Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Mordecai Brown
Page 152
After the game, which Columbus won 3–1, Brown lingered near the dugout. A group of Louisville fans gathered, asking for autographs, shaking his hand. One older man pressed a faded scorecard into Brown’s palm. “Saw you pitch in ’08,” he said. “Never forgot it.”
Brown nodded. “Neither did I.”
That night, back at the hotel, Joe Tinker handed him the clipping from the “Columbus Citizen.” “You got more cheers than the home team,” Tinker said. “You’re still drawing crowds.”
Brown looked out the window at the quiet Louisville street. “It’s not the cheers,” he said. “It’s that they remember.”
In 1918 he appeared in only 13 games, but that was a year shortened by war and the flu outbreak, as much as it was shortened by Brownie’s accumulated injuries and age. .
The morning broke quiet over Columbus, the kind of quiet that didn’t feel peaceful so much as emptied out. The war had taken the young men, the flu had taken the crowds, and the old ballpark felt like a place waiting for someone to remember it.