The Cincinnati Red Stalkings (17 page)

Twenty minutes later, Margie and I were in the orchestra section as the Walsh Trio, billed as “Harmony Funsters,” performed on the stage. Their singing was dreadful and their jokes worse. This was a high-class vaudeville house, meaning the audience didn’t throw rotten vegetables at the acts, but they made their displeasure known the same as a crowd letting an ump know when he’d made a bad call.

Still, I enjoyed it. The Walshes were so bad, they were unintentionally funny. I was feeling relaxed when it occurred to me: would giving Ralph tickets to a Reds game in exchange for fixing me up with gambler cause me more problems?

As Countess Verona, “Musical Genius of the Czimbalon,” took the stage, I decided to hell with it—I’d done enough fretting lately. For the rest of the night, I’d allow myself to concentrate on the show and have a good time. I could go back to worrying tomorrow.

I
handed the usher my ticket stub and a silver dollar. “I’m looking for Spider Jenkins,” I said. “Know where I can find him?”

The elderly colored man gave me back the coin. “Don’t know nobody by that name.”

“I hear he’s the man to see about getting down a bet.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out another dollar.

He studied me closely. “You a cop?”

“Do I look like one?”

“Not particularly. Except you’re the color of a cop.”

“I’m a ballplayer.”

“You don’t look like one of them, neither.” After a few seconds’ deliberation, he took the money and nodded in the direction of the third-base dugout. “Spider’s in the front row box ’tween home plate and the dugout. White hat. Can’t miss him.”

I looked at the area where Spider Jenkins was seated. No matter how invisible Negro baseball was to the men who ran the white game, I was uncomfortable meeting a bookmaker in full view of everyone in the park. I asked the usher, “Could you ask him to meet me at the concession stand?”

He chuckled. “It don’t work that way. You got business with Jenkins, you go to
him.
”

“All right. Thanks.”

I stopped to get a bag of peanuts and a root beer before going to meet with the bookie. When I was near Jenkins’s box, I made a show of examining my ticket, then sidled into the seat next to him. If anyone was looking, I hoped to appear as if I was simply sitting down to watch the game. From the corner of my eye, I saw that Spider Jenkins was dressed in the same style as white gamblers: flashy. His cream-colored suit was impeccable, the yellow tie he wore was bright enough to cause a player to lose a fly ball in its glare, and his white cap was cocked at such an angle that I didn’t know how it stayed on his head.

“Seat’s taken,” he said.

Keeping my eyes on the field, I dug into the peanuts and cracked one open. “Hear you’re the man to see about making a bet.”

“You hear wrong.”

I’d almost forgotten to use the name of the theater manager. “Ralph at the Palace says otherwise.”

“All right ... how much you want to get down and on who?”

I took another sidelong glance at Jenkins. He had long, skinny limbs and a face that was one of the darkest shades of brown I’d ever seen. He looked younger than I expected, possibly in his late twenties. “I don’t want to place a bet. I’m looking for information.”

“I ain’t in the information business. What are you, a cop?”

“My name’s Mickey Rawlings,” I said. “I play for the Reds.”

“Sure you do.” I could feel his eyes studying me. “Then how come you ain’t in New York with the ball club?”

“Trouble with my eyes,” I lied. “I’m here to see you because I’m hoping you can tell me something about a gambler named Rufus Yates.”

“Like I said, I ain’t in the information business. And the business I
am
in you’re hurting just by sitting there. Folks see a white fella here, they assume he’s with the police, and then I don’t get no customers. How about you move on?”

“Be happy to. What do you know about Yates?”

He started to stand, probably to make me move, then sat back down with a sigh. “Rufus Yates is no gambler,” he said. “Gambling is an honorable profession. You place your bets fair and square and takes your chances—it’s a sporting proposition. Yates is a crook. He’ll steal or sell bootleg or do anything else that’ll make him a buck. And if he takes a bet or places one, you know it’s on something that’s been fixed.” Jenkins shook his head. “Ain’t no sport to that.”

