The Cincinnati Red Stalkings (8 page)

T
he
Island Queen
pulled away from the Public Landing, her bells clanging and whistles shrieking. As the elegant steamboat started up the Ohio River, Margie and I maneuvered our way through the crowd, ushering Erin and Patrick Kelly along with us. Margie had offered to take the children to the big Fourth of July fireworks show, and their aunt had given her ready consent.

Like most of the others on board, we were dressed up for the occasion. Margie looked stunning in a teal silk skirt and embroidered white shirtwaist. The children’s clothes were styled a bit too young for them, Erin wearing a frilly white organdy dress and Patrick in a serge knickerbocker suit. I wore blue seersucker and a crimson necktie with blue-and-white polka dots. That same color scheme was all about us; the steamboat’s railings were swathed in patriotic bunting, and many of the passengers were waving small American flags.

All five decks of the vessel were packed with holiday revelers, but we managed to work our way to the front of the middle deck, where we had a marvelous view of the river stretching ahead of us.

The side-wheeler’s smokestack was tilted back to prevent it from being shorn off by the bridges we passed under, first the Central, then the L. & N. To our left was Mount Adams with the chimneys of Rookwood Pottery visible on top of the hill. To our right was Newport, Kentucky, then Bellevue and Dayton.

Music from the
Island Queen’s
calliope attracted those on land to the grassy riverbanks; they waved to the passengers and we returned the greetings. It reminded me of when I was a kid in New Jersey, waving to the engineers of passing trains, who’d blast their whistles in reply. Boats were my least favorite mode of transportation, but even I was having fun.

Altogether, it had been a good day so far. Thanks to Larry Kopf twisting an ankle, I spelled him at shortstop in the afternoon game, going 3-for-4 in another win over the Dodgers; and Margie and the children were on hand to witness my performance. My head felt good enough to play; the only lingering effect from the attack Saturday night was that I required a slightly larger cap to accommodate the bump.

It took almost an hour for the steamboat to complete the eight-mile journey, during which Erin and Patrick took turns asking if we were there yet. Margie had answered “Almost” for the twentieth time, when the splashing of the paddle wheel diminished and the boat pulled up to a landing in front of an entrance arch with a sign that read
CONEY ISLAND.

The site was originally “Ohio Grove, the Coney Island of the West,” but soon became known simply as “Coney Island”—no Cincinnatian was going to mistake it for the one in Brooklyn. For me, though, the name brought back memories of the original Coney. I’d first met Margie in Brooklyn, when I got a bit part in one of her moving pictures, and the amusement park had been the site of some of our earliest dates.

With Erin and Patrick in tow, Margie and I filed down the gangplank with the rest of the crowd, and through the park entrance. There was a small group of people in the sheltered pavilion waiting to take the steamboat back to the city, but most were staying for the evening festivities.

This Coney Island was noted as much for its beautifully landscaped grounds as for its amusements, and was a favorite place for picnicking. Many of those pouring into the park with us were carrying wicker baskets and would be heading for the picnic areas.

We hadn’t brought our own food, so we made the concession stands our first stop. Erin and Patrick had eaten enough molasses popcorn at Redland Field to feed the entire Cincinnati team, but they were ready for more.

After buying weinerwursts and soda pop, we found an empty table and sat down to eat.

The children and I had finished, and Margie was on her last couple of bites, when Patrick turned to me. “Miss Turner said you wanted me to bring them baseball cards.”

“Yes. Do you have them?”

He eyed me warily. “You gonna take ’em back?”

“No, I’d just like to see them.” I wanted to reassure myself that they weren’t anything a burglar could have been after. And I hadn’t wanted Patrick to bring them to our house—I was probably being overly cautious, but preferred to err on the side of safety.

Patrick didn’t look totally reassured that he was going to get the cards back, but he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a box that had once held packages of Seidlitz Powder, and handed it to me.

I removed the cards and put them on the table.

“Who’s ready for ice cream?” Margie asked.

I’m sure it came as no surprise to her that we all were. While she and Erin went to the Creamy Whip stand, I examined the cards one by one, under Patrick’s vigilant stare.

I first checked for anything written on them. Then I brushed my thumb over the corners of the cards to see if they would peel apart—maybe there was a rare stamp or something glued between the layers of pasteboard. Nothing. And the cards themselves were creased and scuffed so they weren’t worth any money—not that there was such a thing as a valuable baseball card anyway. When I finished my inspection, I handed them to Patrick.

