Hunting a Detroit Tiger (7 page)

T
he pallid grass of League Park was patchy and tentative, perhaps not quite convinced that spring had arrived. The clay of the base paths, still frozen, seemed equally uncertain; pebbles bulged from its terra-cotta surface like wary groundhogs checking to see if they should go back into hibernation.

There was no sunshine to brighten the view of the diamond; low, dark skies were threatening rain, possibly the same storm clouds that had caused two of the scheduled games in Chicago to be postponed. Now they’d drifted over to Cleveland, following the Tigers team. I didn’t consider myself superstitious, but the current weather pattern couldn’t be considered a good omen for the new season.

Although the playing ground wasn’t yet in prime condition, it was the Elysian Fields compared to the parks we’d slogged through during the spring-training tour. For me, it was enough that it was a major-league ball field, the first one I’d been on since last September.

Not that I was doing much. I stood alone in foul territory, between first base and the visitors’ dugout, watching the other Tigers go through pregame warm-ups.

Several were lined up for batting practice. Ty Cobb, who had to be first at everything, was already in the cage; as he sprayed line drives around the park, he repeatedly cursed the pitcher for not throwing the ball exactly as he wanted.

Along the right-field foul line, starting pitcher Howard Ehmke, a tall right-hander who threw the sharpest curveball in baseball, warmed up with catcher Oscar Stanage.

Tossing the ball near Ehmke were my rivals: the infielders. For me to break into the lineup, one of them would have to be injured or in need of rest. The Detroit infielders were discouragingly healthy, but I hoped to benefit from their spotty playing records. Second baseman Ralph Young had a career batting average of only .200. Rookie Babe Pinelli, slated for third base, had yet to prove himself a major-league player. Donie Bush, the Tigers veteran shortstop, was starting to slow down, and his range wasn’t what it used to be. On the whole, I thought I had a good chance of playing fifty or sixty games this year, and possibly earning a starting position.

But it looked like I had no chance of touching a baseball today. I fidgeted in my road flannels, scraped my spikes at the hard ground, and started slapping my mitt against my hip. My wrist wasn’t good enough for me to take batting practice, but I did want to throw the ball some. The problem was that no one wanted to play catch with the man who killed Emmett Siever.

My teammates hadn’t welcomed me back with open arms, but at least they hadn’t greeted my arrival with firearms either. Dutch Leonard was the only one who’d been openly hostile; among other things, he’d asked if I felt like a hero for gunning down a sixty-year-old man. I’d tried to dismiss Leonard’s words; the burly pitcher was known for having a disposition as nasty as Cobb’s, and this was nothing out of the ordinary for him. He failed to rouse the other players against me and eventually dropped the goading. The Tigers, who seemed to enjoy quarreling among themselves as much as the Wobblies liked sing-alongs, had so many factions and internal squabbles that they couldn’t even cooperate long enough to gang up on me. Not on short notice, anyway.

Hughie Jennings had been indifferent to my return to the team; he did little more than grunt when I’d reported to him. The Tigers’ manager was entangled in his own battles, especially with Frank Navin and Jack Coombs. Navin had hired former Athletics pitcher Coombs to coach the pitching staff, and Jennings took it as a challenge to his authority, convinced that Navin was planning to give Coombs the managing job. As a result, Jennings paid even less attention to the players than he used to, and they took advantage to pursue their own petty wars.

A low rumble of thunder came from the direction of Lake Erie. I suddenly realized how dim things really looked.

It had been so different a year ago. When the 1919 season opened, the nation was celebrating its victory in the Great War, rejoicing in the safe return of those doughboys who’d survived and honoring the memory of those who hadn’t. The major-league baseball owners, who’d spent most of the war trying to exempt their players from serving, deftly tried to change history by crediting ballplayers with winning the war. Opening Day ceremonies at Cubs Park included a lengthy eulogy for Eddie Grant, my teammate on the 1914 Giants, who’d been killed in the Argonne. The Chicago players who’d served, such as Grover Cleveland Alexander and me, were singled out for lavish praise during the team introductions. It was such a promising spring. Returning to the National League Champions, the chances were strong that by the end of the season I’d finally realize my ambition of playing in the World Series. But came October, the Cubs were twenty games behind the pennant-winning Cincinnati Reds. A month later, I was sold to Detroit for less than the price of a used Studebaker. I now tried to console myself that perhaps this season would do the reverse: start lousy and end in triumph.

“How about a catch?” came a cheerful voice behind me. I turned to Bobby Veach, our left fielder; he’d finished at the batting cage and retrieved his glove from the bench. Veach was one of the few good-natured men on the Tigers. The kind of guy who, if he was captain of a sandlot team, would always pick the kid brother nobody else wanted.

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.” That’s what I’d been reduced to: the pathetic kid nobody wanted to play with.

We walked out on the right-field grass and started exchanging casual throws, gradually increasing the distance between us. Bobby Veach was an easygoing Kentuckian who always acted apologetic about being in the major leagues—despite coming off a season in which he’d batted .355 and led the league in hits, doubles, and triples. That kind of performance was almost expected of a Detroit outfielder. The saying was, “Put a Tiger uniform on an outfielder, and you have a .300 hitter.” Unfortunately, there was no corresponding adage for utility infielders who wore the Old English “D” on their jerseys.

