Kid from Tomkinsville (11 page)

The Kid’s face grew hotter and hotter. Gosh! Why, Casey wasn’t such a bad guy after all! Why did all the players pan Casey, and keep away from him so much? He must be all right, that man Casey. The printed page danced before his eyes.

“‘Tucker wins again,’ sing the headlines. He’s copped his fourteenth straight victory, the best record any first-year pitcher ever made. He’s a fogger with a fast one that’s fast, a curve that breaks, and he pitches with his noodle. He knows how to play the hitter and what to do with the ball. He’ll take advice, and the boys say he will get better as he goes along, and incidentally he can pound that pill, too. Several games he’s won by timely hits at the right moment. He’s as fast as anyone on the club, he can field, and if he could cook I’d marry him.”

Yessir, Casey was all right. He’d stand up for Casey when the boys started panning him at table and saying these newspaper bums didn’t know anything about baseball. He sure would stand up for him. Casey was a great person. Understood the game, too. You could tell that just by reading him. He continued.

“And Robertson? Whatever became of him, the star for whom someone paid $100,000? Why, Master Robertson is back with San Diego. Well, that’s baseball.”

His face flushed and he threw the paper on the floor—

It was someone knocking. All through the last paragraphs he had felt something interrupting his reading, but so intent had he been that he hadn’t realized there was a knock on the door. Not a knock, either, a pounding now, as if someone were trying to break it down. His first thought was fire, but then he heard a familiar, if husky, voice the other side of the transom. He jumped up and threw it open as Razzle came in.

Tumbled in would better describe that entrance. Razzle’s face was flushed and excited. The star’s penchant for beer was famous, and stories were current of his experiences in former seasons, but so far this year he had been cautious. However, the long strain of pitching first-place ball, followed by the tight game of that afternoon, had been too much for him. Razzle was high.

His eye caught the open paper on the floor. The Kid flushed. But Razzle was not to be stopped. “Ha... ha! B’lieve what that mug says! Casey!” The scorn of years of baseball was in his voice. “Wha’s he know about baseball... sittin’ up there and tellin’ us how to play the game. Like to see him handle a fogger a few times....”

The Kid’s attachment for Casey vanished. It was true. What did Casey know about it, or anyone who hadn’t suffered out there on that mound inning after inning with the sun pitilessly beating upon your neck and the thermometer in the dugout at 120 degrees? No, Casey really didn’t know. But the big fellow wanted action. He grabbed the paper and tearing it into pieces threw them outdoors. Then taking a huge chair he stumbled and lumbered across the room and, under the Kid’s terrified eyes, shoved it through the window.
BANG! CRASH! BANG-BANG.
The sound of breaking glass and splintering wood came from below, followed by shouts. The Kid jumped up and threw his arms round the big pitcher’s body, only to find himself suddenly sprawling in a corner. Throwing him off like a fly, Razzle locked the door and began hauling another chair across the room.

Now there was a frenzied knocking, while from below came shouts and
CRASH! BANG-BANG! CRASH!
as a second chair went to destruction. The Kid made a dive for the door, but Razzle was too quick for him.

“No, you don’t... either... I’m gonna give you the bum’s rush too....” And seizing the Kid by the shoulders he struggled toward the window. Surely the man wasn’t insane enough...

“Hey, Razzle, Razzle, for Heaven’s sake, leggo.... Hey, Razzle...”

Pound-pound, pound-pound from the door, and the exasperated voice of Gabby.

“Say there, open up that door, Tucker. I’ll fine you plenty if you don’t open up....”

But the Kid couldn’t open the door. Entwined in the arms of that ferocious bear he was unable to move. Vainly he struggled, yelled, shouted, caught the bottom of the bureau with his feet and managed to pull it over, yet still Razzle held him in a vise, still they neared the window. Then there was a crash. The door burst open. Five husky men jumped together on the luckless pitcher just before he had yanked the Kid to the sill of the tenth-story window.

