UNCLE MERL'S BAR & GRILL
Chapter XIX
The Final Conflict: A Snowball’s Chance
(… and who the hell is Eddie Gaedel??)
By
Peter "Lou" D'Alessio
Copyright 2010
The heat was on. We were going into the top of the ninth all-even with the fate of the human race hanging in the balance. “Man, this is too damned close!” I muttered to Cobb, but he never heard me. He was busy watching Gibson, who seemed to be going somewhere we weren’t!
“Gonna be alright! Joe D is comin’! DiMaggio gonna be here soon!”
“Jesus,” I whispered to the now tensing Cobb, “when did Joe D pass over?”
“He didn’t! Gibson’s deck is missin’ a few cards!”
I was about to say something but Robinson, standing behind the mighty batsman, waved me off. “Josh,” he said calmly, “Josh, put the gear on, we gotta…”
“But Joe ain’t here yet!”
Just as he had in life, Gibson was losing his mind. He was waiting for a man who had never been fated to be his teammate, in life or death. One year too many waiting to be called to the ‘big’ leagues to test himself against batters like Foxx and Ruth and DiMaggio had taken its final toll. There was an eerie silence rising in the bunker except for Josh’s jabbering. The only man to drive a ball clean out of Yankee Stadium was gone. Louis Santop rose and slowly approached the other great catcher and gently began coaxing him to the locker room. We watched the two backstops disappear down the tunnel. Foster, hand bandaged, patted Josh on the shoulder as he made his way back to the bench to see the final inning played.
On our way back to reality, we became aware of a strange growling noise that had begun to fill our space. Cobb was looking across the field at a smugly smiling Satan. Cobb was actually snarling… and it was scary!
“Paige!” he called out. “You’re in for you! Get in there!”
We all turned towards Satchel. Lifting slowly off the bench, now in the uniform of a Saint Louis Brown was… Satchel Paige! He was older and a bit grayer, but as Stengel had said of Ruth, Paige was still Paige.
“Damn, Jack!” the still-young Bell exclaimed. “Don’t that old goat ever go home?”
“Not for a very long time!” Cobb replied. “Now! We need us a catcher!” He turned to me and those steel cold eyes of his invaded my face. “Merl says you might know where I can find one!”
I stood there blinking like an idiot, not knowing what the hell Cobb was talking about, and as I stood there stammering, I saw two shadowy figures appear at the far end of the tunnel from the locker rooms. One shadow was Jonsey, which was for sure. He was dressed in Marine green camy and looked about twenty pounds lighter than I remembered him being. But the big kid next to him in the South Carolina Blue Birds uniform didn’t look like anyone I knew!
The two men trotted to the lip of the dugout. Jonsey turned and began to empty the water cooler, some of which actually made it into his mouth. The guy in the Blue Birds uniform began putting on his gear. As he leaned forward to secure his shin pad his face lifted in my direction.
“Hey, tough guy—ever learn to throw that screwball like ya said you were gonna?”
“Bernie?” I whispered.
I could see a smile spread behind the catcher’s mask, but without saying a word, he rose and trotted to the plate. I looked over at Jonsey and started stammering!
“Jonsey, that’s, that’s…”
“Bernie! Damn it was hot in that jungle, and dragging Doc with me, whew!”
“Yeah, but…”
“But nothin’! You just spent a week with a couple hundred dead ball players, a bunch a’ dragons, and all the demons in the world! Why does it surprise you that Bernie should show up?” He let the water bottle, which he’d lifted out of the dispenser, slide back into place. “Doc found out where he was, and I went in after him. Ga’damn, that boy was back in the bush! He’d better be as good as you think he is!”
* * *
Over in Hell’s little acre, Satan was howling mad seeing Paige up on the mound again. Too mad even to notice Bernie taking Satchel’s warm up throws. He kind of skirted the definition, having played only two games for the Birds while waiting to go overseas—Cobb had a pro for “twenny dollahs”! And there was a photo of a Marine in Viet Nam on display at Cooperstown. You could only see his back, but it was clear he was throwing a baseball to some kids. It could have been any Marine, but Merl had submitted Bernie’s name. As far as Satan was concerned, it was a remote possibility this kid would even get called up, so he let it slide without protest. Besides, the storm raging now centered over the mound. When the smoke cleared, Paige, the senior, was facing Fecor, Guardian of the Treasures of Hell—who popped out to Jackie Robinson for the first out!
