Rookie of the Year (5 page)

At first Spike didn’t believe it, thought the motion was merely a nervous gesture. One bad throw and there’s the ballgame and you’re the goat, Jocko, the all-time goat. But he did mean it. He gave it again. All signs must be answered by the fielder to make sure he receives them, and as the batter fouled off a strike into the stands Spike flashed the signal in return. On the second pitch now.

The first pitch was low, inside, a ball. The crowd howled with delight, little knowing what was taking place down there on the field before their eyes. A cool customer, this kid Hathaway, thought Spike. He’s setting the batter up so he’ll be looking for a fast ball on the next one. And Jocko Klein, he’s cooler still. He’s really got nerve, that boy. Well, here we go!

There were six steps in this play. First Spike’s sudden burst toward second; the piercing yell of the coach behind third; the runner’s realization of his peril; his dive back to safety; the catcher’s throw to the base; and last the catch and tag done about simultaneously. It was the fourteenth inning, and because the runner was tired his reactions were more sluggish than usual. The pitch-out was perfect, shoulder high and well away from the man at the plate, just where Klein wanted it. The catcher let go with everything he had. The runner was a second slow in moving back. Spike got the ball on the outside of the bag and slapped it on him as he tried desperately to slide to safety.

Two minutes later they were running in to the bench. Spike overtook the stocky catcher walking wearily along, his mask in his hand. “Boy, you really got what it takes, Jocko. Two feet the other way and that ball would have been out in center field and you’d have been the goat of the series. Pull us out of a rally like that and you pull us back into the game, and that wins pennants.” They came into the bench. “Now, gang, le’s us get some runs for Bonesy.”

But they couldn’t seem to get runs. Neither could the Cards. The fifteenth went by without a score. In the sixteenth the Keystone Kids saved their young pitcher again with a quick double-play after he passed a man. In the seventeenth the game seemed lost. The first batter worked another base on balls. The next man, attempting to bunt, popped in front of the plate to Jocko Klein. Then the third man came through with a deep hit to the flagpole in center field, and before Roy Tucker could get his hands on it there were men on second and third and only one down.

Bones teamed up with Red Allen to retire the next batter who tried to squeeze the runner home. It was a roller down the third base line, but short, and the pitcher fielded it perfectly, holding the man on the bag and then making a quick throw to Allen, who tagged the runner just as he came in with a crash to first. Now all Hathaway had to do was get the shortstop, a weak hitter.

The thing came with the suddenness of disaster. Not a clean hit, not a solid blow as a fitting end to that endless struggle, but an easy ball, a topped roller near the plate, not more than twenty feet from Klein. With two out, both runners were off immediately. So was Bones Hathaway, the best fielding young pitcher in the League. He rushed in on top of the ball, scooped it up, and as he did so his spikes failed to catch, and his feet went out from under him. No need to look toward first, for he could make no play there, so in a last despairing try he fired the ball at Klein, astride the plate for just such an emergency. The throw, made from a sitting position, was low and wide. The runner slid in and the game was lost.

For a second Spike, anxiously watching, hoped there might be a chance the runner had missed the plate in the mix-up. He dashed in, grabbed the ball, and tagged him. But Stubblebeard, the umpire, shook his head, and turning his back departed for the dugout tunnel to the dressing room. The game was over. The Dodgers had lost three straight, and the Cards had increased their lead over the second-place Pirates.

T
HEY FOUGHT THEIR
way through the frenzied fans and trooped in to the lockers, sore, tired, silent. No one said much. There wasn’t much to say. For once even Razzle Nugent was gloomy and quiet. No one talked; everybody slumped down exhausted on the hard benches in the hot room, realizing how the effort of climbing into third place had taken its toll of nervous energy, how weary and beaten they were. No one rushed to the showers, no one even undressed, there was no singing or shouting or horseplay. Numbness and disappointment hung over the entire room.

Boy, is that a tough one to lose! Spike sat beside his brother, speechless like the others. Gee whizz, six chances and no hits! No, seven chances; nothing for seven. Maybe I swung too hard. ’Member that long hit the first game; I choked my bat, that’s what I should have done again. Walked once, hit on the arm once, and five times without a thing to show for it. That’s no way for a manager to act. This isn’t, either, sitting here letting those boys worry their hearts out. Spike climbed up on his bench and stood there.

