Authors: John R. Tunis
Charlie Draper in the coaching box became a madman. “Go on, Les, you ice cart, go on... go on, Tuck old boy; go on, Roy, see you on the bench... go on, Paul, you elephant, go on...”
“Slam!” went Bobby Russell’s bat, which put the stopper to it all by clouting the ball over the right field fence into Bedford Avenue, and the Bums into second place. So close to the leading Cards it wasn’t funny.
A
GAME AND A HALF
in the lead!
A game and a half is not much. Nothing at all, in fact, in the spring when everyone is fresh and keen and baseball is fun, when the clubs are all crowding on each other’s heels and everyone has a shot at the old flag, and the long season stretches out in a dim vista ahead. September is then a future so distant you don’t even think about it. A game or so isn’t much in midsummer either, although the fun has long vanished and baseball by this time is a grind. Because a game won or lost then can easily be picked up later. A game isn’t much even in late August, when the injuries mount fast and the best men are overworked and tired, and all the pitching staff is thin and drawn; even then a game or so is no great handicap.
But in the final weeks of the year a game and a half is as big as twenty.
One game and a half was the lead of the Dodgers in mid-September. They were facing their favorite whipping boys, the tired Phils, with whom they had won seventeen and lost four that season. Whereas the desperate Cards were forced to slug it out against the tough third-place Cubs in a double-header in Chicago, with that game and a half deficit staring them in the face all afternoon.
The pennant surge of the Brooks those golden September days had swept them to the front, kept them there, too. The result was fever in Flatbush. All Brooklyn—and all Manhattan too—apparently wanted to be on hand that afternoon. The gang formed unusually early at the window. There were many empty offices, many vacant seats in more than one school that morning, with their owners in line at Ebbets Field, arguing about their favorites, waiting for the gates to open.
“Tell ya, Swanny can’t carry Tucker’s glove.”
“Can’t, hey! Yeah, and who ast him to? He has to play the line, Swanny does.”
“Play the lines! Play the lines! The lines are a cinch. The lines aren’t tough to play. The center fielder, now, he’s right in the middle of everything, he has to cover up both holes, he has to watch for hits through the middle.”
“Hey! There goes Spike Russell and his brother, too. Hey there, Spike! Hi, Bobby, hi!”
Spike Russell, young in years yet old in baseball experience, knew that they could lose that important game, knew anything might happen. And warned his men in the clubhouse before they took the field.
“Sure, sure we’re sitting pretty. Sure the pressure is on the Cards; only let’s us not take anything for granted. Let’s go right after ’em hard from the start. Pay no attention to those Redbirds. Don’t watch the scoreboard. Never mind what happens out there in the west. Play this game here, today. Maguire most likely will chuck Spencer at us; he’s beaten some good clubs this season. He’s won twelve for a tail-end team and he’s two and two against us. He’s a crooked arm pitcher, throws curves and nothing but, has a good change of pace; he’s dangerous, so watch out. We beat him before, and the way we’ve been going lately no reason why we can’t do it again. O.K. For Pete’s sake, hit ’em and hit ’em hard at the start; give everything you got the first few innings. Let’s build up a lead for Ed right away. And let’s go get ’em!”
Baseball is a funny game. When you least expect a battle, there it is. Eddie Stone that afternoon was tough and confident, fast in his warm-up, with a hook that was sliding off the inside in a threatening manner. The team trotted out behind him, smooth and easy, a pennant-winning ballclub ready for anything.
When the first Philly batter went down swinging, the vast crowd settled back with delight. Wasn’t this the thing they had come for? Then followed one of those breaks. The next hitter smacked a grasscutter toward Bob Russell. He came racing in, scooped it up cleanly, and there was a race for the bag between ball and runner. The throw nailed him by a whisker. But the hands of the umpire were down.
“Aw...
no!”
“He was out a country mile!”
“Hey there, Stubblebeard...”
The decision was so close that ordinarily it wouldn’t have bothered any of them. But this was no ordinary contest. This was a time when every out counted twice over. When nerves were close to the surface, when everybody on the club was edgy, when a matter of four or five thousand dollars rode on every pitch.
They surrounded the umpire, protesting the decision, yelling and shouting. The old man folded his arms majestically and stalked away. While the batter stood serenely perched on first.
