A Triple Play of Tales

A Triple Play of Tales

By Albert Howard Carter, III

One evening in Chicago many years back, I walked up Wabash to the Palmer House for a drink. It was hot in my cheap hotel and I figured the good Chicagoland folks would have left the Loop for their apartments or houses in the suburbs, riding the noisy El just over my head. The lobby bar would not be crowded and I could read the Daily News, the evening paper of those days, in a leisurely way. I was glad to get inside the hotel and survey the large, ornate lobby. In fact, the bar was mostly empty, so I quickly got my beer. I leafed through the paper, saving the sports section for last so I could study it in detail. I was about halfway through when a guy sat down beside me. Suit and tie, a little heavy. Like many of us, if he ever played sports, it was some time ago. He asked how his baseball team was doing. I looked it up and told him, and we fell into conversation about the pennant races, All-Star prospects, and whether his team could beat mine if they played; this was well before the Interleague games, of course.

“You know,” he said, lighting a cigarette, “I had a strange tale related to me about baseball. In a bar—nowhere near as nice as this—some years ago. Would you like to hear it?”

Heck, I had nothing else to do, and he seemed to know the game. So I said, “I’m all ears.”

And this is what he said:

 “It was my first real job, just out of college. I wore a tie every day and tried to look like I knew what I was doing. Of course, everyone else figured I didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground, but they were all polite and patient, teaching me how the office worked and so on. One day they needed a set of papers delivered across town. Because I was the new guy and would hardly be missed, the boss called me over to his desk and handed me the package and a slip of paper with the address. He knew I didn’t have a car and that public transportation would take forever. Today, of course, there’d be bike messengers, electronic routes, and so on, but this was way back when. He said, ‘Take a cab both ways. We’ll reimburse you.’ He paused, then said, ‘You got any money?’ He reached for his wallet. ‘Yeah, I do,’ I said with some pride, because luckily I had just cashed a paycheck.

“I took a cab across town to a warehouse district. It was a tough area, but exotic in its own way. I was a young kid, inexperienced in the world, so even the dirt looked picturesque with the sun shining on it. Shortly before reaching my destination, my cab passed a bar that looked seedy but interesting. I delivered the package, got a signed receipt, and looked at my watch. It was almost lunchtime. ‘What the hell,’ I thought, and headed for the bar. There may have been a bit of swagger in my walk. I loosened my tie and said to myself, ‘I ain’t no candy ass. I’m gonna get me some lunch!’

“The neon signs in the window announced the beers of the day, Grain Belt, Old Milwaukee, Blatz. I pushed at the heavy, beat-up door, until it yielded with a loud, long squeak. I blinked, trying to focus on the dim interior but smelling the welcoming odors of grease, beer, and tobacco. There were a few scattered tables and a long bar. Only two customers off in a corner and the bartender, smoking a cigarette. Double doors led to the kitchen door off to the left. The bar had a long L shape with the corner on the right end and away from the kitchen. I headed toward that corner drawn by the glow of a large jukebox against the wall, one of those old giant Wurlitzers, you know, with the big neon tubes shaped like horseshoes, with all different colors. I sat at the corner facing the jukebox and ordered a beer and a cheeseburger.

“I asked the bartender about the Wurlitzer.

“He said, ‘Don’t work. But looks nice.’

“‘Yes, it does,’ I said. 

“I liked being there. I felt that I was accumulating experience. I looked at the Wurlitzer’s big curved tubes—red, yellow, and green—thinking that horseshoes were usually nailed up over doors with the ends pointing up and the curved part down, so as to ‘keep the luck in,’ but these tubes were turned the other way, like arches, so that the luck—electronic or otherwise—must be pouring out on the floor of the bar.

“Before long, I heard the loud squeak of the front door and turned to see an elderly man slouching his way in. He looked as though he had once been quite tall. Although there were plenty of seats available, he sat down near me, that is, across the corner of the bar, so that the jukebox was just behind him. We nodded in greeting. 