The distance was too long to talk, and all I was doing was playing catch, the same as a million kids could do, but that simple act felt good—it gave me hope.

The Detroit outfielders didn’t do much hitting during the first six innings. They did do a lot of running, chasing after doubles and triples banged out by the Cleveland batters. It was no easy task, for League Park had a peculiar outfield. The furthest corner of center field was the deepest in the majors, stretching more than five hundred feet from home plate. The right-field fence was less than three hundred feet down the line, but more than forty feet high, with a screen of chicken wire and steel girders atop a concrete wall. A ball batted into the screen was in play, and could carom unpredictably—Tris Speaker drove a double off one of the girders which ended up being fielded by Bobby Veach in left-center.

On the Tigers bench, with our team down by eight runs and their interest in the game waning, Dutch Leonard and Chick Fogarty turned their attention to me. Fogarty was a lumbering second-string catcher who had trouble remembering that the signs were one finger for a fastball and two for a curve. He’d latched on to Leonard during spring training, serving as a combination sidekick and errand boy.

Leonard gave me worse than Fogarty did, calling me, “war hero” as if it was an expletive and asking if I planned to murder any more old men. Fogarty followed Leonard’s lead like an echo. Then the two of them sat on either side of me and tried to squeeze me between them—a bush-league maneuver that I didn’t think even happened in the minors anymore. I steeled my body against the squeeze and ignored their words. I kept reminding myself that Leonard was a lefty and therefore not a rational person, and Fogarty was merely parroting his roommate. The more I ignored them, the louder and uglier their taunts became.

At the end of the seventh inning, Hughie Jennings pulled himself off the bench. On his way to the third-base coach’s box, he said, “I’m sick of the noise coming from over here. Put a sock in it!” Jennings stepped out of the dugout, then added, “Rawlings, go coach first. That ought to keep things peaceful.”

I squirted out from between Leonard and Fogarty like one of Dutch’s spitballs. Reflexively, I reached for my mitt, then dropped it when I realized I didn’t need a glove. Trotting to first base, I felt empty-handed but full of authority. This was my first time coaching in the big leagues. From utility player to coach seemed quite a promotion, for whatever reason and however temporary.

While Cleveland’s Stan Coveleski warmed up on the mound, it dawned on me that I didn’t know exactly what a first-base coach was supposed to do. I’d seen them in action, of course, but all I could remember was that they clapped their hands a lot and dispensed pointless chatter like “Way to go!” or “Let’s get it started!”

I felt naked and conspicuous in the coach’s box. Looking around, I directed my attention to the Indians on the field. Several of them had been teammates of mine on the 1912 Red Sox: Tris Speaker, now the Indians’ center fielder and manager; third baseman Larry Gardner; and Smoky Joe Wood. Wood was no longer a pitcher and no longer smoky; he was now an outfielder, and with the exception of Babe Ruth, the best hitting ex-pitcher in the game.

When Bobby Veach came to bat, I looked over to Hughie Jennings for guidance as to what a base coach should do. Jennings went through his trademark routine, first bending down and pulling tufts of grass from around the third-base box, then standing on one leg and issuing a rebel “Ee-yah” yell. He seemed twenty years older than when I’d seen him eight years ago. The cry was a hoarse echo of what it had once been, and the old manager appeared to have trouble keeping his balance on one leg. And I still wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do.

After Veach popped out to short, Ty Cobb came to bat. “Let’s get it started!” I yelled, clapping my hands.

Cobb did, dragging a bunt single. It wasn’t the best way to try to start a rally when behind by eight runs, but it did boost Cobb’s batting average—which was usually more important to him than the outcome of the game.

Nonetheless, I said, “Way to go!” when he reached first base. Improvising, I clapped my hands again and added, “Way to get things started.”

He shot me a lethal look and hissed, “Shut up, busher, or I’ll knock your goddamn teeth out.” Ty Cobb epitomized the sort of team spirit that existed on the Tigers.

I tucked my hands back in my pocket and shut up. But I silently hoped that Cobb would get picked off or thrown out stealing.

Neither happened. He was left stranded at first, and we went on to lose the game 12–4, our third loss in a row. At least the defeat had nothing to do with my base coaching.

After the game, I went directly to Public Square and checked into my room at the Hotel Cleveland. I was to share it with Lou Vedder, a rookie pitcher who hadn’t worked a single inning in the majors. He’d seemed a nice enough kid during spring training, lacking the cocksure attitude typical of most young pitchers. I briefly considered taking Vedder to dinner, but decided it wouldn’t be fair to him—the other Tigers would have given him a hard time for associating with me. So I unpacked quickly and left the room, with the vague intent of catching a movie.

When I stepped out of the hotel elevator, I spotted Hughie Jennings in one of the lobby’s oversize wing chairs. It was a manager’s job to watch the comings and goings of his players, and make sure they were all in by curfew. What he usually did was use his post in the lobby to hold court, talking baseball with everyone from players and writers to fans and hotel staff. Jennings seldom attracted an audience anymore, though. He sat alone, his eyes directed at the carpet, raising them hopefully now and then at passersby. A newspaper was in his lap, not quite concealing the silver pocket flask underneath it. It was no secret on the team that Jennings was ailing and boozing, and each of those factors contributed to the other.