during practice and heard lots of good words for the Keystone Kids of Manager Ginger Crane’s Drowning Dodgers. If Spike and Bob Russell are as good as the manager and coaches of the team say they are, most of the great second-base combinations of the past should have been in semipro ball. ‘Mechanically, this is the best combination I’ve seen come up,’ Crane said yesterday, and Coach Charlie Draper echoed his remarks. ‘Me, too, and I’ve seen some good ones. This Spike is about the best pivot man on a doubleplay I’ve ever watched.’ ”
Bob tossed the paper over to his brother, who read the paragraphs.
His face got warm. “Gosh!” he said. Made you solemn, sort of.
Bob became restless. He got up and wandered about the room; then he put on his coat and went out to the elevator, down for a double scoop dish of ice cream before going to bed. Spike stood reading the column again and again. Gosh! It sure scared a fellow, talk like that. Why, that’s enough to put the whammy on us, that is!
In ten minutes his brother was back. Bob climbed into bed thinking: Gee, I’m glad I let Spike manage our salary deal last winter. He can handle that MacManus all right. Why, he could even manage this ballclub, Spike could.
Yes, the second base combination of the Dodgers was still working; but the remainder of the club was rapidly sliding down hill. The laughter and jokes of the clubhouse, the free and easy smoothness of their play in spring training had gone. No one wisecracked any more; no one made hot foots or played tricks. Now they were tense and tight, and even Raz grew silent as the season went on into the torrid heat of mid-July and the team sank gradually into sixth place. When a team is in sixth the dressing room loungers, the actors and celebrities, bother it no more. They abandoned the Dodgers to follow the Pirates and the Cards in their struggle for the lead.
Meanwhile, Ginger Crane’s desperate attempts to avert disaster had little success. Now his hunches were hunches and nothing more, wild stabs backed by no reasoning, moves made in the hope of changing their luck and finding the right combination to stop their downward slide in the second division. Things looked blacker than an umpire’s heart.
“Shoot!” said the manager, in reply to a sportswriter’s query just before their first game after returning to Brooklyn. “Shoot! What does it matter who I pitch today? If you don’t give a pitcher more than three hits a game, he can’t be expected to win for you.”
“The boys haven’t been hitting recently,” said the sportswriter.
“I’ll say! We can’t seem to buy ourselves a base hit these days.”
“It’s the hairpins,” said Charlie Draper. “We can’t find any, so we can’t get any two baggers. Since women started cutting their hair short we don’t find any hairpins and we don’t get any two base hits.”
“Let’s get some today,” said Crane with a burst of his old-time fire. His mouth shut tight. He clapped his hands. “All right now, boys, all right now. Lil’ pepper! Take nothing for granted. Lil’ pepper today... lil’ pepper...”
They got their hits, too. With the help of these and a couple of bases on balls and a blooper by Harry Street which dropped dead on the left field foul line with the bags filled, the Dodgers had a four to nothing lead with the game half gone. Directly behind triumph came disaster, as always stalking the second division team.
In the seventh the Cubs got two men on base, and the runner on second tried to score on a single. Karl Case’s throw was only a few feet from the plate, but when big Babe Stansworth, the catcher, pivoted to tag the runner sliding around to the rear of the plate, his spike caught in the dirt and his ankle cracked with a snap Spike Russell could hear in the cut-off position behind the box. The team rushed up to him, a stretcher was brought out, and the big chap, writhing in pain, was carried off the field. The Dodgers
Bob tossed the paper over to his brother, who read the paragraphs.
His face got warm. “Gosh!” he said. Made you solemn, sort of.
Bob became restless. He got up and wandered about the room; then he put on his coat and went out to the elevator, down for a double scoop dish of ice cream before going to bed. Spike stood reading the column again and again. Gosh! It sure scared a fellow, talk like that. Why, that’s enough to put the whammy on us, that is!
In ten minutes his brother was back. Bob climbed into bed thinking: Gee, I’m glad I let Spike manage our salary deal last winter. He can handle that MacManus all right. Why, he could even manage this ballclub, Spike could.
Yes, the second base combination of the Dodgers was still working; but the remainder of the club was rapidly sliding down hill. The laughter and jokes of the clubhouse, the free and easy smoothness of their play in spring training had gone. No one wisecracked any more; no one made hot foots or played tricks. Now they were tense and tight, and even Raz grew silent as the season went on into the torrid heat of mid-July and the team sank gradually into sixth place. When a team is in sixth the dressing room loungers, the actors and celebrities, bother it no more. They abandoned the Dodgers to follow the Pirates and the Cards in their struggle for the lead.
Meanwhile, Ginger Crane’s desperate attempts to avert disaster had little success. Now his hunches were hunches and nothing more, wild stabs backed by no reasoning, moves made in the hope of changing their luck and finding the right combination to stop their downward slide in the second division. Things looked blacker than an umpire’s heart.
“Shoot!” said the manager, in reply to a sportswriter’s query just before their first game after returning to Brooklyn. “Shoot! What does it matter who I pitch today? If you don’t give a pitcher more than three hits a game, he can’t be expected to win for you.”
“The boys haven’t been hitting recently,” said the sportswriter.
“I’ll say! We can’t seem to buy ourselves a base hit these days.”
“It’s the hairpins,” said Charlie Draper. “We can’t find any, so we can’t get any two baggers. Since women started cutting their hair short we don’t find any hairpins and we don’t get any two base hits.”
“Let’s get some today,” said Crane with a burst of his old-time fire. His mouth shut tight. He clapped his hands. “All right now, boys, all right now. Lil’ pepper! Take nothing for granted. Lil’ pepper today... lil’ pepper...”
They got their hits, too. With the help of these and a couple of bases on balls and a blooper by Harry Street which dropped dead on the left field foul line with the bags filled, the Dodgers had a four to nothing lead with the game half gone. Directly behind triumph came disaster, as always stalking the second division team.
In the seventh the Cubs got two men on base, and the runner on second tried to score on a single. Karl Case’s throw was only a few feet from the plate, but when big Babe Stansworth, the catcher, pivoted to tag the runner sliding around to the rear of the plate, his spike caught in the dirt and his ankle cracked with a snap Spike Russell could hear in the cut-off position behind the box. The team rushed up to him, a stretcher was brought out, and the big chap, writhing in pain, was carried off the field. The Dodgers
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