World Series (4 page)

By noon it was still raining. Was it raining in Cleveland? He switched his radio on and twiddled the dial. “...And the third game of the World Series between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Cleveland Indians to be held in Cleveland this afternoon was put off until tomorrow. The Dodgers won the first game, 6-1, and Cleveland the second, yesterday, 5-2.”

Well, tomorrow was another day. And he was better, no question about that. While the rain descended on a dark and desolate city, he sat up, even tried walking around the room without much trouble. Only an occasional shoot of pain up his neck, an occasional feeling of dizziness, and that eternal bong-bong-bong in his head reminded him of the beaning.

He hardly dared hope as he went to bed that it would still be raining the next morning. But it was! Never had rain meant so much to him, never was it so welcome, and rain in his life as a ballplayer was always pleasant to hear. Then the same question: was it raining in Cleveland? It was a long while before he could get any news on the air. When he did there was the war in Europe, an airplane accident in Utah, a robbery in the Bronx. Finally the welcome words came.

“Judge Landis, with Managers Leonard of Brooklyn and Baker of Cleveland, made an inspection of the field just before noon today, and following a conference decided to call off the third game of the World Series scheduled for this afternoon in that city. You remember that the Dodgers won the first game by a score of...”

Tomorrow. Maybe it would still be raining tomorrow. Or the field wouldn’t have dried sufficiently. Maybe he’d be able to get out himself! Late that afternoon the telephone rang. Dave Leonard had been in communication with the doctors at the hospital and told the Kid a place had been reserved for him on the early Cleveland plane the next morning.

He reached the clubhouse just as the manager was finishing his pre-game talk. Over their heads he could see the old catcher, toothpick in mouth, leaning across the back of a chair. “’S I say, we took too many balls in that last game. We’re not gonna take today. We’ll beat those birds at their own game, go out and hit ’em. Everybody hit ’em. All right, le’s go now.” The crowd turned toward the door to see the Kid standing there, bag in hand. In a second he was surrounded. They were glad to have him back and their faces showed it.

“Hey, Roy...how are ya, Kid...here he is now...glad to see you back again, Roy...who said they could kill him off...boy, we sure can use that old bat of yours right now...c’mon, Roy, climb in the old monkey suit, we can use you...how you feel, boy, okay?” A dozen hands grasped his, a dozen arms reached for his shoulder.

“Hullo, Fat Stuff, hullo, Raz old kid, hullo, Dave, hullo, Harry. Hi there, Swanny. Hullo, Red. Sure I’m okay. Well...you know...little wobbly...that’s natural the medicos say. But I’ll be in there....”

They left the room and went out. Clack-clack, clackety-clack, clack-clack, clackety-clack; the sound of their spikes on the concrete was sweet to his ears. He hurried off his clothes, half listening to the old catcher who paused a moment at his locker. “Roy, I shan’t play you today. Want you should sit on that bench with me and try to size up this gang. We’ve got one tough fight on our hands and I’ll need you before it’s over. So take it easy. Don’t run much. Moment you feel least bit dizzy, sit down. Keep outa the sun. Understand?”

He nodded. In half a minute he was grabbing his shoes. “Hullo, Chiselbeak. How are ya?” He laced them up. Clack-clack, clackety-clack on the concrete tunnel to the dugout. Crunch-crunch on the wooden planks of the dugout floor. He looked round. Whew! Say, this was a ballpark. This was big, this stadium was. A different park and a different scene. But still the same old sounds of baseball. The get-’em-red-hot of the dog men, the program vendors, the shouts of the crowd from the stands, all the sounds of baseball; sounds he only half heard but recognized now coming back to them again. Someone stopped him. A man presented an autographed baseball and a fountain pen.

“Oh...” he looked at the signature. “You’re Tucker, hey? Thought you was beaned in Brooklyn!” He eyed him suspiciously. Roy grinned and said nothing. You can’t please some folks, as Dave always said.

Gosh though, it was great to be back. To watch Harry with that familiar gesture knock the dirt from his spikes with a bat, to see Dave in his crouch at the plate tip his mask and take a high inside one from the pitcher, and Red Allen swinging those two war clubs. Yes, it was swell to be back. Back with the team, with men he loved. He felt he couldn’t stand sitting all day in the dugout. Then he jumped instinctively to avoid a foul and got that twinge in the back of his neck. While all the time the bong-bong-bong went on in his head.

