Hunting a Detroit Tiger

 

 

MURDER AT FENWAY PARK

MURDER AT EBBETS FIELD

MURDER AT WRIGLEY FIELD

HUNTING A DETROIT TIGER

THE CINCINNATI RED STALKINGS

HANGING CURVE

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Table of Contents

A
number of people have made contributions to this book, and I’m happy to have the opportunity to express my thanks.

I am especially grateful to Kate Duffy, my editor, for her thoughtful guidance and unflagging enthusiasm; Meredith Bernstein and Elizabeth Cavanaugh, my agents, for their diligent efforts on my behalf; Kelly Tate, for reviewing the manuscript.

For research assistance, I am indebted to Marsha Carey, reference librarian at the U.S. Department of Justice; Sharon Carlson and Pamela Jobin, with the Archives and Regional History Collections of Western Michigan University; Tim Wiles and Scot Mondore, of the National Baseball Library & Archive in Cooperstown, New York; Madeleine Mullin, of the Countway Library of Medicine in Boston; Jessie Rabban and Norman Waksler, of the North Cambridge Public Library. Also helping in the research were Laura Kelly, Cindy Haigh, Nat Rosenberg, Dave Smith, and the staffs of the Burton Historical Collection in the Detroit Public Library and the Government Documents Room of Harvard University’s Lamont Library. I am grateful to all of these individuals and institutions for so generously sharing with me their time and expertise.

 

A four-word headline in the morning edition of the
Detroit Journal.
Four words, stark and black. And three of them wrong.

It was true that I’d seen combat in the recent Great War, but I had done nothing heroic. The heroes were the doughboys who’d been mowed down on the desolate ground of no-man’s-land or felled among the splintered trees of the Argonne forest; and the ones who returned home but had sacrificed parts of themselves “over there”—limbs severed by mortar shells, vision seared by mustard gas, minds jellied by the relentless pounding of artillery fire. I had come back alive, intact, and suffering no greater disability than the same one that had always afflicted me: a tendency to be suckered by sharp-breaking curveballs low and away.

The
Journal
was also wrong about Emmett Siever. He was a baseball man, not a Bolshevik. As a journeyman outfielder he’d played for nine teams in five major leagues, from the 1884 St. Louis Maroons of the old Union Association to the 1901 Detroit Tigers club of the fledgling American League. So why the “Bolshevik” tag? Because his most recent baseball activities weren’t on the playing field, but in the lecture halls: Siever had been trying to unionize ballplayers—an endeavor which struck me as having less prospect of success than establishing a fan club for umpires.

The most outrageous mistake of the headline, though, the one that provoked my immediate concern, was the way it connected Emmett Siever and me. Because I wasn’t the one who killed him.

“What do you mean, you didn’t kill him?” said the desk sergeant.

I repeated my statement, which I thought sufficiently unambiguous.

The middle-aged cop—Sergeant Phelan, according to the nameplate on his desk—exhaled a long sigh and stared wistfully down at the thick sandwich on which he’d been breakfasting. He reluctantly slid the half-eaten meal aside, then ran a palm between the double row of brass buttons on his uniform, brushing away crumbs of black bread and smearing a gob of mayonnaise into the blue fabric.

I held out my copy of the
Journal.
Suspicion darkened his features. He shot a protective glance at his sandwich as if worried that my presence was a diversionary tactic so that an accomplice could snatch away his salami-on-pumpernickel.

I looked around the small, dismal room. The only other living creature in the waiting area of the Trumbull Police Station was an inert basset hound curled up in front of a smoky potbellied stove. From within the stove came the muffled hiss of a fire struggling to ward off the spring morning chill. It was a losing struggle, and the odor of burning soft coal did nothing to improve the room’s atmosphere.

Turning back to the sergeant—who had the expression of the hound and the shape of the stove—I again tried to force the newspaper on him. After a slow sip from his coffee mug, he took the paper and cautiously drew it close to his broad baleful face. Squinting, Phelan scrutinized the front page like it was a gold certificate of an unfamiliarly large denomination. First the masthead and date—Tuesday, April 13, 1920. Then the major headlines:

“Near the bottom,” I said.

Phelan appeared annoyed at the interruption—he probably wanted to linger on the story about Mary Pickford possibly being a bigamist. But he directed his eyes below the fold, and began to read how I’d shot and killed a Bolshevik.

After a minute, he paused to peer up at me. “You’re Rawlings?”