Eddie was annoyed. He threw down his glove in disgust, tight and tense under the strain. He kicked angrily at the rosin bag as he came back into the box, and shook off Jocko who strolled out to calm him down. As a result he lost the next man. Two on, and the stands apprehensive. This wasn’t what they had been standing in line since early morning to see.
The third batter hit the ball solidly. Roy, standing like a sprinter with his right foot forward, timed it perfectly and was off at the crack of the bat. Going back, two steps, five steps, ten steps, he turned at precisely the right moment, and gloved it for the out. The stands became jubilant again. Two down. This was more like it.
Two out and the situation easier, although the Phils’ only good batter was striding to the plate. The picket line moved slightly around to left as Eddie went to work carefully. Two balls were fouled off, two were taken. On the next pitch, the batter reached for a high curve and lifted a lazy fly to left, well within the lines and over toward the stands. Frank Shiells, the third baseman, was off instantly, so was Spike, and so was Paul Roth. But it was the third baseman’s ball if anyone’s.
The blow was a twisting, teasing fly that angled off toward the boxes. Shiells dug in hard, while Roth on one side and Spike nearing him on the other yelled warnings.
“Watch out, Frank!”
“Look out, look out!”
He heard their voices distinctly above the crowd roar, but he was going to get that ball. It was falling now, falling fast. He reached for it, lunged, missed, tripped and fell over against the iron rail of the field box, tumbling to the ground. His head struck the rail as he went down, and he lay there while his teammates gathered round.
The crowd rose, stretching to peer down, anxious to discover the extent of the disaster. The stretcher came out, and he was laid on it carefully and taken away. The stands rose as he went past; there were some scattered handclaps which died away. Alan Whitehouse ran to Shiells’ spot at third.
“Whitehouse, No. 6, for Shiells, No. 18, at third.” Now Eddie was really upset. On the 2 and 2 pitch he tried to sneak in a fast one. It was the wrong moment. The batter out-guessed him, and promptly lined it over the fence into Bedford Avenue. Three runs to the bad, and their star third sacker out of the game. While over in Chicago, as the scoreboard showed, the rampaging Redbirds were slaughtering the Cubs in the first game of their double-header, drawing closer and closer to the leaders in that hectic finish. Three runs; three runs to the bad and Shiells out, perhaps for good. The crowd was rocked. “We don’t lose to the Phillies; why, it isn’t possible!” “We don’t lose to those icemen.”
Spencer, for Philadelphia, was at his best when he had to be. Working coolly and efficiently behind that 3–0 lead, he throttled the anxious Brooks at every turn, forcing Bob Russell to hit into a double-play with two on and one out in the third. In the fifth, after Lester Young had spanked a triple and Paul Roth sent him home with a long fly to deep center, Roy and Spike both singled, but the Philadelphia pitcher put the brakes on the rally by making Al Whitehouse and Bob pop up weakly to the infield.
Spike masterminded all over the place. In the last of the fifth he removed Eddie for a pinch-hitter; in the seventh he took out Mike Mehaffey and replaced him for another pinch-hitter. He ordered his men about the diamond, tried hit-and-runs to squeeze in a couple of scores. In the ninth the Brooks staged one of those typical last-minute surges and came within an inch of winning. With one down and men on first and third, and the stands in a frenzy all over the park, Swanny brought a roar of delight as he belted a liner at the box which was really hit. The roar began... and died away.
The ball struck the pitcher on the ankle, caromed off into the hands of the shortstop, and a rapid double-play snuffed out the last chance of the fighting Dodgers. Back in the clubhouse there was gloom.
“Hey there, give me another cold compress.” “And out in Chicago, folks, those unstoppable Cards, after taking the first game, are cutting down the Cubs’ lead in the second. And, folks, what a ballclub those Cards are! They just won’t stay down. At the end of four innings, it is Chicago 4, St. Louis 3.” “Hey there, Doc! How’s Frank? He is?” “And now, folks, they musta got word about the game in Brooklyn, because those Cards really broke loose in the sixth.” “Is he hurt much, Doc?” “Losing to those hillbillies! Cripes, what luck!” “That-there Stubblebeard calls hisself an ump.” “How the Cards stand in the nightcap?” “Shiells out for good? He is?” “And, folks, in the eighth the Cards put the clincher on it. Homer Slawson plunked one over the fence with three men aboard, followed by Conlin, who... and that about ties up the pennant race.” “Hey there, doctor, can you tell me how bad he’s hurt?”
“W
HO, ME? ME
take over the hot corner?”
