Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Mordecai Brown
Page 126
1912 – A New Season
By 1912 Brown had lost some of his previous form and a lot of his durability. By that time he was 35 and only appeared in 15 games, posting a 5-6 record, with a 2.64 ERA. Brownie could still pitch, but not as often. The Cubs actually improved over their 1911 record, coming out a distant third to the runaway Giants
The morning light over West Side Park had a way of flattening everything; bleachers, rooftops, even the players, into a kind of pale, early season uncertainty. Mordecai Brown arrived earlier than usual that day, long before the rest of the Cubs drifted in. He liked the quiet now. It gave him time to stretch the fingers of his right hand, the twisted ones that had once made him a marvel and now felt like a barometer for every cold front off Lake Michigan.
He sat on the dugout bench and rolled a baseball slowly between his palms. The ball felt the same as it always had, but his arm didn’t. Not every day. Some mornings it woke up with him; others it lagged behind, as if it needed convincing.