Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Mordecai Brown
Page 123
By the time the Cubs scratched out a run in the eighth and another in the ninth, Brown had already retreated to the bench, towel over his shoulder, breathing slow and steady. He’d held the Cardinals scoreless for five innings. He’d saved the game. Another notch in a season where he would lead the league in saves without anyone yet using the word.
As the players filed into the clubhouse, Chance clapped him on the back.
“Still got it, Mordy.”
Brown didn’t answer right away. He was looking at his hand; the twisted fingers, the calluses, the dirt ground into the creases. He flexed it once, slowly.
“Yeah,” he said. “I reckon I do.”
But he knew the truth. He had it in a different way now. Not the way of 1906, when he could smother a lineup with sheer force. This was the necessary way of 1911; craft, grit, and the quiet pride of a man who could still bend the game to his will, even as the years pressed in.
The postseason began with Game 1 of the eighth modern World Series on October 14 and ended with Game 6 on October 26. In the