I was surprised when Dick Pearce came up to me. He was short and thickly built, with a brush mustache and intelligent brown eyes.
“I heard about your baby hit against the Haymakers, Fowler. Hoped you might show it off for me.”
“Baby hit . . . oh, the bunt.”
“That how it’s called?”
After he assured me he wouldn’t try it against us, I demonstrated squaring away and cushioning the bat. He watched me with a sharp professional eye. “I see it would take some little practice.”
“Some little,” I agreed modestly.
Later, when Pearce squared away at the plate during the game, I thought I’d been suckered. But he used the stance to punch a fair foul past Waterman, despite the latter’s playing him a step in foul territory. There was simply no way to defense the maneuver, I realized. Pearce seemed even more adept at it than Waterman or Hurley, and for good reason: later I learned that he had invented it. With bunts added to his weaponry he would drive opposing infielders crazy.
The game itself, after yesterday’s cliffhanger, was ho-hum. The Atlantics opened with hustle and confident chatter, but began to deflate when we blanked them in the opening frames. Meanwhile, our hitters jumped on Pratt’s fastballs as if to make up for lean production against Wolters. We tallied five runs in the first and iced things with thirteen in the second. Coasting, we won, 32-10. The crowd, rising between innings in a foreshadowing of the seventh-inning stretch, seemed quite impressed by us, as did the Atlantics themselves. Later we heard that it was the worst defeat ever suffered by the proud Brooklyn club.
Allison, playing inspired ball, at one point lunged for a foul tip that caromed off his own neck. Pursuing the ball, he barreled into the batter, knocking him flat. Then, tumbling forward himself, he somehow kept the ball in the air with desperate tips and finally seized it as his chin plowed the sod. He rose to appreciative applause, grinning through clumps of grass and dirt. I considered, not for the first time, the possibility of Allison being not quite mentally balanced.
We moved in a tight orbit from the field. I’d seen no sign of McDermott or Le Caron or even Morrissey—rumor had him winning big on us yesterday—but my blood pumped rapidly. This was when Holt had warned it would come. I wrapped my fingers around the derringer in my pocket. We departed safely. There was no visible threat at the ferry. But I felt a pervasive menace, a sense of being watched by unfriendly eyes. One thing I knew: I wanted out of New York badly.
That night I ventured from our room only to eat, fearful that Holt’s note had been some sort of ruse. Unable to sleep, I began a Harper’s Monthly story called “The Murderous Gypsy Murillo: A Tale of Old California.” It worked like a charm. I was asleep by the third page.
Except that we were back in Williamsburg facing the Brooklyn Eckfords, the next day followed the same pattern. A crowd of eight thousand turned out, even though we were prohibitive favorites.
The Eckfords came out fighting. Their pitcher, Alphonse Martin, who answered to “Phonnie” and “Old Slow Ball,” baffled us with junk in the opening frames. Andy muffed a fly early on, and the Eckfords pushed across several runs. To my relief Andy fielded flawlessly the rest of the way, made a gorgeous over-the-shoulder catch, and lashed four hits. Brainard, relieved by Harry in the closing innings, held the Eckfords to eight hits. The final was 24—5. Our games now completed in New York, the crowd stood and gave us a departing ovation.
Bunched amidst the others, crouching to keep my head from posing a target, I imagined the sudden flash of a blade, the crack of a gun. Move faster! I urged silently. We made the trip without incident, although as we were entering Earle’s I nearly jumped out of my shoes when a group standing in front of the pool hall next door raised cue sticks in mock salute to us. For an instant I thought they were leveling rifles. Gould wasn’t amused either. He stopped and glared. They retreated inside.
That night I made it through four more pages of “Murderous Murillo,” the highlight coming when “the tawny bosom of Rosa fired with dark yearnings on seeing the swarthy countenance of the savage Gypsy bandit framed in the flaps of her tent.” There was a subtle hint that Rosa might even be uncorseted beneath her peasant blouse. Hoo boy.
To the delight of Andy and Sweasy, Champion scheduled a game against the Irvington club. We departed Manhattan after breakfast and crossed to Newark, a booming industrial and shipping center of over a hundred thousand, where smokestacks were eclipsing the earlier charms of graceful church spires and quiet colonial greens.
Champion also arranged for a team publicity shot at Huff’s Photography Palace on Broad Street. Andy asked that I be included, but I begged off. The last thing I wanted was my likeness available to Le Caron or anybody else McDermott might send after me.
I wandered around, eyeing carte-de-visite portraits and stereo cards. On the walls hung samples of everything the studio advertised on the huge sign over its door: Likenesses of Distinguished Statesmen, Eminent Divines, Prominent Citizens, Indian Chiefs, and Notorious Robbers and Murderers. Also—Beautiful Landscapes, Perfect Clouds, and a Bona Fide Streak of Lightning, Taken on the Night of August 26, 1857.
The photographer, a fastidious German with walrus bristles and cantilevered belly, set up his forty-five-second wet collodion-plate exposures. He hissed at the players to be still, particularly Hurley, who turned his head repeatedly because George was snapping his ears.
The result, I knew, was destined for national distribution. Frank
