Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.
Mordecai Brown
Page 160
After the game he sat on the dugout bench, wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief that had also seen better days. The sun was dropping behind the freight yards, turning the sky the color of old copper.
Joe Tinker had written him a letter the week before, asking if he might help Indianapolis down the stretch. Brown hadn’t answered yet. He knew he’d go. He always went when baseball called. But he also knew he wouldn’t be the difference maker they hoped for. His arm didn’t have many surprises left.
Still, he folded the letter carefully and put it back in his pocket. A man didn’t quit just because the world had moved on.
A couple of kids approached shyly, asking for his autograph. He signed their scorecards with the same looping hand he’d used in Chicago, in St. Louis, in Cincinnati. They ran off grinning.
Brown watched them go, then stood, joints popping like old floorboards. He took one last look at the field; dusty, uneven, imperfect, but his first baseball home, and started the slow walk back toward town.
It wasn’t glory anymore. But it was baseball. And for Brownie, that was always the dream.