“I hear he’s connected with Arnold Rothstein.”

“Hell, everybody say that. Yates probably never even met the man.”

“But he might have worked for him—like in the 1919 World Series?”

“Maybe. But I don’t know nothing about that Series. Buncha white boys in New York and Chicago screwed us all by fixing that one.”

“Didn’t you take bets on the series?”

“Sure. Everybody did. Couldn’t get one down on the Reds after a while, though. Word got around fast that the fix was in.”

I took a swallow of the root beer. “You know if Lloyd Tinsley placed any bets on the Sox?” Although I knew it could have been simple coincidence, the fact that Tinsley and Yates had been together in Wichita could mean they had other connections as well.

“How would I know that?” Jenkins asked.

“I expect you’d want to keep tabs on things like that to protect your own business interests. If somebody from the Reds management is betting on the Sox, that would be a sure sign something’s wrong.”

“I never heard nothing ’bout him doing any such thing. You ready to be getting to another seat?”

“Yeah. But first I’d like to ask you a favor: could you check around about Tinsley and Yates for me?”

“Why should I? What’s in it for me?”

Good question. What could I give him in return?

“If you really with the Reds,” Jenkins suggested, “maybe you can let me know next time the starting pitcher ain’t feelin’ so good or something like that.”

So he’d have an edge in betting on the games. “Would that be ‘sporting’?” I asked.

“Hey, I don’t fix no games. But there ain’t nothing wrong with knowing as much as you can about the teams.”

“Can’t do that,” I said. “Look, I’ll pay you straight up. If you get information, tell me how much you want for it, and I’ll give you cash.” I didn’t want any debt hanging over me.

He chuckled. “How you gonna tell if the information’s any good?”

I didn’t know. But I had nothing else to go on. “I’ll take your word for it,” I said.

The chuckle turned into a laugh. “I don’t know if you’re a cop or a ballplayer or what, but one thing I know for sure: you ain’t no businessman.”

All the more reason why I better hang on to my career as baseball player, I thought. “If you find out anything,” I said, “give me a call. I’m in the directory.”

I took another look at my ticket, then moved to a seat on the first-base side of the park. I settled back and watched the visiting Indianapolis ABCs beat the Cuban Stars 2–0 behind the pitching of Dizzy Dismukes. And I wished to hell I could have played with them.

The phone rang five minutes after I got home, and I rushed to pick up the receiver.

The first words from the caller were, “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling every fifteen minutes since two o’clock!”

It took a moment for the voice to register as that of Lloyd Tinsley. I was tempted to point out that it was none of his damn business where I’d been. My next impulse was to evade the question. Then I decided to play it safe, in case I’d been seen. “I was at Redland, watching the Cuban Stars game.”

“Well, get your ass to New York. Take the first train out, and I’ll reimburse you when you get here.”

“But I—” As far as I knew, Tinsley wasn’t aware of the reason I’d had to stay home from the trip. “My vision is, uh ...”

“Your vision cleared up this afternoon when Heinie Groh took a fastball in the head. He’s gonna be out for two weeks and we need you in the lineup. Don’t worry: Moran said he wants you, and Mr. Herrmann got permission from the Judge to let you play.”

“That’s great!”

“Don’t get too excited. Judge Landis says you’re still under investigation. You’re only cleared to play until he makes his final decision.”

So Tinsley knew why I was really out. I wondered how many others did. “Do the fellows on the team know why I ain’t been with them?”

Tinsley sounded a little less angry. “No. Mr. Herrmann, Pat Moran, and me are the only ones.” Then he barked, “Now get to the train station!”

As soon as we hung up, I called Central Union Depot and found there was a 6:15 for New York. I’d make it if I hurried.

I was excited as I packed, throwing things I’d never need into my suitcase and not caring what I might have overlooked. I was back on the Reds!