“Look here, you guys. We lost one to the League leaders, so what? When a fella pitches ten-hit ball over seventeen innings like Bones just did, he’s hot. I’ll say. After all, we’re only seven games out of first as it is, and we’re still fixed in third, and back there in June we’d have settled for third place any day, you all remember that. Now don’t worry over this game. You gave me all you had, every single one of you, you played heads-up baseball. Just forget this and let’s go get those Pirates over in Pittsburgh. Take those wet things offa you now and have yourself a good shower.”

Gradually they peeled off their soggy clothes and moved to the showers, feeling the voluptuous caress of steam spray on tired backs, aching arms, and weary legs, shaking the soothing wetness off their hair and faces, then refreshing themselves with cokes and moving to the rubbing table where Doc Masters was working efficiently on one player after another. Shoot! Spike is right! We gave it all we had; c’mon, gang, tomorrow’s another day.

Still in his wet clothes, the manager moved along the benches. “Why, Tuck, don’t sit there in those damp things like that. Get yourself a shower right away. What’s that? How’s that, Harry? Never mind... you can’t help it.... I didn’t get me a hit either and I went up there seven times tonight. Won’t do any good to sit and think about it. Besides, your ball in the fifth was through for a clean one only it took a charity hop right into his glove. You can only hit ’em, you know, you can’t direct where the ball goes.”

“Yeah, but shoot! That one I offered at in the twelfth was a low, inside corner pitch. I shouldn’t have hit at it.”

“If it was a good-looking ball, O.K. You got nothing to worry about; you’re hitting three-fourteen right now; that’s better’n all right in any man’s league. And, boy, you’re really playing third base for me these days. Yes, sir! How many assists tonight? Seven? Eight? Say, is that good? And the stop you made off Crawford in the sixth — honest, I thought that one would knock you over, it was hit so hard. You know, Harry, I believe you handle those hot liners better’n any third baseman in this circuit. Yes, I really do. Now get yourself a shower in there and forget this game.”

One by one the men dressed. The room emptied. Then over in a corner Spike saw a doleful figure on a bench, sitting unclothed save for a towel around his waist.

“Bonesy!” The youngster looked up. “What’s biting you?”

The kid turned to his locker. He picked up his shirt and, slipping it on, started buttoning it listlessly.

“See here! You ain’t gonna let this one game upset you, are you?”

“Shoot, Spike... seems like I’ll never be a pitcher... never...”

“Stop talking that way, Bones. You’re a pitcher now, and a darn good one. Ten hits in seventeen innings; that’s pitching in any man’s league.”

“Yeah, and whad’ I get out of it?”

“O.K. But you can’t win ’em all, y’know.”

“Aw... I chucked it away myself. I was so sure I had that man, that last hitter....”

“Nosir, you didn’t chuck it away. You slipped and fell; that happens to us all. Point is if it came the first inning you’d never have thought of it. It came at a bad moment; that’s tough; forget it. Won’t do you any good sitting here thinking about it. Get yourself dressed, go grab some food, and forget this evening. You’re gonna win me lots of games before you turn in your uniform next fall, I’m fixed on that....”

Slowly the boy dressed and went out. The room was empty now save for Spike and his two coaches, Cassidy and Draper. The three left together. Outside the park Bill Hanson was just climbing into a taxi. They shouted and climbed in beside him, everyone talking simultaneously. The conversation was acid.

“Shoot! We can think up more ways to lose a ballgame.”

“I’ll say. From where I stood, I could swear that drive of Swanny’s was fair by eight inches. Did you notice the way it bounced?”

“These Cards are sure poison for us. They got the luck and nothing else but when we play em.”

“Yeah, they just can’t seem to lose. A pitcher holds ’em to ten hits in seventeen innings, le’s see... that’s seven hits after the first... that’s seven hits in sixteen innings... that’s about one every other inning; then what? We lose because the pitcher slips, fielding an easy bunt!”

“How many hits did we get, Charlie?”

“We only got eight, I think. Unless they call that one Jocko beat out a hit. Did they call that a hit?”

“Uhuh, the scorers out here are lousy on those. Shoot, why can’t we get some breaks? They get all the breaks.”

“Yeah, and they sure know what to do with ’em when they get ’em, too.”

