Maybe that’s why the moment we were settled into our seats at the Stadium, I ordered a Schlitz from a vendor and winked at Leo. “Coke man’ll be along in a minute,” I told him. “I’ll treat.” He didn’t smile.
The big barn looked to be less than half-filled, with almost nobody up in the rafter levels. The next day’s papers reported the crowd at ten-grand-plus, but they had to be counting the Andy Frain ushers, vendors, janitors, and cockroaches — none of whom saw much of a fight.
From the opening bell, it was clear even to my uneducated pugilistic eye that the champion was in total charge. He pounded Thomas all over the ring, knocking him down a half dozen times, four of them in the fourth round alone, before finally putting the poor outclassed lug away at the end of the fifth.
“Louis was carrying him,” I told Leo on the way out of the Stadium, doing a little jabbing of my own. “He must’ve been told that the fight had to go five.”
He wheeled on me. “You’re full of garbage,” he spat, causing heads to turn. “There was no fix — Louis is straight as they come. Snap, your problem is that you just don’t like Negroes.”
“Now it’s you who’s full of garbage,” I fired back in genuine anger. “Boxing’s been filled with white bums for years, like that Primo Carnera guy. Hell, I got no beef with Louis, he’s the best around, by far. I’m just saying that the fight could have been over in the first round, and you damn well know it. Be interesting to know why it lasted as long as it did.”
Surprisingly, Leo had no comeback, only a shake of the head, and I went home with the satisfaction of having out-needled the needler. I should have known, though, that he’d find a way to counterpunch. A couple of weeks later, my phone rang on a Sunday morning around 8:00. I rolled over in bed, groaning and reaching for it on the nightstand. My effort was rewarded with Leo’s voice.
“Hey, Snap, seen today’s Final?”
“Not yet, why?” I croaked irritably.
He chuckled. “I tried to call you last night, but got no answer. I suppose you were out on the town, eh?”
“Dammit, Leo, quit beating around the bush. You got me up, now what do you want?”
Another laugh. “It’s a fine, fine day, Snap. I been up for two hours, been to Mass, and had a good breakfast. Now I’m just rereading the sports section and thinking I ought to call my old Cub fan buddy Snap Malek and see what he thinks about his team’s latest batty move.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?”
“Snap, guess who the Cubs traded for yesterday. Go on, guess.”
“Leo, I’m not in the mood for guessing games.”
“Go on, just take a guess.”
“Leo, I got no idea. Mel Ott maybe?”
This time he roared. “Now that would have been smart, but the Cubs aren’t smart, are they? Or any good, either, for that matter.”
“They beat your South Side warriors ten out of sixteen out in California this spring,” I reminded him.
“Sure, but that’s just exhibition stuff and you know it. Wait till they play in the City Series this fall, when it really counts for something; it’ll be the same old script — Sox in five games, six at most. Now, got another guess on who your boys picked up off the scrap heap?”
“No, tell me before I pass out from the suspense.”
“The once-great Dizzy Dean, believe it or not, my poor misguided friend. And you know what they gave up to get that tattered, battered arm of his? Davis, Shoun, and Stainback, that’s who. Plus close to a hunnert thou. Just about the biggest deal in baseball history, and by far the stupidest.”
“For the Cardinals, that is,” I put in gamely, still stunned by what I had just heard.
“Poor old Snap, ever the optimist in the face of disaster,” Leo clucked. “If Diz had been any good, Branch Rickey woulda never peddled him. He won’t win five games this year — hell, he’ll be lucky if he even pitches in five games. Care to make a small wager on where your Wrigleys finish this season?”
I drew in air, letting it out slowly and working to keep my voice even. “Sure, Leo, I’ve got fifty bucks that says they’ll win the pennant,” I told him, listening to my own words as if someone else were mouthing them.
That shut him up for two heartbeats. “Snap, I don’t want to take advantage of, well... that Achilles’ heel of yours.”
“Stuff it, Leo. You’re the one who was so hot to make a bet. As they say on the street, put up or shut up.”
“What kind of odds you want?”
“Who said anything about odds?”
“Even up? You’re kidding!”
“Try me, Leo.”
“Geez, Snap, that’s a lot of jack,” he said, lowering his voice, probably so Marie couldn’t hear him.
“I’m surprised. I figured that you’d jump at such easy money,” I pressed on. “After all, we both know that ol’ Diz is through, right?”
“You’re on, but as the Good Lord is my witness, you’re givin’ cash away,” Leo replied stiffly. For a few seconds after we hung up, I felt a surge of exhilaration, but it dissolved when the rational part of my brain reminded me that I had just laid out more than a week’s gross pay on a nag — make that a team — that might just finish out of the money, behind the Giants, Cards, Pirates, and maybe even the Reds.
I felt a little more confident about the bet a few days later, though, when Dean was the winning pitcher against Cincinnati in the second game of the season, although he gave up four runs. And I felt a whole lot better about it the next Sunday. I was one of 35,000 — a large turnout for a gray day in April — at Wrigley Field to see Dizzy go the distance and throw a four-hit shutout against the Cardinals — the very bunch whose uniform he’d worn just nine days earlier. The fastball I remember from his St. Louis glory days was gone, as the whole league had begun to realize last season. But his slow stuff — and it was really slow — seemed to fool his former mates, which had to delight him. And by the late innings, chants of “Diz... Diz... Diz” were breaking out all over the park. That must have spurred Dean on, because he retired the last nine Cardinal batters.
After walking back along Clark Street to my apartment from the game, I suppressed the urge to call Leo and gloat, and I’m glad I did. I might have been on the line and missed the call from State Representative Daley.
Chapter 9
I had been back in the apartment for less than three minutes when the phone rang. I didn’t recognize Daley’s voice until he identified himself.
“Be damned. I figured I wasn’t going to hear from you,” I said.
“You figured wrong,” he answered without hostility or any other emotion as far as I could tell. “I’ve been calling all afternoon. Do you plan to be at work tomorrow?”
“It’s a Monday, so I figure to, unless I was canned over the weekend and haven’t gotten the word.”
Daley let my attempt at drollery pass without comment. “I’m up here for a couple of days,” he said. “There’s a little restaurant about a block and a half north of Police Headquarters on the west side of State, and I assume your bosses give you time off for lunch. Can you meet me there at noon tomorrow?”
“On the condition that I pick up the lunch tab.”