And I even became optimistic about what Landis would decide. I figured the best testimony I could have in my favor was that Pat Moran
wanted
me. He knew I played to win, and Landis was sure to realize that there had to be a reason for the manager’s confidence in me.

The only thing I didn’t like was having to leave before Margie got home. With no time to go to a florist, I went next door and picked some flowers from the Kellys’ garden. I left them for Margie in a vase, along with a note that I rewrote three times.

I made it to the station with barely enough time to buy my ticket and grab a few newspapers and magazines to read on the trip.

Maybe I was tired from the rush to catch the train, or I was just feeling more relaxed than I had in some time about being allowed to rejoin the team, but I fell asleep within fifteen minutes of boarding.

We were halfway to Pennsylvania by the time I woke up and opened the early evening edition of the
Cincinnati Post.
A two-column headline on the front page announced that Dick Hurley, the formerly “missing sock” of the old Red Stockings, had been shot.

I
arrived late at the Polo Grounds Saturday afternoon. The rest of the team was already on the field for pregame practice.

Lloyd Tinsley and Pat Moran were talking together outside the locker-room door when I got there. “Glad you could make it,” Tinsley said sourly.

Pat Moran expressed the same sentiments but sounded more sincere.

“Came as fast as I could,” I said.

“You’re playing third,” said Moran. “Suit up.”

I went into the clubhouse and found a pin-striped road uniform—the Reds were the only team in baseball to wear plain flannels at home and pin stripes on the road. I tried to change quickly, but exhaustion impaired my coordination. My fingers were clumsy and my vision fuzzy.

I hadn’t been able to fall back asleep after reading the news about Dick Hurley. According to the
Post,
a woman had shot Hurley as he stepped off an elevator in the lobby of the Sinton Hotel. Hurley had still been alive when he was taken to the hospital, but there were few other details reported—the severity of the wound was unknown, the woman was not identified, and there was no known motive. The lack of information gave me plenty of room to speculate. Maybe the book wasn’t closed on whatever it was that had happened in 1869.

Finally dressed, and with my mitt in hand, I trotted out of the clubhouse runway onto center field. The view of the Polo Grounds grandstand, with Coogan’s Bluff behind it, brought my mind to focus on the game at hand. Most of the seats in the park were taken; a major part of the attraction for the fans was that Rube Marquard, once a star for New York, was going to pitch for Cincinnati.

I was too late for batting or fielding practice, so I went directly to the dugout. A few of my teammates asked about my eyes, and I told them the double vision had cleared up. I was relieved that they genuinely appeared to believe that I’d been away from the team for health reasons.

In the bottom of the first, after the Reds failed to get a runner on base in the top of the inning, Marquard went to the mound and I took my position at third base. Out to the coach’s box came John McGraw. The Giants manager lit into me immediately, trying to distract me with profanity-laced insults. I pretended not to notice; I’d heard the “Little Napoleon” give the same abuse to visiting players for three years, and it sounded like he was still using the same material.

Instead of being unsettled by the needling, I was determined to play extra hard against my former team. The exhaustion of the long train ride actually helped, calming down whatever jitters McGraw’s epithets and playing before New York fans might have triggered.

That calm lasted for exactly one batter. The second man up for the Giants, shortstop Dave Bancroft, pulled a blistering line drive up the third-base line. Pure reflex sent me into a dive. The ball drilled into my palm, and I held tight as I skidded on my belly. I ended up with my face inches from McGraw’s feet.

“Why the hell didn’t you make catches like that for me?” he screamed. One of his shoes went up, and I yanked my bare hand away. A half second later his spikes came down on the spot where my hand had been.

Picking myself up, I said, “You’re slowin’ down, Mac. Must be all the weight you been puttin’ on.”

From that point on, I don’t think McGraw was aware that anyone else was on the field. His attention—and vile mouth—were targeted only at me.