“You talk about breaks! Tuck told me he lost that ball of Stevens’ out there in center in the seventeenth. Seems he couldn’t quite reach it; the ball bounced off the tips of his glove and then fell behind the flagpole, and he couldn’t find the darn thing. While he was looking, the batter goes into third. How’s that for a break?”

“Yep, or that hit of Red’s. It struck the rail of the stands and bounded right back into Frankel’s glove. An inch higher and it would have been a homer, one inch. As it was, Red was lucky to make second. There’s a real break for you.”

The taxi rounded a corner on one wheel, shaking them up, and the conversation died away. The cab became silent, each man bitter with the memory of some one inning, some one play when a fraction of an inch or a fraction of a second would have changed the outcome of the game. No one spoke. They were all punch-drunk with fatigue and soreness over losing that important contest.

Finally Hanson, trying hard to see the cheerful side, interjected a ray of hope. “Well, we lost the game; but all the boys up in the pressbox would talk about was Hathaway. You got yourself a pitcher, Spike; he can really fog ’em in.”

“You’re dead right there, boy,” said Cassidy. “He’s not a rear-back-and-blaze-’em-through kind like Raz Nugent or Tommy Hedges of the Tigers; but he’s fast, and he has one of the best curves I ever looked at. All this talk about his fast ball. Shoot, for my money his curve is his pay pitch. I bet the Cards think so tonight.”

They turned the corner and came up the driveway of the hotel. The taxi stopped. A doorman in white opened the door of the cab. Leaving Hanson to pay the bill as usual, they stepped inside. In the lobby a bunch of kids were standing around Bones Hathaway who was buying a newspaper at the stand. Some of them detached themselves and swarmed over toward Spike, extending pencils and autograph books.

“Please, mister; please, Mr. Russell....”

“No... nope... not tonight, sonny... not now. You all ought to be in bed by this time, anyway....”

He stepped into the elevator. Hathaway and Hanson were standing together, an island in a sea of clamoring kids.

T
HEY SAT AT
the table in the crowded grill, Hanson eating and enjoying his meal, Bones not eating and not enjoying it. From time to time he sipped the beer at his side.

“Why, boy, you pitched a whale of a game, good enough to win ten ballgames. What’s a pitcher gonna do with a team that only gives him eight hits in seventeen innings?”

“They sure weren’t handing me many runs, were they?”

“I’ll say. And a manager who goes seven times to bat and can’t deliver once....”

“Yeah. But Spike’s a good guy.”

Hanson lit a cigarette. His tone changed; it became warmer instantly. “Oh, he’s a good guy, a great fella, Spike is. I like him. Point is, in this-here game you must deliver, boy. Don’t make any difference how swell a guy you are.”

“If only I hadn’t slipped in the seventeenth out there.”

“Shouldn’t have been any seventeenth if he could only hit in the clutches. He never could hit in the clutches.”

“In the Polo Grounds...” said Bones tentatively, attacking his food at last. Hanson interrupted.

“That was luck. He was shot with luck that day. Besides, that short right field fence, why, a kid could poke one over there. What I always say is this — Spike’s a darn good ballplayer, but good players don’t always make good managers. I’ve been around quite some time in this League, and I can tell you I’ve seen more than one fine player ruined by asking too much of him. Have another beer, Bonesy?”

“I oughtn’t to. I’ve had two already.”

Hanson paid no attention. “Waiter! Two beers, two more beers, please.”

“Two beers. Yessir, right away, sir.”

“Now you take, f’rinstance, Karl Case. There’s a guy who’s been around, too; he knows all the answers, he can really hit. And Spike ups and trades him for this kid Baldwin. I’m not saying Case was easy to handle; point is, that’s what being a manager is, see? An older man would have worked on Case so’s he’d be of use to the club. Whereas Spike gives up on him. He gives up too easily.”

“They all tell me Case was something....”

“Sure. But that’s a manager’s job. Here! Waiter, you with those beers! Right here. Thanks. A cold glass of beer tastes good after sitting in that fireless cooker all night. Now that’s the trouble with a young manager; he gives up too quickly on a man; he hasn’t had the experience McCarthy or McKechnie has. Just so soon as a player slips or throws a bad game, the young fella is ready to give up on him. I’ve seen it happen time and again....”