Kid from Tomkinsville (4 page)

W
ORKING IN
M
ACKENZIE’S
drugstore on the corner of South Main at home the weather was the weather, something to which he paid no particular attention. It was hot: it was cold: it rained: it snowed; but except on Saturdays and Sundays in midsummer when he was pitching for the team, the weather didn’t count. At Clearwater he soon discovered that the weather was vitally important. For ballplayers the weather is everything. After the first few days he began to feel the rigorous exercise and the regime of work under the sun and longed for a day or two of rain. Unfortunately in Florida it never rained. Always the sun. Always the sun beating upon them as they bent, dipped, and twisted on those mats in those agonizing exercises; one-two, one-two, up... down... up... down... get together there, you men in the third row. The only variation in the program came later in the practice when Gabby Gus started to emphasize defensive tactics. In turn each pitcher took the mound. He threw to the plate, and as he did so a coach rapped out a grounder between the box and first, well to the side of first. The pitcher then had to run across and cover the bag, taking the throw from the first baseman. All the time Gus stood on the coaching lines, criticizing, yelling at each man, hustling them every minute.

“C’mon there, Tucker, whassa matter, get that lead out of yer pants. Le’s have some of the ol’ pep now. Lil speed. Faster, much faster. Try it again. All right....
HEY
... don’t watch me. Whatcha watching me for? You’re watching me. Watch Kennedy. Jake—show him how.” The veteran threw the ball and galloped over to the bag, looking up at the exact moment to catch the first baseman’s throw.

“See... try it once more. No, wait a minute. You gotta run hard and take the ball two strides before you get to the bag. Now once more... speed, speed... tha’s more like it... try it again....” And again. And again until the Kid was so whipped and winded and exhausted he could hardly stand.

Following that was half an hour’s sliding practice for the whole team. The sliding pit was in deep right field behind the foul lines, and Gabby stood at the side explaining and pointing out each man’s faults as he came into the bag. From a spot fifteen yards distant the runner started hard, and when he neared the pit Gabby would call “left” or “right” according to which side he wanted the man to slide. It was hot work, dirty and dusty work, and Gabby was merciless. First the hook slide in which the runner hooked the bag with one leg with the slide on the other thigh and leg.

“Now, boys, you’re out at the plate, see. Come into it with both feet. And show some speed, will ya....” Player after player came crashing in, trying to upset one of the coaches who stood over the bag. Sliding was easy for the Kid. He’d been taught and well taught by his high school coach and had no difficulty following orders and changing direction at the last second, but some of the men got so rattled and upset they couldn’t slide properly.

“Now, then, you pitchers.” Gabby had no mercy. No intention to let them rest a second despite the heat and the sun. “Line up here, you pitchers.” And he sent them all off on a race into deep left field. This was the pastime the Kid enjoyed, for with his long legs he was able to beat the others. When they were strung out in the field one of the coaches started batting fungo flies. Charlie Draper could drop a fungo on a dime at three hundred feet, and he invariably managed to make each man run himself to the limit to catch the ball. When anyone tried to sneak a start on him, the hitter deftly poked the ball a little further.

The business of warming up his arm was not enjoyable for the Kid. To be sure, it was somewhat of a physical rest; but the mere sight of those other pitchers, all with curves and fast balls, all sure of themselves and their places, was anything but encouraging. Halfway through practice he looked up to see the friendly older man, the veteran catcher who had caught him the first morning, standing at his side. It was Leonard who spoke first.

“I’ve been watching you. You got a natural, easy motion there. Take care of yourself and you’ll last a long while.”

The Kid threw a fast ball. It zoomed over the plate and into the catcher’s glove. Those words and the friendly tone made him feel better. The older man continued.

“One thing you’ll hafta learn though. You’re in the big leagues and if these guys can spot your stuff they’ll hit it a mile and a half. Or the coaches will steal it and tip off the batters. Wait a minute... just watch old Fred out there. See... he hasn’t got much stuff, but he hides the ball so well the batter never knows what’s coming. He throws from his hip pocket. Lots of effective pitchers haven’t got so much stuff as some, but they know how to use it. Watch him there... see how his glove covers up the ball when it comes up... notice... see, like this....”

