Читать книгу The Big Leaguer - Heyliger William - Страница 3

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It was, Marty Gage thought, as he awakened in his sunny room on the fifth floor of the Spaulding House, a rather pleasant and unusual circumstance to be the son of the manager of a big-league team. Rather pleasant, indeed.

The sun played along a corner of his bed and he stretched luxuriously. You slept until you were in the mood to arise. Except for those stretches when the Panthers were at home, and losing, and his father called morning batting practice, there was nothing to be done until you went to the ball park at two o’clock. You went down into the dining-room three times a day and ordered anything on the menu you fancied. All through the long, summer vacation, you traveled with famed heroes of the diamond and rubbed elbows with them on the bench.

Sparky Woods might go to his summer camp in Maine. Jimmy Blake could have his two adventurous months on a Great Lake freighter. Joe Tuthill was welcome to his fishing trip to the Gulf of Mexico. Give him, Marty reflected, baseball.

Almost every day--unless there was rain, or wet grounds, or a long train jump, or an off-day in the schedule--you sat on the snarling, fighting bench of a snarling, fighting team that took its baseball seriously. And if you were lucky enough to be the catcher of your prep school team, and if the great Buck Olsen was your particular buddy, then you were sitting right in the lap of Lady Luck.

The telephone rang. The boy yawned and enjoyed another stretch. The bell rang again, longer and more insistently. He squirmed out of the comfortable bed.

“Bill.” a voice asked.

“My father’s not here,” said Marty.

“Is that you, Marty?” the voice asked quickly. “This is Joe Farrant, of the Herald-Trib. How about a Sunday feature?”

“About what?”

“About you. The boy who sees baseball from the bench of the Panthers.”

“Nix!” said Marty.

“Oh, come on, Marty, loosen up and talk. You’re the only manager’s son touring the circuit. Every kid in the country envies you. How about giving us a little inside dope and a spread of pictures? What it feels like to sit right smack in the heart of a game? What happens on the bench during a rally or when one of the Panther’s pitchers is being slaughtered?”

“Nothing doing,” said Marty with decision, and hung up.

His father had warned him about that. And the warning had been emphatic and unmistakable.

“The sports writers will be after you, Marty,” Silent Bill Gage had cautioned. “They’ll flatter you, and ooze around you, and try to get you to talk. In an unguarded moment you might say something, innocently, that some writer would garble, and after that the fat would be in the fire. I’ve seen more than one baseball war started by an innocent remark. They call me ‘Silent Bill.’ I’ve earned the title. I’ve been twenty years in baseball and I’ve never had to go around apologizing for something I’ve let slip. I don’t let anything slip. I’ve done pretty well keeping my tongue right where it belongs--between my teeth.”

Marty had not forgotten.

Newspapers, opened at the sports pages, were scattered around his father’s rumpled, unoccupied bed. Marty gathered them up, smoothed them out, and went across the room to a deep chair near one of the windows. What had the baseball writers said about yesterday’s slaughter? A game the Panthers had figured was right in the bag. He scanned the first paper and a two-column head of jubilant black type caught his eyes. He read judiciously:

VAUNTED PANTHERS SLIP AS

“DYNAMITE” HUB WATSON FAILS

TO STOP RAMPAGING SHARKS

“Silent” Bill Gage who, according to report, has spoken only six words since he was born, must have felt like breaking a life-time rule yesterday at Sportsman’s Park and talking right out in public, loud and violently. The Silent One arrived in town with his team needing a victory if they were to hold a precarious hold on second place. He picked his ace pitcher, “Dynamite” Hub Watson to sink a harpoon into the Sharks. Alas and alack! The Sharks, who are no respecters of ace pitchers when they are in the mood, were in the mood yesterday. They made a toothsome meal of the mighty Hub.

The score was 7 to 3 and, as a result of the defeat, the Panthers dropped back into third place. Hub, who leads the league in games won, turned in a poor performance. The Hub Watson curve was missing and the famous “Dynamite” speed simply wasn’t there. Probably it wasn’t Hub’s day. Silent Bill yanked his big right-hander in the fifth. But by that time the Sharks had seven runs, and seven was four runs more than was needed to win.

