Prairie Hardball (6 page)

Like most couples, Andy and I can read each other’s minds, and seen through his urban eyes, the whole scene—the pathetic decorations; the forty-ounce poodle; the old team photos glued to Bristol board; the hairdos, the clothes; the hearty back-slapping laughter of the men at the bar; the assembly of eccentric women in corsages with their nicknames and their jokes that were corny the first time around, fifty years before—was hokey beyond anything he’d ever seen in Toronto, even in hard-core suburbia. It was un-cool, un-hip, un-chic, It was un-Toronto. There wasn’t a leaf of radicchio in sight.

But I feared that he could never see the scene as I saw it: a community ritual, a clan gathering of decent people, genuinely warm and friendly, so downright nice, so like the folks who crowd my memories of childhood. These are my people, and I resented Andy for making me embarrassed to be one of them. When the pianist played “When the Saints Go Marching In” and the head table guests entered behind an RCMP constable in ceremonial red serge and everybody at all the tables stood up and clapped in rhythm, I could barely see Mum through the tears of pride.

We stayed on our feet to sing “O Canada” (in English only), and to receive the benediction from the local Catholic priest. We toasted Her Majesty the Queen. We sat down.

The master of ceremonies for the evening was a skinny little guy with a three-ball voice and a fuzzy moustache, who turned out to be the program director at a local private radio station and clearly something of a Battleford celebrity. He certainly had a face for radio. After welcoming us, he explained that dinner would be served buffet-style, in order of table number, starting with Table One. There were loud groans and laughter from everybody on our side of the room.

Then the emcee introduced the head table, and asked for a moment of silence in honour of deceased Hall of Fame members. Then he mentioned the notable guests: a former leader of the provincial Conservative Party, five previous inductees, the local federal member of parliament (a New Democrat, I was pleased to note), two aldermen, the mayor of North Battleford, and, of course, Inspector Digby. The biggest hand was for Dave Shury, chairman of the Hall of Fame, a good-looking older man who acknowledged the applause from a wheelchair.

“That Dave’s quite a guy,” said the man on my right, round as a doughnut and bald as an egg. “I guess you know him.”

I admitted that I hadn’t had the pleasure.

“Oh, well, you have to meet him. Without him, there wouldn’t be a Hall of Fame. There wouldn’t even be a Saskatchewan Baseball Association. He’s our guiding genius, afflicted as he is. He can do more from that chair than any two able-bodied men.”

“It’s certainly impressive,” I agreed. “I’m Kate Henry, by the way. My mother was a Belle. Is your wife one of the players?”

“Oh, no. Never had one of them. I came along with my pal Garth Elshaw. He’s up there on the platform representing his late sister Wilma, may she rest in peace. Morley Timms is the name.”

I shook his hand and introduced those in our group within earshot, including my father, Claire, Andy, and Jack Wilton, who was across the table from Timms.

“Well, then I guess you knew Wilma, too,” Timms said.

“Of course,” Jack said. “She was my mother’s best friend. And she was like a second mother to me.”

He turned to me.

“My mother and Aunt Wilma had a business together in Fort Wayne after their playing days were over. The All-American All-Star Flower Shoppe. Two
p
s and an
e.
They thought it was classier that way. Wilma did the arrangements and Mom ran the business. And we all lived in the apartment above the store.”

“My condolences to you on your loss,” Timms said.

“Thank you,” Jack said, then explained to me. “Aunt Wilma died of cancer in March. Just after we heard about the Hall of Fame. So at least she knew.”

He had bought a bottle of wine, and he poured some for me, then motioned it towards the older man’s empty glass.

“No thanks,” he said. “Don’t indulge. Haven’t touched the stuff in more than forty years.”

He turned to me and tapped his temple.

“Keep the head clear, and anything’s possible,” he said. “That’s my motto.”

“And an admirable one it is,” my father said. “By the way, have you met Bert Goodman, on the other side of you?”

The two shook hands, and Goodman muttered a greeting. Peter Deneka was across the table, and I introduced him to my father.

“It’s nice to see so many of you here,” Deneka said.

“We’ve taken over the table, I’m afraid,” my father said.

“Well, that’s a good thing,” Deneka said. “It’s good you’re so proud of her. Our kids couldn’t be here. Too far to come. Our son’s in Ontario, working for the Hydro there, and the daughter sells real estate in British Columbia.”

“That’s the way it is these days,” my father said. “All the young people move away.”

“That’s the truth, but who can blame them? There’s nothing for them here. My son didn’t want to be a farmer,” Deneka said. “I don’t know why not. You freeze in the winter, broil in the summer, and work seven days a week just to pay the interest on your bank loan. That’s if the gophers and grasshoppers don’t get your crop.”

He laughed heartily. Farmer humour.

“Where do you farm?” Timms asked.

