I thought Magrew’d bust a blood vessel. “You hurt Pearl and I’ll break your neck!” he yelled.
Hank muttered somethin’ and went on up to the plate and struck out.
We managed to get a couple runs acrost in our half a the sixth, but they come back with three more in their half a the seventh, and this was too much for Magrew.
“Come on, Pearl,” he says. “We’re gettin’ outa here.”
“Where you think you’re goin’?” I ast him.
“To the lawyer’s again,” he says cryptly.
“I didn’t know you’d been to the lawyer’s once, yet,” I says.
“Which that goes to show how much you don’t know,” he says.
With that, they was gone, and I didn’t see ’em the rest of the day, nor know what they was up to, which was a God’s blessin’. We lose the nightcap, 9 to 3, and that puts us into second place plenty, and as low in our mind as a ball club can get.
The next day was a horrible day, like anybody that lived through it can tell you. Practice was just over and the St. Louis club was takin’ the field, when I hears this strange sound from the stands. It sounds like the nervous whickerin’ a horse gives when he smells somethin’ funny on the wind. It was the fans ketchin’ sight of Pearl du Monville, like you have prob’ly guessed. The midget had popped up onto the field all dressed up in a minacher club uniform, sox, cap, little letters sewed onto his chest, and all. He was swingin’ a kid’s bat and the only thing kept him from lookin’ like a real ballplayer seen through the wrong end of a microscope was this cigar he was smokin’.
Bugs Courtney reached over and jerked it outa his mouth and throwed it away. “You’re wearin’ that suit on the playin’ field,” he says to him, severe as a judge. “You go insultin’ it and I’ll take you out to the zoo and feed you to the bears.”
Pearl just blowed some smoke at him which he still has in his mouth.
Whilst Whitey was foulin’ off four or five prior to strikin’ out, I went on over to Magrew. “If I was as comic as you,” I says, “I’d laugh myself to death,” I says. “Is that any way to treat the uniform, makin’ a mockery out of it?”
“It might surprise you to know I ain’t makin’ no mockery outa the uniform,” says Magrew. “Pearl du Monville here has been made a bone-of-fida member of this so-called ball club. I fixed it up with the front office by long-distance phone.”
“Yeh?” I says. “I can just hear Mr. Dillworth or Bart Jenkins agreein’ to hire a midget for the ball club. I can just hear ’em.” Mr. Dillworth was the owner of the club and Bart Jenkins was the secretary, and they never stood for no monkey business. “May I be so bold as to inquire,” I says, “just what you told ’em?”
“I told ’em,” he says, “I wanted to sign up a guy they ain’t no pitcher in the league can strike him out.”
“Uh-huh,” I says, “and did you tell ’em what size of a man he is?”
“Never mind about that,” he says. “I got papers on me, made out legal and proper, constitutin’ one Pearl du Monville a bone-of-fida member of this former ball club. Maybe that’ll shame them big babies into gettin’ in there and swingin’, knowin’ I can replace any one of ’em with a midget, if I have a mind to. A St. Louis lawyer I seen twice tells me it’s all legal and proper.”
“A St. Louis lawyer would,” I says, “seein’ nothin’ could make him happier than havin’ you makin’ a mockery outa this one-time baseball outfit,” I says.
Well, sir, it’ll all be there in the papers of thirty, thirty-one year ago, and you could look it up. The game went along without no scorin’ for seven innings, and since they ain’t nothin’ much to watch but guys poppin’ up or strikin’ out, the fans pay most of their attention to the goin’s-on of Pearl du Monville. He’s out there in front a the dugout, turnin’ handsprings, balancin’ his bat on his chin, walkin’ a imaginary line, and so on. The fans clapped and laughed at him, and he ate it up.
So it went up to the last a the eighth, nothin’ to nothin’, not more’n seven, eight hits all told, and no errors on neither side. Our pitcher gets the first two men out easy in the eighth. Then up come a fella name of Porter or Billings, or some such name, and he lammed one up against the tobacco sign for three bases. The next guy up slapped the first ball out into left for a base hit, and in come the fella from third for the only run of the ball game so far. The crowd yelled, the look a death come onto Magrew’s face again, and even the midget quit his tom-foolin’. Their next man fouled out back a third, and we come up for our last bats like a bunch a schoolgirls steppin’ into a pool of cold water. I was lower in my mind than I’d been since the day in Nineteen-four when Chesbro throwed the wild pitch in the ninth inning with a man on third and lost the pennant for the Highlanders. I knowed something just as bad was goin’ to happen, which shows I’m a clairvoyun, or was then.
