Kid from Tomkinsville (17 page)

Then on their second western trip in June it happened. Casey expressed his opinion of Mac’s intelligence in this vein:

“You can always depend on the Dodgers. If it isn’t injuries, or sickness, or accidents—you remember Gabby Gus Spencer wrapped his car round a telegraph pole last summer—it’s the humidity. Must have been the humidity which went to the head of Laughing Jack MacManus, the Dodger owner, this week. You got to hand it to Jack. He shocks the daylights out of his rivals, pulls off night baseball with its didoes, and all in all is the most refreshing thing in the big leagues since the first bounce was out. But his recent trade of Joe Gunther, the sensational young rookie infielder from Baltimore, and Tommy Scudder, who just now tops the league left fielders at the plate, plus $15,000 cash for Elmer McCaffrey, Philadelphia left-hander, is just one of those things which make folks wonder about Mac’s sanity.

“If his team isn’t in trouble, trust Jack to stick his handsome Irish phiz into things and manufacture trouble. Breaking up his outfield combination, about all the Dodgers ever had, is one thing. Signing Elmer McCaffrey is something else again. Elmer is a good country pitcher who may win ten games for the Flatbush Flounders, but in exchange Mac gave up a cog in the fastest and best-hitting outfield in either league, plus a youngster who showed plenty last spring down in Clearwater.

“Manager Dave Leonard now reports that he expects to move Karl Case over to left and put Roy Tucker in right. You remember Roy, the Kid from Tomkinsville, who after winning fifteen straight games in the box last summer had the misfortune—only a Dodger could do it—to fall in the showers and chip his elbow bone so he couldn’t pitch any more. Roy is an early-to-bed, early-to-rise, small town boy. Always in shape, winter or summer, he’s one of those earnest types taking voluntary batting practice every morning on the hottest days of summer. He seldom opens his trap except to say something pleasant, and the umpires all like him, about the only member of the club they do, because he never squawks. So far he’s never been put out of a single game. It’s too bad MacManus is losing his head, but there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it.

“Mac, you don’t win pennants with nice, soft-speaking, early-to-bed home town boys out there in right field.”

E
VERYTHING WAS UPSIDE DOWN.
Now he saw things from the other side.

Once he loved the “Airport” as the boys called Braves Field in Boston, one of the biggest parks in the League and a pitcher’s paradise because outfielders had plenty of room to roam about and pull down hits that would have been homers in Brooklyn. All a pitcher had to do in Boston was get the ball over. Whereas the Polo Grounds, where a man could get a “Chinese home run” by merely hitting 257 feet over the right field fence, was a nightmare. Now things were reversed. Now he saw the game from the batter’s point of view.

Yet he hadn’t completely forgotten what he’d learned from Dave as a pitcher, and it was a help. He knew exactly how the wind currents would affect different hitters and how the man in the box would throw to them; knew when a low curve was coming to bait the batter, and when the pitcher would keep the ball high. This enabled him to take chances, for he knew the men pitching also. He was able to anticipate drives and catch balls other fielders stretched for in vain; he was fast enough to cut off many balls that most fielders would have let by, and he soon learned how a squarely hit line drive turned into a sinker when it came to the man in the field. Before long he was making the fans at Ebbets Field forget Tommy Scudder. Especially at the plate.

His winter’s work and his morning batting practice which he kept up steadily had their effect. At first Dave had placed him in the seventh slot just above Jerry Strong, the weakest hitter on the club, and the pitcher, but you couldn’t keep a man who was punching the ball steadily into left field and hitting homers all over the short fences in the League in the seventh spot. So he was moved up to second. It was lucky he liked to hit. Lucky, too, that he had always been willing in practice to go out and shag flies and throw in to the plate. All this helped him in his new position.

