pension fer life instead of sending me to jail, too.”
Chapter 10
S PORTSWRITERS ON METROPOLITAN dailies from one end of the league to the other had interviewed Highpockets and obtained little more information than could be found in the pages of the Baseball Guide. Radio commentators, despite their sticky persistence, had no better success. The visit of the Tar Heel delegation to Manhattan was therefore an opportunity the New York reporters seized eagerly. Many sporting columns appeared the morning after Cecil McDade Day in Brooklyn, all concerned with Highpockets and all written before the accident. These stories were mostly accounts of his life in the environs of Bryson City and his early baseball career. A few newspapers even ran photographs of the McDade family on the farm at home. Like the rest of his craft, Casey had talked with the businessmen from North Carolina. Moreover, his observant eyes had seen the photographer rebuffed on the field before the game. Some little investigation plus a few telephone calls gave Casey an opening lead for his column the next day.
The tale is running around that the human umbrella who plays right field for the Brooks knows how to handle himself in a broken field. The other day when told that he had been chosen, with Manager Spike Russell and Catcher Jocko Klein, to play in the All-Star game in Cincinnati next week, he accepted the unusual honor with this crack: “Yeah. All-Star games don’t put no groceries on the table.” And when Life Magazine sent a photographer around to get a series of pictures of him recently, Highpockets is said to have demanded the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars for the privilege of snapping his phiz. At first sight it may seem amazing for Life , an institution used to having its own way, to be held up by a farm boy from North Carolina. Thinking it over, however, one has to admit that nobody helped Cecil McDade on his journey up from the minors, and it is not likely that Life Magazine would offer him a job as executive editor if his eyes go and he loses that home-run punch.
Everyone knows the toothpick squeezes a nickel harder than most ballplayers hold on to a twenty-five cent tip; but investigation among the North Carolinians in the city for Cecil McDade Day yesterday proves there’s a reason. You’ll never get this from Highpockets himself; however, it appears he lives on a hilly farm in the red clay soil of Rabbit Creek up back of town, on land which until lately grew only sour corn and not a lot of that. He is saving to buy fertilizer and livestock to make the place a producing farm, and also to give an education that he never received to his five brothers and sisters. There is no sense pretending that the beanpole is the most popular man on the Brooklyn club, either with the fans or his teammates; yet if some of the latter knew more about his background, they might be understanding in a way they are not at the present time.
Highpockets read all this on the subway going over to the hospital the next morning with no pleasurable emotion. Shoot, those birds, those sportswriters! Always after an angle. Why don’t they let a guy alone! He tossed the paper down, grateful for only one thing about the events of the past day. Directly after the accident, he had called George McPherson, the club secretary, and fortunately reached him at home. An old newspaperman himself, George went into action immediately. He spent several feverish hours at police headquarters, at the hospital, and on the telephone. After considerable effort had been expended and various wires pulled, all traces of the event were submerged from even the inquisitive eyes of Casey himself. No one but the few directly concerned would know about the affair unless one of the participants talked out of turn. Highpockets had no fear of breaking down himself.
So he went to the hospital thinking of this with relief, thankful also that it was a boy who had been injured rather than a girl.
Chapter 10
S PORTSWRITERS ON METROPOLITAN dailies from one end of the league to the other had interviewed Highpockets and obtained little more information than could be found in the pages of the Baseball Guide. Radio commentators, despite their sticky persistence, had no better success. The visit of the Tar Heel delegation to Manhattan was therefore an opportunity the New York reporters seized eagerly. Many sporting columns appeared the morning after Cecil McDade Day in Brooklyn, all concerned with Highpockets and all written before the accident. These stories were mostly accounts of his life in the environs of Bryson City and his early baseball career. A few newspapers even ran photographs of the McDade family on the farm at home. Like the rest of his craft, Casey had talked with the businessmen from North Carolina. Moreover, his observant eyes had seen the photographer rebuffed on the field before the game. Some little investigation plus a few telephone calls gave Casey an opening lead for his column the next day.
The tale is running around that the human umbrella who plays right field for the Brooks knows how to handle himself in a broken field. The other day when told that he had been chosen, with Manager Spike Russell and Catcher Jocko Klein, to play in the All-Star game in Cincinnati next week, he accepted the unusual honor with this crack: “Yeah. All-Star games don’t put no groceries on the table.” And when Life Magazine sent a photographer around to get a series of pictures of him recently, Highpockets is said to have demanded the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars for the privilege of snapping his phiz. At first sight it may seem amazing for Life , an institution used to having its own way, to be held up by a farm boy from North Carolina. Thinking it over, however, one has to admit that nobody helped Cecil McDade on his journey up from the minors, and it is not likely that Life Magazine would offer him a job as executive editor if his eyes go and he loses that home-run punch.
Everyone knows the toothpick squeezes a nickel harder than most ballplayers hold on to a twenty-five cent tip; but investigation among the North Carolinians in the city for Cecil McDade Day yesterday proves there’s a reason. You’ll never get this from Highpockets himself; however, it appears he lives on a hilly farm in the red clay soil of Rabbit Creek up back of town, on land which until lately grew only sour corn and not a lot of that. He is saving to buy fertilizer and livestock to make the place a producing farm, and also to give an education that he never received to his five brothers and sisters. There is no sense pretending that the beanpole is the most popular man on the Brooklyn club, either with the fans or his teammates; yet if some of the latter knew more about his background, they might be understanding in a way they are not at the present time.
Highpockets read all this on the subway going over to the hospital the next morning with no pleasurable emotion. Shoot, those birds, those sportswriters! Always after an angle. Why don’t they let a guy alone! He tossed the paper down, grateful for only one thing about the events of the past day. Directly after the accident, he had called George McPherson, the club secretary, and fortunately reached him at home. An old newspaperman himself, George went into action immediately. He spent several feverish hours at police headquarters, at the hospital, and on the telephone. After considerable effort had been expended and various wires pulled, all traces of the event were submerged from even the inquisitive eyes of Casey himself. No one but the few directly concerned would know about the affair unless one of the participants talked out of turn. Highpockets had no fear of breaking down himself.
So he went to the hospital thinking of this with relief, thankful also that it was a boy who had been injured rather than a girl.
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