“Hey Roy!” Eddie Davis stopped on his way to the plate. “D’ja see what Casey called you in his column? He called you ‘Wooden-Head Tucker.’ Says you tried to use your nut for a bat.”

“Yeah? Well, I wish it hada been Casey out there. Just let him stick his neck in front of Miller’s fast one and he’ll find out how wooden...”

A hand gripped his arm. It was a hand of steel. He turned about and looked into the freckled face of an older man. He had sandy hair parted on one side and blue eyes with crinkles at the corners.

“Listen, boy! Don’t pay any attention to that man Casey, hear me?” As he talked he emphasized his remarks by taps on the Kid’s arm with his other hand.

“Hullo, Mr. MacManus.” It was Jack Mac-Manus, owner of the Dodgers, one of the smartest men in baseball. Everyone knew Jack’s heart was set on a Series title and usually he got what he went after.

“That man Casey! Lemme tell you. He always has to ride someone. That’s the sort of sports-writer he is. Don’t let him bother you. If you do, and he thinks it worries you, he’ll wisecrack you to death every morning. I know. I had several run-ins with that baby when I was in Chicago. Get me?”

“Sure do. And thanks lots, Mr. MacManus.”

“How you feel? Didn’t expect that high inside one on the first pitch there, did you?”

“Nosir. But I’m better now. Awful glad to be back.”

“And I’m mighty glad to have you. We can use that old mahogany of yours out there at the plate, Roy. Watch yourself, now.” He turned away. Soon the familiar voice of the announcer came through the loudspeaker above.

“For Cleveland...Thomas, No. 19, pitching; McCormick, No. 2, catching. For Brooklyn, McCaffrey, No. 11, pitching; West, No. 18, catching.”

He saw Dave beckoning and squeezed into a place at his side. Up and down the bench rang the chatter of the jockeys trying to ride the Indian pitcher. This was the game they wanted, the game which would put them once more in the lead.

That afternoon the Kid felt he learned as much baseball sitting beside Dave Leonard as he had learned all season. It was a pitcher’s battle, with each manager hoping to wear down the other hurler. Thomas was an old timer, smart, keen, with a team of quick thinkers behind him. Sitting quietly in the dugout as a spectator, Roy could appreciate the skill of the man in the box, watch his strategy and that of the men in the field. As a non-combatant from the dugout, things were different. From the dugout the pitcher’s mound really was a mound, and sitting on the scarred wooden step you saw things a man missed when he was playing. Closely he watched Dave shift his fielders around for each batter, trying to outguess them. Things were moving in the first inning.

Red Allen hit a sizzling grounder at Lanahan in short. The Indian player was slow getting it away, and the batter was safe at first. “Huh! The old fella’s slowing up. Harry’d have had that one in his pocket.”

Dave was an old timer himself. He came to the veteran’s defense. “Yeah, yeah, maybe so. But he’s still one of the best fielding shortstops in the league and still able to pull ’em out of the bag.” The next Dodger smacked a hit over second. That is, it was going over second. Somehow Lanahan got there, deflected it toward Gardiner who scooped it up and shot it back to him in time for the force-out. “See! What’d I tell you? He’s an old player, he forgets his errors once they are made. Put it out of your mind. If you make a bumble, Roy, forget it. Don’t hang on to it. Don’t let your mistakes get you down. We all make ’em.”

The Kid, however, was loyal to his teammates.

“Harry and Eddie would have had that ball, too. Likely they’d have had a doubleplay out of it, even.”

“They’d have tried for it, maybe. Point is, experienced men don’t always try for a double. They want to be sure of getting the man at second. Youngsters might have tried for a double on that play; they’d have probably fumbled the ball and then where would you be? Everybody safe, see?”

Yes, he saw. He saw there was lots to baseball he didn’t know, even if he was playing on a pennant winner. It was strange to be sitting there, watching his team from the dugout and not from his spot in deep right. To see Red Allen astride the bag and not his back with the big number 3 on it; to notice the changes in Elmer’s face in the box; and have Harry’s “Hurry up...take yer time...” come sharp and clear across the diamond. Strangest of all was to watch his substitute, Paul Roth, out in right. He could see the man clench and unclench his fists, and the tenseness of his movements as he snapped his sunglasses back on his cap after a foul to the stands. It made him restless to watch them out there fighting without him.

“Dave, I’d sure like to be out in that ball game with the boys.”