This, too, I’d already told him. “Yes,” I said with diminishing patience. “Mickey Rawlings. I play for the Tigers.”

“Then why ain’t ya with the team? Season opener’s in Chicago tomorrow, ain’t it?”

I held out my right forearm and drew back my coat sleeve to show him the bandages. “Busted wrist,” I explained, then said yet again, “I didn’t kill Emmett Siever.”

“Sure you did. It says so ...” He poked a chubby forefinger at the newsprint. “Right there.”

For a police officer, Sergeant Phelan had a peculiar notion of what constituted evidence. “I don’t care what it says. It’s
wrong.
And I want it corrected.”

“Then go see the editor or somebody.”

“Read the story! It’s the
police
who are claiming I did it. That’s why I’m here.”

Phelan grunted and calmly resumed reading. “He got shot in Fraternity Hall, eh?”

I was tempted to respond, “No, he got shot in the chest.” Instead I said, “Yeah. Fraternity Hall.”

“Oh! Here, look.” Phelan turned the paper for me to see and pointed to the final paragraph of the article. “It’s being called elf-defense—you’re not being charged with nothing. Hell, this story makes you out to be some kind of hero for getting rid of that Red. So what’s the problem?”

“Would
you
want to be accused of killing somebody if you didn’t do it?”

He pondered a moment. “Well, I don’t expect that would bother me as much as if I did kill somebody, and the papers printed it.”

The basset hound stirred long enough to issue a loud yawn. Phelan promptly echoed the dog. Resisting an impulse to shake him alert, I said, “There was a cop at the hall last night. He talked to me after it happened. Aikens, his name was. Detective Aikens. Is he here? Can I see him?”

“Don’t know no Aikens.” Phelan folded the
Journal
and slid it back to me. “You better try headquarters.”

“Where’s that?” I hadn’t been in Detroit long enough to know where police headquarters was. The only reason I knew about this station was because it was across the street from the Tigers’ ballpark.

“Bates and Farmer, about a block from Cadillac Square. Can’t miss it.” He reached for his sandwich and lifted it to his mouth. Apparently, as far as Sergeant Phelan was concerned, I was now headquarters’ problem and didn’t warrant any more of his time.

“Thanks.” I grabbed the newspaper, tucked it under my arm, and turned to leave.

Through a mouthful of food, Phelan mumbled, “Still don’t see why you’re so worried. What’s the worst that can happen?”

When I stepped outside the station house, an icy breeze struck my face; it felt like I was pressing my cheek against a cold windowpane. An eastbound Michigan Avenue streetcar approached, its bell clanging and its wheels squealing as it crawled to a stop in front of me. I was about to hop on when I changed my mind about going immediately to police headquarters.

As the trolley resumed its rattling journey downtown, I stood on the corner, debating my next move. Cold began to numb my skin, while a warm, writhing sensation that I couldn’t quite identify started to gnaw at my insides.

I looked across the street to Navin Field’s main entrance, a quaint, two-story structure that reminded me of a small-town railroad depot. Behind the entrance, a ramp led to the right-field grandstand of the ballpark proper. Raising my view slightly, I saw the pennants flying proudly above the roof. In nine days, fans would be streaming into this jewel of a ballpark for the Tigers’ home opener. I wished I could jump forward in time and onto the diamond—and just play baseball again.

Instead of heading downtown, I started up Trumbull. Exasperating as Phelan’s indifference had been, I wanted to believe him, to believe that I could simply ignore the newspaper story, and it would blow over harmlessly.

On the walk home through the quiet residential streets of Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, I worked hard to convince myself that Sergeant Phelan had the right attitude. After all, how bad could it really be? I wasn’t under arrest ... I knew that I hadn’t shot Siever, so my conscience was clear ... And the
Detroit Journal
would certainly have to print a retraction when it discovered the mistake.

By the time I turned from Pine Street onto Grand River Avenue, my head had almost come around to Phelan’s way of thinking. But my gut remained emphatically unconvinced. By now I’d been able to identify the cause of the turmoil in my belly: it was fear. Fear of what might happen if the Emmett Siever situation didn’t resolve itself as easily as I hoped.

I heard my phone ringing as I started up the steps to my second-story walkup over Carr’s Hat Shoppe. It was still ringing when I reached the landing, and continued while I groped for the door key. As I stumbled inside, my nerves jangled in resonance with the urgent clanging.

Before lifting the receiver, I repeated aloud Phelan’s final words to me:
What’s the worst that can happen?