Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series (11 page)

Weaver became a ferocious bulldog to the Cincinnati Reds. If Gandil saw him as the enemy, Weaver file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

didn't care: he was there to play ball.

Raymond William Schalk assumed his squatting position behind the plate and got set to receive Cicotte's first pitch. At twenty-seven, he was an old pro. Since 1914, he had been the regular catcher for the White Sox, including the 1917 World Series victory against the Giants. In fact, Cicotte had pitched the opener, just like today, and won it, 2-1. Schalk was called "Cracker," a name derived from his whiplike manner.

He was a little man, five feet, eight inches tall, weighing less than 150 pounds. But there was nobody that size who made a bigger impact on a ball game.

Schalk barked at Cicotte, impatient to get going. His signal to the pitcher was a fast ball. He figured Rath to be taking the first pitch. He was right. The ball crossed the plate, letter high. Rigler grunted,

"Steerike one!"

But Schalk didn't like the pitch. Too high. He had called for it lower. Much lower. Rath liked them up high. Schalk reared back and snapped the return throw with deliberate viciousness, aiming it low, at Cicotte's knees. It was Schalk's way of telling Cicotte what he wanted.

Cicotte bent over to make the catch. He could see the Cracker's glaring eyes through the iron slits of the mask. He turned back to the rubber and set himself for the next pitch. Rath, a fair .260 hitter, stood up there as if he would beg for a base hit. Cicotte could see the pattern clearly enough: curve him, low. A foul strike, maybe. Strike two. Knuckle ball. If it was in there, Rath would pop it up. Cicotte's fast ball was jumping today. On a day like this, he could go down the entire order that way. One, two, three; one, two, three. To Cicotte, there wouldn't be a dangerous man on that club. He'd been around enough to know. He'd sat behind the screen during batting practice, watching them hit.

Cicotte set himself and picked up the Cracker's sign. Curve ball. The Cracker knew the pattern, too.

Sooner or later, Cicotte was sure Schalk would get on to him.

He wound up and reared back to throw. This was one pitch he had to put something special on. He let it go hard. It spun in rapidly, exactly the way he wanted it to.

It hit Rath squarely in the back. Right between the shoulder blades.

Arnold Rothstein walked out of the Ansonia onto Broadway. It was raining in New York, adding to the unreality of following the ball game in a crowded room. He flagged a taxi and instructed the driver to take him to his offices on West 46th Street, the site of one of his gambling clubs. The taxi sped down Broadway to Times Square. Despite the rain, several thousand people were gathered beneath the Times Building watching the re-enactment of the game. Dummy figures were spread out in position on a huge board simulating a ball field. Rothstein got a glimpse of it. He could see the huge green diamond and, on it, the pawns of his own power. Cicotte had given the sign and Rothstein was pleased. He had decided he would plunge another $100,000 on the Reds.

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Charles Comiskey sat in a box along the first base line. All day he'd been telling himself that maybe he'd been making a mountain out of this thing. Perhaps all the filthy talk was really much too fantastic for credulity. He'd let himself be terrorized by it. He'd let a bunch of tinhorn gamblers and pack-rat rumormongers shake him up. He'd been in the world of baseball all his life and never so much as dreamt anything like this could possibly happen to him. The whole thing was preposterous. These boys would never let themselves in for such nonsense.

Before the fourth inning began, Cicotte threw five warm-up pitches to Schalk. Simple warm-up tosses, but the Cracker fired the ball back to him faster than the pitcher had. Another Schalk message to look alive. Cicotte tried to ignore it. He didn't want any trouble from Schalk now. He'd thrown only three innings, but suddenly he was tired. Apparently, it was taking more out of him to lose a game than to win one. He had to let them hit the key blow without tipping his hand. He had to fool everybody, including Schalk, a feat as difficult as pitching a no-hitter.

It was a 1-1 ball game. The outfielders were set. Joe Jackson out in left, his hands resting on his knees.

Cicotte could ask himself: was Jackson going to help him lose this ball game? And Felsch in center.

Would he drop one in the clutch? Cicotte was afraid that they would not. They all wanted to look good.