“Yeah, I know how you feel. I remember when I was hurt in the Series in nineteen and thirty-five. Don’t you worry, boy, you’ll get lots of chance to play. It won’t be over tonight...looka that!” Disgust and disappointment were in his voice. “Another pop-up. Those boys are all tightened up. They’re gripping too hard. Harry...go get us a hit there, will ya?”

From the dugout the Kid watched the eternal duel of baseball, the thing that made it the greatest of games, the struggle of wits between the man at the plate and the man on the mound. Though he was pulling for a hit, he none the less found it exciting to watch old Thomas fool with the batters. Zwoosh. A fast ball under the chinstraps which rocked the shortstop back on his heels. Sizzz...a curve on the outer edge for a called strike. Zoom...a fast ball, high, with Harry swinging helplessly underneath it. Then one down by the knees, too low to hit. Finally the pay-off, the No. 2 pitch. By this time Harry was completely tied up. He took a half-swing and up went an easy pop to the infield.

“Yessir, he’s a pitcher. He’s a ballplayer’s ballplayer, that lad Thomas,” said Dave as the teams changed sides in the third without any scoring. The Kid who had looked on this pitcher as a has-been, as easy pickings, began to have respect for his knowledge and skill. Say, if Red couldn’t hit him, nor Harry, nor Swanny either, he’d better stay right on this bench.

“Who’s up?” he asked mechanically.

“McClusky,” said Dave without even glancing at the plate. How did he remember? Then the Kid reflected that it was part of Dave’s job to remember; and his own, too. Sure enough, the tall figure of the Cleveland center fielder came out of the dugout.

“There’s a sweet young ballplayer. And gonna be better. Notice he’s copied his swing from old Gardiner? See, he holds his bat the same as Gardiner.” No, the Kid hadn’t noticed. Dave saw just about everything.

On the first pitch the batter hit a single to left. Dave shook his head. “That’s smart thinking up there. D’ja notice that? He set Elmer up. See, he’s taken every first pitch since we started the Series. Then today he gets Elmer carelesslike, and when he puts it in there, McClusky hits it. Gotta give him credit. That’s percentage baseball.”

And a minute later. “Ah...I knew he’d do that. I told Hank to watch ’em. He’s too tight.” It was the second pitch. As the catcher drew back to return the ball to the pitcher, McClusky on first dashed for second. Ed Davis was kicking up dirt way back of the infield, Harry was flatfooted on the grass behind short, and the bag completely open.

The crowd roared while Dave smacked his leg with annoyance. “I told that boy; yessir, I told that boy,” he muttered, half to himself. “Always do it on a rookie catcher. I oughta be in there myself.”

From the dugout they watched Gardiner, the veteran second baseman, come to bat. “He’ll bunt.”

“Nope, he won’t.”

“Why not? It’s good baseball here.”

“That’s why. It’s good technical baseball; but likely he’ll cross Elmer up. Or try to. There...now...see?”

A smartly hit ball almost took the pitcher’s ear off as it sizzled over second. McClusky was rounding third going in, with the stands on their feet yelling. He slid into the plate in a flurry of dust to score the first run of the game. Back of the box Harry took the throw-in, preventing Gardiner from reaching second.

“That’s tough. Now see, get this, Roy. That one mistake there of West’s may cost us the game. The way these two boys are throwing, one run may win for ’em. Shoot, he was off his toes once, and there goes your ball game. Mind you, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t warned him. I told him. Good teams always try to run bases on a rookie catcher, I told him yesterday. Forgot to mention it this morning.”

Roy said nothing. There was nothing to say. He was learning baseball, about which he considered he knew something. Now he saw it all differently; from the angle of the manager. From the bench where a man watched and suffered while other men he had taught and trained and coached all season made mistakes before his eyes; mistakes that would cost a game, maybe a Series, maybe a couple of thousand dollars to every player on the squad.

The old catcher shook his head. He broke off a piece of gum. “Well, that’s baseball.” The crowd was yelling as Hammy hit a double down the right field line, and the inning ended with two runs scored.

Now the dugout was crowded with sweating, panting figures. “Hank, what were you doing out there, going fishing?” Dave leaned down the bench toward his young catcher.

The boy shook his head. “That was bad, Dave. I just didn’t see him going down.”

“But, Hank, suppose a man went down every time. You gotta imagine a man is stealing on every play. Now then, gang, some runs.”

“Yep, c’mon gang, le’s us get some runs.”