The telephone rang again. A voice, harsh and husky from much riding of opposing batters and much pleading with the temperamental pitching staff of the Panthers, said:

“What’s the matter, kid?”

“Nothing, Buck. Why?”

“No feed bag this morning?”

“With you in ten minutes,” Marty cried.

“O. K. I’ll time you.”

“Watch my smoke,” Marty grinned. He slapped down the receiver, kicked newspapers to one side and bolted for the bath-room peeling off his pajama coat as he went.

Ten minutes later--ten minutes to the second--the elevator let him out at the lobby.

Buck Olsen leaned jauntily against the desk talking to one of the room-clerks. A big man, Buck, tall and rangy, with the slim waist of the athlete and the gnarled right hand of a catcher who had had more than one finger broken by foul tips. Marty strode quickly across the lobby floor.

“A letter for you, Mr. Gage,” the clerk said, and slipped it out of the room box.

The letter, Marty saw after a glance at the handwriting, was from Sparky Woods. He thrust it into his pocket. Sparky Woods was his battery mate; and yet a letter from Sparky had to wait when Buck Olsen stood ready to go through with the skull practice--the baseball drill--that was part of almost every morning’s routine.

Together they crossed the wide lobby to the dining-room. Though the red-haired boy was dwarfed in stature by the black-haired man, they seemed to be cut a bit from the same identical mold. Buck Olsen walked with the careless swagger of one grown used to the camera’s eye and the hero-worshipping applause of the crowd--and Marty Gage’s stride was a studied, exact copy of Buck’s. They made one think of an eagle and a game-cock only, instead of trying desperately to escape, the game-cock tried to imitate the eagle. Hero and hero-worshipper!

A dozen of the players were breakfasting together--trim, bronzed, lean men marked by a certain nervous vitality. Benson, the outfielder, stopped them.

“Where do you get your drag, Buck?”

Buck grinned. “What drag?”

“The score-keeper gave you a hit on that poke to short. If it had been played cleanly you’d have been out a mile.”

“Boy,” said Buck, “they may nip me on a close one but I’m never out a mile.”

Marty was conscious of his father watching him inscrutably.

They found a table and ordered without glancing at the menu. When a ball club pays the bill a player does not have to figure cost; and Marty, as Bill Gage’s son, was carried as a guest.

“Pretty nearly time, isn’t it,” Buck asked, “for you to hang up your spiked shoes? How much longer you got?”

“A week,” Marty told him. “School is due to open next Wednesday.”

“Looks like you’ll miss the Chicago series, eh?”

Marty sighed.

“You won’t be missing much. We ought to take three out of four. Hodge’s the king-pin of their infield and ever since he smeared up his ankle the inner works have been shot. Take it from me, they’ll be pickings. Well, after all I’ve learned you this summer you ought to be able to go back there and kick things wide open. What’s the name of this school of yours?”

“Arrowhead.”

“Yes; that’s it. Arrowhead. Funny, I ain’t much on names. Tell me a name tonight and maybe tomorrow it’s gone. But let me see a batter go up once. That’s all, once. After that I’ve got his ticket as long as he stays in the league. You ought to go back to this Arrowhead school and burn them up.”

Marty found the prospect alluring. After all, why not? How many prep school players had big-league training? If he didn’t shine among the preps he’d be a dud.

Buck drank his orange juice and cleared a space on the table. “Ready, kid?”

“Let’s go.”

“O. K. Yesterday those birds got two fast ones in the first. Remember?”

Marty nodded.

“Why? Got the answer?”

Marty knitted his brows. “Schultz had fanned and Lake had popped. There were two down and men on second and third. You called Hub down for a talk.”

“Who was up?”

“Powell.”

“How does Powell hit?”

“Nine times out of ten to right field unless he’s facing a slow-ball pitcher and then he’s apt to hit to center or to left.”

“Why to center or left on a slow ball?”

“Because he hits late on a fast ball, and on a slow ball he meets it more out in front.”

“All right. You remember what you’re told, don’t you? Now, why shouldn’t they have got those two runs?”

Marty moved his fork back and forth across the table. His brows were still knitted. These examinations by Buck were rapid-fire; you had to know your stuff.

“You signed Hub for a slow ball.”