His shirt completely ripped off, one shoe gone, his trousers torn in three pieces, a cut on his legs where he had hit something, disheveled, panting, exhausted, he stood watching them subdue the mighty Razzle. No easy matter either, for Razzle was in the mood for a roughhouse and gave as good as he got. Then two more men, apparently hotel detectives, joined them, and the combined forces managed, by pulling and hauling, to batter Razzle into submission, yank him into the shower, and gradually cool his ardor. It was two hours before the cuts, bleeding noses, and other evidences of battle were repaired, and things were back again at normal. The room being irretrievably wrecked, the Kid was changed, and Gabby, with Bill Hanson, the business manager, and Doc Masters, the trainer, attempted to conceal the conflict.

Unfortunately the news spread about the hotel as news of this kind will and, notwithstanding everything Gabby could do, the event was too sensational to cover up. The next morning Razzle’s photograph was on all the front pages accompanied by a lurid account of the evening’s foray, and a brief history of other and similar episodes in former years. Within two hours Gabby had received a terse wire ordering him to submit a complete report immediately to the president of the League.

Result—for the team, one more man out of action. For Razzle, a month’s suspension and a fine of $500. Expensive for a few glasses of beer.

T
HE TEAM WAS BOARDING
the Manhattan Limited for New York. By the time of their departure from Pittsburgh more than half the squad presented some sort of problem, and the question was how a line-up could be made from the available players for the next afternoon at home. The club was feeling the strain of the race for the pennant. Reliable Tom Swanson was limping badly from an ankle which needed rest and time to heal; Jerry Strong was out for three weeks at least; Babe Stansworth, the big catcher, had a split thumb and was useless in games; Tommy Scudder had a fractured leg, the result of sliding home that day, and was left behind in a hospital; Fat Stuff, the steady old horse who did the relief pitching, was visiting Johns Hopkins for a lame arm; Karl Case in right was in a batting slump because the other men weren’t hitting and he was asked to carry an unequal share of the load, while Gabby himself, beneath his tan, was drawn and tired about the eyes and wretchedly thin. His hitting had cooled off and his fielding lost its edge. Gabby needed a letup. So did everyone else. Worst of all, Razzle, who merely had to take the box to have opposing hitters tighten up, was out for a month. A month during the most critical part of the season when the western clubs and the Giants were fighting desperately to grab away the slight lead the Dodgers held.

Going to the station in a taxi, the Kid’s mind for some strange reason went back to the distance he had covered since Clearwater, and he began to reflect upon those hot weeks, a heat which now seemed as nothing. He recalled a remark of Rats Doyle, made after one of the first few days’ practice as they came into the clubhouse together exhausted. It was one of the first times anyone had spoken to him or noticed him except old Dave Leonard, and he never forgot the remark or Doyle. “Spring training’s the toughest part of it.” The Kid smiled grimly at that sentence over a distance of six months. Somehow, looking back, spring training didn’t seem so tough after all.

Bill Hanson, the business manager, stood at the train gate checking them in. Once this had seemed amazing to him; now it was simply routine.

“Stansworth... Case... Swanny... Tucker... Allen... Razzle... Foster... where’s Fat Stuff?... Oh, yeah; he’s down in Baltimore, isn’t he?... Draper... Kennedy....” As the Kid passed through the gate someone waiting stepped forward. It was Rex King of the New York
Times
who always accompanied the team on its western trip. He came up.

“Say, Tuck, would you mind coming through to our compartment in the next car. Boys want a little information....”

His first impulse was to say no. Why should he bother? One did; you had to; but why? What difference did it make? He didn’t want them to write about him. Besides, he was tired and anxious to sleep. Some players could sleep until noon, but the Kid never. He was too used to getting up on the farm at home, doing the chores and putting in half a day’s work before going to town to his job at MacKenzie’s drugstore. He determined to refuse and was surprised to hear his voice say, “Sure, I’ll go back with you.” Mechanically he dropped his bag and his raincoat on his seat, took off his jacket, and went along with the older man to find four other newspapermen in the next car. They were sitting in a smoke-filled compartment, and hastily put away the cards on the table before them and drew out envelopes or pieces of folded paper. He knew what was ahead: an interview.

“Looks as if you men were going to make me talk after all.” During the early part of the season he had managed to dodge interviews fairly successfully. Interviews were frightening, and the persistent questioning he received from sportswriters in the dugout before the game or in the locker room afterward in every city did little to reassure him.

