Read Online Keystone Kids by John R. Tunis - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John R. Tunis
Ads: Link
really disliked was the badgering of the newspapermen who pestered them continually.
Nothing bothered Spike and Bob in all baseball as much as this interviewing. Once during the second week of spring training, a reporter was trying hard to get a story from them.
“Just what do you boys find is the main difference between the majors and the minors?”
They looked quickly at each other. As usual, Spike spoke for the pair. “The pitchers, I’d say. A man faces a good pitcher every day in the week up here. Down at Nashville we used to have a lamb every now and then to fatten up the old batting average. When you come up to the majors you don’t notice much difference at first except that the pitchers are all tough.”
“Isn’t the fielding better?”
“Sure is. Everything’s faster; there’s... oh... there’s a lot of little things; more polish; the hitters don’t go after the bad balls so much.”
Yet deep in their hearts both boys felt there was one difference they wouldn’t discuss with any writer. That was the difference they most noticed—the difference in managers.
Grouchy Devine was a laconic, deeply religious Irishman who went to Mass each morning, a man of great sensitivity and a feeling of affection for every one of his twenty-five players. To him every man was an individual problem to be solved. He was quiet, kept to himself off the grounds. In their stay on the Vols they had learned enormously from him, but they had never seen him criticize a player in public nor ever dispute an umpire’s decision. In fact, his reputation for grouchiness came mostly from the fact that he stayed away from reporters asking for interviews about the team. Whenever one of the sportswriters asked him early in the season, “Well, Grouchy, how does the team look?” he would wave his hand in the direction of his perspiring athletes and reply, “There they are. Take a look for yourself.”
This did not endear him to the press. But the two brothers had often heard him growl in the dressing room, after evading a reporter in search of a story, “When you don’t say anything, you don’t never have to eat your own words.” Spike and Bob remembered this line in their own dealings with the sportswriters covering the Dodgers in spring training, and talked as little as possible to the gentlemen of the press.
Ginger Crane was exactly Grouchy’s opposite. He was loud, loquacious, liked to talk and be with talkative people who were good listeners, as well. He was quick, nervous, excitable, and in action could always be depended on to do the unexpected. His relations with the press astonished the two Russells. Where Grouchy avoided newspapermen at all times, Ginger hobnobbed with them, ate with them occasionally, even went on fishing trips with them. He was never reluctant to discuss the chances of his team or any team in the league. He was bold, belligerent on the field, and it seemed to the boys he was on the field a good part of every game. He delighted in battles with the umpires or with opposing players, and he thought no more of being sent to the clubhouse than of ordering his dinner at night.
Ginger ran his team on hunches, shifting his fielders about like chessmen, and throwing in pitcher after pitcher until some games resembled the dying moments of a football battle with substitutes pouring in to get their letters. On hunches he had won one pennant, and notwithstanding his setback of the previous summer he was confident he could win again. Spike and Bob had imagined that his nervousness of the year before was due entirely to the strain of the pennant race. Not at all. Ginger was just as tense in a practice game between the regulars and the yannigans in that little bandbox under the Florida sun.
The two Russells were dressing for the second exhibition game against the Giants at Miami, listening to the merry chatter of the locker room as the team prepared for the afternoon’s workout.
“What’s this-here-now
Nothing bothered Spike and Bob in all baseball as much as this interviewing. Once during the second week of spring training, a reporter was trying hard to get a story from them.
“Just what do you boys find is the main difference between the majors and the minors?”
They looked quickly at each other. As usual, Spike spoke for the pair. “The pitchers, I’d say. A man faces a good pitcher every day in the week up here. Down at Nashville we used to have a lamb every now and then to fatten up the old batting average. When you come up to the majors you don’t notice much difference at first except that the pitchers are all tough.”
“Isn’t the fielding better?”
“Sure is. Everything’s faster; there’s... oh... there’s a lot of little things; more polish; the hitters don’t go after the bad balls so much.”
Yet deep in their hearts both boys felt there was one difference they wouldn’t discuss with any writer. That was the difference they most noticed—the difference in managers.
Grouchy Devine was a laconic, deeply religious Irishman who went to Mass each morning, a man of great sensitivity and a feeling of affection for every one of his twenty-five players. To him every man was an individual problem to be solved. He was quiet, kept to himself off the grounds. In their stay on the Vols they had learned enormously from him, but they had never seen him criticize a player in public nor ever dispute an umpire’s decision. In fact, his reputation for grouchiness came mostly from the fact that he stayed away from reporters asking for interviews about the team. Whenever one of the sportswriters asked him early in the season, “Well, Grouchy, how does the team look?” he would wave his hand in the direction of his perspiring athletes and reply, “There they are. Take a look for yourself.”
This did not endear him to the press. But the two brothers had often heard him growl in the dressing room, after evading a reporter in search of a story, “When you don’t say anything, you don’t never have to eat your own words.” Spike and Bob remembered this line in their own dealings with the sportswriters covering the Dodgers in spring training, and talked as little as possible to the gentlemen of the press.
Ginger Crane was exactly Grouchy’s opposite. He was loud, loquacious, liked to talk and be with talkative people who were good listeners, as well. He was quick, nervous, excitable, and in action could always be depended on to do the unexpected. His relations with the press astonished the two Russells. Where Grouchy avoided newspapermen at all times, Ginger hobnobbed with them, ate with them occasionally, even went on fishing trips with them. He was never reluctant to discuss the chances of his team or any team in the league. He was bold, belligerent on the field, and it seemed to the boys he was on the field a good part of every game. He delighted in battles with the umpires or with opposing players, and he thought no more of being sent to the clubhouse than of ordering his dinner at night.
Ginger ran his team on hunches, shifting his fielders about like chessmen, and throwing in pitcher after pitcher until some games resembled the dying moments of a football battle with substitutes pouring in to get their letters. On hunches he had won one pennant, and notwithstanding his setback of the previous summer he was confident he could win again. Spike and Bob had imagined that his nervousness of the year before was due entirely to the strain of the pennant race. Not at all. Ginger was just as tense in a practice game between the regulars and the yannigans in that little bandbox under the Florida sun.
The two Russells were dressing for the second exhibition game against the Giants at Miami, listening to the merry chatter of the locker room as the team prepared for the afternoon’s workout.
“What’s this-here-now
Similar Books
