The Ball Player's Son

                                        BEAR TRACKS GREER              

                                             

BIG MOE

    After my big year at Beckley, Detroit moved me up to Beaumont in the Texas League, the last stop before getting called up to the big leagues. It was a tough pitcher’s league and the weather was something you couldn’t get used to--ninety-plus degrees every day four months straight, humid, you never stopped sweating (there was no air conditioning), that heat sapped you and you lost weight, and didn’t sleep well, so you were fighting it, and there was no use bitching, everybody was in the same boat.

     Houston had a pitcher, a mountain of a man with the biggest goddam feet I’ve ever seen, Ed “Bear Tracks” Greer. He had a lantern jaw that stuck out like Senator Claghorn, and I guess you could say he looked intimidating. They say he was crazier than Bobo Newsome, who I played with and against—a pretty crude guy—and I think Bobo hung on because he wasn’t dangerous, and ended up pitching for just about every team in both leagues.

     Greer had real good stuff and threw hard, but as a person he was so wild and unpredictable that even in those days they couldn’t bring him up to the big club because there was no telling what he might do. Hell, he might strangle a team mate, or throw somebody off a building, or go to a bar and get stabbed by a woman or get himself beaten to death by a mob.

     For some reason I had Greer’s number, and I nailed him pretty good. Sometimes baseball is just that way. We had an outfielder at Detroit, Bruce Campbell, a left-handed hitter, who wore out Feller while other guys looked helpless against him. The Yankees had a tough lefty named Marius Russo, and he had hard stuff that bore in on a right-handed hitter, and he jammed the hell out of me, and I hated facing him, couldn’t hit him with a paddle. But Greer, only time he got me out was when I hit one right at somebody.

     One night, after I racked him around and ran the bases like a maniac, I got up to the plate and he took his time, looking me over, and I knew he was going to dust me, and he did. Okay. I got up. He stood out on the mound, peering in at me with these spooky eyes, holding the ball in his big paw, flipping it and catching it. Well, before I settled in, he quick-pitched and dusted me again and I went down in sections, my heart in my throat. The crazy bastard was trying to kill me! So I jumped up and gave him a look. By this time I’d established myself as a guy who could take care of himself and never backed down from anybody, but Greer didn’t give a damn if I was King Kong, and the crazy sonofabitch was grinning at me. He had these fangs. Christ, what a mug!

     Well, I started to go after him and their catcher snagged me from behind. “Don’t go out there, Franklin,” he said. “Bear’s crazy. He’s not like other people. He’s from the hills. He doesn’t abide by normal rules of combat.”

     “I don’t give a damn,” I told him. “I’m not gonna be target practice for that sonofabitch.”

     “Listen to me, kid,” he said. “Bear knows he can’t get you out. We’ve tried everything all year and nothing works. If he can’t get you out, he doesn’t want you to around. That’s how Bear thinks. It’s not personal. He’d probably like you if he got to know you. You seem like a pretty good guy.”

     “To hell with him. Nobody knocks me down twice without a fight.”

     “Kid, you go out there and Bear’ll dehorn you.” I looked out there. Greer was in front of the mound, still flipping the ball, grinning at me with those fangs, a dark person. “I heard you just got married to a beautiful gal,” the catcher told me. “You’re a helluva player, got a big future with Detroit, leading the league in hitting. Don’t throw it away. You go out there after Bear, he’ll tee off from two feet and plant that ball right in your kisser and hair-lip you. Stay here.”

     I stayed. Bear dusted me two more times, one ball a yard behind me. When I walked to first he kept his eye on me, grinning, flipping that ball. Later that year I ran into Bear Tracks at an all star game. We were on the same team and he was scheduled to start the game. When I got to the clubhouse he was drunk, had a jug of whiskey, came right over and gave me a big hug, wanted me to take a slug of the rotgut. Christ, he had his arm around me like he wanted to kiss me.

     “I like you, Franklin,” he told me. “Nice college boy. I’m glad you didn’t come after me, cuz I didn’t wanna kill you or make you ugly. Shit, I can’t get you out. What am I supposed to do? I see you up there again, I’m gonna stick one in your ear, even if I do like you.”

     Tracks never made it to the mound, never made it out of the clubhouse. They tried to get that jug away from him, but they couldn’t, so they waited until he passed out on the training table, and they still couldn’t get that jug out of his grip.

     (Next installment: Big Moe finishes in style)