The next batter up, Gaziel, laid down a perfect bunt up the third base line and beat Bernie’s throw by half a step. He wasn’t quite so lucky trying to steal second; Bernie earned his first kill on a perfect throw to Robinson, who pasted Gaziel right in the kisser on an all-out, headlong slide. With two outs, things were looking good for making it through the top of the ninth still tied when Anarazel changed Hell’s strategy by catching an outside curve and sending it off the right field wall. The ball took a wild bounce off and by-passed several outfielders on its way back towards the infield. It was a lucky shot, but considering the batter’s great speed it was setting up as a great shot at an in-the-park home run. Anarazel was not a power hitter and the outfield had played him short, but he had taken off like a shot and was moving with an animal ferocity over the base path. He had rounded second and was halfway to third when Oscar Charleston ran down the ball. Oscar was about midway between the wall and second and he had one hell of an arm! He barehanded the ball on the run and sent it like a gunshot aimed at home plate. The runner had passed third and was committed to the play, and he had to know he wasn’t going to beat Charleston’s throw. He had only one choice—take out the catcher. I saw Bernie’s leg shoot out across home plate and watched him brace for the slide.
Like two great charging knights they met, with the baseball somewhere in the middle. There was a horrifying snap that resonated to the cheap seats as they collided and for a brief frozen moment they hovered over the plate, then toppled backwards with Bernie on the bottom and Anarazel skating over him and sliding towards our dugout. Bernie had the ball but still hadn’t tagged him—the specter had missed home plate entirely. They sprang at each other like cats. Bernie got there first and whipped the tag on violently.
Luciano had positioned himself over the plate and, when Bernie made the tag, erupted like a volcano, shaking, twisting and throwing his thumb in the air. Shea went wild, yelling and screaming and carrying on. Back in the dugout, Cobb and Foster were hugging each other and hopping up and down like a rabbit with two backs (which itself was worth the price of a ticket) and the entire bench was crawling over itself to climb out onto the field. My friend Bernie had come from nowhere and had saved us all from the depths of hell with the play of the game.
In the midst of the bedlam, Luciano’s face seemed to appear through the mass of squirming players. He was yelling at Cobb and Foster and pointing frantically at home plate. Bernie was stretched out on his back with a small river of blood running down his pant leg. Cobb and Foster pushed through the crowd. Close examination of the foot-long gash told the story; Bernie was done for the day. Our defensive half of the inning ended with Bernie being taken off on a stretcher. Jonsey stopped me from getting onto the field, and held me back. It was in the rules—or maybe in the cards. Bernie was gone forever for a second time.
* * *
I suppose, in an infinite sense, turn-about is fair play. Cobb had caused Stengel to run out of working first basemen—now here he was, sucking wind for a working backstop. Santop had faded back into history with Josh Gibson, a very young Roy Campanella had been used as a pinch hitter… the cupboard was bare.
It didn’t seem to bother old Tyrus that much. He was busy combing through his roster sheets for pinch hitters if he needed them. “John Henry Lloyd!” he called out to the man headed towards the plate. “Get on first… lean in!”
Lloyd’s eyes widened, but he understood well enough. It was hard as hell to hit Sammael’s spitters, but his pitches could go anywhere and leaning in could—and did—get you hit! In two pitches, John Henry found himself on first with a nasty welt on his glove hand and a steal-if-you-can sign. Cobb had the winning run on base!
Torriente, the great Cuban outfielder, drove one deep into left and Lloyd found himself sacrificed to second. When Robinson squared off to bunt the runner to third and fouled it off, Satan stepped out of the dugout and we were certain that would be it for Sammael. But old Scratch extended his right arm and signaled the pitcher to give Jackie a pass! And then we had runners at first and second. The walk brought up the pitcher’s spot with one out and Cobb to the dugout steps.
“Now what the hell is that old bastard up to?” Bell, who was standing in the batter’s circle, mused.
“He wants Satchel outa the game,” growled Cobb. “And he thinks he can get me to pull’im for a pinch hitter! That som’bitch don’t think we can score!” Cobb looked at his aging pitcher. “Well, what the hell ya waitin’ for? Get in there and swing away!” I don’t think that was what Satchel was waiting to hear! His eyes got wide and he began to blink.
