Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Mordecai Brown
Page 37
at the National Baseball Hall of Fame produced a quote from teammate, Johnny Evers. Evers described Brown as having “plenty of nerve, ability, and willingness to work under any conditions. He was charitable and friendly to his foes.”
A Small Letdown on a Gray Afternoon
It happened on one of those dull Chicago afternoons when the sky looked like it had been rubbed with an eraser. Brown had been scheduled to pitch, but a morning drizzle left the infield heavy and the outfield grass slick. The game went on anyway—National League umpires were not sentimental about field conditions—and Brown took the mound with the faint sense that the day was already leaning against him.
His curve wasn’t misbehaving, exactly, but it wasn’t biting the way he liked. The damp air softened its drop, and the Giants hitters kept fouling off pitches they should have missed entirely. By the third inning he’d thrown far more than he wanted, and the Cubs’ infielders were shifting on their feet, waiting for something routine.
The moment that stuck with him came in the fifth. Runners on first and second, one out, a grounder to Tinker—exactly the sort of play the trio had turned a hundred times. Tinker scooped it