“He didn’t say anything, but the bartender immediately placed a beer in front of him. I was about halfway through my cheeseburger, when the man said, Do you recognize me?

“Well, I just about dropped my food, but I looked at him carefully. It was a lined face with an unhealthy hue. The nose was kind of puffy, and the lips thin. He had a strong brow, receding hair, and prominent ears. And piercing blue eyes. 

“I said, ‘No sir, I’m afraid I don’t.’

“Well, maybe you didn’t watch much TV when the games were first broadcast or follow the papers. The fact of the matter is that I’m —— ———.

I nodded in surprise at my storyteller.

“No kidding!” I affirmed.  (I suppose I could give you the real name, and you’d recognize it right away, but you’ll see later why I won’t. This guy was indeed a red-hot baseball star, although not for long. When I was a kid, I had his Topps baseball card and preferred it even to the young but clearly upcoming Mickey Mantle).

My storyteller lit another cigarette. We both drank from our beers. He continued: 

“I looked at the old man across from me, recalling his handful of brilliant years before he disappeared. He was a guy headed for greatness, a phenomenal hitter, a future Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, or Rod Carew. He’d probably reach 3,000 hits, and who knows how many extra-base hits, including, of course, homers, heading right into the Hall of Fame. But he never made it.

“‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Sure, I’ve heard of you. Who hasn’t?’

“More and more folks haven’t these days, I’m afraid. People forget.

“‘Yes,’ I said, mostly out of politeness. What was up with this guy, I wondered. Alcohol? Drugs?

“Say, did you ever hear about my tryout?

“‘Uh, I can’t say that I did.’

“Would you like to?

“I looked at my watch. Still plenty of time on my lunch hour. ‘You bet.’

“He straightened up on his barstool and began to proclaim in a bright, resonant voice:

“I didn’t come up through the farm teams or even college ball. I did play Little League, Pony League, and American Legion. And I was good. Damn good. Oddly enough, it was my mother who was my primary coach, though. In point of fact, my drill sergeant. It was Momma took me out of organized ball and drilled me for a year all by herself. She had her own version of sports psychology and visualization techniques decades before anyone else.

“One day she suddenly announced that we were going to a try-out with a AAA ball club, so I grabbed my glove, bat, and spikes, and we went. She found the manager and started talking to him. I had the impression that he didn’t want to look at anyone who didn’t come up through the system, but she was pushy, and I guess he thought that at the very least we might be good for a laugh.

“The old man took a drink. I ordered another myself, since it wouldn’t be polite just to watch him drink. Looking behind me around the bar, I was surprised to see it was now at least half full, mostly men, but some women too, all with drinks and food. They made no noise whatsoever; evidently they were also listening to the old man’s story. He continued:

“I mean, you gotta picture Momma, about five feet tall with white hair up in a bun on the top of her head. Squinchy little glasses, and big clamshell earrings. And pearls. So the manager sent me out with a player to warm up. The young guy tried to burn me out with harder and harder throws, but I caught them all and lobbed them back. Evidently he was one of their better pitchers, because he started throwing me his Sunday stuff, curves, sliders, forkballs, fastballs, and knuckleballs, but I caught them all and lobbed them back. A coach had me run the bases and slide into home. The manager pretended not to look, but he did of course, and finally invited me to the batting cage.

“You remember the scene in The Natural, when Robert Redfield had his tryout and kept knocking balls into the seats for homers? Well, we could have done that—but we didn’t. Momma knew they didn’t want some show-off star that everybody would hate. So she called out the hits as I was about to make them. The pitcher was behind the protective screen just in front of the mound, throwing easy at first. Momma would yell out, ‘Bunt, first!’ and I’d lay down a bunt down the first baseline, neat as you please. Then ‘Bunt, Third!’ in her shrill, high voice. And I’d do the same. Then ‘Hit and run, behind the runner!’ and I’d rap a single between first and second. The pitcher starting to throw harder, progressively moving into his very best stuff. Made no difference to me.