“I said… swing away! Don’t look one over, don’t wait for your pitch, and don’t look for a walk! Swing the damn bat!”
Satchel nodded, tipped his hat, and went to the plate. As he stood at the edge of the batter’s box knocking the dirt from his cleats, Cobb came back in and plopped heavily down on the bench. “He wants Paige out an’ ma las’ pinch hitter in!” he said with an evil glint in his eye. “I’m gonna beat that som’bitch yet!” I looked at Jonsey, who was busy taking a head count. Cobb had no pinch hitters, no catchers, and damned few pitchers left that Jonsey could find.
Satchel did as ordered. The pitch was a high slider that wasn’t even in the same city as home plate, but he swung like he was the Sultan of Swing—and John Henry and Jackie were off to the races. If Ahriman wanted to throw to either second or third, Satchel’s wild swing had taken him out of position—either that or the idea of getting domed by Paige’s bat didn’t appeal to Ahriman in the least.
Satchel looked back at Cobb with a shit-eating grin that went ear to ear. Cobb most graciously returned the effort with a sadistic grin of his own, then signaled ‘swing at nothing’, which is what he did, and was sitting back on the bench in two more pitches. Two Outs! Cool Poppa was up and Oscar Charleston right behind him. Bell had already gone 3 for 4, and while Oscar had only one hit, he had been driving the ball all around the outfield.
Lucifer had been lurking in the darkest corner of his dugout. He moved to the edge of the steps and we could see he was planning a new course of action. He signed to his pitcher… to pass Bell and load the bases! Cobb slapped his hands together like he was getting ready to cut a Thanksgiving turkey!
“You gotta ‘mire the bas’tid!” he drawled. “It’s do or die time, and he knows it! I know it! Hell, the whole damned park knows it! Ain’t got no catcher, we don’t score now, it’s over! He’s walkin’ Bell to get Oscar, odds’er better he’d fly out. I got the som’bitch now!!! Oscar! Charleston!” he shouted to the man halfway to the plate. When Charleston looked back, the Georgia Peach threw a thumb over his shoulder calling him back to the plate. Cobb stood, faced the bullpen and waved a player in!
It seemed like we were looking off into infinity. Through the backlighted tunnel leading into the pen, a figure seemed to appear and began to walk slowly forward. Over his shoulder a huge beam of wood rested, looking more like a railroad tie than a baseball bat.
In great excitement the contents of the bench suddenly shifted forward, straining for a better view.
“Damn, that’s Babe Ruth!”
“You’re crazy man, that’s Josh! I’d know that walk anywhere!”
“You’re both nuts, that’s Jimmy Fox! Look at the size a’ dat bat!”
“NOW BATTING… FOR OSCAR CHARLESTON…” the PA blasted overhead, “FROM THE SAINT LOUIS BROWNS… EDDIEE… GAHHHHDDDEEELLLLL!”
An orchard of eyeballs swung to Cobb and silently chorused the same thought that only Jonsey had the balls to say out loud. “Who-the-hell is Eddie Gaedel?”
Who-the-hell indeed! The Saint Louis Browns rarely, if ever, had what would amount to a good team, let alone a great one. So periodically, the owner would lapse into outright showmanship to try and boost flagging attendance. One particular Friday afternoon he had sent off a roster change to the league office knowing full well it wouldn’t be investigated until after Eddie had been up to bat. To make a really short story even shorter, Eddie Gaedel—wearing number 1/8 and standing three feet and seven inches tall with an effective strike zone of about six inches—stepped up to the plate. According to Saint Louis baseball legend, Eddie was told that if he so much as lifted the bat off his shoulder to swing, a man in the stands with a high-powered rifle would do him in. Needless to say, Eddie Gaedel went into the official record books as having had one turn in the batter’s box—he walked in four straight pitches… and had a very interesting photo taken that showed up in the Saint Louis Brown’s display at Cooperstown!
The stadium went berserk! Cobb had engineered the bases loaded and was now prepared to have the winning run walked in. The evil old fart had out-dirtied the devil! It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective. Seven foot tall Sammael with his scattering pitches couldn’t possibly hope to strike Eddie out. Even with Kali and her pinpoint accuracy, it’d be damned near impossible for her to find the strike zone—and if Eddie crouched low, impossible!
