In March, when the players had assembled and begun drawing their pay, the club was already $16,000 in debt. A $15,000 note due this November hung over the organization like one of the city’s smoke clouds. By leaning on a few wealthy members Champion had managed to raise a subscription of $500 for the eastern tour. We’d returned with $1,700, a net gain of $1,200. But player salaries—$300 weekly—were a constant drain. Good-sized crowds at the two Olympic contests had helped, but we needed more. Lots more.
As I stared at the formidable columns of figures, several things became clear. The Stockings, for all Champion’s brave talk of being among the nation’s soundest sporting clubs, were hanging by their toenails. Some members might be flush, but that didn’t mean they’d pour money into the baseball team. The Stockings needed to be self-supporting. Even now, with all the hoopla, Champion was finding it difficult to meet costs.
It was also evident why Harry hadn’t brought up Oak Taylor to replace Hurley: it would mean one more salary. Since I was already on the payroll and committed to funding myself, I would serve. I wondered how Harry privately felt about that.
What if we raised admission to fifty cents every game? Champion admitted that Harry wanted the higher figure. But he himself was opposed, except for top matches, unwilling to see baseball revert to a game only for the affluent. Poor laborers needed diversion too, and deserved to share in the excitement. His egalitarian views surprised me. Champion had a sense of community stewardship that was genuine. Some things about him I was grudgingly coming to admire.
Well, then, how about selling beer? Cincinnati’s lager was the finest I’d tasted anywhere. No, absolutely not; spirits attracted the worst sorts, engendered gambling, sparked violence.
Okay, let’s start by installing turnstiles at the gates; that would give us accurate attendance figures.
They looked at me in puzzlement. What were turnstiles? Good grief, I thought. Square one. I suggested posting uniformed members of the juniors at all entrances, to count paid and unpaid admissions, and to discourage the gatekeepers from letting people slip in. They both liked this hard-line approach.
And what, I inquired, was the deal on concessions? Not much, they admitted. Vendors, mostly from local restaurants, operated freely on the Union Grounds during public events. But, I argued, we were a red-hot property now. We ought to get a cut. Who else was regularly putting seven thousand hungry and thirsty customers out there for them? Furthermore, I wanted to introduce some things of our own. Things tried and tested the American way, like hamburgers and hot dogs.
What exactly were those?
Trust me, I told them.
Looking for a permanent place to live, I checked out the Henrie House on Third, between Main and Sycamore. Recently it had been refurbished and charged only two dollars a day—a buck less than the Gibson. Third-floor rooms offered a nice view: to the east the shipyards at the foot of Deer Creek Basin; to the north the Miami Canal and Over the Rhine; to the west the Mill Creek Hills behind Lincoln Park and the Union Grounds. But the Henrie’s gilt wallpaper and frescoes of cherubs entwined with grape leaves put me off. Not to mention two large parlors “exclusively at the disposal of ladies” from which rococo piano strains floated incessantly.
In the end I settled for my room at the comfortable Gibson, with its spittoon-littered, high-ceilinged lobby redolent of cigar smoke, its floors of black-and-white Italian marble, its saloon with the long, elegant mahogany bar, and a fully equipped billiard room with six tables. The ladies’ parlor and washroom were shunted upstairs near the reception and banquet rooms. The Gibson was primarily a man’s environment. It lodged visiting teams, convenient for me in my new role. It cost more, but what the hell. I had money, and not much to spend it on.
Harry worked our asses off that week. We spent mornings at the YMCA on West Fourth, hefting Indian Clubs and a variety of free weights, and practiced at the Iron Slag Grounds in the afternoons.
He drilled us endlessly at “headwork”: cutoffs, relays, defensive shifts, hidden-ball tricks—George had already pulled one in a game—and pickoffs. I showed them one pickoff play in which I flashed a sign from behind the plate to initiate a silent count. On three, Brainard whirled and threw to George breaking behind a runner leading off second. Harry promptly included it in his tactical weaponry.
Augmented by Oak Taylor and several of the juniors, we played intrasquad games pitting “Fats” against “Slims.” Harry assigned me to the Fats with Mac, George, Gould, and Waterman, our power hitting a counterpoint to the others’ fielding and quickness.
It was hard, systematic work. We knew it kept us ahead of competitors, but that made it no less grueling. Tempers flared: Sweasy and Allison would have traded punches if we hadn’t separated them; Waterman threw a ball at one of the juniors after being upended by a hard slide; George and Brainard, their animosity growing, exchanged verbal cuts almost daily. Even Gould, the most stolid of workers, muttered about Harry’s unrelenting pace. After missing a session, Brainard showed up complaining that the practices were sapping his strength and straining his pitching arm.
Harry confronted him. “Asa, is that your brand of ginger?”
“You’re working us too hard.”
“Then take more time away.”
As Brainard walked off, Harry added, “Your pay will suit your new hours.” Brainard turned back, scowling. Harry put him in the outfield and ran him to the verge of exhaustion.
My muscles had hardened from the daily workouts. Above the whiskers that hid my gash and made me look like a House of David player, my face was deeply tanned. I drank nothing stronger than beer now, and was in by far my best shape since college.
One morning Andy said, “Cait told me she didn’t mean to stir you. She’s a mite
