“The Base-Ball season has fairly commenced,” reported the Morning Call, “and with an energy unknown before.” Each day new clubs were formed: the Green Stockings, Silver Stockings, Gray Socks—a profusion of colors blossoming throughout the city. Others called themselves the Arctics, Young Bay Citys, Vigilants, and Young Pacifics, and were made up of clerks—often games started at six a.m., before work—businessmen, judges, bankers, draymen, and firemen; there was even a Fat Men squad whose players each topped 250 pounds.
Papers bristled with suggestions for improving hometown performance against us. Most involved imitating our play, but a few remained hostile. The Golden Era pointed out with some acerbity that, “The Red Stockings are professionals who do nothing else and are paid for doing that.”
Savvy entrepreneurs worked us into their newspaper puffs. One dry-goods establishment announced the sale of “Red Stockings and all kinds of underwear, shirts, ties, etc.” The Cliff House crowed, “Those lionized Red Stockings went out to see Captain Foster’s educated sea lions!”
Meanwhile, invitations to play poured in from clubs in Portland, Carson City, Cheyenne, Laramie, Denver, Virginia City, and Omaha; we were offered a gold medal to play at the State Fair in Stockton. Had it been up to Champion, we probably would have accepted all of them.
But the players were tired of being away from home, especially tired of San Francisco.
“We went through everything in three days,” Gould complained. “Nothin’s here but sand hills and Mongolians.”
“Chinee’re taking over everything,” Sweasy said.
“Cincinnati is smoke-clogged, but I’d choose it over this damn cold wind,” Waterman said. “No offense, Sam.”
“None taken,” I said, suspecting that he and Brainard found late-night outlets for their frustrations. The others, though tempted, were probably deterred by the risk. Except for Andy, who seemed to have tacit dispensation from Harry to float on love clouds to Elise’s show each night.
The last day of September, a Thursday, dawned brilliantly clear. I had slept well and felt no signs of shakiness. Setting out from the hotel for the Blue Anchor, I saw that trees were beginning to lose their leaves. The air held a briskness I hadn’t noticed before. It put me in mind of neighborhood football games I’d played as a kid. And watching the World Series on TV with Grandpa—who’d let me cut school when a game was really important. I didn’t relish spending this vibrant day at the Recreation Grounds, watching the poor Pacifics get steamrollered again.
Not finding Johnny in his room, I stopped at the California Coffee Saloon for the twenty-five-cent three-egg breakfast special and set off through North Beach, past Meigg’s Wharf. The streets were a perfect grid, not yet slashed diagonally by Columbus. At Larkin, boundary of the Western Addition, I looked at the unbroken sand dunes stretching beyond.
Missing Cait badly, I opened my watch and gazed at the piece of yellow fabric for a long time. What was working on me so strongly in this city? I wondered. Something powerful enough to pull me from her? Again I sensed that whatever lay in store for me—maybe even the answer to why I’d come back in time—was waiting here, close by.
What I had to do was find it.
Fisherman’s Wharf wasn’t where I had known it, between Mason and Hyde, but instead stretched along piers at the foot of Union, Green, and Vallejo. There I saw Italian immigrants working on what looked like a large float. I stopped and asked them about it. Big celebration in two weeks, they said. The city’s first Discovery Day.
“Discovery of gold?”
That brought a laugh. “Da whole country!” a woman said, “Cristo-foro Colombo!”
The first Columbus Day! Well, all right.
“You come sing an’ dance wit’ us?”
“I’ll be there,” I promised.
As the words left my mouth I realized I’d made my decision: unless whatever was coming happened first, I wouldn’t be going back with the team.
The clock in the Bank Exchange Saloon read one o’clock. Soon the Stockings would be heading for the ball field. I ordered a stein of beer and picked up a paper. To my amazement the feature story dealt with my alma mater, the University of California. It had begun its first classes. Ever!
I snacked on the Bank Exchange’s cheeses and sourdough bread while I scanned the other columns. A gang of toughs had tied the braids of two Chinese together and beaten them savagely near Portsmouth Square; butter was scarce and dear at seventy-five cents a pound—why couldn’t the Pacific Slope, prime cattle territory, produce enough of the stuff? And why weren’t the gas company’s lamplighters doing their jobs? With days growing short, lights weren’t on in many streets until well after dark. Each item carried the same aggrieved tone.
I got up and went out from the thick walls and iron shutters of the Montgomery Block. My mind was made up: as a kid I’d cut school to go to games; today I’d cut the game to go to school. I walked to the ferry station at Pacific and Davis, where I took an open-air seat on the top deck. Crossing the bay, the boat’s churning wheel and hissing boilers made an incessant racket. As the oak-studded east bay slopes gradually neared, I could see occasional stands of redwoods on the hilltops. I looked in vain for Berkeley. Where the town and university should be were only scattered fields and foothills laced with green creek lines.
“What’s that near the shore?” I asked another passenger, pointing to a cluster of wooden buildings about where San Pablo Avenue should be.
“Ocean View,” he answered.
Ocean View? I saw a wharf, several sawmills, and—perhaps the biggest surprise I’d found on the West Coast—a gorgeous mile-long crescent of white sand framed by marshes and two slow-flowing creeks. A beach