Satan walked to the mound and took the ball from Sammael and motioned to his bullpen. We were already celebrating the win—all of us but Cobb. He stood with hard eyes fixed on Satan’s bullpen. What stepped out took the wind out of all our sails. A tiny figure began walking to the mound. He was not much taller than Gaedel, and he was most grotesquely deformed. It was Du-Sitt, the Black Elf, a heartless assassin! Lucifer was going to fight our fire with some of his own. He had a deadly fastball that never seemed to waiver and Ahriman’s oversized mitt was a superb target for the chipmunk from hell! All eight warm-up throws were strikes, slashing into the catcher’s mitt with a vicious pop. Eddie stood at the edge of the batter’s box and looked questioningly over at Cobb, who defiantly shook his head to the negative.
Luciano called play in, the runners took their leads, little Eddie dug in and Du-Sitt sent a screaming pitch to the plate. Luciano, who had knelt down and was almost peering through the catcher’s legs, yelled, “ONE!”
“Oh, man!” moaned Charleston. “He ain’t got a snowball’s chance in hell!”
Only with the turn of that well-known phrase did the evil-looking grin return to Cobb’s face, and for a brief instant he reminded me of the Ty Cobb of old—nasty, vicious, arrogant, and unbeatable. He whistled to his mini-batter who looked back and nodded affirmatively. Eddie stepped up to the plate and started to crowd it. Du-Sitt wailed one in, but missed.
“Ball!” cried the Ump.
Eddie looked again and Cobb spread his hands as if holding a bat. Gaedel widened his grip, then choked up on the bat that was the smallest legal size allowed. It seemed gigantic in his hands.
We were staring at Eddie, watching him lean in and waiting for the pitch. “Does he remind you of anybody?” I mumbled, more to myself in speculation than as an actual question.
“Yeah!” Foster reported. “The little peckerwood is standin’ there just like Cobb use ta!”
The words hadn’t left Rube’s mouth when Du-Sitt let one fly… and Gaedel swung—just like Cobb! He poked at the ball and sent it back towards the mound on the third base side. Eddie lit out for first base as fast as his little legs could carry him.
Lloyd was going to cross the plate, but Eddie had to make it to the base for the run to count! The ball was in play and Du-Sitt had to get to the ball and toss it to first. Because of the shortness of the two key sets of legs involved, it felt like we were watching everything go down in slow motion. The Black Elf got to the ball and sent it whistling to first, but Eddie was actually moving pretty good too, all things considered, and he was watching the first baseman’s eyes all the way! As the first baseman extended himself to make the catch, Eddie Gaedel did the one thing nobody expected him to do—except for his obvious mentor, Tyrus Raymond Cobb. He slid, feet first with cleats chopping and slashing just like a small lawn mower and moving like a runaway cannonball, not at the bag but at the first baseman’s leg!
Eddie, the ball and the demon all went down together. The demon had the ball, but Eddie had the bag, hugging it like an over-stuffed pillow and screaming, “SAFE! SAFE!” It was an opinion the Umpires seemed to share! Eddie, at three feet and seven inches, had taken the first baseman out of the play, who had neither touched the base nor tagged the runner.
The gates of Hell seemed to open as Satan led the charge onto the diamond. For a second, we thought they were going to rip both Eddie and the Umpires to shreds before we could get there to help them. They would have, too, but the pitcher’s mound opened like a convoluted Volcano and began sucking demon after demon back down into the fiery hole and the bowels of Hell! Cobb, who had been going wild himself, ran to the pit screaming, “An’ now you som’bitch, Ah’m gonna beat yer butt mah’self!” And as the last demon was sucked below, Cobb looked up with a savage grin and, waving his cap at us, dove headlong into the pit.
“Oh, lord!” Paige gasped. “Imagine havin’ ta go through eternity with that kind of personal tormenter on your back? I really feel sorry for him!”
“Yeah!” I said. “I would have thought Cobb would have been spared—”
“Cobb? Who’s talkin’ about Cobb!”
