of been canned durin’ the winter without no trial.
“Here’s another hot one. When we went out the first day for practice, Art takes the kid off in a corner and tries to learn him enough baseball so’s he won’t show himself up and get sent away somewheres before we had a little benefit from his singin’. Can you imagine that? Tryin’ to learn this kid baseball, when he was born with a slidin’ pad on.
“You know the rest of it. They wasn’t never no question about Waldron makin’ good. It’s just like everybody says—he’s the best natural ball player that’s broke in since Cobb. They ain’t nothin’ he can’t do. But it is a funny thing that Art’s job should be the one he’d get. I spoke about that to Art when he give me the story.
“ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I can’t expect everything to break right. I figure I’m lucky to of picked a guy that’s good enough to hang on. I’m in stronger with Ryan right now, and with the old man, too, than when I was out there playin’ every day. Besides, the bench is a pretty good place to watch the game from. And this club won’t be shy a tenor singer for nine years.’
“ ‘No,’ I says, ‘but they’ll be shy a lead and a baritone and a bass before I and you and Lefty is much older.’
“ ‘What of it?’ he says. ‘We’ll look up old Mike and all go somewheres and live together.’ ”
We were nearing Worcester. Bill Cole and I arose from our table and started back toward our car. In the first vestibule we encountered Buck, the trainer.
“Mr. Graham’s been lookin’ all over for you, Mr. Cole,” he said.
“I’ve been rehearsin’ my part,” said Bill.
We found Art Graham, Lefty, and young Waldron in Art’s seat. The kid was talking.
“Lefty missed it again. If you fellas knew music, I could teach it to you on the piano when we get to Boston. Lefty, on the word ‘love,’ in the next to the last line, you’re on middle C. Then, on the word ‘you,’ you slide up half a tone. That’d ought to be a snap, but you don’t get it. I’m on high A and come down to G and Bill’s on low F and comes up to A. Art just sings the regular two notes, F and E. It’s a change from the F chord to the A chord. It makes a dandy wallop and it ought to be a—”
“Here’s Bill now,” interrupted Lefty, as he caught sight of Cole.
Art Graham treated his roommate to a cold stare.
“Where the h⸺l have you been?” he said angrily.
“Lookin’ for the lost chord,” said Bill.
“Set down here and learn this,” growled Art. “We won’t never get it if we don’t work.”
“Yes, let’s tackle her again,” said Waldron. “Bill comes up two full tones, from F to A. Lefty goes up half a tone, Art sings just like always, and I come down a tone. Now try her again.”
Two years ago it was that Bill Cole told me that story. Two weeks ago Art Graham boarded the evening train on one of the many roads that lead to Minneapolis.
The day Art was let out, I cornered Ryan in the clubhouse after the others had dressed and gone home.
“Did you ever know,” I asked, “that Art recommended Waldron without having seen him in a ball suit?”
“I told you long ago how Art picked Waldron,” he said.
“Yes,” said I, “but you didn’t have the right story.”
So I gave it to him.
“You newspaper fellas,” he said when I had done, “are the biggest suckers in the world. Now I’ve never given you a bad steer in my life. But you don’t believe what I tell you and you go and fall for one of Bill Cole’s hop dreams. Don’t you know that he was the biggest liar in baseball? He’d tell you that Walter Johnson was Jack’s father if he thought he could get away with it. And that bunk he gave you about Waldron. Does it sound reasonable?”
“Just as reasonable,” I replied, “as the stuff about Art’s grabbing him after seeing him pop out.”
“I don’t claim he did,” said Ryan. “That’s what Art told me. One of those Jackson ball players could give you the real truth, only of course he wouldn’t, because if Hodges ever found it out he’d shoot him full of holes. Art Graham’s no fool. He isn’t touting ball players because they can sing tenor or alto or anything else.”
Nevertheless, I believe Bill Cole; else I wouldn’t print the story. And Ryan would believe, too, if he weren’t in such a mood these days that he disagrees with everybody. For in spite of Waldron’s wonderful work, and he is at his best right now, the club hasn’t done nearly as well as when Art and Bill and Lefty were still with us.
There seems to be a lack of harmony.
The Poor Simp
I
My head ain’t so heavy with brains that I walk stooped over. But I do claim to have more sense than the most o’ them that’s gettin’ by in this league, and when I get the can it won’t be because I don’t know what I’m doin’ out there. Ask anybody in the business what kind of a ball player I am. Some o’ them will say I’m pretty fair, and some o’ them may say I’m rotten; but they’ll all say I’m smart.
I’ve made my share of errors and I’ve hit many a perpendicular home run in the pinch, but I never lost a game by peggin’ to the wrong base or by not knowin’ how many was out. They ain’t many can claim a record like that without gettin’ called on it.
Well, that record won’t buy me no round steaks when I get through here, and when I think o’ the things that’s happened to me and the things that’s happened to fellas that didn’t hardly
