I walked numbly up and down Montgomery with hundreds of others trying to understand what had happened. Rumors abounded: Gould had raked in ten million; Fisk had been murdered by a ruined speculator; Grant had impoverished members of his own family. Nothing was certain—except that New York’s swamped Gold Room had announced it would be closed on Monday. It would take days to sort it all out. I just prayed that enough would be left to salvage Twain’s share.
Probably as a consequence of realizing I’d soon have to work for a living, I rose early on Saturday and knocked out some Enquirer pieces, mostly scenic highlights of the trip and chatty stuff about “our boys” in the Golden City. I mailed it early at the main post office at Washington and Battery, along with a long letter to Cait and Timmy.
At the Blue Anchor I rousted Johnny from bed. He’d been up nearly till dawn and looked it.
“Found a job,” he said. “I’ll be able to buy a new wheel in no time. There’s racin’ here.”
“Where you working?”
“Pretty-waiter-girl place called the Bull Run.”
“Maybe I’ll come down with Andy and some of the others,” I said, wondering what he did there.
“Champion’d have a cat fit,” he said uneasily. “It’s no church.”
“In that case I’ll come alone.”
He frowned. “I wouldn’t, Sam.”
“Look, Johnny, if you had to take a job that bad, let me loan—” I stopped. I couldn’t loan him anything.
“You’ve done enough,” he said. “Time to stand on my own.”
We talked a while longer. I told him I’d drop by in future days. Johnny said he’d get out to some of the games, if he weren’t too tired from working.
The Recreation Grounds’ carriage gate on Twenty-sixth was hopelessly clogged. As we climbed down and walked to the main entrance on Folsom, we could see why. Wagons and carts lined against the fences offered vantage points for hundreds who refused to move. Adding to the growing area of gridlock were the aggressive yellow cars of the Omnibus Railway Company; they arrived every five minutes from the downtown Metropolitan Hotel, disgorging passengers who’d paid their gold dollar for the shuttle and admission package entitling them to be packed into the bull pens.
Police made a path for us. Hatton turned and grinned happily at Champion. If this turnout signaled what would follow in the week, it looked as if he would meet the high costs of bringing us here. Thousands were jammed into the ladies’ pavilion alone, where seats cost two dollars in gold, two seventy-five in paper.
I sat at the press table. Again Harry had offered me the chance to play, but to do so would have been weirdly superfluous. I’d proven myself here already, playing before my grandparents and friends at Mission High, not more than ten blocks away.
The Eagles took the field in white flannel shirts and blue pants. They were the city’s oldest club and victors in a recent championship series. I shared the Stockings’ curiosity as to how good they could be, isolated as they were from the rest of the baseball scene.
Hearing that I was from San Francisco, one of the Eagles gave me some embarrassing moments by asking where I’d lived and did I know this person and that. After some fumbling, I said I’d actually grown up in Santa Rosa, fifty miles north, but said I was from this city because it was widely known. That was greeted with silent skepticism. I’d obviously been born before the gold rush, when few whites lived anywhere in California. Andy saved the situation with a good-natured taunt that no matter where I grew up, I knew my way around a diamond—which meant I must have learned to play at an eastern college; it provoked a good deal of intersectional needling.
Millar, beside me at the press table, said, “Do gamblers here truly shoot off guns to distract fielders?”
The Stockings had been told that it used to happen.
“Distract?” I replied. “Hell, usually they just shoot the fielders.”
He seemed to realize I was kidding. With Millar you could never be sure.
George, Waterman, Andy, and Sweasy emerged from the clubhouse and went into their sleight-of-hand routine, getting the usual oohs and ahhs. I noticed that men and women in the stands wore bulkier clothing than in Cincinnati, and many carried heavy coats. The reason became evident soon after the game started. A wind rose abruptly, stinging us with sand particles. Papers blew in swirling gusts, and I was suddenly chilled. Shades’ of Candlestick!
Brainard was wild, but it didn’t matter. The first Eagle went down on three swinging strikes. The second tomahawked a single on a pitch over his head. The next two fouled out.
When the Eagles took the field we saw how far behind the times, baseballwise, they were. Their hurler, working in what Harry called the “old style,” stood flat-footed instead of striding forward with his release. George, leading off, was so surprised that he popped the first pitch straight back to the catcher, who dropped it. George whacked the next pitch on a line to the center fielder, who muffed the catch. Because the Eagles had no backup system—one defender moved while eight watched—George sprinted clear around the bases. It was a sign of things to come. At the end of the first inning we led 12-0. The contest ended 35-4. For us, a solid afternoon’s work. For the Eagles and the watching thousands, a humbling revelation.
Money changed hands, but losers didn’t seem chagrined. I heard several predict that local clubs would fare better now that they’d seen our style of play. Good luck, I thought, knowing that we hadn’t played with much intensity
