The Kansas City Cowboys Read online

  THE KANSAS

  CITY COWBOYS

  THE KANSAS

  CITY COWBOYS

  JOHNNY D. BOGGS

  Copyright © 2017 by Johnny D. Boggs

  E-book published in 2017 by Blackstone Publishing

  Cover design by Alenka V. Linaschke

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-5047-8848-9

  Library e-book ISBN 978-1-5047-8847-2

  CIP data for this book is available from

  the Library of Congress

  Blackstone Publishing

  31 Mistletoe Rd.

  Ashland, OR 97520

  www.BlackstonePublishing.com

  In memory of John G. Rose Jr. of Timmonsville, South Carolina, who, as my friend Bobby Gibbs said, took “the time to teach us the game of baseball—how it was supposed to be played as a kid.” Mr. Rose and his father, a World War I veteran, always treated me kindly, and always encouraged me, even though I couldn’t hit, run, throw, or field worth a nickel.

  “Baseball is the very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century.”

  —Mark Twain

  “Losers are as important as winners.”

  —H. L. Dellinger, One Year in the National League: An Account of the 1886 Kansas City Cowboys

  Preface

  I’ve always found many similarities between the American West and baseball, and I’ve always loved both. Baseball and the West are larger than life. Both have fascinating histories, and often those histories are overshadowed by myths of epic proportions.

  Several names, most places, and a very few facts are true. The story, however, is a bald-faced lie.

  Prologue

  My favorite year? Well, that’s easy. It was 1886, when I met my beloved wife. Yet there’s another reason my dreams often take me back to that wonderful but tragic spring and summer.

  Baseball.

  Yes, baseball has been another love of my life, and I guess I should mention two other things dear to my heart. Cowboys. And Mother.

  Cindy, my wonderful bride, understands. More than anything, she loved baseball and cowboys when she was seventeen, too, and just like me, she still does. Besides, during that summer of ’86, she grew to appreciate, tolerate, and even stand by Mother.

  Chapter One

  RULE 47. A substitute shall not be allowed to take the place of any player in a game, unless such player be disabled in the game then being played, by reason of illness or injury.

  “Rule say nothing about player being dead.” Gustavus Heinrich Schmelz waved his copy of Playing Rules of the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, 1886 under the nose of umpire Klaus Klein.

  “Christ a’mighty, Gus!” Dave Rowe didn’t reach for any rule book. Instead, his hand stretched toward the Smith & Wesson pocket pistol he kept tucked in his belt near the small of his back, but the umpire grabbed Rowe’s hand, shaking his head sternly, saying, “Nein, nein, Rowe, none of that.”

  May 8, 1886, found us, the Kansas City Cowboys, playing the Maroons at Union Grounds in St. Louis. We had lost our first five games, and were about to see our record drop to 0–6 if Gus Schmelz got his way and persuaded the umpire to rule a forfeit. Seeing Rowe reach for his pistol, and knowing our manager’s fierce temper and quick trigger, the Maroons’ manager took a step back, bringing up his fists into the stance a pugilist might take, but the German’s fists, big as they were, would be no match for that .32 Dave Rowe carried.

  Rowe seemed to be trying to determine which man he should shoot first, Schmelz or Klein. The rowdies in Union Grounds’ stands started hissing, cussing, and hurling beer bottles toward the diamond. National League rules prohibited the sale of any intoxicating spirits at ball parks, but, this being St. Louis, fans brought their own suds to the Union Grounds. Backing up, moving his arms up and down, Schmelz tripped over Grasshopper Jim Whitney’s big feet, and Schmelz landed with a thud on his backside. That changed the hisses and cusses into cackles, but the beer bottles—empty, of course—kept flying.

  The players on our bench started laughing, too. All except me. I didn’t see anything funny. St. Louis outfielder Jack McGeachey had just lined a baseball that cracked pitcher Jim Whitney in the head, sending a geyser of blood into the air, then onto the dirt. Whitney landed on the pitcher’s lines long before the blood, which hung in the air like a weak pop-up, splattered in the dust beside him. McGeachey now squatted on second base. Egyptian Healy stood on third.