When Gordy Mills hit out to second, I just closed my eyes. I opened ’em up again to see Dutch Muller standin’ on second, dustin’ off his pants, him havin’ got his first hit in maybe twenty times to the plate. Next up was Harry Loesing, battin’ for our pitcher, and he got a base on balls, walkin’ on a fourth one you could a combed your hair with.
Then up come Whitey Cott, our lead-off man. He crotches down in what was prob’ly the most fearsome stanch in organized ball, but all he can do is pop out to short. That brung up Billy Klinger, with two down and a man on first and second. Billy took a cut at one you could a knocked a plug hat offa this here Camera with it, but then he gets sense enough to wait ’em out, and finely he walks, too, fillin’ the bases.
Yes, sir, there you are; the tyin’ run on third and the winnin’ run on second, first a the ninth, two men down, and Hank Metters comin’ to the bat. Hank was built like a Pope-Hartford and he couldn’t run no faster’n President Taft, but he had five home runs to his credit for the season, and that wasn’t bad in them days. Hank was still hittin’ better’n anybody else on the ball club, and it was mighty heartenin’, seein’ him stridin’ up towards the plate. But he never got there.
“Wait a minute!” yells Magrew, jumpin’ to his feet. “I’m sendin’ in a pinch hitter!” he yells.
You could a heard a bomb drop. When a ball-club manager says he’s sendin’ in a pinch hitter for the best batter on the club, you know and I know and everybody knows he’s lost his holt.
“They’re goin’ to be sendin’ the funny wagon for you, if you don’t watch out,” I says, grabbin’ a holt of his arm.
But he pulled away and run out towards the plate, yellin’, “Du Monville battin’ for Metters!”
All the fellas begun squawlin’ at once, except Hank, and he just stood there starin’ at Magrew like he’d gone crazy and was claimin’ to be Ty Cobb’s grandma or somethin’. Their pitcher stood out there with his hands on his hips and a disagreeable look on his face, and the plate umpire told Magrew to go on and get a batter up. Magrew told him again Du Monville was battin’ for Metters, and the St. Louis manager finely got the idea. It brung him outa his dugout, howlin’ and bawlin’ like he’d lost a female dog and her seven pups.
Magrew pushed the midget towards the plate and he says to him, he says, “Just stand up there and hold that bat on your shoulder. They ain’t a man in the world can throw three strikes in there ’fore he throws four balls!” he says.
“I get it, Junior!” says the midget. “He’ll walk me and force in the tyin’ run!” And he starts on up to the plate as cocky as if he was Willie Keeler.
I don’t need to tell you Bethlehem broke loose on that there ball field. The fans got onto their hind legs, yellin’ and whistlin’, and everybody on the field begun wavin’ their arms and hollerin’ and shovin’. The plate umpire stalked over to Magrew like a traffic cop, waggin’ his jaw and pointin’ his finger, and the St. Louis manager kept yellin’ like his house was on fire. When Pearl got up to the plate and stood there, the pitcher slammed his glove down onto the ground and started stompin’ on it, and they ain’t nobody can blame him.
He’s just walked two normal-sized human bein’s, and now here’s a guy up to the plate they ain’t more’n twenty inches between his knees and his shoulders.
The plate umpire called in the field umpire, and they talked a while, like a couple doctors seein’ the bucolic plague or somethin’ for the first time. Then the plate umpire come over to Magrew with his arms folded acrost his chest, and he told him to go on and get a batter up, or he’d forfeit the game to St. Louis. He pulled out his watch, but somebody batted it outa his hand in the scufflin’, and I thought there’d be a free-for-all, with everybody yellin’ and shovin’ except Pearl du Monville, who stood up at the plate with his little bat on his shoulder, not movin’ a muscle.
Then Magrew played his ace. I seen him pull some papers outa his pocket and show ’em to the plate umpire. The umpire begun lookin’ at ’em like they was bills for somethin’ he not only never bought it, he never even heard of it. The other umpire studied ’em like they was a death warren, and all this time the St. Louis manager and the fans and the players is yellin’ and hollerin’.