They would leave it up to him to lose this ball game. It figured.
He
got the ten grand.

"Batter up…let's go!" Rigler barked.

Cicotte turned and toed the rubber. He looked at Edd Roush, waving his big bat at him. Schalk went into his squat and signaled for a knuckler. Cicotte took his time, wound up, and let it go. He took something off it, not much, just enough to give Roush time to get a decent look at the wobbles as the ball floated to him. The big man took a big cut at the ball and laid a lot of wood on it. Cicotte knew at once it would go a long way.

He watched Happy Felsch take off for it. Deep, deep into center field he raced, glancing artfully over his shoulder as the towering shot soared toward the fence. Cicotte figured Felsch would short leg it, and the ball would drop, roll to the wall. It should be good for a triple. But Hap seemed to gather speed as the ball started sinking. Ten feet from the wall, he reached out on the dead run and pulled it in. The crowd bellowed at the thrill of it, furious at Felsch's robbery. Cicotte turned back to the mound, knowing how right he had been: they would all dump it on him.

He reared back this time and threw his fast ball right at Pat Duncan's head. The batter fell away, just in time. Cicotte's fast ball really had something on it when he got mad. His next pitch, a curve, hung in the air and Duncan slapped at it neatly, into right center for a base hit. The crowd came alive again. A base hit in Cincinnati sounded like a batting rally.

He faced Larry Kopf now. Kopf lashed at the first pitch, a fast ball right down the pipe. But all he could do was bound it back at the mound. Cicotte gloved it, an instantaneous, protective reflex. All his years in baseball governed his move now. He turned to start the simple double play: Cicotte to Risberg to Gandil.

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But this time he turned slowly. He hesitated. His throw to Risberg was deliberately high. He was in time to get Duncan racing to second, but he didn't give the Swede enough time to complete the play. Kopf beat the throw to first by a full step.

In the press box, Hugh Fullerton saw the play and didn't like it at all. He turned to Matty, and as if on cue, their eyes met. Gravely, Matty nodded. It didn't look right to him either. Fullerton recorded the play on the score card and penciled a heavy circle around it. This was the first one.

Yet it seemed strange to him. What for? If Cicotte had delayed intentionally, wasn't it a stupid move? He had two out now and a runner on first, hardly a threatening position to be in. If he wanted to throw the game, he might better have pitched the ball out of Risberg's reach, into center field.

Fullerton leaned forward, more nervous than he'd been since the opening pitch.

"Greasy" Neale was waiting at the plate. Cicotte glanced over his shoulder at Kopf on first, then pitched.

Neale cut hard, sent a hard shot on the ground through the middle. Risberg cut sharply to his left and stopped it, but he couldn't make the play. There were runners on first and second now.

Ivy Wingo, Reds' catcher, stepped in to hit. He took one cut at the ball and lined a single to right, scoring Kopf, sending Neale to third. Wingo took second as Shano Collins threw desperately to the plate, hoping to cut down the front runner. The crowd was bellowing with joy now. There was only one run in, but it sounded like a dozen.

To Fullerton, Cicotte seemed angry. He pawed the mound, busying himself until the dust had cleared.

Schalk roared at him from behind the plate. It all seemed exaggerated, for there was little to sweat about.

Two out and the pitcher up, Dutch Reuther, no better than a fair hitter.

Cicotte curved him, low and away. Ball one. Then Reuther took a vicious cut and lashed a tremendous drive to left center. Jackson and Felsch took off after it, but they couldn't get near it. The crowd leaped to its feet and watched Reuther pull into third base standing up. Two more runs had crossed the plate.

The noise was deafening.

Fullerton turned back to Matty and saw his smile. The Reds had been his ball club only a year before.

He must feel proud of them now.

"When the bottom of the order starts hitting you, it just isn't your day," Matty said.

It seemed clear to the greatest pitcher of them all that it was just a question of Cicotte not having his best stuff today.

