We had a bumpy plane-ride; most of them were back then. Lousy prop-driven buckets, it’s a wonder we didn’t all get killed like Buddy Holly and the Big Fucking Bopper. The kid spent most of the trip throwing up in the can at the back of the plane, while right outside the door a bunch of guys sat playing acey-deucey and tossing him the usual funny stuff: Get any onya? Want a fork and knife to cut that up a little? Then the next day the sonofabitch goes five-for-five at Municipal Stadium, including a pair of jacks.
There was also another Blockade Billy play; by then he could have taken out a patent. This time the victim was Clete Boyer. Again it was Blockade Billy down with the left shoulder, and up and over Mr. Boyer went, landing flat on his back in the left batter’s box. There were some differences, though. The rook used both hands on the tag, and there was no bloody foot or strained Achilles tendon. Boyer just got up and walked back to the dugout, dusting his ass and shaking his head like he didn’t quite know where he was. Oh, and we lost the game in spite of the kid’s five hits. Eleven to ten was the final score, or something like that. Ganzie Burgess’s knuckleball wasn’t dancing that day; the Athletics feasted on it.
We won the next game, lost a squeaker on getaway day. The kid hit in both games, which made it sixteen straight. Plus nine putouts at the plate. Nine in sixteen games! That might be a record. If it was in the books, that is. If any of that month’s records were in the books.
We went to Chicago for three, and the kid hit in those games, too, making it nineteen straight. But damn if we didn’t lose all three. Jersey Joe looked at me after the last of those games and said, “I don’t buy that lucky charm stuff. I think Blakely sucks luck.”
“That ain’t fair and you know it,” I said. “We were going good at the start, and now we’re in a bad patch. It’ll even out.”
“Maybe,” he says. “Is Dusen still trying to teach the kid how to drink?”
“Yeah. They headed off to The Loop with some other guys.”
“But they’ll come back together,” Joe says. “I don’t get it. By now Dusen should hate that kid. Doo’s been here five years and I know his MO.”
I did, too. When The Doo lost, he had to lay the blame on somebody else, like that bum Johnny Harrington or that busher bluesuit Hi Wenders. The kid’s turn in the barrel was overdue, but Danny was still clapping him on the back and promising him he’d be Rookie of the Goddam Year. Not that The Doo could blame the kid for that day’s loss. In the fifth inning of his latest masterpiece, Danny had hucked one to the backstop in the fifth: high, wide, and handsome. That scored one. So then he gets mad, loses his control, and walks the next two. Then Nellie Fox doubled down the line. After that The Doo got it back together, but by then it was too late; he was on the hook and stayed there.
We got a little well in Detroit, took two out of three. The kid hit in all three games and made another one of those amazing home-plate stands. Then we flew home. By then the kid from the Davenport Cornholers was the hottest goddam thing in the American League. There was talk of him doing a Gillette ad.
“That’s an ad I’d like to see,” Si Barbarino said. “I’m a fan of comedy.”
“Then you must love looking at yourself in the mirror,” Critter Hayward said.
“You’re a card,” Si says. “What I mean is the kid ain’t got no whiskers.”
There never was an ad, of course. Blockade Billy’s career as a baseball player was almost over. We just didn’t know it.
We had three scheduled at home with the White Sox, but the first one was a washout. The Doo’s old pal Hi Wenders was the umpire crew chief, and he gave me the news himself. I’d got to The Swamp early because the trunks with our road uniforms in them got sent to Idlewild by mistake and I wanted to make sure they’d been trucked over. We wouldn’t need them for a week, but I was never easy in my mind until such things were taken care of.