* * *
After the tickertape parade and banquet, Merl, the dragons and I sat there in the bar for some time, watching baseball and shooting the breeze. I learned how the Celts cleverly began building ball parks over swamps so that every time a well-disciplined, fully armored Roman outfielder chased a fly ball, he’d sink in a bog, never to be heard from again. It was explained to me how the Emperor Caligula, a mediocre pitcher at best, got a lifetime suspension because they kept catching him ‘doctoring’ the ball by nicking it on a sharpened edge of his breastplate. Max went into great detail to explain how King Richard’s brother, Prince John, earned the title “Johnny Soft Sword.” It had nothing to do with baseball, but evidently it caused a lot of talk in the locker room.
* * *
Things were calming down at a very rapid pace, and normaling up pretty well. Crazy Al’s new wife bought him a three-piece suit and they, with their five kids, opened up an IRS Sanctioned Tax Service and Black Magic Shop down on Broad Street. Jonsey, last I heard, had been offered a promotion but turned it down and shortly after he put in his time and filed for retirement. He now works with Doc and Charley, having been made a believer! Nine-Fingers Dora hooked up with Booker the Cooker, a banquet chief brought in by the Kansas City Monarchs management, and they re-opened the Chicken & Rib Crib across the street. Chou and Hi made a bundle betting on the sixth game and were last seen sailing out of Port Newark wearing party hats and drinking Champaign right out of the bottle with a number of ‘floozy-looking’ dragonettes hanging all over them. I guess it’s true what they say about Chinese dragons: Party, Party, Party! Campy and Max? Well, you know what old ball players do, even at four tons. As far as I know, they’re still sitting around somewhere drinking Butzh and arguing about the good old days, I suppose.
* * *
With the rain having stopped, the Red Sox dropped both ends of a double header to the Yanks, and as Steinbeck had once written, the world was again spinning in greased grooves. About midnight by my watch (somebody had swiped the Budweiser clock), Uncle Merl reappeared with a couple of pizzas and the keys to my car. Somewhere around 1:30 in the morning, when the boys tried to con me into picking up tickets to the next Mets home stand by offering to bring Cleopatra of the Nile along, I figured it was time to leave. As they said it would be, it was less than eight hours from the time I had entered Uncle Merl’s until I exited. My car hadn’t moved from the spot I’d left it and it fired right up with the first turn of the key—that was something I had never been able to do since I’d bought the damned thing!
* * *
Now, m’friend, someday if you’ve got a little time to kill while the Mrs. is visiting her old Auntie Marge in Montclair, hop onto Bloomfield Avenue and head ‘due east’ for about five miles into Newark. Then take a detour through the Iron Bound section of that sprawling old city. If you ask some old timer you may happen to pass which way it is to Uncle Merl’s Bar & Grill, he will probably give you some vague directions to where it once stood. You see, as far as the city of Newark is concerned, Uncle Merl ‘passed over’ back in October of 1969. Seems like in April of the same year, Merl had been in Vegas and literally ‘bet the bar’ that the Mets would not only take the pennant, but also win the World Series. Vegas bookies took the bet at odds better than 100 to 1, and when the Mets actually won, old Merl had a stroke right there in front of the old Dumont black and white. Nobody’s quite certain who got the loot! But I think that’s a story for another day.
Anyway, if by some chance you manage to find the Polish Falcon’s Hall on the corner by the Chicken & Rib Crib (try some of Booker’s ribs and tell Dora Pete said ‘Hey’!) next to the abandoned gas station, the only thing you’ll find left of the Bar & Grill is a rather large empty lot where a building, long since bulldozed into history, once stood. Every once in a while, on a clear summer’s day when the professional ‘boys of summer’ seem to be playing the game merely for money, I’ll mount my trusty steed, Detroit Red, and seek out that same empty lot. A bunch of the local kids play ‘small ball’ there, far away from all the things we all want to be far away from. They play the game the way, I believe, it was intended to be played, the way this guy I knew played it.
Now, m’friend, you may want to come down and watch too. You may find you’re not alone; in fact, parking can be a real pain in the tail. So let me give you a tip. Don’t park your car in the abandoned gas station, as tempting as it may be! It’s exactly 757 feet from where the boys place home plate. See, there are these two big kids; one wears a beat up old Brooklyn Dodgers’ cap, and the other kid a Yarmulke with a brim! They like to swing for the fences.
THE END
"If you were drinking as long as us, you’d be ‘fuzzy’ too!”
Pete and the Boys, 20th Century Newark
From the
Vault of Cosmos Compository
Completed December 7, 1997
Pete
D’Alessio 9/5/2010