Relief showed in his face. After the cards were back in the Seidlitz box and the box was tucked securely in his pocket, he asked, “Did you find out what happened to that other Red Stocking—Dick Hurley?”

I’d almost forgotten about Hurley. “No, I’m sorry.” And now I could never ask Ollie Perriman about the old utility player. “There might not be anyone who’d know about him anymore.”

Margie and Erin arrived with the ice cream, and we all concentrated on eating the dessert before it melted. This course was followed by cotton candy washed down with root beer.

The kids had now consumed twice their body weight in food and drink, so of course the next thing they wanted to do was go on the rides. Margie and I watched as they rode the Sky Rocket, the carousel, and the Dip-the-Dips. Then they talked us into joining them for a run on the roller coaster.

With daylight waning, we proceeded to an open field to catch Lieutenant Emerson and His Flying Circus in the final air show of the day. Emerson, who billed himself as “The Daredevil of the Clouds,” put on a spectacular exhibition, including a stunt where he stood on the top wing of his biplane while another pilot did a double “loop the loop.” For his finale, he leapt from one plane to another and then parachuted to the ground.

Finally, there were the fireworks, a marvelous display of rockets and flares that filled the night sky with dazzling colors.

By this time, Erin and Patrick were barely awake enough to walk to the pavilion and board the
Island Queen
to begin the journey back to the city.

Margie took the Kellys home while I went on to our house. I preferred to avoid the children’s aunt; the woman was happy enough to let her niece and nephew spend time with us, but whenever she saw Margie or me she always made a point of mentioning that she disapproved of our living arrangement.

I unlocked the front door and poked my head in tentatively. There’d been no more break-ins, but neither had there been any calls from the local police or from Detective Forsch to inform us they’d arrested anyone. So the worry lingered, and the same questions ran through my mind every time I came home: has the place been ransacked? ... is somebody inside? ... if there is, will he have a gun?

The parlor appeared as it had when we’d left in the morning, so I hung my boater on the hat rack and went over to my desk.

As I sat down, I found myself wondering what it had been like for Ollie Perriman when his killer broke in. Had Perriman been looking through his magnifying glass, trying to identify players in an old photograph? Or maybe writing up caption cards to label the exhibits? Had he ever expected that he might not live to see the opening of his museum?

All that was going to be there of him now was the collection itself. And that behemoth bat with his name painted on the side. I remembered what Nathaniel Bonner had said when he made the presentation: that the bat from 1869 was the artifact Perriman had most wanted to find. And I imagined that the new bat, too, might end up lost someday, to be unearthed a hundred years from now by some baseball fan who would read the name and think that Oliver Perriman must have been the greatest slugger of his day. I decided that as awful as the ceremony had been, the bat was a pretty good gift.

Recalling Bonner’s words, there was something I hadn’t picked up on during his speech: “Fifty-two years ago yesterday,” he’d said, his father had donated the original bat to the president of the Red Stockings. Ollie Perriman’s memorial had been on July second. So Josiah Bonner had made his presentation on July 1, 1869. I glanced up at the old ball on top of my desk. The date painted on it was:
July 2, ’69.

“Everything okay?” Margie asked as she came in.

“All safe,” I said.

“I’m exhausted. Those two are darling children, but
tiring
.” She began undoing her hair, letting the long brown tresses fall about her shoulders. “You ready for bed?”

“Just want to look at a couple of things. I’ll be up in a bit.”

“I remember when you used to
want
to come to bed with me.” She started to unhook her skirt.

I smiled. “You said you’re exhausted.”

“I am. Just checking to see that you’re not avoiding me.”

I got up and kissed her. “I’ll be up soon.”

After Margie went upstairs, I sat back down at the desk and reached for the old baseball. The coincidence in the dates seemed odd, but then I remembered that the date on the ball wasn’t accurate, anyway—Spalding baseballs weren’t manufactured until years after the Red Stockings folded. There was something else odd about the ball, I now realized: recorded on the others in Perriman’s office were the names of the opposing teams—the Eckfords, the Mutuals, the Buckeyes. This one simply said
Cin’ti BB Club.