“I don’t anymore,” he said. “My wife hasn’t been well, and what with no one to help me run it, I sold and moved into town. To Esterhazy, for the hospital and all.”

“We’re from over that way, too,” my father said. “We’re in Indian Head.”

“Well, you got yourself some baseball history over there. Did you ever play?”

My father laughed.

“No, that was my wife’s department. I never had the athletic talent.”

“I remember those tournaments they had there, back in the fifties. They’d draw ten thousand people. That’s when they had those Negro players Jimmy Robison brought up from the south. Oh, he was a smart one, all right. The Indian Head Rockets. Didn’t they just win everything for a while there?”

“That was before my time in Indian Head,” Daddy said. “I’ve heard about it, of course, but I never saw them play.”

“That’s too bad. Those were good times. I saw some pictures of those teams over at the Hall of Fame this afternoon. Surely brought back memories.”

“We haven’t gone yet,” I said. “We’re going over tomorrow. I think there’s a plan for all the Belles to go together.”

“Yes, I know about that. At eleven,” Deneka said. “We’ll be there. And, look, it’s finally our turn at the trough.”

The people from the table behind us were returning with full plates. We stood up. Morley Timms helped me with my chair.

“Ladies first,” he said.

The keynote speech was an apparent inning-by-inning history of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, delivered by a sports historian from Winnipeg. Her research was commendable, but her delivery was dismal. When she finally wound down, the applause was delivered more out of gratitude than appreciation.

Her audience, at least the part of it in my immediate vicinity, was suffering from the torpor that comes after a big meal. We had been fed chicken in a vaguely oriental sauce, with mushroom rice, corn niblets, and several salads, along with dinner rolls. Dessert was strawberry shortcake, with whipped cream from a can. By the time the speech was over, our coffee cups were empty, the dessert plates were sticky, and I was dying for a smoke and a pee, not necessarily in that order. I was about to sneak out when the master of ceremonies went to the podium.

“Now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” he said. “In a just a few minutes, the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame will have received twenty new members, twenty new
female
members, into its honoured ranks.”

“It’s about time, too,” a woman shouted from the back of the room, to the obvious amusement of the head table.

I apologized to my bladder, and promised not to feed it any more coffee if it would just behave itself for another half-hour.

“Our first honouree hails from the town of Watrous. For six years, she backed up the plate for the Racine Belles . . .”

As he introduced her, a grinning Edna Summers stood up and was escorted slowly from the table by a well-set-up young usher in a pale blue tuxedo. He brought her to centre stage in front of the head table, where the video camera was set up.

“Three times an all-star, she will always be remembered for the home run she hit off Gull Lake’s own Willetta Heising to win the 1946 championship over the Rockford Peaches.”

Great laughter, as, on the dais, the guilty party put her head down on her folded arms and pretended to cry.

“Because Edna Summers was Edna Adams during most of her career, she alphabetically qualifies to become the first woman to be inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame. I present Edna Adams Summers.”

“Way to go Edna,” came the shout from the woman heckler at the back, followed by applause.

“Please, ladies and gentlemen, hold your applause until all the inductees have been announced,” the radio guy said. “Unless you want to be here all night.”

Andy leaned over to me.

“You mean we haven’t already been?”

The emcee waited for Edna to be photographed receiving her plaque, and then went on to the next player, a catcher for the Peaches, who was, in turn, escorted to the place of honour.

With applause obediently withheld, the induction moved quickly along, each woman, or the one accepting on her behalf, receiving her plaque and posing for a commemorative two-shot. Some were shy and hesitant, others bold and brassy. When it was my mother’s turn, she stood shyly, but with her head held high. Claire couldn’t restrain herself, and shouted out, “Yay, Gram!” Sheila shushed her. I winked. Virna Wilton was the last, and after she received her plaque, she went to the podium.

“I have been asked to respond on behalf of all the girls here tonight,” she said. “I am honoured to have been chosen. Of course it’s probably because I’m the last one up.”

Chuckles all around. Virna was the most famous of them all, the one who made the cover of
Life
magazine the year the league was founded.

“It’s been quite a day,” she continued. “Meeting with my teammates and our former foes, talking about the good old days, has been a wonderful experience. But above all, to be recognized by the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame Committee as a part of the baseball history of our home province is especially sweet.

“As most of you know, I don’t live here anymore. With my friend and colleague Wilma Elshaw, I stayed on in Fort Wayne after the league folded and we made a business and a home for ourselves. I’m sorry she couldn’t be with us tonight.”

Her voice faltered, just for a moment. I looked at Jack, who was staring intently at her, tense in his chair, willing her to make it through. She smiled at him, then continued.

