Rookie of the Year (3 page)

Spike Russell seldom talked as much as that to outsiders. For a moment he forgot he was addressing a sportswriter. Then he turned away as the umpires gathered around home plate.

Ten minutes later he was sitting beside Fat Stuff while the Dodgers were taking their raps. Whenever possible the young manager sat beside his old hurler, never failing to learn something valuable. The old timer had a knuckle ball, a screw-ball, control, the whole tempered with aggressiveness. Best of all, he had a thorough knowledge of the hitters. Together, manager and pitcher discussed Danny Lee, the home-run slugger of the last place Phils.

“If only we can handcuff that guy, this team is a pushover, Fat Stuff.”

The old fellow nodded. “Yeah. You know he strikes out prob’ly more than anyone in the National League; but he’s a darn dangerous man in a tight spot. And he’s bad medicine for the lefties; glad I pitch right-handed.”

“Yeah, he really owns the lefties, doesn’t he? How you plan to throw to him, Freddy?”

“Well, he’s a loosey-goosey at the plate. Thing to do is to avoid giving him that letter-high fast ball across the middle. He hits that one out of sight. Two years ago in the All-Star game in the Yankee Stadium, I seen him belt one of Royal Davis’ pitches clean out into the bullpen in deep center. Boy, that’s a good bit over four hundred and fifty feet. Yessir, he can paste it. Well now, you can throw to Danny Lee four ways to get him out. The spots to pitch to him are: high, inside; high, outside; low, inside; low, outside. Oh... say... looka that catch! Roy was robbed that time. That’s tough, Roy.” Fat Stuff picked up his glove, shifted his wad in his mouth, hitched at his pants, and went out to the mound to go to work.

The game was close from the start. Few men got on base; those who did died there. The Brooks were hitting hard but right at the fielders, hits that didn’t mean a thing. The Phillie pitcher was stingy, and as the game progressed they kept returning scoreless to the bench after each inning.

“Say... aren’t you boys going to get me any markers?” complained the old pitcher. “Hey there, what’s the matter with you guys?”

Spike became almost ashamed, watching the veteran pitch his heart out, putting the opposing side down in short order at the plate, yet still without a run to win. Finally, in the eighth, they managed to squeeze across one tally. Fat Stuff squelched a rally in the last of the eighth himself, with a beautiful stop of a hard hit ball to the left of the box. Finally they came into the last half of the ninth, still clinging to that precarious lead. Two men went down in routine fashion. The Brooks peppered the ball around the infield, chattering at Fat Stuff, everyone thinking of those cooling showers, of dinner, and the end of a hard, hot day. Then the third batter hit a long, lazy single.

The sparse crowd, scattered throughout the huge stadium at Shibe Park, now paused at the exits and began to come to life. Fat Stuff went to work on the next batter. He’s careful now, thought Spike, he’s throwing careful to get this man. Actually, the veteran pitched far too carefully and lost him, giving up his first base on balls of the game. Plain to see the old pitcher was tiring. The next batter topped a slow ball toward third and beat out Harry Street’s throw by a foot. Three on, last of the ninth, and Danny Lee, the club’s heavy hitter, strode to the plate while the home crowd yelled. This was the big moment.

Spike looked anxiously at the bullpen where Rats Doyle and Rog Stinson were burning in their throws. Then he glanced back at old Fat Stuff, standing quietly on the mound in that din of noise and clap-clapping from the stands. Shall I yank him? No, siree! I’m gonna stay with him. He’s pitched one swell game, and he’s the foxiest man I’ve got in a spot such as this. Besides, it’ll show the kids like Hathaway that I stay with my pitchers; it’ll build up that lad’s confidence in himself....

The first ball was high, inside, and Danny Lee swung under it a foot, so hard he swung right off his feet. The swing checked the noise in the stands abruptly. The next pitch was high, outside. The batter looked at it, and now the count was even at one and one.

The roar over the half-empty ballpark resumed. From his position in deep short, playing for a force-out at second, Spike watched Jocko Klein’s signal. The veteran shook the kid off. He took the next signal and nodded. The ball was going low; low, inside. The batter took his cut, only got hold of a piece of it, and fouled it into the stands. One and two. Again the old chap was ahead of the man at the plate.

