Free The Cincinnati Red Stalkings by Troy Soos

exceptionally narrow handle. The burly Neale was big enough that he played professional football in the off-season.
    “We’re talking about Mac,” Groh said to me. “You played for him, right?”
    “Three years,” I said. “Mac” was New York Giants manager John McGraw; I’d been on his roster from 1914 through 1916, my longest tenure with a single club.
    “I’d never play for that old cuss,” said Neale.
    “Wouldn’t want him for a father-in-law,” I said. “But if you want to learn baseball, you can’t beat having him for a manager.”
    Neale snorted and stepped away. “Think I’ll see what they have to eat here.”
    “He’s outvoted.” Groh chuckled. “I was telling him I wished to hell I could play for McGraw again.”
    Groh had started his career with the Giants a couple of years before I joined the club, and was now in his ninth season with the Reds. He’d held out for two months this spring, hoping to be traded to New York; the trade finally went through, but the new baseball commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, vetoed the deal and forced Groh to stay with the Reds.
    “You’ll get to New York again,” I said. “If McGraw wants you, he’ll get you—never mind what Landis says.”
    “Dunno. That Landis seems like a tough cookie.”
    “So’s McGraw.” And there was another fellow who appeared to be a tough cookie that I was curious about. “Say, Heinie, was Lloyd Tinsley involved in making the deal with New York?”
    He shook his head. “Nah, Bancroft got it started, then Herrmann took over the negotiations.”
    “What do you think of Tinsley?”
    “He’s no Frank Bancroft. Bancroft was a baseball man. Tinsley’s a glorified bookkeeper.”
    Frank Bancroft had managed seven major league teams—including the 1884 world champion Providence Grays—before becoming business manager of the Reds. When he died a week before opening day this spring, he was starting his thirtieth year in that role. “Did they get Tinsley after Bancroft died?” I asked.
    “No, a few years ago. Tinsley was running a ball club in the Western League—Wichita, I think. Then during the war, the minors shut down. Bancroft was already getting sick, so he hired Tinsley to help him out. But I guess after all them years, you don’t give up your responsibilities easy. Bancroft never let Tinsley be anything more than his assistant.”
    I felt a touch in the small of my back and twisted my head to see Margie standing almost on my heels. “Bubbles Hargrave just left,” she said. “So if we go, too, we wouldn’t be the first ones.”
    “Good thinking,” said Groh. “You two go ahead. Then I’ll follow.”
    After saying good-byes to Katie Perriman, Margie and I left and caught a Warsaw Avenue trolley.
    Once we were seated, I asked, “Where’d you learn to speak Spanish?”
    “California. I only know a little.”
    “I didn’t know you could talk it at all.”
    “You don’t know everything about me. If you did, you might get bored.”
    There were times when we did seem to run out of things to say at dinner. But I never felt bored with Margie. “Not with you,” I said. “Ever.”
    She smiled. “Some men know how to talk to a lady. Not like Curt Stram. You can give your teammate Stram some lessons on what to say. And maybe on what not to say.”
    “Why? Was he rude to you?”
    “Not to me. I overheard him talking to Dave Claxton. He made it clear he’d had an affair with Katie Perriman. He was gloating about it—and while she’s mourning her dead husband.”
    I agreed with her that Stram had a lot of learning to do in the manners department.
    But after we got off the car at Haberstumpf’s for dinner and dancing, I forgot all about Stram and the Perrimans and concentrated on our own affair.

Chapter Seven
    I should have been sound asleep already, like Margie, who was snoring lightly next to me. She’d given me more exercise on the dance floor this evening than the Reds had given me on the