He took the ball and showed how it should be concealed, how to hold your glove over it, while once again the Kid wondered that a veteran catcher would bother to take time to explain things of this kind to a rookie pitcher. These were the moments he felt the big league wasn’t so bad after all. Then the squad was called in for batting practice, after which they were divided into three teams of eleven or twelve men each and ended with a relay race in which everyone including Gabby and the coaches took part. The Kid was exhausted as they finally walked to the clubhouse for a Coke and a shower. He said so to the man at his side.

“I’m all in. They sure work their pitchers hard on this man’s team.”

“Hey?” It was Charlie Draper, the coach. “Boy, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Gabby has a theory, he has. He says now... if you develop a pitcher’s legs you cut down the chances of injury to his arms about fifty per cent. He says the reason is clear enough if you stop to figure it out. If a pitcher has weak legs or something goes wrong with one of ’em, he naturally puts more strain on his arm to get his stuff across. Don’t he? Sure he does; all right, strengthen his legs and what happens? The strain comes off his arm and becomes equally distributed in a smooth body action. See?”

Well, they were certainly doing it. Even Razzle, Razzle the great, who had held out for three days and then only signed up the night before, had to go through the same grind. The Kid noticed also that Gabby never spared himself. On the contrary, he covered twice as much ground as anyone on the squad. Now he was with the pitchers in left field, now at the sliding pit in right, now conversing with MacManus on the clubhouse porch, now behind the batting screen watching the newcomers take their swings. He took the same exercises. If there was batting practice, he was in getting his raps; he was all over the park, watching everyone, barking out orders, shouting to the pitchers to go easy there, taking his turn at the plate. Whenever a player made a bobble Gus saw it. “You ain’t getting down in front of the ball, Tony,” to an infielder who let a grounder roll through his legs. Gabby didn’t miss a thing.

Among the mob of players, strange faces which seemed stranger still in uniform, one or two persons began to stand out. MacManus, Jake Kennedy, an old-timer who wore a gold band with a large diamond in it, a World Series ring won years before with the Giants, Leonard the catcher who had been so helpful, Draper the coach, Doc Masters the trainer, a small slightly deaf man who couldn’t hear if you asked him whether Nugent was likely to sign up but could hear clean across the lobby of the Fort Harrison when someone asked him to have a cigar. These men were personalities and he began slowly to sort out a few other faces too.

But save for those few and his roommate, a boy from Dallas, the rest of them were unknown. He was confused and bewildered by their clothes, by their ease and informal manners, the way they could glance at a menu as long as your arm and order immediately what they wanted, strange dishes of which the Kid had never heard. Their talk was of strange names and strange places too; cities they had played in and lived in, cities they liked or disliked. Beside his solemn-faced roommate he sat silently alone at a table for four. Day after day he took this empty table while the others passed by and walked over to tables of their friends where he could hear them talking.

“Heat... say, boy, you-all should have seen Beaumont. We sure like to die down there... all the other teams in the League played night ball, but we had to play by day... yessir, but lemme tell you one thing, in St. Louis once it was a hundred-eighteen in the dugout.... Boy, it’s sure hot in that town.... I’m telling you.... How ’bout Louisville? Or Atlanta? Them’s the two worst towns in the country, I reckon.... Indianapolis... you ain’t known heat till you played there.... Heat, why, you guys dunno what you’re talking ’bout. Down my way in Oklahoma it’s hot.... Ah mean hot. It’s so hot when a dawg chases a rabbit they both walk....”

