Fear Strikes Out (6 page)

I moved into higher gear than ever, rolling along at a mad pace, as I tore from one thing to another. I did everything on the run, yet lived such a tight schedule that I left myself only a few hours a night for sleeping. I’ll never know how much actual sleep I got. I spent a lot of time lying down, but I was tense and stiff even then. I tried desperately to unwind. My nerves, stretched like fiddlestrings, were constantly begging for release.

My day started at five-thirty
A.M.
I had to be at the plant by seven. I worked there until five in the afternoon, then practiced for an hour or so. The Insilcos usually played three nights a week and I played for independent teams on the other nights. Every Sunday, I went to Hartford for a doubleheader with one club, and sometimes I’d play a third game with another team Sunday nights.

By going at top speed all the time, I could make as much as one hundred fifty dollars a week, but, as the summer progressed, I began to be plagued by new fears.
What would I do when the baseball season was over?
All I’d have then was my pay as a loader at the plant.
What would I do with the rest of my time? Whatever I did, I couldn’t hope to make one hundred fifty dollars a week or anywhere near it.

By this time, everyone who was close to me—Dad, Mom, Sister Margaret, the Tracys, Bernie—was trying to slow me down. No one—not even Sister Margaret—could do anything with me. I agreed that I was going too fast. I agreed that I was running around in a mad circle, using up every reserve of strength God had given me. I agreed that there was no point in trying to make more money if it meant a breakdown in my health. I agreed that there really was no urgency—I had set aside enough to get us through the winter—and even if I didn’t work we’d be all right for a while. But I had to keep hurrying—hurrying nowhere—because I felt that if I didn’t hurry, I couldn’t keep alive
. I had to get things done.
It didn’t matter what everyone said, or how much sense it made. With me,
everything
was urgent.

One day, my father warned, “If you don’t slow down, you’ll be dead tired when it comes time for spring training.”

Spring training!
The magic phrase made my spine tingle. I felt warm all over just thinking about it.
Spring training would be the real beginning of my career
.
That was what I’d always been aiming for. And in four years—the Red Sox outfield. Williams, DiMaggio—and Piersall!
I spoke the three names aloud. My dad smiled, and said, quietly, “You’ve got to take it easy, son.”

I didn’t exactly take it easy, but I managed to rein myself in a little. My job at the plant kept me busy days, and I made extra money and kept in good physical condition by refereeing basketball games a few nights a week. I still had the urge to move fast and crowd in as much as I could, but the thought of spring training and what it meant kept me from the dreadful compulsion that had transformed the summer into a nightmare. My nerves showed signs of loosening up a little and I slept better. Even the headaches were less severe, although they didn’t disappear altogether. Best of all, Mom, rather than showing signs of a relapse, was becoming more and more of an influence in the household. She had new responsibilities now, and she seemed to thrive on them. I had no way of knowing it then, but her illness was virtually over. She never returned to the hospital. My father’s heart attack had given her something to live for, since she had to take care of him. My mom has been mentally sound to this day.

As the time for spring training approached, I began getting jumpy again. I still had that fear of the unknown, the same fear that had engulfed me as I moved up from grade to grade through elementary school—the fear of making a big change. I was facing the most radical change of my life. I was to report to the Red Sox Louisville farm club, which was training at Bradenton, Florida. I had never been in the South. I had never seen a baseball training camp.

Suppose I didn’t make the grade? What if I had to come home a failure? How could I face my dad and mom and my friends? What would I do if I couldn’t play ball—spend the rest of my life loading freight cars? And how should I act in Bradenton? How should I dress? How should I react to the other guys? How could I tell which should be my friends and which should not? What should I say to newspapermen? Should I call the coaches by their first names or should I call them “Mister”? And what should I do if they overlooked me?

If they did overlook me, how could I attract attention? That was more important than anything. There’ll be dozens of rookies at the training camp. Some must be at least as good as I. What if most were better? The best boys got jobs on the best clubs. What if I ended up way down in the sticks somewhere, with some Class C or D club? What if I couldn’t even qualify for that?