The manager’s rage grew in the top of the third, when I snapped out of my batting slump by hitting an opposite field double off Art Nehf. In my next two at-bats, I reached base twice more—once on a fastball that grazed the top of my head and then by taking another one on the side of my neck. The beanballs were on orders from McGraw, I was sure, so I didn’t go after Nehf. In the top of the ninth, I ducked away from enough pitches to work a 3–0 count, and when Nehf finally put one over the plate I hit a single up the middle.

We were ahead 5–4 going into the bottom of the ninth. Rube Marquard, still pitching strong, struck out the first two Giants to face him. Then Highpockets Kelly came up to bat. He was New York’s last hope, and the crowd was clamoring for a rally.

Kelly got all of Marquard’s first pitch, lifting a high fly to deep center field. Edd Roush raced back, but the ball carried over his outstretched glove, and landed near the Eddie Grant Memorial at the base of the wall. As Roush tracked down the caroming baseball, Kelly flew around second base, and I got ready for a throw at third. McGraw was yelling, “Spike him! Spike him!”—the “him” being me. I half expected McGraw to jump me from behind and hold me down. Roush threw to Curt Stram, who relayed the ball to me. Stram’s throw was high, and I had to jump to get it. I came down off-balance, a sitting duck for Kelly’s cleats. He didn’t go for the cheap shot, though. He slid hard, but fair, and before I could tag him. “Safe!” called base ump Cy Rigler.

Instead of congratulating Kelly on the triple, McGraw berated him for not cutting me.

I trotted over to Marquard with the ball in my mitt. I held it over his extended glove, but didn’t let go. “Stay off the rubber, Rube.”

He gave me a small smile and nodded.

I trotted back to third, with the ball trapped between my mitt and my side. Marquard went to the back of the mound and pretended to scrape dirt from his cleats.

With McGraw still bawling out Kelly, I took the next step: I gave Cy Rigler a peek at the ball. If you catch the umpire by surprise, he might not see the play and call the runner safe. From the look in Rigler’s eyes, he was going to enjoy this as much as me if it worked. McGraw had no friends among the umpires.

I went to the bag and gave it a kick as if it had shifted with Kelly’s slide and I was merely trying to put it back on the foul line. Distracted by McGraw’s wrath, Kelly accommodated me by stepping off the base. I immediately tagged him with the ball, and Rigler’s thumb shot up in the air.
“Yerrrrrrr out!”

I kept a firm grip on the ball and ran to center field, my teammates joining me in the race to the clubhouse as they realized the game was over. The jeers of the Polo Grounds crowd grew to an ugly crescendo, but I could swear I heard McGraw screeching louder than the rest. As base coach, it had been his job to watch for the hidden ball trick.

I could have fallen asleep, I was so tired and content, but I wanted to savor the afterglow of the game a while longer. The boos of the New York partisans still rang in my ears; it was a sound as rewarding to a visiting player as cheers were from fans at home. Beating John McGraw would have been satisfying enough under normal circumstances. Today’s game was a double victory for me, though, because no one who witnessed it—and I was sure Judge Landis would be getting a report on my performance—could doubt that I was giving my best.

On the diamond, my return to the Reds was certainly off to a good start. Off the field, however, things weren’t looking so positive.

I was lying on my bed in our hotel room, still dressed, idly rolling the game ball in my fingers. At the washbasin, my new roommate, Curt Stram, was carefully navigating a razor over his cheeks, scraping off the peach fuzz. He paused often to remove excess lather with a towel and to admire his reflection in the mirror.

Since I’d left Bubbles Hargrave without a roommate when I had to stay behind in Cincinnati, Greasy Neale and Hargrave had made a trade: the two of them hooked up as roomies, leaving the unpopular Stram to room by himself. Now that I was back, I was stuck with the rookie.

“C’mon, Mick,” he urged me again. “What’s the point of being in New York if you’re not going to hit the town? It’s Saturday night!”

“All I want is sleep tonight,” I told him for the third time.

