Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series (14 page)

pounds. Compared with the big men surrounding him, he had always seemed like a little kid.

The Cleveland bench had spent the day jockeying him. "Hey, sonny, where's your momma?" "Raymond, you got your diapers on?" They never stopped; but, then, neither did he. He made plenty of noise and found comfort in bellowing at the White Sox star pitcher, "Big Ed" Walsh (a veteran 27-game winner).

Walsh had helped him by bellowing back. Since that day, Schalk had caught almost 900 official games, always with the gritty determination that nobody would handle it any better than he.

But today Schalk was threatened. There was nothing in his training to cope with the special kind of fear he was aware of. He had heard rumors. Were they true? Cicotte's performance yesterday had baffled file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

him. Maybe he just had a bad day. Schalk squatted now, on the brink of anger. He glared at Williams, waiting for the crowd to subside.

"Watch him!" Gleason had said to Schalk in the clubhouse before the game.

Schalk's impatience was getting the best of him. It was only the first inning and already his nerves were raw. "Dammit, Lefty, let's go!" he barked.

Williams nodded. Schalk wriggled his fingers in his crotch, signaling for a curve ball. They'd been over the hitters carefully. Williams would know exactly where to throw, and Schalk got set to receive the pitch.

Williams had one thing on his mind: How could he lose this ball game without looking bad? In six years on this club, he could not remember having seen Cicotte take such a drubbing as he had yesterday. It had crossed his mind that he ought to talk to him, but one look at Cicotte's face as he had left the field had been enough to deter him. He wondered how the proud Cicotte could have swallowed so much, even for $10,000. Williams had repeated the figure to himself many times. Ten grand would be a lot of money on top of his own $2,600 salary. The arithmetic of the deal made a lot of sense to him.

Williams acknowledged Schalk's sign and began pumping. His arm swung up and around with its usual grace. He let the ball go with a sudden snap of his wrist, sending it spinning to the plate. The curve broke sharply and Rath watched it pass. Umpire Billy Evans shot his black-sleeved left arm up and growled, "Ball one!" Williams's second pitch also missed the corner. The crowd yelled, hungry for a base on balls. Rath worked him to a full count. Williams paused for a moment, knowing he should not walk him. It was vital that he stay on the mound for most of this nine-inning game. He put a little something extra on his fast ball and Rath flied feebly to Felsch in center. One out.

Williams turned, got set to pitch to Daubert. Again, when he threw a curve, it broke off wildly. Schalk shook his fist at Williams and barked something about watching his glove. He had failed to do this. He had let himself fall into a sloppiness he always abhorred. In eight pitches thus far, he had tried to control only one of them. This was not the way he wanted things to go. He had to control the ball game. Every pitch had to mean something. If he was going to lose this game, he had to lose it carefully.

His fast ball cut the inside corner for strike one. Then Daubert fouled back a good curve. Strike two.

Williams curved him again, and Daubert rapped feebly to Risberg who threw perfectly to Gandil at first.

Two outs.

Heinie Groh faced Williams now, waving that crazy bottle bat of his as if he were a cop directing traffic.

Groh swatted the first pitch to right. Shano Collins made a mad dash for it and picked it right off his shoes for the third out.

Chick Gandil moved out of the dugout as Joe Jackson blooped a cheap double to center field. He file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

grabbed his two bats, swung them back and forth a few times to get loose, then knelt in the batter's circle. Hap Felsch was up and would sacrifice, sending Joe to third. It would then be up to Gandil to keep him there, not so easy to do with one out. The infield had moved in on the grass, thinking only of keeping that runner from scoring. This, of course, gave the hitter a big advantage. All he had to do was slap one by them….

Gandil discarded his second bat and walked to the plate. He checked to see if Gleason would signal for a squeeze play. No. Gandil got set, but for the first time in his life he was actually afraid of rapping out a base hit. This sort of thing took skill.

Sallee took a cautious windup and fired for the low, outside corner. Gandil stepped into the pitch and met it squarely, but without power. He rapped it artfully, directly at Kopf, the shortstop. Kopf fielded it cleanly, held Jackson at third, then threw to first in time to get Gandil.