Well, sir, they fought about him bein’ a midget, and they fought about him usin’ a kid’s bat, and they fought about where’d he been all season. They was eight or nine rule books brung out and everybody was thumbin’ through ’em, tryin’ to find out what it says about midgets, but it don’t say nothin’ about midgets, ’cause this was somethin’ never’d come up in the history of the game before, and nobody’d ever dreamed about it, even when they has nightmares. Maybe you can’t send no midgets in to bat nowadays, ’cause the old game’s changed a lot, mostly for the worst, but you could then, it turned out.
The plate umpire finely decided the contrack papers was all legal and proper, like Magrew said, so he waved the St. Louis players back to their places and he pointed his finger at their manager and told him to quit hollerin’ and get on back in the dugout. The manager says the game is percedin’ under protest, and the umpire bawls, “Play ball!” over ’n’ above the yellin’ and booin’, him havin’ a voice like a hog-caller.
The St. Louis pitcher picked up his glove and beat at it with his fist six or eight times, and then got set on the mound and studied the situation. The fans realized he was really goin’ to pitch to the midget, and they went crazy, hoopin’ and hollerin’ louder’n ever, and throwin’ pop bottles and hats and cushions down onto the field. It took five, ten minutes to get the fans quieted down again, whilst our fellas that was on base set down on the bags and waited. And Pearl du Monville kept standin’ up there with the bat on his shoulder, like he’d been told to.
So the pitcher starts studyin’ the setup again, and you got to admit it was the strangest setup in a ball game since the players cut off their beards and begun wearin’ gloves. I wisht I could call the pitcher’s name—it wasn’t old Barney Pelty nor Nig Jack Powell nor Harry Howell. He was a big right-hander, but I can’t call his name. You could look it up. Even in a crotchin’ position, the ketcher towers over the midget like the Washington Monument.
The plate umpire tries standin’ on his tiptoes, then he tries crotchin’ down, and he finely gets hisself into a stanch nobody’d ever seen on a ball field before, kinda squattin’ down on his hanches.
Well, the pitcher is sore as a old buggy horse in fly time. He slams in the first pitch, hard and wild, and maybe two foot higher’n the midget’s head.
“Ball one!” hollers the umpire over ’n’ above the racket, ’cause everybody is yellin’ worsten ever.
The ketcher goes on out towards the mound and talks to the pitcher and hands him the ball. This time the big right-hander tried a undershoot, and it comes in a little closer, maybe no higher’n a foot, foot and a half above Pearl’s head. It would a been a strike with a human bein’ in there, but the umpire’s got to call it, and he does.
“Ball two!” he bellers.
The ketcher walks on out to the mound again, and the whole infield comes over and gives advice to the pitcher about what they’d do in a case like this, with two balls and no strikes on a batter that oughta be in a bottle of alcohol ’stead of up there at the plate in a big-league game between the teams that is fightin’ for first place.
For the third pitch, the pitcher stands there flat-footed and tosses up the ball like he’s playin’ ketch with a little girl.
Pearl stands there motionless as a hitchin’ post, and the ball comes in big and slow and high—high for Pearl, that is, it bein’ about on a level with his eyes, or a little higher’n a grown man’s knees.
They ain’t nothin’ else for the umpire to do, so he calls, “Ball three!”
Everybody is onto their feet, hoopin’ and hollerin’, as the pitcher sets to throw ball four. The St. Louis manager is makin’ signs and faces like he was a contorturer, and the infield is givin’ the pitcher some more advice about what to do this time. Our boys who was on base stick right onto the bag, runnin’ no risk of bein’ nipped for the last out.
Well, the pitcher decides to give him a toss again, seein’ he come closer with that than with a fast ball. They ain’t nobody ever seen a slower ball throwed. It come in big as a balloon and slower’n any ball ever throwed before in the major leagues. It come right in over the plate in front of Pearl’s chest, lookin’ prob’ly big as a full moon to Pearl. They ain’t never been a minute like the minute that followed since the United States was founded by the Pilgrim grandfathers.
Pearl du Monville took a cut at that ball, and he hit it! Magrew give a groan like a poleaxed steer as the ball rolls out in front a the plate into fair territory.
