid line drives and a few towering fly balls off him, but he also made me miss about half his deliveries.

Neither of us would quit. We kept going, both of us huffing and sweating, and we kept the boys busy running down the baseballs. Finally, he got me to miss three pitches in a row. I dropped my bat and conceded defeat. “You got me!”

While the kids cheered, I walked out to the mound and Aubury came in to meet me. We stood grinning at each other for a moment, then we shook hands.

 

Aubury and I mopped the sweat from our faces with our pocket handkerchiefs as the kids gathered up their meager equipment. When we’d stopped perspiring, we put our coats and hats back on, said good-bye to the boys, and began walking down toward Washington Park. We strolled slowly, letting ourselves cool down.

“You pitch pretty good for a lawyer,” I said.

He chuckled. “It felt great to throw a baseball again. Next time, how about if you pitch to me, and I get to hit some.”

“You’re on—but be ready to duck on the first one.”

“Only fair,” he said. Brushing the lapels of his jacket, he added wistfully, “I sure wish I had a son so I could teach him baseball. Don’t get me wrong: I adore my girls, but it’s not the same.”

“If Margie and I had a daughter,” I said, “we’d teach her baseball anyway. Margie used to make adventure serials as Marguerite Turner. She’ll make sure any daughter of hers knows how to play sports—and probably how to wrestle alligators, too.”

“I’ve seen some of her movies,” Aubury said. “Was she the one who ...”

“Left me. Yeah.”

“What happened? If you don’t mind my asking.”

I gave him a brief account of how unreasonable Margie had been.

He asked dubiously, “If I understand you correctly, you were angry with her because she did not accept your marriage proposal
quickly enough?”

“At first. But it’s what she told me about her past that was the real problem.”

“The past cannot be changed, not yours nor anyone else’s. You have to put it behind you.”

“I guess. But that’s easier to say than do.”

He tugged at the brim of his derby, and said as if thinking aloud, “Too many people continue to fight old battles. That won’t lead anywhere. You have to go forward if you want to get someplace.”

I had the impression we weren’t talking about Margie and me anymore. “Old battles,” I said. “You mean like the Klan trying to change the outcome of the Civil War?”

“And everyone else who wants to set back the clock—and set back human progress.” He went on in a soft voice, “My father was born into slavery, and my mother during Reconstruction, when night riders of the first Klan were terrorizing the South. When I was born, my parents were working as sharecroppers in Louisiana; conditions weren’t much better than in slave times, but at least they were nominally free. They made sure I did my studies so that I could get into college, I worked my way through law school, and now I’m an attorney. I still don’t have all the rights that are due me, but I’m doing better than my parents. My goal is for my daughters to do better, to live better, than me. I will fight the Klan or the government or anyone else who wants to keep my daughters from being full citizens and having the rights to which they are entitled. And the battleground is here.”

“Not in Washington?” I asked. “Or in the South?”

Aubury picked up the pace. “I am starting to believe that the Midwest Klan is a far greater threat to our liberty than the Southern mobs. At the meeting this morning, I learned that Indianapolis has
ten thousand
Klansmen. Statewide, there are
seventy
thousand, with two thousand more joining every week. They are organized, and they are trying to take over the state. Once they gain political power, more segregation laws will be passed, and Negroes will be further excluded from society.” His voice rose. “Disenfranchise the Negro, dehumanize him, and then you can kill him at will.” He breathed hard a few times, and said more calmly, “The Klan is already pushing for segregated schools and segregated neighborhoods.”

I said, “I was thinking about that, about people being happier with their own kind ... I’m not in favor of any
forced
separation, but it does seem whites are more comfortable with whites and Negroes with Negroes. Generally, I mean—in groups, not necessarily as individuals. I’m comfortable talking to you.”

Aubury said,
“Everyone
is an individual. But I know what you mean, and what you say is largely true. However, it must be a matter of choice.” He adjusted his glasses. “And, to be candid, I am not entirely comfortable with you.”

His bluntness took me by surprise. “Why not?”

“I mean no offense, but there are things about me that you will never truly understand, and things about
you
that I will never understand. One can never really know what it is like to live in someone else’s skin. There are differences between us, and there always will be. There is no sense pretending otherwise. Negroes are not looking to become the same as white people; we just want to be treated as human.”

“Whatever the differences between you and me,” I said, “we also got something in common.”

“What’s that?”

“We both play baseball a helluva lot better than Karl Landfors ever will.”

Aubury laughed.

As we neared Washington Park, the parade of people coming the other way indicated the game was over. We learned from one of the fans that the ABCs had won.

“That’s good,” Aubury said to me. “You don’t want to be around them when they lose. Let me see if we can talk to the players.”