Then something made Spike turn to glance at the scoreboard, and he saw the figures on the game in Cincinnati; Chicago, 3, Cinci, 1. The Dodgers would be in third place! One more pitch, one more good pitch and we’re in third, and we won’t look back, either. C’mon now, Fat Stuff. One more pitch. “Lay it in there, boy; O.K., now.... Let him see it, Fat Stuff... old kid, old boy... alla time now, alla time....”

Without any wind-up the veteran threw. It was low, outside, and would certainly have been called a ball had the home-run hitter of the Phils not swung at it, swung well over it for the third strike. High, inside; high, outside; low, inside; low, outside. Three strikes and the game was over!

The Dodgers were in third place. Their highest standing of the season. Triumphantly they rushed for the showers, jubilant at having won and pulled up from sixth to third. Now the team was moving at last. Spike found himself trudging along beside Charlie Draper, the coach, his jacket slung over his shoulder, the leather ball-bag in one hand. The coach knew baseball. He shook his head in admiration at the veteran’s canny pitching.

“Yessir, he really has what it takes, that man Foster, he really has. Y’know, Spike, this would be quite a ballclub if everyone hustled same as old Fat Stuff.”

Spike looked quickly around. He hoped some of the young pitchers heard that crack.

“It sure would,” he agreed.

A
WEEK LATER
S
PIKE
was seated in a taxi in Chicago on the way from the hotel to Wrigley Field with Bill Hanson, the club secretary, and Charlie Draper, the coach. Spike went back to the game of the previous afternoon. “Shoot! We never should have lost that one yesterday. Made me mad!”

“Me, too. It was a tough one for Bones Hathaway to lose,” rejoined Charlie. “He pitched first-class ball. Why, he was flipping little peas to those Cub batters. His fast ball was right pert.”

“Yeah,” said Spike, “the kid has it. He has the know-how of pitching. What I like about him is his stance after he’s thrown, both feet planted firmly before him in perfect fielding position.”

“He’s one of the best fielding pitchers I’ve ever seen,” said Hanson sagely. “The best since Snicker Doane of the Yanks.” Hanson had been around baseball for years, and always harked back to an era in the game no one else could remember. Consequently no one could ever contradict him. “He’s gonna help this club plenty, if he’ll only let the liquor alone.”

“He’d better,” replied the young manager firmly. “He’d better unless he wants some thin salary checks coming up. What time’s the train for St. Loo leave tonight, Bill?”

“Six-thirty. Don’t go into extra innings. Shall we give the boys dinner money?”

“Uhuh. Give ’em dinner money.” Spike went back again to the game of the previous afternoon. “So help me, Charlie, we should never have dropped that one.”

Although he addressed the remark to Charlie on his left, it was Hanson, somewhat to Spike’s annoyance, who answered. “Nope. Here we are in the second week in August. Doesn’t look too good, does it?”

Now Spike really was annoyed. Sometimes he wondered whether Hanson was for him or against him. But he knew that all club secretaries thought they knew more baseball than any of the players, so he controlled himself and answered courteously. “Bill, I’m afraid you don’t know your baseball history. D’ja ever hear of the 1921 Giants winning after being seven and a half games behind in late August? Or the Yanks blowing a 13-game lead in 1928, and just barely limping home? Or the 1935 Cubs staging a 21-game, late-season winning streak? Or the Pirates building a World Series press box in 1938 that was never used? Or the Cards catching the Dodgers from ten games back in August, 1942, and...”

“Maybe you got something there, Spike, maybe you got something there. I just meant...” Hanson was the sort of person who agreed with anybody who put up an argument. But Spike wished to squelch that defeatist talk. It could hurt the club badly.

“If you’re trying to hint to me the outlook is dark, I say nuts to all that, Bill. I know baseball history. I haven’t been round as long as you have but I’ve seen enough to know this team won’t stop until they flash the mathematics on us. I never said we’d win the pennant. I don’t go in for predictions. I only said we gotta chance. I said that back in June, when we were hanging on to seventh place; I said it in July when we were fifth; and I say it today when we’re third. Yes, even if we did drop an important one yesterday.”

“Yeah... yeah... oh, yeah, that’s right. You’re dead right, Spike....”

Charlie Draper felt the atmosphere tighten. He spoke up. “We needn’t have lost that game yesterday at all if young Baldwin hadn’t gone into third standing up in the sixth. Too darned lazy to hit the dirt, he was. Went in standing up, so he was out; then Klein hits that double which would have won us the game. Spike, it’s what you were saying the other day, the effect of nine men giving their best over a hundred and fifty-four days; that means ten or fifteen games, that extra effort.”

