Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Mordecai Brown

Page 161

He returned once more to Terre Haute. His last year pitching as a rostered regular was 1920 there when he posted his best ERA since 1915 with the Whales, thereby more or less going out on a personal high note. Terre Haute finished at 58-77, .430. and couldn’t hit a lick. After that he kept his hand in the game by managing oil company teams and buying an interest in the Terre Haute team.

Here’s a Brown day from 1920; one that feels true to his last real season on a professional roster; quiet, stubborn, and touched with that bittersweet pride of a man who knows he’s near the end but refuses to act like it.

Terre Haute, Summer 1920 — Brown’s Last Good Day

The morning broke cool for July, a thin mist hanging over the Wabash like a curtain someone forgot to draw aside. Brown walked to the ballpark with his jacket buttoned, his breath faintly visible. Terre Haute was quieter than it had been before the war; fewer whistles from the mills, fewer boys on the street corners, but he liked it that way. He’d come home to finish things where they’d begun.

The Browns’ clubhouse smelled of liniment, damp wool, and the faint metallic tang of dust settling on old lockers. The team