BIRDIE TEBBETTS—BENCH JOCKEY

BIG MOE

     Birdie Tebbetts was a fine catcher and a pretty fair hitter and knew the game inside out, and especially pitchers. He knew just how much gas a guy had left in his tank, when he was losing his stuff and ready to get shelled, and he could get on guys pretty good, really get under your skin. He was smart and had a piercing, twangy voice, which was why they called him “Birdie,” an obnoxious, irritating voice that carried all over the field and cut right through you, and he had a sarcastic way of saying things that always got your goat—he was a first rate needler, a sniper, an original, maybe the best in the game. He was what you call a bench jockey, a lost art these days, what with all these guys making so much money and swapping teams and having agents and fraternizing like bosom buddies, being so sensitive and all and not wanting to hurt each others feelings.

     One day in St. Louis Tebbetts was on a pitcher with the Browns named Vern Kennedy, a guy he’d caught a few years earlier with Detroit, a strapping guy from Kansas, a former track star and football player. It was very hot, sweltering, and it doesn’t get any hotter than it does in St. Louis in the summer. You can’t breathe on a day like that, the outfield grass is baked brown and the field hard as concrete, almost like the field breathes fire. Birdie was riding Kennedy. At first it was playful, because they were old team mates and all, but then Kennedy started struggling, and Birdie’s saying he ain’t got this and he ain’t got that, “you’ll be gone by the fourth inning, Kennedy, your fastball’s straight as a string, you’re dead meat…,” just sniping away, and sure enough Kennedy doesn’t have it that day, gets knocked around, and by the fourth inning he’s gone, and Birdie’s crowing and gloating, and Kennedy, he’s sopping wet, got beat up for a bunch of runs suffering in that heat, watching line drives whistle past him and bounce off the fence and guys circling the bases, and he gets an unmerciful booing when he walks to the dugout.

     Birdie’s on the bench that day, not catching, and he keeps right on crowing and gloating when Kennedy walks to the dugout. But instead of leaving for the clubhouse and taking an early shower, like all pitchers do after they get their brains beat out, Kennedy sits down in that stifling hot dugout with a towel around his neck and takes his cap off, and he sits there like that for the rest of the game, and all during that time Birdie sees him over there and stays on his ass. Well, out ball club has to get to our clubhouse through their dugout, and when the game ends and we pass through their dugout, it’s empty except for Kennedy, who’s still sitting there, towel around his neck, a very quiet and polite gentleman who minds his own business and never has anything bad to say about anybody. He stands up and asks Birdie if he has anything more to say, and before Birdie can open his mouth Kennedy decks him with one punch, knocks him down and out, hits him so hard that for a minute or so we think he might be dead.

     Kennedy picks up his glove and cap and walks out of the dugout, the towel still around his neck, and we carry Tebbetts into the clubhouse and lay him down on the training table where the doc attends to him, gives him the smelling salts. He’s pretty groggy, and the next day he’s pretty quiet, and misses the game, and everybody on the club’s on his ass, calling him “:one punch Tebbetts” and “Old Canvas back.” He took it pretty well in stride. Birdie knew the business and took it as well as he gave it out, and the next time we played the Browns and Kennedy pitched, Birdie got on him again, but he made sure to stay away from the personal stuff, and nothing came of it.

(Next Sunday installment: A Wasted Summer and a respite)