outcome.
One man sat on his own, his elbows on his knees, intent on the scene below . The lone spectator, blue eyes shaded by a Panama hat, was in his early 40s, not as old as his white hair might suggest. In profile, his nose was prominent, almost beaky, his face long and tanned.
Down on the field, a thick-set and worried Jack Kloza was acting as third-base coach . He had some of the League’s best players under his command, and more than enough experience to run a ball team, but somehow the Peaches hadn’t come together. If they had shown sufficient promise and won a reasonable number of games, Kloza would perhaps have been more popular in the clubhouse. As matters stood, his time was running short.
Kloza’s problems were compounded by dissension in the ranks . He had hoped to placate the malcontents by allowing the League’s head office to assign Gladys “Terrie” Davis, his temperamental center-fielder, to the ailing Milwaukee Chicks. She had not been universally popular, and Kloza saw her departure as a peace offering. That might have worked, but Kloza had then lost Mary Pratt to the Kenosha Comets. Now Pratt was back on the field against her former teammates, as starting pitcher in the second game.
Not that the Peaches, whose roster had been weakened by injuries, had received no help from the League . One of the newer recruits was presently at bat.
This was Dorothy “Snooky” Harrell, who had come from Los Angeles. As the man in the stands watched, she stepped into the batter’s box, rapped her bat twice on home plate, spat on the handle for luck and then assumed a familiar stance.
Harrell had been playing for Rockford for only a week or two, but had already begun to rival the Peaches’ leading hitter, Dorothy Kamenshek . None of the Peaches were at their best today, though. Harrell would come to the plate seven times in the course of two games but fail to get on base.
Late in the evening, the second game wound down and people began to head for the exits . The Comets, who’d won the first game 3-0, were repeating their performance. Both teams would score one more run each, but Kenosha would end up on top.
The lone spectator stayed until the last out . He couldn’t imagine not seeing a game through to its conclusion. Besides, he wanted to see as much of the Peaches as possible. He was Bill Allington, soon to be christened “The Silver Eagle” by Rockford fans. He has signed a contract to take over the management of the Peaches the following week – a development that would not be relayed to Kloza until the following day at a special meeting in Chicago.
When the league issued an announcement of Kloza’s “resignation,” the public was told Kloza had “worked himself into a frazzle” and had stepped aside “for the good of all concerned .” But too many rumors were in circulation; the clumsy fiction couldn’t and didn’t last long.
In fact, a story very quickly began to circulate that players from California had engineered Kloza’s departure and demanded that Allington replace him . One of the suspects was Snooky Harrell, but she was guiltless. She had been happy to see what she thought was the last of Allington when she left California. His aggressive style struck her as cruel to players and antagonistic to opponents. She believed that his penchant for disparaging remarks had a reverse effect on the rival teams: he made a mediocre club mad enough to pull out all the stops and beat you.
In fact, however, there’d almost certainly been a coup of some dimension . At least one player who’d had enough of Kloza’s losing ways had held “indignation meetings” in her room to raise support for his ouster.
Some players knew (or thought they knew) that Kloza was doomed a day or two before he was summoned to Chicago . This gave managers elsewhere the shivering fits. If players’ wishes were taken into consideration by the League, no one was safe.
A newspaper reported that another
One man sat on his own, his elbows on his knees, intent on the scene below . The lone spectator, blue eyes shaded by a Panama hat, was in his early 40s, not as old as his white hair might suggest. In profile, his nose was prominent, almost beaky, his face long and tanned.
Down on the field, a thick-set and worried Jack Kloza was acting as third-base coach . He had some of the League’s best players under his command, and more than enough experience to run a ball team, but somehow the Peaches hadn’t come together. If they had shown sufficient promise and won a reasonable number of games, Kloza would perhaps have been more popular in the clubhouse. As matters stood, his time was running short.
Kloza’s problems were compounded by dissension in the ranks . He had hoped to placate the malcontents by allowing the League’s head office to assign Gladys “Terrie” Davis, his temperamental center-fielder, to the ailing Milwaukee Chicks. She had not been universally popular, and Kloza saw her departure as a peace offering. That might have worked, but Kloza had then lost Mary Pratt to the Kenosha Comets. Now Pratt was back on the field against her former teammates, as starting pitcher in the second game.
Not that the Peaches, whose roster had been weakened by injuries, had received no help from the League . One of the newer recruits was presently at bat.
This was Dorothy “Snooky” Harrell, who had come from Los Angeles. As the man in the stands watched, she stepped into the batter’s box, rapped her bat twice on home plate, spat on the handle for luck and then assumed a familiar stance.
Harrell had been playing for Rockford for only a week or two, but had already begun to rival the Peaches’ leading hitter, Dorothy Kamenshek . None of the Peaches were at their best today, though. Harrell would come to the plate seven times in the course of two games but fail to get on base.
Late in the evening, the second game wound down and people began to head for the exits . The Comets, who’d won the first game 3-0, were repeating their performance. Both teams would score one more run each, but Kenosha would end up on top.
The lone spectator stayed until the last out . He couldn’t imagine not seeing a game through to its conclusion. Besides, he wanted to see as much of the Peaches as possible. He was Bill Allington, soon to be christened “The Silver Eagle” by Rockford fans. He has signed a contract to take over the management of the Peaches the following week – a development that would not be relayed to Kloza until the following day at a special meeting in Chicago.
When the league issued an announcement of Kloza’s “resignation,” the public was told Kloza had “worked himself into a frazzle” and had stepped aside “for the good of all concerned .” But too many rumors were in circulation; the clumsy fiction couldn’t and didn’t last long.
In fact, a story very quickly began to circulate that players from California had engineered Kloza’s departure and demanded that Allington replace him . One of the suspects was Snooky Harrell, but she was guiltless. She had been happy to see what she thought was the last of Allington when she left California. His aggressive style struck her as cruel to players and antagonistic to opponents. She believed that his penchant for disparaging remarks had a reverse effect on the rival teams: he made a mediocre club mad enough to pull out all the stops and beat you.
In fact, however, there’d almost certainly been a coup of some dimension . At least one player who’d had enough of Kloza’s losing ways had held “indignation meetings” in her room to raise support for his ouster.
Some players knew (or thought they knew) that Kloza was doomed a day or two before he was summoned to Chicago . This gave managers elsewhere the shivering fits. If players’ wishes were taken into consideration by the League, no one was safe.
A newspaper reported that another
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