Gandil raced past first, turned back to the dugout. He had played his role skillfully. As an added gesture, he kicked at the earth in simulated anger.

Two out, now and Risberg moved to the plate. Gandil could rely on the Swede. He moved into a corner of the dugout, but didn't have to stay there long: Risberg flied to right field on the second pitch, ending the inning. The threat was over. No score.

Kid Gleason was having another bad day. The previous night's explosion of anger had brought him no relief. Now, he no longer knew what to think or how to act, though at the moment, his boys were looking good out there. They were starting to hit the ball hard. There was that wonderful feeling in the air of the pending big eruption, the kind of big inning that had won so many games for him all season.

Williams, though a bit shaky at the start, seemed sharp. He moved through the bottom of the second without any trouble. In the top of the third inning, Schalk blasted a tremendous drive to the left-field roof, just foul, then lined sharply to Roush in left center. Williams singled to left. Shano Collins hit another line smash to left that Duncan was lucky to get a glove on. Eddie Collins ended the inning with a shot to third that Groh caught to protect himself. They were hitting the ball hard. Sooner or later, they'd start to drop safely. That's the way of baseball.

To end the third inning, Williams was brilliant again. He fanned Greasy Neale. Reds catcher, Bill Rariden, skied to Jackson in shallow left field. Sallee popped up to Weaver.

When Weaver and Jackson opened the fourth with singles back to back, Gleason was ready for the turning point. He had Felsch sacrifice again, moving the two runners to scoring position. With one out and the infield in close, surely Gandil could push one through this time! But Gandil grounded to Daubert at first base, and Daubert caught Weaver at the plate. Risberg followed by looking sick again, popping feebly to Daubert. Another inning without score.

Gleason had been through this same pattern of defeat two innings before.

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Up in the press box, Hugh Fullerton was enjoying the game. He watched Lefty Williams take the mound at the bottom of the fourth, confident that he was going to have another fine day. Fullerton had seen this great ball club frequently enough to sense the pattern of the game. Like Gleason, he anticipated a big White Sox inning to come.

Williams's first pitch to Rath was low and outside. His second was high, just missing. The Cincinnati crowd started roaring again, impatient to break the 0-0 deadlock. Williams pawed the dirt around the mound with his spikes. It was something to do while he took a breather. Gandil left his position and sauntered to the mound. The big first baseman put his hand on Williams's shoulder and talked earnestly to him.

The ball game waited for the conference to end, but not the crowd. Any sign of Chicago weakness was inspirational. They started to get on Williams with all they had.

Williams got set and threw. Rath took strike one, right down the middle. The count moved cautiously to three and two. Williams missed the plate with a bad pitch. Rath drew the first base on balls, and the crowd screamed approval.

Daubert followed with a sacrifice bunt, moving Rath to second, the first Cincinnati runner in scoring position. Heinie Groh also worked the count to three and two. Williams seemed nervous now. He was taking more time than usual. Schalk was yelling at him, but the crowd drowned him out. Williams called for the ball and threw. The pitch was high, and Groh walked.

This brought big Edd Roush, cleanup hitter, to the plate. The steady, relentless roaring of the crowd was dominating the stadium. Williams breathed deeply, studied Schalk's signals, checked the runners and threw. Low. Ball one. Schalk snapped the ball back to him, unashamed of his anger. Williams toed the rubber again, determined to keep pitching. Again, low. Ball two. The crowd added another layer of sound; it seemed to have unlimited resources.

Schalk pushed his mask to the top of his head and stalked out to the mound, hollering at Williams all the way. What he said to the troubled pitcher, Fullerton, of course, did not know. But it was clear he was saying plenty. He turned back to the plate, still raging, then stopped to holler a few words toward Gleason in the dugout. Williams watched and listened, never put in a word.

As Williams got set for the next pitch, so did the crowd. A shout more penetrating than Fullerton had ever heard seemed to swell with the movement of the pitcher's arm. Roush swung. The bat leveled off at the fat pitch and met the ball squarely. So great was the roar of the crowd that Fullerton could not hear the contact. But what he saw was enough: Roush had singled sharply to center. Rath sped around to score, and Groh slid safely into third.