“How do you know?” Buck barked.

“Benson moved over closer to the left field foul line. Hub had been turning on the heat and Powell had fouled twice and each time had hit too soon and had fouled into right. If Hub crossed him with a slow ball, and if he was set to meet speed, he’d hit way out in front. That meant he’d pull the ball far over into left.”

“All right. What happened?”

“Benson didn’t go over far enough. If he had moved fifteen or twenty feet closer to the foul line--”

“Kid,” Buck beamed huskily, “if I do say it myself you’ve sure picked up what I’ve learned you. That’s the set-up to a hair. If Benson had moved over all the way he’d have caught Powell’s foul instead of not getting to it at all. The stands thought it was a swell try, but you and me know it shouldn’t even have been a try if he had placed himself right. If he’d have caught that foul Powell wouldn’t be still standing there with a bat on his shoulder to take another cut and dump that Texas Leaguer and bring in two runs. Kid, the way you’ve told it I couldn’t have told it any better myself. Right to a hair. Seen the newspapers this morning?”

Marty nodded.

“What ones?”

“Only the Herald-Trib.”

“See what the Trib said about Hub?”

“Yes.”

“All right; what about it?”

The waiter set down eggs and bacon. For the moment breakfast was forgotten. Again the fork made slow, thoughtful marks back and forth across the spotless cloth.

“The Herald-Trib was dead wrong, Buck.”

“Why?”

“Hub had his speed. I thought he had as much speed as he ever had shown.”

“How do you know? By the loud smack when the pill slapped into the mitt?”

Marty laughed confidently. “That’s old stuff, Buck.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. You taught me that one a month ago. Any smart catcher, by taking it right, can make any pitch sound like a rifle-shot. It’s a trick. I’ve learned how to do it myself. No, it wasn’t that. It was--Well, it was the way most of them were swinging.”

“What do you mean, swinging?”

“They were swinging late.”

“They hit him, didn’t they? Plenty. If they were swinging late how come they hit him?”

“All through the game they were set for speed. Naturally, now and then they’d time it right.”

“That isn’t telling me why you know he had his speed. Bear down. Why?”

“All through those five innings when they weren’t meeting it they were hitting into right field or missing. That meant only one thing, that they were hitting late. Didn’t it?”

“Are you asking me?”

“No,” Marty said slowly after a moment of thought; “I’m telling you.”

Buck Olsen’s huge, gnarled paw of a right hand smacked down upon the table. The silver jumped.

“Kid, I’m proud of you. That’s the ab-so-lute low-down. Hub was in there with just about everything, but it was their day to hit. Any pitcher tossed in there against them Sharks yesterday would have been wasted. That’s where your old man pulled a boner.”

“How?”

“As soon as he saw how it was he should have yanked Hub and saved him up, and shot him back at them Friday.”

Marty frowned.

“No criticism, you understand, kid,” Buck hastened to say. “I ain’t here to criticize any old man to his kid. Just talk between you and me.”

“Sure,” Marty said uncertainly.

“You keep your eyes open and watch what we do to them today,” Buck predicted grandly. “Binny’s working today and me and Binny go along swell. Binny’s always had the Indian sign on these birds. He’ll step out there and make them break their backs like he’s done twice before this season.”

That afternoon, from the bench, Marty saw Carl Binny bring the Panthers home to a shutout victory. The score was 3-0. The Sharks got only one man as far as third base, and got only four hits. Buck Olsen had a large and profitable day. The box-score gave him a home run, a long single, a sacrifice and a walk. The home run had cleared the high wall of the left field bleachers.

Marty, still thrilling to the tingle of the game, rode back to the hotel with the catcher. Buck was in a swaggering, exultant, expansive mood.

“Kid,” the hoarse voice exulted, “when I slap one right she travels properly. Did you ever see anyone hit a nicer sock over that right field wall?”

Marty shook his head.

“I felt hits in my bones. Like as not I could have poled out another solid poke if your old man had let me take a cut at the ball in the fourth instead of laying one down. I had that pitcher measured like I was a tailor with a tape. You noticed how Binny worked his game today?”

“Sure!”

“All right; how?”

“By mixing them.”