“Her brother, Garth, and I were speaking earlier about what kind of message she would have wanted me to deliver on her behalf. Because she exemplified the spirit of our league. She was tenacious, determined, and full of life and the sense of fun that surrounded everything she did. I think she would have wanted to say that the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League gave meaning to her life, as it did to the lives of all of us here. That it wasn’t easy way back then to pull up roots and chase a dream, but it was worth it. Some called us crazy, many said it wasn’t a womanly thing to do. But we did it anyway, and in doing it, changed our lives forever. And tonight, we thank you all for the honour you have given us, and are proud that we showed them what players from Saskatchewan are made of. Thank you very much.”

The applause started at the head table and spread around the room, but she put up her hand for quiet.

When the room fell silent again, she squared her shoulders in her Belles uniform and began to sing, in a clear and true soprano voice.

“Batter up. Hear that call. The time has come for one and all. To play ball.”

Behind her, the other women pushed back their chairs to stand and join her. Edna Summers made her way to the piano, sat down at the bench, and began to play the peppy tune.

“For we’re the members of the All-American League.
We come from cities near and far.
We have Canadians, Irishmen, and Swedes.
We’re one for all, we’re all for one,
We’re All-American.”

The audience began clapping in rhythm, the women at the table linked arms.

“Each girl holds her head so proudly high,
Her motto do or die.
She’s not the one to use or need an alibi.
Our chaperones are not too soft and they’re not too tough,
We’ve got a president who really knows his stuff.
We’re one for all, we’re all for one,
We’re All-American.”

As bad as the song was, they sang it wonderfully. When they had sung it twice through, the women on the dais milled around, hugging and laughing. The stand-ins, like Garth Elshaw, looked embarrassed, but pleased to be part of it all.

“Look at your mother,” Andy said. “She’s flying high.”

She was a woman I had never seen before, her Mrs.-the-Reverend dignity thrown out the window that memory had opened. All of them looked younger than they had when they first came into the room. They
were
younger, because they had all stepped through memory’s window.

The formal part of the evening wasn’t quite over. The emcee stepped back to the podium to thank everyone.

Then, as is apparently traditional at the induction banquet, we finished with one last song: what else, but “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Everybody stood, clasped hands, and swayed back and forth and sang with great gusto. I know I did. So did my father, and Sheila and the girls. Damned if that corny song didn’t catch even Andy up into its spell.

Once it was over, I excused myself quickly and headed for the Ladies’ room. As I left it, I saw Jack Wilton, on his way out of the Men’s. Spontaneously, we hugged each other. He had a nice hard body, and he held on a moment too long.

“You must be so proud of your mother,” I said.

“Wasn’t she something else?”

Morley Timms came out of the Men’s room, and almost bumped into us.

“Upsy-daisy, excuse me! Not watching where I’m going.”

“That can be dangerous,” I said.

“I’m just lost in a fog,” he smiled. “All those beautiful women just spin my head. Your mother’s one in a million, Mr. Wilton, I’ve got to tell you. One in a million.”

He turned to me.

“Your mother, too, of course, she’s one in a million, too.”

“Guess that makes them two in a million, eh, Mr. Timms?” Jack laughed.

“You got ’er, fella,” he responded, then tottered off, chuckling. “Two in a million, that’s a good one.”

“He’s quite a character,” I said.

“I’ve never met anyone named Morley before. I’ve always wanted to.”

“I guess it’s a very Canadian name.”

“We had a dog called Morley when I was a kid.”

“So what happens now, do you think?” I asked.

“I suspect we’re going to be around for a while yet. Could I interest you in a cocktail?”

“You’ve said the magic word.”

He offered me his arm, with a slight bow. I took it, with a slight curtsey. The first person I saw when we sashayed back into the room was Andy. He was standing with a couple of strangers, and didn’t look at all pleased, despite the pink poodle he cradled in his arms.

I steered Jack in his direction, then let go of his arm.

“I think Andy needs rescuing,” I said. “He looks a bit trapped.”

“Oh, those are the policemen we talked to this afternoon.”

Now that I looked, I realized they both might as well have had COP stamped on their foreheads. I stepped next to Andy.

“There you are,” I said, brightly. “I see you have a new friend.”

Andy grinned and held the poodle out to me.

“Your prize, madame,” he said.

“Mine?”

“The bunnies won.”

“Congratulations,” said the younger of the two men.

“Oh, yes, sorry,” Andy said. “This is Staff Sergeant Mickey Morris of the Battlefords RCMP, and Inspector Walter Digby, the head of the detachment.”

“It’s very nice to meet you both,” I said. “And I’m glad that you were right about those letters. Everything went off without a hitch.”

“It did,” Digby said. “It was certainly an unusual evening, but, happily, uneventful. Good evening, Mr. Wilton. Nice to see you again. Your mother is quite a woman.”

“Yes, I think I’ve heard that sentiment before,” he said.