The Southpaw (33 page)

Aaron Webster never pays any taxes, saying it all goes for the wars.

Around this time the votes was in on the All-Star squads. There was about 4,000,000 votes from every state and a number of foreign countries, the fans voting for all the players but the pitchers. The manager picks the pitchers, the manager always being the man that won the flag the year before, and this year it was Frank Arms of Brooklyn, and he chose me and Sam from the Mammoths and Bill Scudder from his own club. All the rest was righthanders. Mammoths that won in the voting included Red, Ugly, Pasquale, George and Swanee. We all felt especially good for Swanee, for he been off the squad for 3 seasons. He led the voting with 1,294,792.

That was a great thrill, too. I pitched the middle 3 innings and give up 1 run on 4 hits. That was the best job turned in, though I cannot say I would like to try it very often. You really sweat, for you are up against the absolute tops. The big leagues is tops enough, where you got 400 ballplayers weeded down from the whole wide world, but in All-Star play you have weeded the 400 to 50, and every man you face is a big man with a big bat. I always dreamed of working in an All-Star game since the first 1 I ever heard down in Borelli’s. It seemed like there was getting to be no dreams left, only the Series.

The game was at Philadelphia, and afterwards we left for St. Louis, me and Sam and Red and George and Pasquale and Ugly and Swanee. Some of us was in the poker mood, but Red and George will never play and we could not find Sam, and I went in search of Sam and found him in the diner. The dinner hour was over, but Sam knows all the porters and all the conductors, and they admire him and give him pretty much the run of the train. He was sitting at a clean table reading a book, and I told him come and play poker, and he said he could not. “I am improving my mind,” he said. “Say there, Hank, did I not have my picture in front of this book?” He was reading out of “Sam Yale—Mammoth” that Pop sent like I asked.

“Maybe you did at that,” said I. I had that picture at that very moment folded in my wallet. But I could not tell Sam. “Some kid must of tore it out,” I said.

“I am glad to be reading this,” he said. “It is pretty goddam long. I been reading 2 and 3 pages at a time.”

When I was a kid I would wolf that book down once a week regular.

“But it is all a pack of horseshit,” he said.

“You should of thought of that before you give Murray Miller the go-ahead,” said I, for Joe Jaros told me that a writer name of Murray Miller on the “News” wrote the book.

“It was not Murray,” said Sam. “It was Krazy Kress. Krazy wrote it up and sent it down home 1 winter all typewrote on yellow paper.

I begun reading it 2 and 3 pages a night but never finished it, and then I give it to Hilda to send it back, for I went hunting with Bub Castetter.”

He studied the book, smiling and turning it over in his hand. “If I was to write a book for kids I would not write such trash as this,” he said.

“This is a good book and teaches them all the right things about smoking and going to church and such. For most kids that is all right.

It will get them where they wish to go. They never aim very high.

Those that aim high when they get there finds out that they should of went somewheres else. You think you want money and then you get it and you piss it away because it ain’t what you really wanted in the first place. You think you want your name in the headlines, but you get it there and that ain’t what you want neither. You think you want this woman or that woman, and then you get the money and the headlines and the woman besides. Then you find out you do not want the woman no more and probably never wanted her in the first place.”

“That is right,” said I.

“How would you know?” he said. “It will take you 15 years to find out.

You get so you do not care. It is all like a ball game with nobody watching and nobody keeping score and nobody behind you. You pitch hard and nobody really cares. Nobody really gives a f— what happens to anybody else.” He looked very sad, exactly like he looked in the picture in my wallet.

“
Sad
Sam Yale,” I said.

“I ain’t sad,” he said. “I just do not care. I just play for the money I do not need and fornicate for the kicks I never get. Some day there will not even be the kicks. If I was to write a book they would never print it.

It would be 5 words long. It would say, Do Not F— With Me. I would send it to every church and every schoolhouse and tell them to hang it up over their door. It will not get you anywheres in life. But it is the best you can ask for
out
of life. The best you can hope is that everybody else will just leave you alone. This book is all horseshit.” He shoved it across the table, and I took it.