“Isn’t it the truth? Mixing them up all the time. Giving them no chance to get set. Crossing them up inning after inning. Kid, that’s the stuff that wins ball games in any man’s league.”

Marty’s hand strayed into a pocket and came in contact with something stiff and oblong. It was the letter that had come from Sparky Woods that morning. So that was what won ball games. Change of pace. Mixing them up skillfully and cannily. Keeping the batter guessing so that he never knew what to expect. The street car stopped outside the hotel and he swung off the front platform at the catcher’s heels.

“Buck, can you spare a few minutes?”

“For what?”

“I have a letter. It’s from one of the fellows and I’d like to talk to you about it.”

“Need any advice?”

“I think so.”

“You know where to come for advice,” Buck said indulgently. “As many minutes as you want. What’s it all about?”

“It’s a letter from Sparky.”

“What Sparky?”

“You know. I’ve told you about him before. He’s our ace pitcher.”

“Sparky? Oh, yes; sure. I get it now. Sparky Woods. What’s this Sparky been doing?”

“He’s up at a camp in Maine.”

“Ritzy kid, eh?”

“Well, he goes to this camp in Maine every year. They have eight different camps around the lake and they have a sort of league. He’s been working all summer on a ball.”

“All summer on one ball?”

“That’s what he says.”

“You want to watch out for that,” Buck said earnestly. “Where would Binny have ended today if he was a one-ball man? A one-ball thrower is like a man with one leg on him. Maybe he’ll get there and maybe he won’t. If he does get there it takes a lot of going. Anything else on your mind?”

“Yes. He says Darcow happened to drive through and dropped off to see him. He threw this ball for Darcow, and Darcow looked it over and told him to keep right on.”

“Who’s Darcow?” Buck demanded. “He’s a new one on me. Never heard of him.”

“He’s our baseball coach.”

“Darcow? How do you spell it?”

Marty spelled the name.

Buck frowned. “I still don’t get him. Tell me, what league did he ever play in?”

“He never played professional ball, Buck. I guess he isn’t thirty years old. He was a letter man at football and baseball while he was at college.”

“College, eh?” Buck laughed good-naturedly. “I get you now. I’ve seen some of these college men come up to the leagues. Mostly they get farmed out for two or three years seasoning. All they know is pink-tea baseball. Give them a man on first with one down and all they know is steal or sacrifice him around.”

“Darcow knows the game,” Marty said loyally.

Buck waved a hand, still good-natured. “All right, kid; we won’t argue. You’ve met this bird Darcow and I haven’t. Maybe you’re right. Don’t forget one thing, though. You’ve stepped around the big time with the Panthers. I’ll bet a nickle right now you know more baseball than this Darcow will ever know in his whole life.”

Marty said: “But how about Sparky Woods, Buck? What about this ball he’s working on?”

Buck Olsen shrugged. “How do I know? I ain’t no mind reader to pop up with answers.”

“But----”

“Listen, kid; anybody’s a sap to call a play they can’t see. We got some umpires in this league who don’t see the plays or they wouldn’t call them like they do, but I’m not built like that. I’ve got to have it where I can give it the looks. I don’t know your lay-out. I don’t know anything about the teams you play. I don’t know anything about this Sparky. I guess the only thing is for you to go back there, and keep your peepers open and use your head.”

Marty wanted concrete information and persisted stubbornly. “But ordinarily, Buck, a one-ball pitcher----”

“You’ve got the right slant,” Buck told him. “Ordinarily a one-ball pitcher is just a sucker who’s in for a bad day. And if anybody wants to argue about it and take you up on that, you just tell them that Buck Olsen said so.”

“Thanks, Buck,” Marty said. “That’s what I wanted to know. Now I know where I stand.”

It rained on the morrow--a steady, persistent, all-day rain--and the third game with the Sharks was washed out. Marty spent the afternoon writing letters, and one of them was a cautiously warning epistle addressed to Sparky. In the evening he went to see a moving picture. The picture didn’t completely capture his attention. All through its showing a corner of his mind lingered with three assertions Buck Olsen had made that day:

He had traveled with big leaguers.

He knew more real baseball than Darcow would ever know.

When he went back to Arrowhead he was to study conditions as he found them and use his head.