But, scared as I was, I couldn’t wait to get to Florida. I was in such a hurry that I left a day ahead of time. The Red Sox had sent me my train ticket, Mom packed enough food to keep me going all the way down, and I took a ten-dollar bill with me. I didn’t know that the ball club paid all the expenses. I thought just my transportation and hotel bill would be taken care of. The ten-dollar bill was for food. I didn’t worry too much about what I’d do after I’d eaten it up. I figured that, if I had to, I could pick up an odd job here and there, and that would get me through the spring-training period.

Most of my stuff was in a steel foot locker, which I had shipped ahead. All I had with me on the train was the food and an overnight bag. I figured I’d pick up the foot locker at the Bradenton station after I arrived there.

The ten-dollar bill was still intact when I got off the train, but I didn’t dare spend any of it on such a luxury as a taxi. The ball club was staying at the Dixie Grande Hotel, which wasn’t far from the station, so I walked over to it. I was worried about the foot locker, though. The freight station at Bradenton was some distance from the passenger station, and about four miles from the hotel. At the Dixie Grande, the clerk, who told me that I was a day early and that none of the ballplayers were around, assigned me to my room, and, after leaving my overnight bag there, I went to get the foot locker.

It was a forty-minute walk to the freight station. I picked up the locker, hoisted it on my shoulders and started lugging it back to the Dixie Grande. The farther I walked the heavier it got and the slower I moved. I finally broke down and hailed a cab. The fare was thirty cents, and I had to go into the hotel to get my ten-dollar bill changed because the driver couldn’t break it. Feeling like a maharajah, I gave him a nickel tip, and the cab driver rewarded me with a look nasty enough to make my hair curl. It didn’t bother me any. I needed the money worse than he did.

I slept badly and woke up tired, taut and tense. After breakfast at a dog cart nearby, I went back to my room, wondering what to do next. While I was trying to make up my mind, my roommate walked in. He was a clean-cut looking guy, dressed as if he had a date with Miss Florida. His gray suit was neatly pressed, his two-toned shoes were spotlessly clean and he wore a white shirt with a necktie. He didn’t seem to be much younger than Bill Tracy.

He held out his hand and said, “Chapman. Kenny Chapman. Call me Chappie.”

“My name’s Jimmy Piersall.”

“Rookie.”

He wasn’t asking—just stating a fact.

“Uh-huh.”

“I used to be one,” he said.

“When?”

“About a million years ago.”

While he was talking, he opened his suitcase and began to unpack. My eyes almost popped.

“What do you do with all those clothes?” I asked.

“Wear ’em,” he said, laconically.

“Holy cow! Look at the creased trousers! How many pairs have you got?”

“Six or seven.”

“What do you need all those for?”

He stopped unpacking for a minute, straightened up and asked, softly, “How old are you, Jimmy?”

“Eighteen.”

“Where you from?”

“Waterbury, Connecticut.”

“Ever been South with a ball club before?”

“No.”

“How many pairs of—uh—creased trousers have you got?”

“One. And I don’t wear those except for best.”

He turned his head slowly from side to side, then grinned and said, “You’ve got a lot to learn, boy. I’m going to have to teach you some of the facts of life.”

Before the day was over, I learned that the club paid for meals and laundry, and gave each player ten dollars a week for incidental expenses. There were no rules about dressing, but you were supposed to look neat and act like a gentleman. The Louisville Colonels were in the American Association, a Triple A league. At the time, it was the highest you could get in baseball without being in the major league.

I also learned that it was practically a certainty that I wouldn’t be assigned to the Louisville club.

“The Red Sox own teams in leagues of every classification,” Chappie told me. “They’ll look you over here, and then probably send you to Coco, where their other clubs train.”

“Where’s Coco?”

“Not far from here. Other side of the state.”

“How low can you get?” I asked.

“Don’t worry,” he said, kindly. “If you show them anything, they won’t send you too far down. You’re pretty young, Jimmy.”

Rooming with Chappie was the best thing that could have happened to me. He had spent most of his years in the Red Sox organization as the Louisville third baseman, since he was never quite good enough for the big leagues. But he knew his way around, and he was generous with his advice and encouragement.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Jimmy,” he said, after he had seen me work out a few times. “You’re a lot better than you think you are. You’re not a bad hitter and you’re the best fielder on the whole squad. All you need is experience and confidence in yourself. Don’t forget, those other rookies are just as scared as you—and none of them can hold your glove.”