I plucked the Ellard book,
Base Ball in Cincinnati,
from the shelf. Most of the volume was devoted to the 1869–1870 Red Stockings. I turned to a list of game scores for 1869 to see who they’d played on July 2. The team had returned from a triumphant Eastern tour on July 1, and played a “Picked Nine” in an exhibition game at the Union Grounds, defeating them 53–11. Before that game was the presentation of the bat, and there was a banquet in honor of the club that night. The team’s next game was two days later, against the Washington Olympics. There was no game on July 2.

I turned the old ball around in my fingers. It had to be about the poorest forgery ever created. Red stitches when black was the color then in use; a brand that hadn’t existed yet; a date when no game was played. And there was something else wrong that hadn’t occurred to me before. Ollie Perriman had speculated that kids used the ball and restitched the cover when it came loose. But the ball wasn’t in bad shape—the leather was good enough to read the Spalding trademark. So why would the stitches have gone bad? I rubbed my thumb on the seam, and felt that the threads weren’t very tight.

What the hell. This ball wasn’t a real piece of history anyway, I told myself as I reached in a drawer for my pocketknife. I flicked open the blade and stuck the tip into one of the seams, tearing open a stitch. I continued ripping through the stitches as bits of red thread fluttered over the desk top.

The horsehide cover was stiff and I had to pry it off. Between the leather and the tight yarn core was a folded piece of onionskin paper. Putting the eviscerated ball down, I opened the paper. Neatly scripted in black ink was the message:

Jeez. So this is what it’s been about.

“Really, Mickey,” Margie said from the top of the stairs. “You don’t need to guard the place.”

I beckoned her. “Found something.”

“What?”

When she got to the desk I handed her the note. “My guess is this is what Ollie Perriman was killed for.”

She read the note, then looked at me, a touch of fear in her eyes. “You
are
going to get involved, aren’t you?”

“I think I already am,” I said. “Whether I want to be or not.” Trying to find a bright side, I added, “But at least now I have a starting point: I know what the killer was looking for.”

She bit her lip and nodded. “I’ll help if I can.”

I
gave it a day, and I gave Detective Forsch another chance. On Tuesday, I telephoned him and reported what I’d found. His response was about what I expected: he was even less interested in a murder that took place half a century ago than he was in Oliver Perriman’s last week. He also pointed out that I really didn’t have evidence of a crime—what I had was a note, and in his view probably the result of a prank.

To be fair to Forsch, I’m not sure any cop would have started an investigation based on what I’d found. In my mind it was clear, though, that something must have happened in 1869 that was still taking a toll in 1921. Somebody wanted that old baseball, and killed Ollie Perriman while trying to get it.

The problem was putting together the chain of events that spanned those fifty-two years.

I decided to begin by going back one link, to the man Perriman told me had given him the ball: Ambrose Whitaker, former bookkeeper of the 1869 Cincinnati Base Ball Club.

There were several listings for “A. Whitaker” in the directory. A call to the operator pinned down the “A” who was Ambrose. She referred to him as “the railroad man,” implied that he was a well-known figure in this city, and gave me both his home and business addresses. I was less interested in his phone numbers, but jotted them down as well. When going to question people, I prefer not to call ahead; I don’t like to give them the time to plan their answers.

Early Wednesday morning, with the sun already bright and the heat intense, I was in the heart of downtown Cincinnati, across from the Gibson Hotel on Walnut Street. The main offices of the Mount Auburn Electric Inclined Railway Company were on the top floor of a charmless six-story brick building.

In the outer office of the railroad company, I asked an efficient-looking secretary of advanced years if I could speak with Mr. Whitaker.

“Which Mr. Whitaker?” she asked.

“Ambrose.”

“Oh. You don’t have an appointment, do you.” She said it as a statement of fact, not a question.

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t. But I’ll only take a minute of his time, if I may.”

“And you are?”

“Mickey Rawlings.” Her lack of a reaction prodded me to add, “I play for the Reds.”

“Baseball?”

No, glockenspiel. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Wait here, please.” She left her desk, knocked on a nearby door of elaborately carved oak, and went into another office. A minute later, she reappeared. “Miss Whitaker will see you.”

I started toward the door, then drew up short. “Miss Whitaker?”

The secretary nodded, and I proceeded inside, the door shutting behind me. The interior wasn’t as lavish as the ornate door had led me to expect. This was a place for work, not ceremony. The modern steel furniture was sparse, and there was little decoration. Two telephones were on the desk, a Dictaphone on a table behind it, and a ticker machine chattered in the corner.

