Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.
Mordecai Brown
Page 158
who might, with luck and a good season, get a look from a Class B club.
They greeted him with the mixture of awe and ease that always followed him in these towns. He was “Brownie” here, not the legend, not the old Cub, not the man who’d once outdueled Mathewson. Just Brownie, the fellow who’d come home to help them win a few ballgames.
Morning practice
He hit fungoes with his good hand, the bat held in that odd, unmistakable grip. The boys watched the spin of the ball; how even a lazy pop fly off his bat seemed to wobble in a way they couldn’t quite explain. He didn’t lecture much. He’d show them something once, maybe twice, and let them figure the rest out. “You don’t need the details. You’ll figure it out when you have to.”
A young pitcher named Dugan asked him again how he threw the famous curve.
Brown smiled, the lines around his eyes deepening.
“Son, if I could teach it, I’d have done it twenty years ago. Best I can tell you is throw what your hand wants to throw.”
Dugan nodded as if this were profound wisdom. Maybe it was.