Painting the Corners Page 22

  “You must have said the right thing, whatever it was,” I told Whiting, wondering what it could have been.

  “I guess I did,” he answered.

  The game ended on a spectacular play. The Rocks catcher, who batted left-handed, was all that stood in the way of a victory by San Quentin. He found out that the umpire was suddenly calling a strike a strike, and he had two of them before going after the next pitch. He hit a screaming line drive into right center field that sent Humboldt moving to his right at the crack of the bat. Running as hard as he could with those long, loping strides of his, he dove for the ball at the last instant, stretching his body out as far as it could go, and backhanded it just before the ball hit the ground. His momentum forced him to roll over twice before he could jump up and show everyone that the ball was in his glove. If the first base umpire, who was closest to the play, had any thought of ruling that the ball had landed on the ground and that Humboldt had trapped it, he changed his mind fast when he heard the home plate umpire shouting from behind him that the batter was out.

  Whiting had left the dugout and was out on the field an instant before Humboldt made the catch. When he heard the “out” call, he stopped, took a long look over at the Rocks’ bench, and pointed the middle finger of his right hand in the air. Then he came back down the steps and shook my hand again. “Some game,” he said, and headed for the tunnel to the locker room.

  An hour later I was on the boat going back to San Francisco. Renfro had taken me to the dining room after the game and we talked about some of the plays over coffee and chocolate cake. I told him I thought the umpires had given Alcatraz most of the calls, but he disagreed and said they had no reason to favor one team over another.

  “What really bothers me is the hit that beat us,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind if it had come from the Berry kid out at second, but his brother, the shortstop, is about the worst hitter I’ve ever seen.” He took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “I guess that’s what the damn law of averages is all about,” he said. I wondered if he’d ever find out the truth. I hoped not, so that what happened would bother him for a long time.

  Renfro asked me what I thought of Humboldt and I said I was sure the Dodgers would talk to him. I was already thinking to myself about Humboldt winning his case and word getting out around the league that I was the scout who signed him to a contract.

  The San Quentin team, back in handcuffs and shackles, was already on board when Renfro dropped me off at the boat. They sat side by side on the same long bench, but now there was a lot of laughing and joking going on.

  I figured that what I’d been told about not talking with anyone was the same on the return trip as it was going over, so I sat down by myself on the front deck to enjoy the scenery. I was surprised a little later on when one of the state cops came over and said that Buck Whiting wanted to see me. I went with him and he let me take the folding chair that was opposite Whiting’s place on the bench.

  “Like I said before, some game, huh?” Whiting said, in greeting me.

  “It sure was,” I told him. “One I’ll never forget.”

  “I wanted to thank you for helping us out. Most of that shit the Rocks pulled was all new to me. They must have wanted to win that game awfully bad because we really beat up on them when we were out there last year. It was something like 15-3.”

  “Well, you found a good way to get even in the ninth,” I said. “The assistant warden still can’t believe your shortstop got a big hit in the clutch. It’s driving him crazy.”

  Whiting laughed. “Yeah, Blue made a hero out of Straw, and Straw loves it. Everyone’s going to say the shortstop won the game. But that assistant warden deserves it, man. I’ll bet he was in on the umpire deal, too.”

  Buck had me confused. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You remember how you were wondering what I said to the home plate umpire after he gave the Rocks hitter an extra strike in the ninth inning?”

  “I sure do,” I told him. Now I couldn’t wait to hear.

  “I’ll tell you what it was. I never had a good look at that man all game because he kept his mask on all the time, even between innings. But then he took it off just that once in the ninth when our guy washed his face with some well-deserved saliva.” Whiting laughed again, a lot harder this time. “You know, I never saw that happen to an umpire before,” he said. The laughter brought tears to his eyes. “Anyhow, while he was wiping his cheek, I saw the scar he had on the left side of his face, going from the corner of his eye down under his chin. I knew I’d seen that face before, and then it hit me in the dugout who he was. His name’s Cleon Townsend, but most of the time he’s called “Candy.”

  Whiting stopped. I kept staring at him until I realized he was waiting for me to ask the next question. “Who’s Candy Townsend?”