How to get this extra effort, how to make each player come through with his best all the time, which man to drive, which to coax along, which to holler at, that’s the job of the manager. That’s my job, thought Spike, looking out the taxi window. “Charlie, I like to kill that kid right there on the spot before the crowd. I was so mad I couldn’t speak to him last night. I did this morning, though. I had breakfast with him and told him a few things. ‘That cost us a mighty important game, boy, and it’s gonna cost you fifty bucks,’ I told him.”

“How’d he take it?”

“How could he take it?”

“Just the same, Spike, the team’s rolling better since you traded Case and stuck in this boy there in left field. Y’know, Case was a trouble-maker.”

“Sure,” Hanson spoke up. “Karl Case was the one who started all that name-calling with Jocko Klein. Look at Jocko now. What a ballplayer he turned out to be.”

“Always was,” said Spike sharply. “He always was a ballplayer. And the way he backs up with men on base is just something. I bet he saved us three different times in tight spots yesterday.”

“Doggone, then that dopey kid Baldwin has to go and lose it for us. Shoot, we would have picked up a whole game on the Cards. The Pirates, too.”

“Raz Nugent says we lost yesterday because he hasn’t got locker 13.” Hanson grinned. “Says we always lose in this town when he hasn’t got locker 13. He’s trying the worst way to get Harry Street to change, and Harry won’t, ’cause he went three for five the other day and wants to hang onto that number.”

“These birds are sure funny,” said Draper. “D’ja ever notice Roy Tucker at bat? When he first comes up he always taps the four corners of the plate.”

“Yeah, an’ Jocko Klein always puts his left shoe on first.”

“An’ Fat Stuff, if he wins a game he wears the same inner socks until he loses; why, he’ll wear ’em until they fall off him.”

“Remember that trick of Razzle’s, the way after every inning he chucks his glove across the foul line ahead of him, then when he reaches it, leans over and moves it so the fingers point toward third base? Well, I was asking him about that the other day. He says there’s folks stop him on the street and question him; says they come out to the ball park just to see him do it.”

“That big guy’ll slay me,” remarked Hanson. “Over in Cinci he got hold of a pair of rabbits and kept them four days in his room in the Netherlands Plaza. They ate up four square yards of rug. The hotel people like to throw us all out of the place. I made Raz pay for it though, every red cent.”

The taxi drew up at the side entrance to the field. Spike stepped out, and instantly the trio was assaulted by a mob of kids.

“Hey, Mr. Russell... give us yer autograph... Mr. Russell, will ya... please....”

B
ILL
H
ANSON WAS
in the grill of the Coronado drinking a highball with Jim Casey of the
News.
Casey had listened to the game that afternoon on a portable radio he had carried into the press box, and was describing the linguistics of Snazzy Beane, the remarkable St. Louis broadcasting genius. Now Casey was giving a fairly good imitation of him.

“He goes into his act something like this. ‘He’s rounding second... the bases are cleared... he’s going into third... folks, he’s did it! He slud into third for a triple!’ ”

Hanson threw back his head. He laughed. His red face became even redder. “Say, no human being but Snazzy Beane could take the verb ‘slide,’ call it ‘slud,’ and make it mean the same thing. Only more so.”

“It’s a fact,” replied Casey. “Look. Who’s that girl over there... at the table with — who is it? Why, it’s Hathaway and Baldwin!”

“Where? Which one?” Hanson instantly stood on the rung of his stool at the bar and looked carefully over the noisy, smoke-filled room.

“There! That table in the corner, there.” The noise of pounding came from one end of the room, and above the din could be heard Hathaway’s strong tones.

“Waiter! Waiter!”

Then he saw them. They were at a corner table with a girl in red. Yes, it was Hathaway and Baldwin, the rookie roommates. He recognized the girl, too, for Hanson had been around. “Why, sure, that’s Jane Andrews, the gal who sings at the Club Royal. I understand Baldwin knows her; they both come from the same town somewhere down in Tennessee.”

The men at the bar watched with interest. The ballplayers were noisy, and the room was watching them. Before long everyone seemed to be aware of the fact that a couple of the Dodgers were back there with a girl at the corner table. Casey after a minute resumed his account of the broadcast of the afternoon’s game.