  No outs, no score, bottom of the eighth inning.

  And Grasshopper Jim Whitney lay dead.

  Likely you know all about Grasshopper Jim. He hailed from Conklin, New York, and had been playing in the big league since 1881, when he broke in with the Boston Red Caps. Back in 1883 when he played for Boston, he had even led the league in strike-outs. Boston had released him after the 1885 season, but Rowe had brought him to Kansas City. And now Grasshopper lay dead.

  “Chhheee-rist!”

  Sitting beside me, Stump Wiedman almost swallowed his tobacco juice, Jack McGeachey shot to his feet, while Gus Schmelz scurried to his, and the German ump crossed himself.

  The crowd fell silent. Even the beer bottles stopped flying.

  Grasshopper Jim had raised his arm, brought it to his nose, and turned his head. His eyes opened. They weren’t focused, but they blinked three or four times, and I heard him say, “That gun ain’t loaded, is it, Horace?”

  “He ain’t dead,” Dave Rowe said. “Now can I bring in a substitute?”

  Speechless, his face paler than Grasshopper Jim’s, Klaus Klein nodded, put on his cap, and headed back to home plate.

  The crowd began booing. That’s a St. Louis fan for you. Booing the opposing pitcher because he wasn’t killed by a line drive to his noggin.

  “Dave wants you, Silver,” Stump Wiedman said.

  I blinked. Sure enough, our manager kept crooking his finger at me. Jerking my cap down low, I shot off the bench like a cannonball, pulling the glove over the fingers on my left hand. Nervous, sure, not for Grasshopper Jim, but for me, just four days past my seventeenth birthday, about to play in my first National League baseball game. I ran onto the diamond, head bobbing, looking first for the ball, then at Dave Rowe, waiting for his words of encouragement.

  “Grab his feet,” our manager/center fielder said. “I’ll get his arms.”

  “Huh?”

  “His feet. We got to get his carcass off the field before we can finish this game.” Rowe looked toward our bench. “Conway! I need you to pitch!”

  My stomach soured. My face flushed. I heard my teammates laughing at me, but I sucked in a lungful of putrid St. Louis air, and grabbed Grasshopper Jim’s long legs. We hauled him off the field, his butt dragging across the infield dirt, and deposited him behind our bench. Stump Wiedman leaned over and wiped the blood off Whitney’s face, and I propped his head up with his glove and hat.

  “We ought to get him to a hospital,” I said.

  “After the game.” Dave Rowe stared at Pete Conway. “Move your arse, Pete. You gotta pitch.”

  Conway lifted his face, the only part of his body that moved. Then he opened his mouth, which took some doing, and said, “Sure … D-Dave … p-p-pitchhhhhh!”

  His breath smelled of forty-rod whiskey. If someone had struck a Lucifer in front of Conway’s face, Union Gro
unds would have been blown across the Mississippi River.

  Dave Rowe unleashed a string of every cuss word I had ever heard. That was one of our manager’s specialties. He could turn Jesus-son-of-a-bitching-pig-shitting-asshole-damn-it-all-to-hell-bastard-loving-Christ into one word. Dave Rowe pulled the bottle from between Pete Conway’s legs and flung it onto the first-base line, where it shattered against empty beer bottles.

  “King!” Rowe jabbed his crooked index finger at me. “Get back out there!”

  As I returned to the ball field, Rowe shouted at the umpire, “Silver King’s replacing Whitney!” Rowe picked up his own glove, and trotted back to center field.

  The crowd, and the Maroons, laughed so hard some of them doubled over. “Silver King! Ain’t that a handle for a ballist!” someone yelled. Heckles followed.

  “Silver? Why not gold?”

  “Hey, there … Silver Queeeennnn!”

  “Silver ain’t king. Maroon’s the color to be in St. Louis!”

  Tom Dolan knocked the mud off his shoes with his bat, and stepped into the batter’s box. After a curt nod in my direction, our catcher, Fatty Briody, stuck out his ham-size glove, and I put my arm into a windmill and fired my first pitch in an honest-to-goodness National League ball game.