A tall, trim woman with carrot-colored hair stood and offered her hand in such a way that it was clearly intended to be shaken, not kissed. “Mr. Rawlings, I’m Adela Whitaker.”

She had a good grip. “Pleased to meet you, ma‘am. Thank you for seeing me.” I immediately worried that she might take offense at being called “ma’am”—Adela Whitaker was at that late-thirties-to-early-forties age when some women feel that “ma’am” makes them sound old.

There was no indication that she was offended; in fact, there was little sign of any emotion or expression at all. Her tight-lipped face was hard like a mask; not unattractive but somewhat forbidding. She waved me to a small armchair in front of the desk. As I lowered myself into it, I said, “I actually came to see, uh . . .” I gave a nod to the portrait on the wall behind her. It was of a homely redheaded man I assumed to be her father.

She confirmed the assumption. “My father retired two years ago, Mr. Rawlings. He’s no longer actively involved with the firm.”

“Oh. I see. Would it be okay if I was to call on him at home, then?”

“I’m sorry, but my father is not in the best of health. The stress of business is why he retired; so if it’s a business matter, I’d prefer that you speak to me.” She added as an afterthought, “Or my brother.”

“I’m not sure ... I think your father’s the only one who could tell me what I want to know.”

“Well, may I ask
why
you wish to speak with him?”

I sensed the question wasn’t one of idle curiosity but a precaution; she was being protective of him. “You might have heard that there’s going to be an exhibit of old Red Stockings memorabilia,” I said. She nodded that she had. “I heard from Oliver Perriman, the fellow who was putting the exhibit together, that your father had some involvement with that club. I’ve been getting interested in the ’69 team, so I was hoping I might ask him what it was like back then.”

She appeared thoughtful. “I don’t see any harm in your speaking to him, in that case. Baseball certainly isn’t a topic likely to cause much excitement.”

She’d apparently never seen Ty Cobb run the bases or Babe Ruth swing a bat. “I promise to leave if he gets too worked up,” I said.

“Very well. You can find him at the Zoological Garden.”

“The zoo?”

“Yes. That’s where he likes to go on Wednesdays. He’ll probably be near the band shell or in the Herbivora Building. Or if you’d rather see him tomorrow, you can try your luck at Chester Park—that’s where he spends his Thursdays.”

I thought to myself that I’d have time to get to the zoo and back to Redland Field in time for batting practice. I nodded at the portrait. “And that’s . . .”

“Yes. His hair’s a bit whiter now, but you should have no trouble spotting him.”

The Number 49 trolley from Fountain Square let me out at the zoo’s main entrance on the corner of Erkenbrecher and Vine. I paid the twenty-five cents admission and joined the other visitors, mostly women and children, entering the beautifully maintained grounds.

Immediately inside were formal flower beds set like jewels in the lush green grass. Beyond the gardens to the right was the Herbivora Building, less formally known as the Elephant House. It was an enormous concrete structure that looked like a Persian mosque, complete with a pointed dome. Since it was nearer than the band shell, I decided to try the Herbivora Building first.

His daughter was right; I had no trouble identifying Ambrose Whitaker. He was standing in front of a cage that held mother and baby Indian elephants, staring at the animals while they did little but stare back.

Whitaker was about my height, spare and rigid, wearing a pearl gray suit of old-fashioned cut and a homburg of the same color. He carried a silver-headed ebony cane, a watch chain was draped across his silk vest, and white spats covered the ankles of his high-buttoned shoes.

“Mr. Whitaker?”

He shifted his attention from the animals to me. “Yes?” His granite face looked no more lifelike than the portrait behind his daughter’s desk, and the steel gray hedgerows he had for eyebrows were like something that belonged on one of the zoo creatures. So were his hawk nose and loving-cup ears.

“My name’s Mickey Rawlings. Your daughter said I might find you here.”

“Well, she was right then, wasn’t she?” His tone was far warmer than his appearance. We shook hands. “Must tell you, I’m not used to getting visitors here.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Your daughter said . . .”

“It’s all right, son. What do you want to see me about?”

“A baseball.”

“Pardon me?”

“You gave a baseball to Oliver Perriman. He was organizing an exhibit on the old Red Stockings. And you gave him a ball from 1869.”

“Oh yes. I believe I did. A few other things, too, as I recall. No sense keeping such things for myself at this point in my life. What’s your interest in it?”

“I play for the Reds, and I was going to help Mr. Perriman publicize the collection. He told me you were the bookkeeper for that team. Did you have the ball all these years?”