“The hot corner! The hot corner! What’s hot about it?” There was a trace of annoyance and more than a touch of fatigue in Spike’s tones. “Old Grouchy used to say a third baseman stood in the shade and handled one chance all afternoon.”
“Yeah, I know, I understand. It isn’t that, Skipper. It’s... well, I just couldn’t, that’s all.”
Some players you can be tough with. Some players like Lester Young can be handled rough; you merely tell them where they get off. Roy Tucker was different. “Why not, Roy?” What on earth is biting the guy, anyhow? It was the first time Spike had ever asked something of the Kid from Tomkinsville and been turned down.
“Well, Spike, most probably you wouldn’t understand. It’s hard to explain.” Why should he understand? It’s like trying to tell folks about war; they listen and say yes at the right moment, but they haven’t been through it themselves and they just can’t realize what it’s all about. “I couldn’t manage at third base right now. I’d be saying how-do-you-do to the fast ones.”
“What makes you think so, Roy?”
“I know it, Spike. See here now, I’m as quick on my feet as ever this season, when I get started. I can run all right, once I get under way. But you must have noticed I’m slow starting. I’m... well, I haven’t got my confidence back yet; I can’t get going fast; I can’t jump in either direction the way I usta. I’m all right, but I’m not hauling in those three baggers like the old days. That’ll come in time, that’ll come as my back gets stronger and I get my confidence again, only it won’t come right away. And my back isn’t O.K. yet. I don’t feel I can take chances on it. I’m not able to do things I’ll find easy next year when it’s stronger. One twist or a sudden strain, and bang! There she goes! Twists and starts, that’s about all third base is, Skipper.”
Spike said nothing. He sat there looking at him closely, seeing a different Roy Tucker. Why, he’s plain frightened. He’s scared to go in there at third. He’s afraid.
Yet somehow you don’t say those things. You can’t call a fellow a quitter who’s been through what Roy has. Spike was puzzled.
“Roy, see here, if you don’t take over at third it means bringing someone down from Montreal. You know what’ll happen with a rookie on third base and the Cards coming into town day after tomorrow. Boy, we’ll win the pennant—or lose it—in this series. In the first game, too, most likely. Give us that first game and they’ll never catch us; they can’t. If you take over, and Al Whitehouse goes to center, we’re really set. He’s a guy who may unload one into the bleachers any time. With Al in your spot, we’ll go places. Otherwise...”
There was a long silence. He’s plain scared; he doesn’t dare to take a chance. He even admits it himself. This is sure a new Roy Tucker.
“I’d like to help out the club, Spike, only not at third base. Any other position, sure. But third, I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t go through what I’ve been through the past year. Next season if you want, when my back is stronger and healed completely, when I’ve got my confidence again. Not this fall, Spike.” All the time Roy was thinking of those sleepless nights, of the agony under the lamp in Florida, of the bars at the head of the bed twisted inward, of the operations and the pain and that gnawing toothache up and down his hip when he had tried to play baseball before he was ready.
No, he thought, not even for a pennant. I’ll give it everything I’ve got, everything. I’ll crash the fences and stand up there to the dusters and go round the bases with my spikes high. But not that. I won’t take chances on this leg again; that’s one thing I can’t do. I won’t risk going through what I’ve been through the past two years. That’s out. I couldn’t endure that pain. He doesn’t understand, but that’s how it is. I just couldn’t.
All the while Spike was thinking, too. He’s frightened. He’s a different Roy Tucker. It’s the first time I ever asked him that he didn’t come across, the first time. I don’t get it; I don’t know what’s biting him. Yet when a guy like that scares, there must be a reason for it. Some players, you tell ’em what to do or else. Not this bird. He isn’t Lester Young.
It was a couple of weary ballclubs that came almost to the end of the journey that warm September afternoon at Ebbets Field. Both dressing rooms were tense spots as the boys got ready for battle. No need for meetings or fight talks. Everyone realized the pennant was at stake in that game, and these teams had met so often during the season and knew each other so well, talking was unnecessary. They knew each other’s pitchers and batters, the pull hitters and the opposite field hitters; who was hard to throw to at the plate because he choked up on his bat; who had the arm to be feared in the field; who was so slow you could play back on the grass and nab him at first; and who was the guy to watch when loose on the sacks. Only one person was an unknown quantity. That was Steve Tracy, the new third baseman brought down by the Dodgers from Montreal. And the Cards were determined to find out about him before the afternoon was finished.