Fullerton wrote himself a note: "Never heard so much noise!"

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There was more to come. Every pitch sounded like a crisis. Williams worked steadily, maintaining his poise. He seemed indifferent to the crowd now, but his control had deserted him. With the count two and two, Roush made a dash for second. But Schalk rifled a perfect throw to Risberg, cutting him down.

To Fullerton the throw was a vindicating one. It flaunted the greatness of the Sox in the face of 30,000

enemies. As Roush trotted almost guiltily off the field, the bedlam seemed to fade with him.

The silence was short-lived. Williams walked Duncan on two more pitches, putting a man back on first.

Three walks in one inning. Williams had never been so wild.

Suddenly the alien roar of a plane intruded on the stadium. Everyone looked up, saw the plane circle lower and lower, hovering over the diamond. Then, from the cockpit, the figure of a man dropped out, plummeted weirdly to the playing field, its arms and legs flailing in descent. Men gasped. Women screamed in fright. Then it became apparent that the figure was only a dummy. It landed in the outfield, loose and lifeless, a ludicrous, meaningless joke. A stout policeman ran out to retrieve it, hurried away, dragging the floppy form behind him. He laid it on the ground against the left field barrier and used it for a seat.

The crowd laughed nervously as Williams went back to work on Kopf. On the next pitch, Kopf leaned into a hanging curve ball and smashed it into deep left field. Groh jogged merrily across the plate, followed by Duncan. Kopf pulled into third with a mighty triple.

Fullerton wrote himself another note: "Three walks, three runs." Grimly, he drew a circle around it.

A moment later, Neale grounded to Eddie Collins, ending the inning. But it didn't seem to matter. The White Sox outhit the Reds ten to four, managed to score two runs in the seventh, but lost the game 4-2.

"You can 'pat' Moran, but you can't 'kid' Gleason!"

Every school kid in Cincinnati was rattling it off, thirty times a day.

Kid Gleason watched the players file slowly into the locker room, glared at them brazenly, defiantly, murderously. He didn't care. Let them know how he felt.

When he got to his little dressing room, Schalk was waiting for him. He was hot, sweaty, filthy. His face was lined with dirt, marked by the pressure of the catcher's mask. He was standing by the door, holding his catcher's mitt as if he was still ready to play ball.

"The sonovabitch!" His voice was hoarse, compounding the sound of his rage.

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Gleason shut the door behind him. "Williams?" he asked.

"Williams," Schalk replied. "He kept crossing me. In that lousy fourth inning, he crossed me three times!

He wouldn't throw the curve!"

Schalk's rage forced Gleason to contain his own. As calmly as he could, he commented, "Well, it happens…."

Schalk wouldn't give him that. "Not with Williams!"

"Never? Not all season?" Gleason asked.

Schalk spit it out. "Never!"

Gleason groped for something to say that would placate him.

But Schalk was not in the mood for discussion. He had sweated for two hours behind that plate. He had come to Gleason for action. He exploded: "Goddammit, Kid…you gotta
do
something about this!"

Gleason knew this was true. If he was to pull out this Series, he had to do something. Talk to Comiskey again? What for? He had no more proof today than yesterday. All he had was the cuss words of an angry catcher who never could stand to lose. Who would believe him?

It was apparent that there were no facts. Reality was a vague stink that anyone could smell, but no one knew where it came from.

He crossed to the ballplayers locker room. They had started talking again, not too dispirited: normal chatter after a normal defeat. When they saw Gleason, they subsided, like jabbering kids when the teacher comes into the classroom.

Gleason looked for Williams, but his vision never got past Gandil. He saw Gandil smoking a cigar, complacent and unperturbed, and hatred rose to choke him. Gandil was the enemy, a cutthroat character, tough, shrewd, corrupt. Gleason crossed to the bench where Gandil was sitting. When he spoke, his tone was surprisingly sardonic: "Gandil, you sure had a good day today…."