Naturally at first everyone tried to steal on him or pick up an extra base and stretch hits. They soon quit. Because they saw that the Kid was as fast as any outfielder in the business and that his throwing was far more accurate than most. Instead of taking chances, they discovered they were out if they risked his arm, and he began to hold hits that were two baggers to a single base. Casey was still dubious about the Kid as a permanent fixture in right field but other sportswriters went all out, and Rex King of the
Times
remarked, as his home run total rose with the Dodgers’ standing in the League:

“Some of the best pitchers imagined that because he had once been a member of the fraternity our Mr. Tucker would be duck soup at the plate. Nothing of the sort. Roy was never a bad hitter and nowadays hurlers who take nicely calculated dusters at his noggin live to regret it. The fact is that this lad can really hit. Yesterday at Ebbets Field with the score tied in the ninth against the Cubs and the winning run on third, Spike Coffman threw his duster at the Kid’s head and knocked him down. He got up, stepped into the box, and whistled the next pitch past Spike’s ears for two bases to win the game. He does much more harm out there at the plate with his old bat than some of the more pugnacious members of the club used to do with their fists. Up in third place, this ballclub certainly isn’t the same old Dodgers.”

On the other hand, Casey, the perpetual skeptic, was doubtful. For some time he refused persistently to boost them even when they broke through in second place in late July. They’d been up there last year this time, hadn’t they? What happened? They slumped. They’d slump again. It was inevitable. But the team was going well, pitchers were turning in good performances with regularity, Razzle won eight straight, and McCaffrey, with the Dodger infield dancing behind him, won five straight. That infield was something to watch, and Harry Street, besides being the second leading hitter in the League, was playing great ball around short.

As for Roy, he loved it. He was happy to be back with the team, happier still when his chance came to play, and, after a season in the box, the outfield position was easy. Before long he became at home in right field, became used to the strangeness of it, the nearness of the fans, not to mention their eccentricities in various cities. There was the queer old lady in St. Louis, who sat in the bleachers to whinny all through each game like a prize percheron. In Pittsburgh, a man with a tremendous bellow invariably sat in a box behind the Pirate dugout roaring with a zest that sent other occupants scurrying away whenever he sounded forth. But the worst of all was Al the Milkman.

Al was reputed to be one of the wealthiest citizens in Cincinnati. However, he liked to go out to Crosley Field and sit in the bleachers close to right field, wielding an enormous cowbell. Whenever the visiting players, and especially the right fielder, tried to make a catch or stop a difficult ball, Al would sound that cowbell as the ball descended.

It was in Cincinnati that the Kid let the bleachers bother him. Al took a fiendish pleasure in riding young players, and he had a genius for tormenting them at close range. By the aid of a megaphone he advised the Kid in loud tones to return to the box, informing him as he trotted past between innings that Leonard ought to put a real fielder in right, not a has-been pitcher. In one critical game against the Reds the Kid muffed a hard ground ball through his legs to the accompaniment of that infernal cowbell.

Later on in August the team moved once more into Cincinnati, tied with the Reds for second, the Giants six games in the lead.

The day was torturingly hot, the game close, nerves were edgy with second place in the balance, and out in the right field bleachers Al the Milkman was more raucous than ever. The Dodgers with Razzle in the box led two to one in the eighth and Cincinnati had a man on third with two out when the batter hit a high foul close to the right field bleachers where Al was sitting. As the Kid ran over, his tormentor rose, whanging his cowbell violently. Roy sighted the ball, heard the noise, knew he was getting closer and closer to the stands, looked up, got his hands on the foul... stumbled... and dropped it.

The crowd rose, Al jeering with the rest. Back walked Roy, ruefully thinking that a hit now might mean the game and second place. All because of that error. Again the batter poked a long fly to right, once more clearly foul. The Kid ran across again as Al resolutely mounted his chair, furiously swinging his bell. Roy instantly saw the ball was going into the stands about halfway up and near his persecutor.

"Take off your hat!" he shouted.

Standing in his seat, the cowbell waving, Al removed his straw hat with a flourish of delight, just in time to receive the ball on his shiny bald pate, a blow which knocked him over and out. They had to carry him from the stands, the cowbell silenced. Never again was the Kid bothered in Cincinnati.

On the bases he was fast, and a useful man to have on first with Allen or Street coming up and a hit-and-run on the cards. He liked running wild on the bases, took chances and more often than not got away with them. Except against big Muscles Mulligan, of the Giants. For some reason the New York first baseman took a fierce dislike to him, was always giving him the hip, or planking the ball on his ribs with more than ordinary fervor. Whenever the Kid made a long hit deep to the outfield, Muscles invariably tried to slow him up rounding first. Roy wanted to be friendly but the Giant infielder took it as a sign of weakness. Other tactics were necessary.