“Well, guys started watching this strange display. Momma would shriek, ‘Double, third baseline!’ ‘Double, deep right field!’ and so on, and I kept knocking them where she said. We had an agreement, though, that I’d miss about every fourth or fifth one, so as not to freak everyone out. We did a series of towering sac flies. We skipped the triples, which I was hoping to do in that park, but I did hit three home runs for her, modestly just over the fences in left, center, and right.

“‘What position do you play, boy?’ the manager asked me. 

“Well, of course, I could play any of them, but Momma had researched the team and knew their center fielder had just been called up to the majors.

“’Mostly outfield,’ I said, ‘and I especially like center.’

“So I played centerfield and had a sensational batting average. I had to hold myself back, of course, but our team did very well, often based on my runs batted in, usually in the later innings. Before long, the man who had preceded me was injured, and I was called to the majors.

“The rest you know: the batting championships, the home run total growing each year, All-Star Teams, Golden Gloves, Most Valuable Player, and so on. It was a great time.”

“‘Oh yes, I was just a kid,’ I enthused, ‘but I heard radio broadcasts and read the sports pages. You were sensational.’

“Those were great years, all right, he sighed. He drank. 

“I waited.

“He was silent.

“My pulse sped up. I had to know.

“‘What happened?—if you don’t mind me asking.’

“Oh, it’s OK. And maybe you’ll learn something helpful. First of all, you can’t imagine the pressure. Every pitch in or anywhere near the strike zone—every single pitch—I could have sent into the bleachers for a homer. Besides recognizing the spin, the speed, the trajectory, I had to decide whether to miss it, send it foul, or hit it for one, two, three, or four bases. Can you imagine the stress?

“‘No way,’ I acknowledged.

“And then I had agendas you couldn’t imagine. I’d hit a lot of foul balls just to get the pitcher’s count up so that they’d eventually have to relieve him. Once I knocked over a pitcher with a line drive because he’d been throwing at our players. I hit him in the leg hard enough to put him out of the game but not so hard as to cause permanent injury. And I had to keep my homer numbers under Ruth’s. Momma planned that I would pass 60 for one season in my tenth year and beat his 714 total in my 12^th. I knew all the totals for triples and doubles as well, but we figured I should stay just a bit below those.

“‘Gosh.’

“I’m telling you, it is really hard it is to hit .344, when you could more easily hit .688 or even 1.000. And the walks I racked up! I could get on base every single time, if I chose. Well, finally I started to crack. For another thing, Momma was run over by a Budweiser truck, so there went the guidance of my life.

“‘My sympathy,’ I blurted out. 

“Well, it was a long time ago.

“‘All the same.’

“He drank. Once again I looked away. The bar was now entirely full of people, with a few waiters standing around, all of them very quiet. Everyone was looking at the storyteller. When I turned back, the old man appeared to have the glow of the jukebox wrapped around him like a shawl. He continued.

“Without her, I began to hit ahead of schedule. The temptations were just too great. Every pitch looked like a slow-moving volleyball. My bat was light as a fly swatter. I was out of control, winning game after game. My teammates looked at me strangely, as if I were from another planet. Perhaps I was—I felt as though I was going crazy. I had to do something. 

“One day, we had a doubleheader at home. We won the first game on my grand slam homer with two outs in the ninth inning. I held myself back in the second game, which went into extra innings, before they beat us in the 15^th. It was getting dark when I left the clubhouse. I went to the stands for a last look around. The field was already set up for batting practice in the morning. They had the protective screen dragged out to the pitcher’s mound and a pitching machine set up there. ‘Aha, now’s my chance,’ I thought. I asked the groundskeeper, Shorty, to meet me at the ballpark at 10 that night. 