“Ain’t it the truth?” I said.

“Leave us go play some cards,” he said, and we pushed back the chairs and went.

It was either on this train or on another very soon after that Krazy Kress brung up the tour to Japan and Korea. I forget which, but now is a good place to write it in, this chapter being mostly a collection of odds and evens anyways. He was supposed to take about 20

ballplayers in October on this tour against clubs such as the Yomiuri Giants and the Nankai Hawks of the Japanese leagues. Then we was to go up to Korea itself and play squad games for the soldiers behind the lines.

I never said yes and I never said no. I sat looking out the window and remembering the hand to hand combat at Perkinsville High. Just thinking about it set off these noises in my stomach. I begun thinking about all the boys in Korea that never knowed from 1 day to the next if they was slated to live or die, and I felt sorry for them. Yet I could not see where if I was to go to Korea it would do them any particular good.

“It will do them much good,” said Krazy. “It will buck up their spirits and give them the idea that folks back home are thinking about them. There is nothing like the sight of baseball to make them think they are home.”

“I see baseball every day,” I said, “and never get the idea I am home.”

“This is all expenses free, Henry. Maybe I did not mention that. It will not cost you a nickel.”

And then it seemed to me that if I was too much of a coward to go and fight in the war against Korea myself I had no business going over and playing ball for them and encouraging
them
to be fighting it.

“Hell,” said Krazy, “not only expenses but maybe a little extra cigarette money for your pocket as well.”

“I do not smoke,” said I, and I looked out the window some more. I thought about Holly and I wished she was around to give me some advice. And I wondered what Aaron would say to me going to Korea and egging the boys on in their war, for Aaron was against it from the start. Him and Pop had a regular knock down squabble when I was even supposed to go and be
examined
for Christ sake at the Vets hospital in Tozerbury. “Ain’t it awful cold to be playing ball over there that time of year?” I said.

“Cold?” said Krazy. “Why no. Have you never seen Korea on the map? Korea is more south then St. Louis.” Actually I never saw it on the map until just this minute. I went over to Aaron’s and looked it up. I always had the idea it was out around where Alaska and Russia come together. I wanted to tell Krazy no and I wanted to tell him yes, both at the same time. I wanted to go to Korea if it would do the boys any good, but at the same time I couldn’t see where it would.

“Ain’t you behind the boys over there?” said Krazy.

“I am behind the boys,” said I, “but I am against the war.”

“You know, Henry, you must not forget the fun you are libel to have on such a tour. You know how these Japanese girls are. Why, they ain’t got no more morals then a cat. I understand that for an American buck you can get the works and a meal besides.”

Finally I said no. I just wasn’t interested. Krazy asked me again 2 or 3 more times over the summer, and every time I told him no. I don’t know why, but my heart just couldn’t of been in it. Yet I believe I am as much of an American as Krazy and probably wouldn’t like the Russians any better then the next fellow if I ever met 1. But I said no, and I said no every time Krazy brung it up.

Another thing, too, is I will bet that somewhere under the haystack you will find that Krazy had some angle in it that he forgot to mention, some cash to be made most likely. I do not mean that he is a crook or anything like that, but he has got so many irons in the pie that you sometimes begin to wonder. In his column he is always promoting 30,000 things on the side, and if you keep a close watch you will see where whatever comes along Krazy is somewhere where the cash flies. If it is some kind of a benefit dinner who is handling the tickets?

Krazy. If it is a collection being took up for some sick kid in the hospital who is all of a sudden the chief collector? Krazy. Is it a new suit of clothes you wish to buy? Or a car? Who will get it for you cheap?

Krazy. Or if it is a book you wish to have wrote he will write it for you out of the goodness of his heart, wanting none of the glory and only 66 and 2/3 percent of your take. I was a full year catching wise to all this, but I done so at last, and I believe I know Krazy well enough by now to know that Korea to him is just another benefit dinner, just another sick kid in the hospital, for he has yet to turn Boy Scout and do 1 single deed out of pure love for the next chap.224

Chapter 27

Swanee Wilks got his streak snapped the first night in St. Louis by a kid name of Tony Tiso, born and raised on Dago Hill. Somebody was due to stop Swanee sooner or later. Tiso was wild that night, not too wild but just wild enough, and the boys never dared dig in, and we lost it 5-4. Up to that time Swanee hit safe in 29 games plus the All-Star Game. He said he was just as glad to get handcuffed at last, for the pressure gets great.