The Kid got even with him by stealing second or drawing throws from Muscles whenever possible. One day as he went to third on an infield grounder, an idea came. It was merely an idea, a thought in which a situation might develop where he could make Mulligan look foolish. So he made a dive for home and as the Giant first baseman drew his arm to throw, the Kid scrambled back to safety at third again. Time after time, when the same play came up, the Kid repeated the act, hoping some day to catch Muscles napping.

Meanwhile opposing pitchers began to take notice of him. He made them. “What shall we do with this bird Tucker? Give him a base on balls or play the outfielders the other side of the fence? Notice he got his sixteenth homer yesterday—that ties him with Buck Masterson.”

“He sure can paste that old persimmon. But you can get him on a low ball if you use it right. No one can throw a fast ball past him. First time I threw a curve breaking outside, figuring to fool him. He took it for a strike. Then I came inside high which was a ball. That guy knows too much for his own good. The next was high inside but just over the plate for strike two. Then I slipped one low inside... and by gosh... he took it....”

All this time the Dodger bench before the game was a cheery spot. The team was in second place by a good margin, better still it was loose and chattering. To hear them no one would suspect they were closing in on the pace-setting Giants.

“I’m sitting there with a glass of beer in my hand...” It was Razzle sounding off.

“Where’s Harry Street?”

“Must be down at the other end of the dugout, talking. We got Razzle up here.”

“Whew, boy, it is sure hot out there.”

“Aw, you guys haven’t any idea of heat. When I was with the Browns we played thirty days in St. Louis when it was over 100 each day. That’s equal to 120 degrees any other place.”

“Well, as I was saying, I’m sitting there with a beer in my hand...”

“Hey, Mike... what do you weigh?”

“’Bout 180. I go down to 170 after a game.”

“Say, old Gabby could have pepped up those Cubs, couldn’t he? Yes, sir, he’d have plugged that there hole at short all right.”

“Well, I was with Chambersburg in the Blue Ridge League this year, and I’m sitting in the hotel with a glass beer in my hand, when...”

“Who’s umpiring next week at the Polo Grounds? I hope Donahoe and Hines don’t follow us over to New York.”

“I’m sure glad they called that game in the rain yesterday. The way Liebert hit that ball past the 450 foot sign his first time up looked like he might break the game open if it went on much longer. Don’t know how Tuck ever got it at all. That ball had more feathers on it than any ball I ever saw.”

“Yep, the Kid can sure hound that old apple, Roy can.”

“Hey, Jerry, how about a movie tonight?”

“Yeah. Okay, who’s pitching for them?”

“See... it was like this. I’m sitting there in the hotel with a beer in my hand...”

“Wainwright? He’s poison for me.”

“Aw, he hasn’t got so much. No live fast ball, but I tell ya he has a good knuckle ball and a swell change of pace. You gotta watch yourself.”

“Hey, Red, see Casey’s column today? He says with the Dodgers in second place in August they ought to be given the saliva test. He says...”

“Aw, nuts to him. That wise guy.” As usual, Razzle had the last word. Almost. “Well, as I was saying, I’m sitting in this-here-now hotel in Chambersburg with a glass beer in my hand when in walks this fella...”

Clang-clang. Clang-clang.

“Hey, Razzle, get out there. What d’you think they’re paying you for on this club, to hear yourself talk?”

“A
LRIGHT,
R
AZ OLD BOY,
two down....”

“Two down, everyone, two down.”

“Attaboy, Raz, tha’s chucking, that is....”

“Hurry up, Razzle, take your time.” Harry’s everlasting war cry came from the other side of second. Leading the Giants three to two in the sixth, the team was confident and on its toes. Before the Kid was a scene he had been looking at every day for over two months: directly in front the broad, thick back of Red Allen, his hands on his knees; to the Kid’s right the tall, lithe figure of Eddie leaning over characteristically to scoop dirt from the basepaths; beyond, Harry shouting his tag line, and further along dark-faced Jerry Strong near third. Razzle was in the box and Babe Stansworth, whose hitting had been such a factor in their rush ahead, was in his familiar crouch behind the plate. A scene he knew by heart.