Stram continued his preparations at the mirror, carefully placing locks of his dirty blond hair over his forehead. I was amazed at how hard he worked to look carelessly handsome. If only he put as much effort into his baseball, he could become one of best.

“I hear there’s a couple new girls at Daisy’s,” he said. “And maybe an old one for you,” he added, with a laugh at his idea of a joke.

Daisy’s was a house of ill-repute on Forty-first Street. I had no interest in going there with or without Stram. “What about Katie Perriman?” I asked.

His expression was blank. “What about her?”

“Aren’t you and her ... ?”

“So what if we were? She’s a thousand miles away. And, as it happens, there’s nothing between us anyhow.”

“You told me before that there was.” I didn’t care whether he was faithful to her, I just wanted to aggravate him a little.

He uncorked a bottle of bay rum. “Not no more. I’ve had it with her. Did her a big favor and don’t get no appreciation for it. To hell with her.”

“What favor?”

“Just because it don’t go the way she’d like, she gets all het up about it. Ought to be grateful, and all she does is gripe.” He splashed bay rum over his face and neck. “Women! Gimme girls like the ones at Daisy’s any day. You know where you stand with them. Not like—”

I tried again, “What’s she mad at you for?”

“Can’t say.” He set the bottle heavily on the washstand. “It’s personal.”

Must have been real personal, I thought, considering Stram had never before shown a reluctance to run his mouth about private matters.

As he completed his grooming and donned an expensive suit that was a brighter shade of blue than any sapphire, I was thinking about Ollie Perriman. Because of Rufus Yates, I’d recently been focusing on the notion that Perriman might have been killed over something involving the 1919 World Series. But there remained the possibility that the motive was personal—like somebody wanting Katie Perriman’s husband out of the way.

Stram asked one more time if I’d join him. I again declined and added a warning that if he woke me when he came in, I’d put soap in his toothpaste. He assured me he wouldn’t be back till morning.

When he left, I opened the windows wider to let out the smell of the bay rum and went down to the lobby to phone Margie. It was the first chance I’d had to talk to her since leaving Cincinnati.

I began with a detailed recounting of the day’s game. Then I caught myself, and told her that I missed her and apologized for having to leave for New York so abruptly.

“I understand,” she said. “It was sweet of you to leave me the lilies.”

“I thought they were daffodils.”

“At this time of year? Daffodils don’t bloom in
July.
” She sounded like she was telling me something as obvious as that the earth was round.

I knew if a bat was ash or willow or hickory, but with flowers I pretty much went by color. “Well, they were yellow,” I said. “So I thought they were daffodils.”

She laughed. “By the way, it’s best to cut the roots off before putting them in a vase. Oh!”—her tone grew serious—“I thought you might be interested: that old Red Stocking Dick Hurley was shot yesterday.”

“I know. I read about it on the train. Not much detail, though. Did he live?”

“So far. He’s in Old City Hospital. And they caught the woman.”

“Any news on
why
she shot him?”

“No, just—hold on—” I heard the receiver clatter on the table. When Margie got back on the line, she said, “I have the article here. Her name is Mrs. Charlotte Ashby. She lives in Walnut Hills, and she’s described as ‘elderly.’ There’s no theory about motive.”

She promised to save the newspapers for me, and we talked for a while longer before grogginess overtook me and I headed up to bed.

Sundays were no longer a day of rest for major-league ballplayers in New York. A year ago, the state legalized Sunday baseball games, leaving Boston, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia as the only big-league cities that still prohibited them.

This Sunday, we played the opener of our series against the Dodgers in Ebbets Field. With Eppa Rixey outpitching Brooklyn’s Burleigh Grimes, we took a 2–0 win over the defending league champions. I had another good game, picking up two hits in four at-bats against the spitballer Grimes. I also got my first chance to see one of the former Reds who’d left the club after the 1919 World Series: second baseman Kid Gumbert.