He got in a terrible scrap with Wes Jenkins in the third on a close play at first, spitting at him and calling him some extremely nasty things, and Wes would of throwed him out of the game, particularly after Swanee give him the old sign, 1 finger up. The League frowns on this, saying it don’t look good before women and children, but Wes took no action, giving Swanee a warning only, thinking Swanee might yet collect a hit and keep the record going.

Sometimes I almost wished I was an umpire. I remember, the Saturday after, looking down at Wes, for he worked the plate that day, and wishing I was him. I was getting lumped up plenty and I thought how nice it must be to be an umpire when it makes no difference who wins and who loses.

It was dreadful hot that weekend, and I think I drunk too much water, and time after time, when I throwed, full speed come out half speed, and curves never curved enough, and my control was sometimes off a full six inches. Dutch finally lifted me, and I walked out without no argument.

We split a doubleheader Sunday, Sam losing the first but Knuckles winning the nightcap. We was glad to pull out of St. Louis that night. It was the first series we lost all year, and the first time we lost as many as 3 in a row.

We damn near lost the Chicago series as well. Piss dropped the first game, and Hams won the second, and I was behind 3-2 in the ninth inning of the third when Red begun our half with a single, old Red so cool and collected and always playing ball right down to the finish and never saying “Die,” and Perry pinch-run for Red, and Pasquale Carucci swung for me and pumped a hit to short center. Jeff Harkness took it on 1 hop. I suppose the sensible thing would of been for Perry to hold at second with none out and the heavy end coming up, but he was playing the long percentages, and he went right around second, never stopping, never looking behind, and Harkness hesitated just the fraction of a second, knowing that if he tried to cut Perry off at third that Pasquale would move down to second anyways and we would still be in scoring position. Well, he throwed towards third, and Lindsay cut off the throw at short and tried for Pasquale at second, and they got him easy enough, except that whilst everybody was watching the play at second Perry was turning third and flying home at 90. The throw come in, and he slid safe under Millard May and tied up the ball game. Horse Byrd collared Chicago in the ninth and we later won it in extra innings.

We went on to Cleveland in the morning, all but Ugly. Ugly stood behind to see a Chicago doctor that he had good reports on. Ugly was all run down and weakly, and Dutch give him permission to stay.

Lindon said, “Ugly, why do you not merely tell Dutch that you need a rest?” Lindon was dead serious, but a laugh rose up from many of the boys.

“It been tried,” said Gene. “Dutch only gives you a song and a dance and tells you how it was in the olden days.”

“Why,” said Swanee, “back in the olden times ballplayers
never
rested.”

“That is true, though,” said Goose. “I believe they was tougher.”

“Bullshit,” said Red.

“If I was to take a rest your pal Roguski might take away my job,” said Ugly to Lindon.

“I do not want your job,” said Coker. “I want to win the flag. I do not care who plays and who does not.”

“I have heard that song before,” said Ugly.

Yet Coker was speaking his true feelings. Naturally any ballplayer would rather play regular then sit on the bench, but Coker did not care how he won his share of the Series melon just so long as he got it. He was planning to build a house for his folks in West Virginia. He said they lived in a tar-paper shack for 25 years and would as soon live in a brick house, just for the change. You may not believe this, but Coker never seen an indoors toilet until he was 18 years old 1 time in Clarksburg, West Virginia, when he went there to play in the Legion tournament.

We figured Coker would take over at shortstop in Cleveland, but he did not. Dutch moved George over to short and played Canada at third. Sam turned in a fine game, needing a little help from Herb Macy in the eighth but getting credit for the win nonetheless. Lindon lost a 2-1 ball game the following night, Rob McKenna going all the way for Cleveland. When Rob is hot he is hard to beat, in particular at night.