“Fair ball!” yells the umpire, and the midget starts runnin’ for first, still carryin’ that little bat, and makin’ maybe ninety foot an hour. Bethlehem breaks loose on that ball field and in them stands. They ain’t never been nothin’ like it since creation was begun.
The ball’s rollin’ slow, on down towards third, goin’ maybe eight, ten foot. The infield comes in fast and our boys break from their bases like hares in a brush fire. Everybody is stand-in’ up, yellin’ and hollerin’, and Magrew is tearin’ his hair outa his head, and the midget is scamperin’ for first with all the speed of one of them little dashhounds carryin’ a satchel in his mouth.
The ketcher gets to the ball first, but he boots it on out past the pitcher’s box, the pitcher fallin’ on his face tryin’ to stop it, the shortstop sprawlin’ after it full length and zaggin’ it on over towards the second baseman, whilst Muller is scorin’ with the tyin’ run and Loesing is roundin’ third with the winnin’ run. Ty Cobb could a made a three-bagger outa that bunt, with everybody fallin’ over theirself tryin’ to pick the ball up. But Pearl is still maybe fifteen, twenty feet from the bag, toddlin’ like a baby and yeepin’ like a trapped rabbit, when the second baseman finely gets a holt of that ball and slams it over to first. The first baseman ketches it and stomps on the bag, the base umpire waves Pearl out, and there goes your old ball game, the craziest ball game ever played in the history of the organized world.
Their players start runnin’ in, and then I see Magrew. He starts after Pearl, runnin’ faster’n any man ever run before. Pearl sees him comin’ and runs behind the base umpire’s legs and gets a holt onto ’em. Magrew comes up, pantin’ and roarin’, and him and the midget plays ring-around-a-rosy with the umpire, who keeps shovin’ at Magrew with one hand and tryin’ to slap the midget loose from his legs with the other.
Finely Magrew ketches the midget, who is still yeepin’ like a stuck sheep. He gets holt of that little guy by both his ankles and starts whirlin’ him round and round his head like Magrew was a hammer thrower and Pearl was the hammer. Nobody can stop him without gettin’ their head knocked off, so everybody just stands there and yells. Then Magrew lets the midget fly. He flies on out towards second, high and fast, like a human home run, headed for the soap sign in center field.
Their shortstop tries to get to him, but he can’t make it, and I knowed the little fella was goin’ to bust to pieces like a dollar watch on a asphal
t street when he hit the ground. But it so happens their center fielder is just crossin’ second, and he starts runnin’ back, tryin’ to get under the midget, who had took to spiralin’ like a football ’stead of turnin’ head over foot, which give him more speed and more distance.
I know you never seen a midget ketched, and you prob’ly never even seen one throwed. To ketch a midget that’s been throwed by a heavy-muscled man and is flyin’ through the air, you got to run under him and with him and pull your hands and arms back and down when you ketch him, to break the compact of his body, or you’ll bust him in two like a matchstick. I seen Bill Lange and Willie Keeler and Tris Speaker make some wonderful ketches in my day, but I never seen nothin’ like that center fielder. He goes back and back and still further back and he pulls that midget down outa the air like he was liftin’ a sleepin’ baby from a cradle. They wasn’t a bruise onto him, only his face was the color of cat’s meat and he ain’t got no air in his chest. In his excitement, the base umpire, who was runnin’ back with the center fielder when he ketched Pearl, yells, “Out!” and that give hysteries to the Bethlehem which was ragin’ like Niagry on that ball field.
Everybody was hoopin’ and hollerin’ and yellin’ and runnin’, with the fans swarmin’ onto the field, and the cops tryin’ to keep order, and some guys laughin’ and some of the women fans cryin’, and six or eight of us holdin’ onto Magrew to keep him from gettin’ at that midget and finishin’ him off. Some of the fans picks up the St. Louis pitcher and the center fielder, and starts carryin’ ’em around on their shoulders, and they was the craziest goin’s-on knowed to the history of organized ball on this side of the ’Lantic Ocean.
I seen Pearl du Monville strugglin’ in the arms of a lady fan with a ample bosom, who was laughin’ and cryin’ at the same time, and him beatin’ at her with his little fists and bawlin’ and yellin’. He clawed his way loose finely and disappeared in the forest of legs which made that ball field look like it was Coney Island on a hot summer’s day.