  The ball bounced four feet in front of the plate, and Briody had to scramble six yards to stop it from caroming toward the backstop.

  Behind me on second base, Jack McGeachey howled with laughter, slapping his thighs. The rowdies filling the Union Grounds seats echoed his enjoyment.

  More heckles followed.

  Briody threw the ball back to me.

  He had to leap to keep my second pitch from sailing over his head.

  I tried a spitball next. Dolan’s bat didn’t budge. Klaus Klein announced, “Ball three.”

  Then …

  “Ball four.”

  “Ball five.”

  “Ball six.”

  “Ball seven.”

  Behind me, Dave Rowe unleashed another string of cuss words, these all directed first at my incompetence, then at Pete Conway for having the audacity to get so roostered he couldn’t stand up, let alone pitch.

  Dolan tossed his bat toward the Maroons’ bench, and trotted to first base. The bases were loaded. No outs.

  As second baseman Sam Crane came to the plate, Fatty Briody trotted, all 250 pounds of him, from home plate to me. He smiled this broken-teeth smile, then asked, none too friendly, “Kid, what the hell are you doin’?”

  “I … uh … well …”

  “Spitball?” He shook his head. “Fade-away. Shine ball? Tricks? You got to be a Colossus to stand the gaff. You ain’t no Colossus, and you ain’t no Pete Conway nor Grasshopper Jim, neither.” He put his arm around my shoulder. I cringed, expecting him to break my neck, but his touch was gentle, and I felt him squeeze my shoulder. “I seen you pitch, boy. Just throw the ball like you do when we’s practicin’. Only harder. Speed. That’s what’s gold to you, Silver. Your speed. Show ’em your cyclone stuff.”

  “But …” I swallowed down the bile. “Remember … Denver?”

  In April, we had played some exhibition games in Denver, and how I dreaded bringing up those memories.

  “Sure,” he said, and patted the big glove on his left hand. “That’s where I got this pillow.” The St. Louis crowd, and quite a few Maroons, had hammered Briody relentlessly during this series because of that monstrosity of a glove. “And I got it, because of how hard you throw, kid.” He lowered his voice. “Sam Crane’ll take his time. He likes a low ball, and that’s what he’ll try to call. But as soon as he steps into the box, you fire your best pitch at him. Savvy?”

  I understood. Baseball rules allowed a batsman to call his pitch—low or high—and the pitcher was obligated to deliver the pitch in the requested spot. If the batsman made no such announcement before the first pitch, however, he could not change or call his pitch.

  “Crane can’t hit nothin’ high,” Briody said over his shoulder as he trotted back to the plate.

  As soon as Briody squatted behind the plate, Crane stepped into the box, shifting his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other, and as he started to lift the bat, I shot a pitch faster than Wild Bill Hickok could pull a trigger. It was a ball, and so close to Crane that he stumbled back with a yelp. Once he had recovered, he pointed one end of the bat at me, yelling, “The hell you doing, boy?”

  I didn’t answer, just caught the ball Fatty Briody threw back to me. Briody grinned.

  “Give me a low pitch, boy!” Crane called, and started to step back inside the box.

  “Nein.” Klaus Klein shook his head. “No call after first ball delivered to home base.”

  Crane muttered something. I delivered my next pitch, just above Crane’s belt.

  “Strike.”

  He swung at the next pitch, right below the shoulders, but caught nothing but air.

  He spit a river of brown juice in my direction, brought the bat up, glaring at me angrily. My arm went into a windmill, and I blew my pitch, aiming for something chest-high but delivering something right at his knees. A perfect pitch for a low-ball specialist like Sam Crane, but by the time he started to swing, Fatty Briody held the ball in that massive mitt.

  “The striker is out,” Klaus Klein announced.

  The crowd hissed, booed, and cursed, only this time at Sam Crane.

  Fatty Briody threw the ball back to me. Then he shook his stinging gloved hands, and laughed out loud.

  I struck out Patsy Cahill on seven pitches, and then pitcher Charlie Sweeney came to bat.

