Читать книгу Summer of Shadows - Jonathan Knight - Страница 23

After being told to quit the game while in the minor leagues, Al Rosen would make $40,000 with the Indians in 1954. In the off-season, he had a plush job as an investment broker and hosted a Cleveland television show. No longer was he harassed or targeted by opposing pitchers, and he’d found a fiercely loyal following among Cleveland’s large Jewish population. He’d earned the respect of players and managers alike. Prior to a game at Municipal Stadium, Casey Stengel raised a crooked finger and pointed out to Rosen taking infield practice. “That young feller,” Stengel began in his usual rambling tone, “that feller’s a ball player. He’ll give you the works every time. Gets all the hits, gives you the hard tag in the field. That feller’s a real competitor, you bet your sweet curse life.”

Now, in his first at-bat in Cleveland in 1954, Rosen pounded a long fly ball to left that brought the runner home from third to give the Indians a 1–0 lead—and, due to an adjustment to the rule book for 1954, he was charged with a sacrifice fly rather than with an at-bat. Then in the sixth, after Detroit tied the contest, Rosen crushed his first home run of the season to put Cleveland ahead again. The crowd once more showered him with cheers. In the All-American town, he was the All-American baseball hero—young, strapping, blond-haired, blue-eyed, and movie-star handsome. And, as it happened, Jewish.

Garcia cruised through the top of the seventh and got the first two Tiger batters in the eighth, and the Indians were four outs away from their third straight victory to start the season. But as the Indians came to bat following the stretch, the bright promise of the day began to fade. Storm clouds slid eastward, and the sky over downtown Cleveland gradually transformed from aqua to gunmetal. The sun disappeared, the temperature dropped, and the wind picked up, a steady spring breeze turning into a chilled, blustery nuisance, swirling wrappers and abandoned scorecards around the ballpark.

As the storm moved closer, the Indians’ lead became more precarious. One out away from the ninth, Garcia allowed a single, a stolen base, and another base hit as Detroit tied the contest again. He got out of the inning with no further damage, but the lead was lost in the gathering darkness. At 4:35, the stadium’s lights were turned on, marking the first time they’d ever been used in a home opener. Twenty minutes later, the rain began to fall. It poured down in sheets, drenching the new infield. More symbolically, the rain seemed to rinse away the earlier excitement like a chalk drawing on a sidewalk. The soothing magic of baseball on opening day vanished as play was halted for ninety minutes while the squall trudged along the Lake Erie coastline.

It was nearly 6:30 when the rain passed and the teams returned to the field, the bright blue afternoon sky having transformed to a dark marble of gray and purple. The crowd had dwindled to a fraction of its original size, and the festive mood had been carried off with the storm. Not surprisingly, Garcia was rusty as the ninth began, walking the first two batters as the Tigers loaded the bases with one out. The winning run came home on a ground out moments later as Detroit managed to take the lead without knocking the ball out of the infield. The Indians went quietly in the ninth and nearly four hours after it began, Cleveland’s 1954 home opener was history.

Over the course of the remaining seventy-six games played on that diamond over the next five months, they would lose only seventeen more times.