His chest swelled. It ought to be a mighty good head by this time, he told himself, not without a tingling sense of pride. After all, why should he not have the head? Hadn’t the great Buck Olsen trained him? Was there a better catcher in either of the big leagues than Buck? Hadn’t Buck pounded a table and said he was proud of him? He drew a deep, intoxicating breath. It was something for a man to have Buck Olsen proud of him.

Friday his father sent Hub Watson out again, and this time Hub’s dynamite speed had the Sharks blinded. Directly after the game the team jumped for St. Louis. The weather was hot--Binny weather, Buck called it. And in St. Louis, on Saturday, Carl Binny’s shrewd change of pace brought another victory.

Through the last half of that game Marty sat on the bench and turned a problem in his mind.

“Buck,” he said, “I’m puzzled.”

“Yeah? What about, kid?”

“Binny wins by mixing them up and crossing the batters. Hub wins by throwing them past the batters and using an occasional slow ball. What’s the answer?”

“Kid, it all depends.”

“On what?”

“When a thrower like Hub’s got so much speed they don’t see the ball; he’s got plenty.”

Marty nodded. Everything was clear now. Sparky just didn’t have the sort of smoke Hub had. He couldn’t have that much smoke. The boy wished he had expressed himself more freely in his letter to Sparky and had not been so cautious.

And then it was Monday, and he was to take the train that afternoon for Arrowhead.

He ate luncheon that day with his father and Buck Olsen’s hoarse, argumentative voice came from another table. At one o’clock he and his father went up to their hotel room. Marty’s trunks had gone off that morning by express; his grip, packed save for his leather toilet case, lay open upon a dressing bench.

“What train are you making, Marty?” Silent Bill Gage asked. “The two o’clock?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Too bad a night train wouldn’t fit into the schedule. Then I could go to the station with you. As it is, I’m afraid you’ll have to go alone. I must be at the ball park at two o’clock.”

“That’s all right, Dad; I understand.” Abruptly Marty asked something that had been close to him for days. “How are we going to finish this year? Are we going to go any higher or are we going to stick around?”

The man weighed the question as though the habit of the long, silent years was hard to break. “We’ll be lucky if we finish third,” he said at last.

“But we’ve been in second place since the end of May.”

“You’re forgetting that we’re carrying four rookies in the batting order. It’s a long grind, from April until October. Men playing for the first time in fast company are apt to tire. As a matter of fact, Marty, we’ve already passed our peak. Next year, though----” He left the sentence unfinished, but Marty knew what that “next year” meant. Next year his father hoped for a pennant and a place in the World’s Series.

Bill Gage spoke again. “Said good-bye to the boys yet, Marty?”

“Yes, sir. This morning after breakfast. Buck will be up for a moment.”

Silent Bill gave him one of those inscrutable glances. “Like Buck, don’t you?”

“A lot,” Marty said frankly.

“Good man, Buck. He can hit them and he knows the weakness of every man in the league. I’ve seen him hold a pitcher up to a win when the game should have been a defeat. What’s he been doing, loading you up?”

“Loading?” Marty was puzzled.

“With heavy advice,” the man said dryly.

Marty flushed uncomfortably. “He’s told me things.”

“I’ve known Buck for years. So far as I can see that’s one of his strong points--telling somebody something. He used to tell it to the umpires until he counted up how much in fines it was costing him. A mighty sweet catcher, but a little too windy with the mouth. Been telling you how much he’s taught you?”

“Well----” Marty’s flush grew deeper. “He has given me a lot of good dope.”

“Most of it,” Silent Bill said, “you can forget. Not that Buck doesn’t know his own stuff; but sometimes, in handing out heavy advice, he doesn’t take points into consideration. I thought, once or twice, of pulling you off; sometimes a talker like Buck can put a young fellow on the slide. Then I got to thinking that if you were the kind who couldn’t stay up with wind in your ear, you’d run out of line on the bases later, anyway. Time’s getting short.” He reached for the telephone and called the hotel porter’s desk. “Hello, Jim; how’s the boy? Not sore that we’re slapping your home team around, eh?” The man chuckled. “Marty’s starting back for school. Send up a hop for his grip, will you?”

