Free Murder at Ebbets Field by Troy Soos Page A

a folded paper from an inside pocket of his black undertaker’s coat.
    Karl Landfors sure was an odd one. He comes to a ballgame not with a glove to catch a foul ball or a picture to be signed, not even with bottles or vegetables to throw at the visiting players. No, he comes to a baseball game with an autopsy report.
    “She drowned,” he announced.
    “Everybody knows she drowned.”
    “They assume she drowned. There’s a difference. The autopsy proves it. Her lungs were full of water.”
    “Jeez, Karl, I can’t talk about that now. I got a ballgame to play.”
    “Oh. You’re playing in this one?”
    I wanted to grab his necktie and give it a hard twist. I also wished I could have answered yes.
    “Rawlings! Get your ass over here.” That yell came from behind me and it was the voice of John McGraw.
    I pulled the paper from Landfors, then handed it back, saying loudly, “How can I give you an autograph if you don’t have a pen?” I added quietly, “Meet me after the game.”
    “I’m not staying for the game. ” He sounded appalled by the notion that he’d watch a baseball game.
    “Suffer through it. I’ll meet you in the rotunda.”
    I trotted up to John McGraw. He showed me the lineup card. I was on it, playing second and batting eighth. I wished I could have shown it to Karl Landfors.
    The Dodgers started Sloppy Sutherland again on only two days’ rest. With no hope of getting to the World Series, they were going all out to sweep this series. Sutherland continued where he left off on Saturday, as if the two days off were just a break between innings. He dominated the game, slipping his talcum pitches past the fruitless swings of the Giants’ hitters. Big Jeff Tesreau, on a pace to win thirty games for us this year, had less luck with his less elegant spitballs. After five innings, we were down 6–0.
    In the top of the seventh, the tension between the teams suddenly boiled over. Sutherland must have thrown too close to Chief Meyers, because Meyers was charging the mound, bat in hand. We were going to have a donnybrook!
    I leapt off the bench ready to fight the first Dodger I could lay my hands on. Then I saw it wasn’t Meyers who was going after Sutherland, it was Virgil Ewing. Meyers was just trying to hold him back as Ewing screamed about being crossed up on signs. From the third base coach’s box, McGraw yelled at the Chief, “Let the bastards kill each other!” Wilbert Robinson bolted out of the Dodgers’ dugout and jiggled his way to the mound. The Dodger manager interposed his girth between Ewing and Sutherland and kept them from coming to blows. Umpire Bill Klem finally dragged Ewing back behind the plate.
    The Giant players sat back down, even more frustrated than before. We were already behind the Dodgers on the scoreboard; the least they could do was give us a chance to even things up with a brawl. But no, they wanted to fight among themselves. This Dodger team was not a civilized bunch. Maybe not a smart bunch either—how many signs do you need for a guy who only throws one kind of pitch?
    With two outs in the top of the ninth and the Dodgers still up 6–0, our first baseman Fred Merkle knocked a long triple to the center field wall. I was up next to either end the game or keep the rally alive.
    As I moved into the batter’s box, Virgil Ewing squirted a thin stream of tobacco juice at a pigeon bobbing along the ground near the backstop. He nailed the bird in the tail feathers, sending him into flight. I was impressed—Ewing hadn’t bothered to lift his mask; he’d spit clean through the bars. There aren’t many who can do that. I thought Virgil Ewing might have some unexpected talents in him.
    I looked back toward third base. Merkle was dancing off the bag eager to score. John McGraw, the only man in baseball who wore an infielder’s mitt in the coach’s box, pounded his fist into the glove twice. I wasn’t sure that I saw right, so I backed out of the box. McGraw repeated his