In the dugout, Kid Gleason just sat there, unwilling to believe what he saw. A bunch of .250 hitters were file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

teeing off on his ace. It didn't make sense. Surely Cicotte would pitch to Rath now and retire the side. He would settle down for the remainder of the game while the big Chicago hitters started moving. They would open up for a big inning or two, just as they'd done dozens of times during the summer. That's the way it would go.

Out in the field, the infielders had gathered around Cicotte.

Gleason knew what they were doing: keeping him company till this screaming mob subsided.

In the bull pen, he had Roy Wilkinson warming up. Gleason debated about pulling Cicotte with the score at 4-1, then decided to stick with his original estimate. They'd win this game with Cicotte.

Gleason moved to the dugout steps. "All right!" he hollered at the conference on the field. "Let's get the inning over!"

The boys jogged back to their positions and Cicotte went to work on Rath. Immediately, Gleason feared he was making a mistake. The pitch was a badly thrown curve ball, down and away. His second one missed by even more. Schalk was raging. Cicotte was tight-lipped and grim. Rath got set for the third pitch and lashed a hard shot that Weaver dove for futilely. Reuther scored while Rath beat the throw into second. Gleason moved to the top step of the dougout; Cicotte threw one bad pitch after another to Jake Daubert, moving the count to three and one. Then bang, another shot through the infield, and Rath scored from second. The score, 6-1.

At this point, Gleason charged out of the dugout. The crowd screamed when they saw him, enjoying his anger and his grief. He stood on the baseline and hollered at Cicotte. It was as if he was afraid to go all the way to the mound, afraid of what he might do.

"That's all, goddammit. That's all!"

He waved to the bull pen for Wilkinson to finish the fourth inning and then turned abruptly back to the dugout.

The city of Cincinnati was loyal to its 45,000 school kids. The 45,000 school kids were extremely loyal to the Cincinnati ball club. The principals of its several hundreds schools were instructed to post the score on convenient bulletin boards. At three o'clock, just before dismissal, the halls were crowded in front of the handmade scoreboards. They read:

Chicago

0 1 0 0

Cincinnati 1 0 0

The kids wondered why the score to complete the fourth inning was taking so long. They grabbed their file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

books and empty lunch boxes and hurried into the warm October sunshine to find out.

In the press box, Ring Lardner was already writing his syndicated article. "…The White Sox only chance at this point was to keep the Reds hitting until darkness fell and made it an unfinished legal game. But Heinie Groh finally hit a ball that Felsch could not help from catching and gummed up another piece of strategem."

If the ball game was death, the White Sox locker room was the morgue. The game finally ended at 9-1.

The ballplayers showered in total silence.

Ray Schalk was boiling with the defeat. There is something unique about the position of a catcher that intensifies the emotion of a ball game. He, alone, sees the entire action in front of him, feels the presence of the umpire behind him, urges his will on every pitch, on every ball-strike decision. He squats behind the hitter, hollering through an iron-leather mask, working a pitcher, harassing the batters, getting meaning out of every pitch. Schalk was relentless. The pitcher was his own special baby; the infielders were his nephews. He barked at them all, hustled them, made them work, made them think, made them play ball. And when they didn't, he raged.

Still, like the others, he kept silent now. Even when Gleason came in, glaring at them all with the look of an injured lion—a look that Schalk had never seen before.

Kid Gleason just stood there, staring out over the locker room. Instinct told him he was going to be a loser. He looked at the players, trying to find the answer in their faces. Where was Cicotte? Someone said he had already left. He had showered early and taken off. Gleason scowled. He had to find out the truth. He had to find out what he did not want to know.

Lefty Williams, Joe Jackson, and Fred McMullin drove back to the Sinton with Sammy Pass, the businessman who, out of his love for these boys, had bet with Attell. At this unhappy moment, he tried to be cheerful: "We'll get them tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yeah," someone said.

Sammy was undaunted. "You'd better win." He grinned. "I got three thousand soldiers marching on you guys!"

Lefty Williams was sitting next to him. "Sammy, I don't think you should risk your dough on us." His voice was pitched low, lower than usual. He was obviously uneasy.

"What do you mean?" Pass asked. "Isn't your arm okay?"