Now that the actual time of parting had come Marty found his heart heavy. “I’ll see you and Mother at Thanksgiving, won’t I?”

“You can lay a bet on that,” said Silent Bill Gage, “and quote long odds.”

The two o’clock train, pulling out on the minute, carried a boy who forced himself to swallow the lump that choked his throat and who resigned himself philosophically to separation from the father he loved. Buck had missed him at the hotel, but had followed in a taxi and had caught him at the station.

“Kid,” the catcher said, “remember all I learned you. If you keep your head up you ought to be tops.”

“I’ll remember,” Marty promised. He was touched. His father was right, of course; Buck was talky. But what other player on the club, failing to say a final good-bye to him at the hotel, would spend taxi fare to follow him to the station?

A red-capped porter carried Marty’s bag to his Pullman section. He surrendered his hat and saw it disappear into the protection of a paper bag. The porter brought him a pillow for the back of the chair.

“Sam,” Marty demanded, “what’s the story? A flat wheel at all four corners of this rolling boiler factory?”

The porter grinned. “Boss, there ain’t a flat wheel on this whole road. There ain’t for a fact.”

“Stop kidding me,” Marty chided.

“Boss,” the porter insisted earnestly, “every coach on this road’s been special inspected. You’ll sleep good tonight.”

Marty, seasoned traveler because of his journeyings with the Panthers, slept soundly. He had left a call for six-thirty. He liked to shave and dress at that hour for then he had the wash-room to himself. The rush, he knew from experience, didn’t start until about seven o’clock.

The first pang of separation from his father was over. With the mountains and gorges of Pennsylvania flashing past the diner window he ate a leisurely breakfast and then returned to the sleeper. His section had been made up, the berths had miraculously disappeared and, in their places, were the upholstered, towel-backed seats of day travel. He glanced at his watch. Eight-thirty. By eleven o’clock he ought to be at Arrowhead.

The train stopped at a station and a boy came through with newspapers. Marty bought a Pittsburgh Post and turned eagerly to the sports pages. The Panthers had been nosed out by a ninth-inning rally in the final game at St. Louis. But Buck--the mighty Buck Olsen--had crashed through with three solid hits and had driven in two runs.

Marty whistled softly and thoughtfully. Of course, nobody in the whole world knew more about baseball from the inside than his father. And yet, what if Buck was windy? He knew the game, too, didn’t he--that is, the game as a catcher saw it from behind the plate? And if Buck, out of his wide experience taught another catcher, that other catcher should know something, too, shouldn’t he?

Marty whistled again, a joyous melody, and stared the length of the car with cheerful eyes.

There were signs of activity, which always meant the train was nearing a stop. The porter came through, brushed him off and carried his grip to the train platform. Ten minutes later they were at Arrowhead. The boy stepped down to the station and picked his grip out of a long line of other grips.

A familiar voice lifted in a shrill cry of welcome. “Hi, there, Marty Gage.”

Marty yelped: “Hi, Sparky Woods.”

“How’s the boy?”

“Swell. How’s yourself?”

They fell upon each other with violence. Presently, when the pummeling was over, Marty walked into the station and turned in his trunk checks to the baggage office. Then, with the grip swinging from one hand and Sparky Woods striding along at his side, he started up the long hill toward the school.

“How about after dinner?” Sparky asked. “That too soon for you?”

“How about after dinner what, Sparky?”

“I want to show you something.”

Marty’s reply to that was an exact imitation of Buck Olsen. “Yeah; what?”

“My fast ball. I wrote you about it. Don’t you remember? You wrote me, too. I won seven games with that fast ball in the camp league.”

Marty sighed. Sparky was sold on the idea of a one-ball delivery--absolutely sold.

“Darcow was up at the camp for a day. Oh, yes; I wrote you about that.” Sparky was elated. “Darcow says it’s a honey.”

Marty said nothing.

“A honey,” Sparky insisted.

Marty said: “Did Darcow see you in a game or were you out there throwing them at him?”

“Throwing them.” The catcher stopped short. “What’s the matter with you, Marty?”

“Nothing.”

“You act---- Oh, well; wait until you see it. Darcow says it’s a honey.”

“Is it?” The catcher swung the grip lightly to the other hand. “I’ll tell you better when I look it over.”