“Shorty was my best friend. The nickname was an ironic joke, because he was a tall skinny guy, you know, like you’d call a bald guy ‘Curly,’ or a thin guy ‘Fatso.’ The rest of the guys never got close to me, but Shorty and me traded jokes, had a beer occasionally, and went to the track to play the ponies. We had a connection, you might say. Early on, I could tell him something about center field, and he’d have it fixed right away. Later, I’d just gesture to my area, and he’d know. Then I could just have the thought, and he’d know right away. 

“Anyway, he loaded the machine with balls, and I said under my breath, ‘This is for you, Momma,’ and went through my routine as the pitches came toward me. Bunts, singles, doubles, triples, and homers, progressively deeper into the bleachers, left, center, right. 

“Shorty took a flashlight and went twelve rows deep in the left field bleachers. He shined a light on a chairback. I hit a line drive just exactly there, and he turned off his light while the ball flew across the park. I heard a crash as the ball destroyed the chair back, scraps of wood flying everywhere. In the moonlight you could see the empty space, like a missing tooth. Shorty did the same thing in center, then in right. I hit the last one entirely out of the stadium. I think I broke a window in a pawnshop across the street. 

“I waved my bat to him, and he waved his flashlight. I hated saying goodbye this way, because he was a terrific guy, just the best sort of man you’d ever want to know. I laid my bat down on the plate pointing to center field—my center field—just like you’d put your knife and fork down to show the waiter you were finished eating. I went back to the clubhouse and cleaned out my locker. I left town. The team made up a cock-and-bull story about health problems. I had been well paid—by those days’ standards, anyway—and had set some aside. I went up to Canada under an assumed name and farmed with a distant cousin for several years.

“Well, I’ve got to be going, he said, and slipped off his barstool, made his way through the crowd, and pushed open the squeaking door before I could say goodbye or shake his hand. Suddenly the bar was noisy, a ball game was on a TV mounted high on the wall, and folks were yelling for drinks. There was a second man now behind the bar, pulling the taps for beer as fast as he could.

“‘What a story!’ I said to my bartender. ‘Say, I don’t think he paid. Let me at least get his drink.’ I reached for my pocket.

“‘Naw, it’s on the house. Yours too,’ he said.

“‘Jeez, no kidding. Well, thanks.’

“‘Forget it.’

“I thought for a moment. ‘Say, how come what he was saying isn’t common knowledge?’

“My bartender took the cigarette out of his mouth and spat a piece of tobacco off to the side. ‘Well, the first reason would have to be that there isn’t one lick of truth in it.’

“‘What?’

“‘He never played ball at any level, although he knew a lot of players through his work. He was a groundskeeper in the minor leagues. Interesting guy, that Shorty. He comes in just about once a week. And then he tells a completely different story. Completely different every damn time.’

“What a gullible fool I was, falling for a tall tale by some barfly! I made my way out of the bar and walked to a main street where I could hail a cab. I was late getting back to work, but no one minded or even noticed.”    

While my companion drained his glass, I looked around the hotel bar and was surprised to see that it was packed full but strangely silent. Apparently everyone had been listening to him tell the story about Shorty.

Then the entire lobby was noisy, everyone talking and a TV showing a ballgame.  

‘“Very interesting,” I said. “And entertaining, too.”

He smiled. “Strange what you can hear in bars,” he said.       

“Yes, indeed,” I said. “By the way, I also have a story. Would you like to hear it?” 

“Why yes, of course,” he said. 

“It’s about a hockey team,” I said.

“The Blackhawks?”

“Well, you’ll have to wait and see.”

“I’m all ears,” he said. He leaned forward and raised his eyebrows. 

I began, and suddenly the bar was, once again, completely quiet.

Albert Howard Carter, III, saw both the White Sox and the Cubs play when he attended the U of Chicago sixty years ago. He and his wife taught at Eckerd College in Florida for many years before retiring to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He is the author of six nonfiction books, including FIRST CUT: A SEASON IN THE HUMAN ANATOMY LAB and JOKERS AND CLOWNS CAN HEAL US: COMEDY AND MEDICINE. 

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