  “He’s a prisoner, man, right there in Alcatraz. He’s been there almost as long as I’ve been in San Quentin, and I remembered that he played against us for the Rocks once or twice when he first got there. That’s when I knew that the umpires were ringers, not even regular umps who were getting paid off to help them steal the game from us. It was no wonder we’d been having every big call there was go against us. The home run they gave them and the one they took away from Humboldt made a difference of six runs right there.”

  Whiting stopped again. He seemed to be thinking about something. “Darnell is some ballplayer,” he said. “You ought to sign that boy if he beats the rap.”

  “We’ll try,” I said. “Tell me more about Townsend.”

  “Yeah. So the next time I went out to the plate, when he said the count was three and two instead of it already being a strikeout, I told Candy I knew who he was. I gave him the names of a few close friends of mine at the Rock, guys with a heavy reputation, who’d be glad to stick a knife in his ribs if I asked them to. I told him he might be unpopular for a while if his team lost the game, but that if he made one more lousy call to help Alcatraz win, he was a dead man. I guess he believed what I said.”

  “What happened to the real umps?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Buck said. “They probably got locked in their dressing room by accident, if you know what I mean. No one could find the key to let them out. That’s what the warden or one of his boys would have taken care of so the ringers could call the game. I’ll bet that’s them sitting over there on the other side. Why don’t you go ask?”

  I told Buck I would, said goodbye, and wished him luck. I started to reach out to shake his hand, but then realized the guards might take it the wrong way. He saw what I had in mind and gave me a wink and a smile, nodding his head up and down. On the way back to my seat, I walked over to the three men, the same ones I’d seen on the ride over to the island. I asked them if they’d been involved in the baseball game at Alcatraz that afternoon. They looked at each other and then one of them surprised me when he said they had umpired it.

  At first I didn’t know what to say next. “Was it a good game?” I finally asked.

  “Nothing special,” he answered. “About what you’d expect from two teams that don’t know how baseball ought to be played. Boring as hell.”

  I wondered whether he was too embarrassed to tell me the truth about why they had never made it onto the field. Perhaps there had been something else going on between them and certain officials on the Rock, something even Whiting didn’t suspect. I knew there was no sense asking and that I’d never find out.

  “Yeah,” I said, “I’ve seen a lot of those games. You forget all about them as soon as you leave the ballpark. I was going to take it in while I was there, but I’m glad I didn’t bother.”

  Two months later the papers ran a story about the fact that Humboldt’s attempt to get another trial had been denied by the California Supreme Court. All of the so-called “new evidence” had been there all the time, the Court said. That’s the last I ever heard of him. For all I know, he may still be hitting them over the walls for the SharQues and making those backha
nded catches in right field. Too bad, though, he seemed like a good kid back then. And he might have saved Harry Pidgin’s job.

  •

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  •

  MY MOST HEARTFELT thanks to Margot Hayward, whom I knew only as a SABR member when she answered my call to read and rank some of my stories. She has since become a dear friend over the years as many more have been written. She lives for her Mets, a love she once reserved for the Dodgers of Brooklyn, and when asked, she came up with the title for this book in her first at bat.

  My gratitude goes out to the others who read these stories and gave me their helpful feedback, including Margot’s husband Bob, Ray Anselmo, Chip Atkison, Tom Eckel, Steve Hoy, Marc Seror, Lisa Wrobel, and Jack Zerby.

  Thanks to Sandy Lottor, my good friend for years, who always pushed me a little farther forward with his inspiration and suggestions. I owe much to my dear Brandeis University classmate, Myron Uhlberg, who, in those telephone calls that seemed to go on forever, encouraged me over the years to keep writing and offered wonderful insight into how a story could be improved. Another classmate, Bill McKenna, called periodically from Calgary to comment on a story I had sent him and to make sure I was still putting pen to paper. And Cliff Hauptman, a friend and great editor who took home a story or two to review whenever we met for lunch.

  I also thank the terrific people at SABR, including John Zajc, Jim Charlton, and Ryan Chamberlain who were so generous with their time in answering a number of my questions and steering me in fruitful directions. My thanks also to Stan Rosenzweig for digging into his baseball encyclopedia whenever I called in need of another fact or two to help a story along. I am certainly most grateful to the distinguished baseball writers who read these stories at my request and honored me with what they have written about the book.

  I am deeply indebted to my agent, Peter Riva, of International Transactions, Inc., who never let up in his determination to see these stories published.