“Assistant treasurer, I was. And, no, I got that ball sometime later.”

I knew Whitaker couldn’t have had it since ’69 because the ball hadn’t been made yet, but I wanted to hear what he’d answer. “Do you remember who you got it from?”

“Well ... Let me think. That was a long time ago ... I believe I bought it at auction after the team folded. Does it matter?”

“No, just curious. The date on the ball says July 2, 1869, but I looked it up and there was no game that day. Does that date mean anything to you?”

Fissures creased his face as he smiled. “How old are you, son?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“You remember anything about July 2, 1911?”

“Uh, no.”

“That’s only ten years ago. You expect me to recall what happened more than fifty years ago?”

Okay, it was a dumb question. But the ball was all I had, and Ambrose Whitaker was the only known connection to it. I briefly debated whether to reveal the existence of the note, but decided against it—I didn’t want anyone to know the note was now in my possession, safely stuck in a volume of Mark Twain’s
Life on the Mississippi.
I still wanted to see if I could get anything useful out of Whitaker, though. “I’m sorry. I’ve just gotten interested in that old club lately. Were you with the team long?”

“As long as the club supported a team, I was.”

I’d always thought of a ball club and a team as the same thing. “What do you mean?”

“Do you mind if we walk outside?” he asked. “I’d like to be getting over to the band shell.”

“Fine with me.”

The baby elephant trumpeted shrilly when we left, and the sound reverberated throughout the building. As we walked at a leisurely pace toward the exit of the Elephant House, I noticed Whitaker didn’t use the cane for support.

“See, the Cincinnati Base Ball Club was just that: a club,” he explained. “A gentlemen’s club. There were more than two hundred members and perhaps fifty of them ever played baseball. The club was primarily a social organization, not a business. Everyone who worked for it did so as a volunteer. As I did. I was only twenty when I was appointed assistant treasurer, and it was quite an honor. Mr. Champion—he was the president—served without pay also.”

“But it was the first
professional
team, so they must have been paid,” I said.

“The nine players were the only ones who received a salary,” Whitaker answered. “Using professionals was quite a scandal at the time. I’m sorry, there were
ten
players. I forgot about the substitute.”

“Dick Hurley.”

“Yes. William Hurley, actually. I don’t know how he got the ‘Dick’ tag.”

I remembered Patrick Kelly’s question. “Do you know whatever happened to him?”

“Afraid I don’t. He left the club in the middle of the season. Finances were always tight, perhaps he was released to save money.”

“But the team went undefeated. Why didn’t it make money?”

“It was expensive to pay a full team. More than $10,000 in salary, not to mention travel and lodging and equipment. We took in some money from gate receipts, and raised additional funds from the club members. Even so, the total profit in 1869 was $1.39. That’s a figure I’ll never forget. Won sixty-five games without a loss, and ended up with a dollar and thirty-nine cents in the till.”

We emerged from the Herbivora Building into the bright sunshine. Whitaker removed his hat and ran a hand over his hair. There was an orange tinge to the gray, indicating his hair had once had the same color as his daughter’s.

It sounded like we were in a jungle as we began to make our way around the lake; frenetic chattering came from the monkey house, there were eerie howls from the wolf dens, and innumerable birdcalls seemed to come from every direction. Over the noise, Whitaker went on, “The next year, 1870, things were looking better. The team was still undefeated, and crowds were getting larger, even on the road. Thought we might make a go of it. Red Stockings won the first twenty-seven games of the season—but then they went to Brooklyn to play the Atlantics. June 14, 1870.” He winked. “That’s a date I do remember. The first loss.”

“The game was tied 5–5 after nine innings,” I broke in. “The Atlantics wanted to leave the game a tie, but Harry Wright insisted on continuing. Neither team scored in the tenth. Red Stockings got two in the top of the eleventh and it looked like they had it won. But then Brooklyn scored three in the bottom half to win 8–7.” I was embarrassed to realize that I’d interrupted Whitaker. “Uh, were you at that game?” I asked him.

“No, we couldn’t afford travel for many of the club members.” He smiled good-naturedly. “But it sounds like you were there.”

“My grandfather told me about the game.” He’d seen it in person. From his point of view, as a Brooklyn fan, it had been a glorious triumph made extra sweet by the fact that his favorite player, Bob “Death to Flying Things” Ferguson, had scored the winning run.