Kid from Tomkinsville by John R. Tunis

Author:John R. Tunis [Tunis, John R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-2119-8
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2011-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

12

THE TEAM WAS BOARDING the Manhattan Limited for New York. By the time of their departure from Pittsburgh more than half the squad presented some sort of problem, and the question was how a line-up could be made from the available players for the next afternoon at home. The club was feeling the strain of the race for the pennant. Reliable Tom Swanson was limping badly from an ankle which needed rest and time to heal; Jerry Strong was out for three weeks at least; Babe Stansworth, the big catcher, had a split thumb and was useless in games; Tommy Scudder had a fractured leg, the result of sliding home that day, and was left behind in a hospital; Fat Stuff, the steady old horse who did the relief pitching, was visiting Johns Hopkins for a lame arm; Karl Case in right was in a batting slump because the other men weren’t hitting and he was asked to carry an unequal share of the load, while Gabby himself, beneath his tan, was drawn and tired about the eyes and wretchedly thin. His hitting had cooled off and his fielding lost its edge. Gabby needed a letup. So did everyone else. Worst of all, Razzle, who merely had to take the box to have opposing hitters tighten up, was out for a month. A month during the most critical part of the season when the western clubs and the Giants were fighting desperately to grab away the slight lead the Dodgers held.

Going to the station in a taxi, the Kid’s mind for some strange reason went back to the distance he had covered since Clearwater, and he began to reflect upon those hot weeks, a heat which now seemed as nothing. He recalled a remark of Rats Doyle, made after one of the first few days’ practice as they came into the clubhouse together exhausted. It was one of the first times anyone had spoken to him or noticed him except old Dave Leonard, and he never forgot the remark or Doyle. “Spring training’s the toughest part of it.” The Kid smiled grimly at that sentence over a distance of six months. Somehow, looking back, spring training didn’t seem so tough after all.

Bill Hanson, the business manager, stood at the train gate checking them in. Once this had seemed amazing to him; now it was simply routine.

“Stansworth... Case... Swanny... Tucker... Allen... Razzle... Foster... where’s Fat Stuff?... Oh, yeah; he’s down in Baltimore, isn’t he?... Draper... Kennedy....” As the Kid passed through the gate someone waiting stepped forward. It was Rex King of the New York Times who always accompanied the team on its western trip. He came up.

“Say, Tuck, would you mind coming through to our compartment in the next car. Boys want a little information....”

His first impulse was to say no. Why should he bother? One did; you had to; but why? What difference did it make? He didn’t want them to write about him. Besides, he was tired and anxious to sleep.

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