“Say, you fellas, ever since I went to Clearwater back in March I been reading some interesting things about myself. But I didn’t believe it was worth while to set things right. Too much trouble. Now it seems as if we might get the record straight.”

The five men chorused assent. They were all certain that the other man had made the mistakes.

“Yep, that’s what we want....”

“Okay, Kid, shoot the works now.”

“Sure, le’s go. Who discovered you? First of all, who discovered you? MacManus or...”

“Or Gabby....”

“Dave Leonard, wasn’t it?” asked somebody.

“No, it wasn’t.” The Kid was positive because he was a trifle tired of that story. “It wasn’t Dave and it wasn’t Gabby and it wasn’t really Mac, either. He came up to Waterbury last summer when I pitched one day, and old Hooks Barr, the owner, tried to get him to give me a chance. He wasn’t interested. Much. Then at some league meeting or other, Hooks talked about me again, and kept at him until finally in the middle of winter he sent me money to come down and try out with the team. That’s all.”

“What about your borrowing the cash from your grandma to go down to Clearwater?”

He scowled. “Aw, that’s the bunk. They sent me the dough all right, but we had to use it to replace the roof which got damaged in that storm last fall. Come winter, it started to leak so badly in the kitchen we had to use the money for that. So I did and borrowed some cash from my grandma. See?” The five men were scribbling furiously. He wondered what there was in his remarks to enable them to fill up all that space.

“Is it true you sat up all night in the day coach?...”

The Kid was tired. Hot and tired and bored. “What’s that got to do with it anyhow?” The pencils went to work round the table again.

“Tell us about your life. Where were you born?”

“Tomkinsville.”

“Live at home?”

“Yep... I live with my grandma on the farm. Dad died when I was a kid and my mother died two years ago.”

“Work on the farm?”

“Uhuh. But I work in town, too. At MacKenzie’s drugstore.”

“You work at home and in town...”

“Why, sure. I don’t go on the day shift until noon. Noon to eight at night.” What time did they think folks got up on a farm?

They changed the subject. “What great pitcher did you model yourself after?”

“No great pitcher.” There was a silence in the compartment. He didn’t model himself after anyone. Why should he? “My only thought was to get on the Dodgers and stick there... if I could.” He paused a moment. “Y’see, I’m not a very good story. I’m not a mystery story. I don’t count myself a great pitcher. Had lots of luck, and a lot of help from old Dave Leonard. Maybe he ought to get the credit.” He noticed several raised eyebrows, and glances exchanged across the table. The four men were scribbling furiously. “First place my curve ball is too slow. Dave was working to give me a faster hook. I never fan many, and I... I never forget I’ve got a swell ballclub out there working their heads off for me all the time. There... is that enough?... I’m tired, you guys....”

It was enough. Until the next time. The next time came sooner than any of them expected. In fact within twenty-four hours.

There was one thing the Kid never got accustomed to, and that was the difference in the dressing room after a game they lost and a game they won. If they lost, the fatigue of the afternoon seemed doubled; everyone was all in and showed it, nerves were edgy, dressing was hard work, although nobody wanted to stay in the tension of the room any longer than necessary.

But when they won! And when they won over the Giants! MacManus and Murphy were exchanging barbed pleasantries in the newspapers, but the closeness of the league standing was enough to pack the stands that afternoon without additional help. Both teams were keen to win. The Dodgers wanted to stretch their lead to three full games, the Giants to cut it down to one game, and incidentally grab off second place. But they were helpless before the Kid. Never had he felt keener, never more like pitching, and even with their patched line-up three runs were enough. That brought his victorious record up to fifteen. The fans almost mobbed him as he came off the field, and directly he reached the safety of the dressing room, the reporters were on his neck again.

The place was hot, dusty, and noisy, jubilant because everyone was singing and shouting across the room. A three-game lead, with a substitute catcher, a second string at third, and a utility outfielder playing most of the game, wasn’t bad. The room echoed and re-echoed to their yells, and the boys slapped him on the back as they came in throwing their gloves at their lockers.

“Nice work, Roy, old kid....”

“Tha’s pitching, that is, Roy....”