Meantime I got a hold o’ one o’ the Chi papers and seen where they was pannin’ Fogarty. They said he seemed to be as fast as Johnson and to have a lot o’ stuff, but he didn’t show no more ambish than a horse car. I read the piece to Smitty.
“Your old sidekick don’t seem to be cuttin’ up much,” I says.
“He ain’t no sidekick o’ mine,” Smitty says.
“You and him was together at Fort Wayne, wasn’t you?” says I.
“Yes,” says Smitty; “and he’s a false alarm.”
I thought I’d bruise him.
“He ain’t got nothin’ on you,” I says.
But he took it just as calm as though I’d told him his collar was dirty. Then I says:
“You and Fogarty must of pawned your pepper when you left Fort Wayne. Or maybe you can’t get along without your Hoosier hops. Somethin’s wrong. You couldn’t of won all them games if you worked there like you’re doin’ here. What’s the matter?”
“Matter with who?” he says.
“Both o’ you—you and Fogarty,” I says.
“They’s nothin’ the matter with me,” says Smitty. “I’m all right; but that slob never had no business tryin’ to pitch.”
“How did he win them games?” I ast.
“I guess they felt sorry for him,” says Smitty.
“They’ll be feelin’ sorry for you if you don’t go and get some ginger,” says I.
The season opened and we started off like we always do, playin’ ’em off their feet and lookin’ like champs. Alexander and Rixey was better’n I’d ever saw ’em, and the boys was all hittin’. It was a rotten day when Cravath or Magee or Luderus, or some o’ them, didn’t pole a couple out o’ the park. We didn’t get excited about it, though: We’d been May champions too often. We was wonderin’ when the Old Jinx was goin’ to hit us in the eye, and whether we’d get smashed up in a railroad wreck or have a epidemic o’ lepersy. The papers was sayin’ that we was up to our old tricks and that we’d blow higher’n a kite when the annual cyclone struck us.
Red had started Smitty just oncet. That was agin the Boston bunch, and he’d tooken him out in the first innin’ so’s we could finish the game that day. The first ball he throwed made a noise like a cannon when it hit Bill’s glove. The rest o’ them never got that far. One was all he had the strength to pitch. The first seven guys that come up was expresses—they didn’t stop at first or second base. Paskert ast Red to send him a taxi. Smitty fin’lly was invited to the bench and sat there blinkin’ while Red sprung a monologue.
“You’re layin’ down on me,” says Red, “and it’s goin’ to cost you a month’s pay. If you’re playin’ for your release you’re wastin’ time. I’d get rid o’ you if I could, but nobody’ll take you. I’ve ast for waivers and I know what I’m talkin’ about. You’re wished on to us for the summer, but you ain’t goin’ to do no more pitchin’. I wouldn’t even let you work in battin’ practice, ’cause the fellers couldn’t see a real pitcher’s stuff after lookin’ at your’n. You can help the clubhouse boy, and you can hustle out the canvas when it rains, and you can stand and hold the bottle while the real ball players is gettin’ rubbed. And you can stick round after the games and hang up the undershirts.
“We’d ought to sue the Fort Wayne club for swindlin’ us! I’d like to manage a team in that league if fellers like you can win a pennant there. I’d give the ground keeper a dollar a day extra to do the pitchin’ for me, and I’d go in myself when he was too busy. They give you a salary for playin’ ball, but they pinch a man for stealin’ a loaf o’ bread! If you’re the best pitcher in the Central League the rest o’ them is paralytics. If we’d spent five thousand for the middle of a doughnut we’d have a better chancet o’ realizin’ on our investment. If pepper was worth a million dollars a ounce you’d be rated at ten cents!”
“Can I go in and dress?” says Smitty.
“I doubt it,” says Red. “You better take somebody along to help you.” Well, that might of been the end o’ the bird if he was with any club but our’n. Red had the waivers all right, but couldn’t make no deal that’d bring us within four thousand bucks of even. Still, we wasn’t gettin’ no service out of him and was payin’ him salary all the time.
So Red was just about to sell him to a old-clo’es man when the old hoodoo hit us. Alexander strained his souper and Rixey got a pair o’ busted fingers, all in the same serious. We was left with one fair pitcher and a gang o’ kids that’d never saw no big-league games till last spring. The bust-up didn’t surprise nobody. We figured that we’d been lucky to go till the first o’ June without none o’ the boys gettin’ killed. It was the same old gag with us: Right up near the top and happy for a couple o’ months. Then, Blooie!—and the club all shot to pieces.
It wouldn’t of been sensible to turn even a rotten pitcher loose at that stage. We had to keep a hold of all o’ them, so’s when some got their bumps they’d be plenty to take their place. That’s how Smitty happened to hang on. Red didn’t start him, but he let him finish for some o’ the others that wasn’t much better. And he kept lookin’ worse all the while.
Well, it was the second week in June when Red sent me from Cincy to Dayton to look at a big spitter.
“I ain’t strong for the Central League