Louisville. Beaumont... Indianapolis. Minor league towns. Tank towns in the minors. He glanced at the serious face of the boy across the table and the boy glanced back, for they were thinking the same thought. Those were the places they’d be sent to play in, if indeed they made good at all. One hundred and eighteen in the dugout... no, that was St. Louis. So hot a dawg chases a rabbit.... Beaumont... Atlanta... Kansas City... Those towns seemed far away; they accentuated his loneliness more than ever. He pushed back his chair and reached in his pocket for a quarter to leave for the waitress. A quarter was a lot of money if you stopped to think it over. Why, in MacKenzie’s drugstore on the corner of South Main, you got a meal for a quarter. But that was what all the players left: twenty-five cents. He walked out to the elevator, something in the distant sky recalling a sunset at home, and he remembered he hadn’t written to Grandma for two days. She wrote him every single day. The sunset brought up a vision of the sky over the fresh green lower meadow in spring. He decided he didn’t exactly feel like writing. But anything was better than the stuffy empty bedroom over the noisy street. So he went down into the lobby, got paper and an envelope, and began with a hotel pen. “Dear Grandma...”

B
Y THE END OF
the first week practice was livened by inter-squad games. This didn’t mean practice was shortened; not at all. The two teams went five or six innings after the regular workout, and those half dozen men who didn’t get in were supposed to watch carefully. Consequently the squad seldom returned to the hotel before two-thirty or three in the afternoon.

Hopefully the Kid sat on the bench every day. The pitchers were only permitted to go a couple of innings and each morning he waited patiently for the call which didn’t come. Harry Street, his roommate, got in at shortstop for several innings, however, and made two clean hits in his two times at bat off Jake Kennedy, the veteran pitcher. He was a queer, silent youth, quietly confident of his own ability, his value to baseball and the team, and his ultimate success. A wonderful pair of hands added to his natural speed. The Kid would have given lots for that kind of temperament. Harry never had any fears or worries and none of the loneliness which beset him in the midst of that noisy crowd. When their lights were out at night and they lay abed discussing the day’s play, his roommate always ended on the same note.

“Aw... I can hit any righthander in this-here league.” Then he would turn over and be asleep in five minutes. The next morning the Kid would watch him stalk confidently up to the plate and show himself as good as his word.

While the Kid was sitting on the bench, consumed by doubts. Mowing down the Cuban Giants was one thing; but how would he go against these hitters? Nor did the opportunity to test himself come, either. Another day, and another, and another went past. The inaction was awful, and gradually he felt his small store of confidence oozing away as pitcher after pitcher was thrown into the short practice games each morning and he still sat watching. To be sure, he took his turn throwing to the hitters in practice, but as the squad lined up in the field he was on the bench again. The only part of practice which he enjoyed was the race. At the end of the workout the squad was lined up for a race across the field, and he was always first or second to Harry Street, the fastest man on the club. Beating Harry gave him a kick, and he looked forward to the race every morning.

But he didn’t look forward to practice. Continued inaction was sapping his morale and he dreaded the time he might have to step out there, hoping they’d release him or send him away before he made a fool of himself in the box. This was his attitude when he saw Gabby Spencer, the manager, coming across the hotel lobby to where he was sitting mournfully one night.

“Howsat ol’ arm, Tucker, okay? Yeah? Mebbe I’m gonna shove you in there a few innings tomorrer.”

The Kid went upstairs. He could hardly sleep all night. At last, a chance against the big-league hitters! What he’d been hoping for since he landed in Clearwater, and now that the moment had come he was frightened. He always remembered that next morning, because after he reached the field and got dressed he came out of the clubhouse to a strange sight. Half a dozen photographers were snapping Razzle Nugent, the star pitcher who had been a hold-out all spring. Instantly the Kid realized something. Those wonderful pictures one saw on the sports pages were mostly posed. They were fakes! Those shots of fielders making one-handed catches, of first basemen stretched out on the bag, of runners sliding headlong into base, were phony. Razzle lay on a mat upon his back. Above him leaned the trainer rubbing an enormous medicine ball across his stomach. Around one side and from every position stood the cameramen, two of them mounted on a packing box, others standing on chairs or kneeling beside the mat. Then that piercing whistle called them to practice. As he walked across the diamond he heard someone say,

“Yeah they’re getting Razzle ’cause he’s going in a few innings for the first time this morning.” Nugent was pitching against him. A chance to beat the great Razzle, to bring himself to the attention of the owner sitting there on the clubhouse porch, the newspapermen scattered over the press box, and Gabby himself. If it had only happened ten days before! Now he was worried and uncertain.