  Sweeney had started out with the Providence Grays back in 1882, but had been expelled from the National League in 1884. I never knew exactly why, although Dave Rowe said it was because “Sweeney’s a horse’s arse.” Sweeney had signed with the Maroons, who at the time played in the Union Association, but when that league folded, St. Louis joined the National League, and here was Sweeney, back in the league that had booted him out. Well, National League officials always had short memories. By the eighth inning, Sweeney was drunker than Pete Conway, yet still a menace at the plate and between the pitcher’s lines. He had held us to no runs so far, and already had five hits himself.

  “High pitch, girlie,” he announced, and stepped to the plate.

  He drilled my first pitch, a belt-high fast ball, but Dave Rowe ran it down and caught it on the fly.

  Three outs. No runs. As I trotted off the field toward our bench, third baseman Jim Donnelly and shortstop Charley Bassett both ran over to me, and clapped my back. Clapped it pretty hard, almost knocking me to my knees. Mox McQuery spit out tobacco juice, waiting for me on first base and saying, “Nice goin’, kid,” as I trotted by.

  We gathered at our bench.

  Pete Conway began drunkenly slurring the lyrics to “Oh, My Darling Clementine.” Behind the bench, Grasshopper Jim Whitney spit out a broken tooth as he cried out for his mother.

  “Mox,” Dave Rowe announced. “You’re up.”

  McQuery spit tobacco juice into his hands, rubbed them together, and grabbed his bat.

  A minute later, he was back on the bench. Charlie Sweeney had struck him out on five pitches.

  Sweeney struck out Jim Donnelly, too, but Dave Rowe managed to punch a single just over first baseman Alex McKinnon’s head.

  “You’re up, Silver,” Fatty Briody told me.

  That bat felt like lead. The crowd booed. As a beer bottle whistled close by my ear, I ducked, tripped, and fell to my knees. Laughter filled the stadium, and Charlie Sweeney laughed the loudest.

  “Strike this petticoat out,” McKinnon said.

  I dusted off my pants, and walked to the plate. “High,” I said.

  “Speak up, girlie.” Charlie Sweeney tossed the ball from one hand to the other. “I can’t hear you.”

 
“High!”

  He waved. “Howdy, yourself. Welcome to the National League.”

  Even Klaus Klein giggled.

  I missed the first pitch. Missed the second. Almost swung at the third, but let it curve outside, and sighed with relief when Klaus Klein said, “Ball.”

  The crowd hissed.

  Sweeney started his wind-up in a windmill approach that mocked my delivery, then fired a ball that came toward my left shoulder. I started to back out of the way, but made myself stay, waiting. Sensing the ball would curve away from my person and toward the plate, I swung.

  My hands stung at the contact as and I watched the ball sail. I saw Charlie Sweeney’s lips mouth an obscenity, and heard the crowd groan.

  Suddenly Dave Rowe’s string of cusses reached my ears, along with his instructions. “Run, boy. Don’t just stand …!” Rowe had stopped running, stopped coaching, too. Turning, he stared, watching the ball sail, and sail, and sail.

  My first hit in my first National League at-bat landed over the fence—yes, the wind blew hard that afternoon, but, still, knocking a ball over the fence was rare in any baseball league, and even rarer for me. Suddenly I was being pounded at home plate by all of my teammates. Well, all except Pete Conway, who was now slumped in drunken oblivion on our bench, and Grasshopper Jim Whitney, who appeared to be begging his grandmother not to whip him for playing with matches.

  And not, of course, Dave Rowe. “This game ain’t won yet, boys,” he announced, “and can damned sure still be lost.”

  Bottom of the ninth inning, with shortstop Jack Glasscock waiting at the plate.

  Likely you know all about Pebbly Jack Glasscock, too. The Maroons’ team captain, he would hit .325 in 1886. Like many corncob-tough catchers, Glasscock refused to play with a glove, and the previous year he had shattered Arthur Irwin’s record by making 397 assists. That new sporting journal, the Sporting News, called him the greatest player to ever trod Missouri soil, and, perhaps, the best hitter and fielder to play on any diamond anywhere.