The Southpaw Read Free Page B

would pile in the 32 Moors and start for the park. I would sit high in the seat when we went rolling in town so as everybody could see me with Pop. Everybody in Perkinsville knowed him.
    Pop would say, “Now, Hank, the first thing I do when I come near the park is look up and see which way the flags is blowing. Keep studying the flags all through the day, for you have got to know what the wind is up to.” If the wind is blowing towards the right field fence you want to take care not to give anything too good to a lefthanded hitter, and so forth and so on.
    Or Pop would say, “Look at the sky and see how many clouds is in it,” for there is much to the weather. If it’s cloudy and hard to see you will throw your fast ball more then your curve, and the other way around.
    We would pile out in the lot behind the park, and Pop would walk in his stockings in through the private gate that was only for players and relations. As a kid it always give me a great thrill to go in any park through the player gate. It made me feel important—made me feel like I was somebody . These thrills wear away with the passing of time. I would go up in the seats right next to the rail, and Pop would lean with 1 hand on the rail and rub off the bottom of his stockings and make sure there was no stones nor pebbles in them, and then he would put on his shoes and lace them with a double bow. Then Slim Doran would come over and toss a ball to Pop, and the 2 of them would toss it back and forth easy between them. Slim was up with Newark for a time and had a good year and would of rose to the majors but for a cold he caught in his arm in Montreal. Slim was a righthander. There was always a wad of tobacco in his mouth. Pop never chewed, nor never smoked nor drank. Slim was used mostly in relief. They would lob it back and forth, and then when Pop was ready to warm he would yell to Tom Swallow, the Perkinsville catcher, and he would start throwing serious, and here is where the beauty come in.
    I have seen many a pitcher, but there’s few that throw as beautiful as Pop. He would bring his arm around twice and then lean back on 1 leg with his right leg way up in the air, and he would let that left hand come back until it almost touched the ground behind, and he looked like he was standing on 1 leg and 1 arm and the other 2 was in the air, and then that arm would come around and that other leg would settle down toward the earth, and right in about there there was the least part of a second when his uniform was all tight on him, stretched out tight across his whole body, and then he would let fly, and that little white ball would start on its way down the line toward Tom Swallow, and Pop’s uniform would get all a-rumple again, and, just like it was some kind of a magic machine, the split-second when the uniform would rumple up there would be the smack of the ball in Tom’s mitt, and you realized that ball had went 60 feet 6 inches in less then a second, and you knowed that you seen not only Pop but also a mighty and powerful machine, and what he done looked so easy you thought you could do it yourself because he done it so effortless, and it was beautiful and amazing, and it made you proud.
    He would do it time and again, maybe 20 times, and he would be all a-sweat, and his arm would loosen, and by 15 of 2 he was warm and ready to go. Then he would go to the batting cage and swipe out a few. The Scarlets always hire a high-school lad to throw batting practice. Pop could hit, too, but he didn’t put no effort in it. A pitcher is supposed to pitch, not hit.
    By this time the park would be full (or as full as it would get, for there was times when we drawed some fairly sprinkley crowds) and I would be nervous for Pop. I was always nervous until after he went out to the hill and throwed that first pitch through and there was the first thump of that fast 1 in Tom Swallow’s mitt.
    I would generally get terribly nervous when Pop got in a jam. Maybe he would