On my first time at bat in the first intra-squad game, I hit a triple over the center fielder’s head, and from then on I was all right. I was still tense and scared, but I had better control of my nerves and my headaches weren’t too bad.

At the end of three weeks, I was sent to Coco and assigned to the Scranton club in the Class A Eastern League. I was satisfied, for it meant that I had made a better impression on the coaches than the other rookies. Practically all of them were sent to teams in leagues of lower classification.

The Scranton manager was Mike Ryba, one of the kindest, most considerate men I have ever known. Mike’s homely face was nearly always wreathed in a wide-mouthed grin. He had a string of gold teeth, which he flashed often. His weatherbeaten face was deeply tanned from many years in the sun, and his almost coal-black eyes were set in a wreath of crow’s feet, mementos of many years of smiling. As a boy, Mike had worked in the Pennsylvania anthracite mines, and baseball, to him, was more than just a profession. It was a way of life, and he never stopped talking about how wonderful it was.

“You’re a lucky guy if you can play ball well enough to make a living out of it,” he used to say. “And if you’re good enough to get into the big leagues, where you eat and sleep and travel and live like a millionaire and get treated like the pampered son of a millionaire wherever you go, you ought to get down on your knees every day of your life and thank your God because He made you that way.”

Mike had closed his active major-league career as a pitcher with the Red Sox, and previous to that, he had been a baseball jack-of-all-trades. He once played a different position in each inning of a full nine-inning game. He’s the manager of the Houston club in the Texas League now, and I still run into him from time to time. Whenever I ask him how he is, he answers, “O.K. Why shouldn’t I be? I’m eatin’ regular and livin’ good. You always do in this business.”

A simple man who appreciates the simple things in life, I guess Mike is still baseball’s champion hotel-lobby sitter. Except when he goes to and from the ball park or the railroad station or airport, Mike spends practically all his time in a lobby chair, calmly pulling away at a big black cigar. I asked him once if he didn’t ever get curious about what goes on elsewhere in town.

“Why should I?” he answered. “I can see all I want to see from the lobby. One time in Boston I saw thirty-nine June weddings without moving out of my seat. Where else but in a lobby can you watch thirty-nine weddings in one month?”

Mike took an interest in me, partly because he thought I was a good ballplayer on the way up, partly because he realized how desperately I needed help and encouragement, and partly because I was his kind of guy. I used to lay all my problems in his lap while he sat, solid and serene, listening to my troubles and smoking his big black cigar. He would let me talk myself out. When I got all through, he’d roll the cigar around in his hand, take a couple of slow drags, let the smoke drift out of his mouth and finally drawl in his low, gravelly voice, “Nothing ever goes so wrong that it won’t get right somehow. If you can’t make it right, wait a little while and it’ll right itself.” Mike couldn’t solve all my problems, but he was good for my nerves. Just looking at him relieved some of the tensions that were always tying me up inside.

When we first went to Scranton, I moved into a rooming house with Nylon Smith, a left-handed pitcher about my age. We stayed together only about a week, because Smitty was sent down to another club, but it turned out to be the most important week of my life. It was during that week that I met the remarkable girl who later became my wife.

Except for Sundays, the Scranton club played all night games, and after we showered and dressed, we used to go to a restaurant called the Tiptoe for a bite to eat and a chance to relax. I was standing outside the place waiting for Smitty one night, when a neat-looking guy who walked with a limp came over to me, held out his hand and asked, “Aren’t you Jimmy Piersall?”

“That’s right.”

“My name’s Tony Howley. I go to all the Red Sox games.”

He meant the Scranton Red Sox, who were named after the parent club in Boston.

We talked until Smitty came along, and then Tony went into the Tiptoe with us. I told him I wanted to go to confession, and he arranged to meet me the next day so he could take me to St. Anne’s Monastery. It turned out that Tony, who was an accountant, had once studied to be a priest, but he had lost a leg in an accident, so he had to give it up.