[legendsport]

September 20, 1936: Brooklyn, NY

"Ugh... you stink," Tom Barrell moaned. He punctuated this statement by waving a hand in front of his nose.

Dan Barrell frowned at his brother, but let it pass - Tommy was pitching and he was prickly on those days, even in the best of times. This wasn't the best of times, at least not for Tom.

Dan watched his brother saunter back to his own locker. The smell to which Tom had referred came from Dan's knee, rubbed down and wrapped, just as it always was before he could step onto the field.

The Kings were hosting the Montreal Saints and that was Dan's focus. He was enjoying his best season, something he found bitterly ironic given how much trouble his leg had been giving him this season.

Harry walked over, eyed the wrap job and quipped, "You should see if Doc Seale can go the whole way. I'd love to see you play in full 'Mummy' regalia." He began walking, stiff-legged around the clubhouse, arms out and moaning in his best Boris Karloff imitation - which wasn't particularly good. His act drew a scowl and head shake from Al Wheeler and a sigh from Frank Vance. Most of the other guys just ignored him. Fred threw a towel at him, which hit him in the back of the head and halted his Karloff act.

Dan turned around and started pulling his uniform pants on. He was thankful the uniform was baggy. No one could see how much his knee swelled and he had made an art out of hiding his limp.

Fred sat down next to him and pitching his voice low, he asked, "So... which Tom do you think we'll get today?"

Dan shot a quick glance in Tom's direction. As was his usual routine, he was rubbing a baseball, his brows forming a 'V' as he scowled, gazing off into space.

"Hopefully the good one," Dan muttered in reply. "I'd like to shake him by the neck sometimes," he admitted.

The problem had begun when they swung through Chicago at the start of September. Dan had stayed at his home where Gladys and his boys were (they'd welcomed little Steven Barrell to the family on April 16th) rather than the team hotel. Tom came into town with big plans - plans that revolved around Annette O'Boyle. And plans that were scrapped when she refused to see him. And compounded it by refusing to tell him why. Luckily, this had happened after the first of their two-game set with the Cougars, a game in which Tom notched his 19th victory in a 12-2 laugher. His next start came in Baltimore against the woeful Cannons and he pitched angry, winning another laugher 11-1 to run his record to 20-5.

Then the wheels started coming off. The club returned home, Annette wouldn't return Tom's calls and then he took his turn in the rotation against the scuffling Toronto Wolves. His stuff was only middling, but he battled through eight innings having allowed four runs on 11 hits. Unfortunately, the Kings offense had managed only four runs of their own. So, with Tom due to hit, Powell Slocum lifted him, sending Doug Lightbody out to hit for him. Tom had always prided himself on his ability with the bat - and his brothers all knew he was a pretty solid hitter (for a pitcher) - but the move made sense: Lightbody might be having an off-year, but he was the epitome of a professional hitter. That didn't matter to Tom - he exploded in the dugout, getting into a shouting match with Slocum, his voice so loud that the players on the field, as well as the umpires were all looking into the Kings dugout. Fred had literally had to drag Tom up the tunnel and into the clubhouse.

Four days later, the Kings were in the midst of a crucial series with the Cleveland Foresters. Brooklyn was holding a slim four-game lead on their nemeses from the shores of Lake Erie. Powell Slocum had taken Tom aside before the game, telling him he understood the frustration that boiled over against Toronto. And that he wouldn't stand for it again. "Be a professional," he told him. Or at least that's what Tom angrily relayed to Fred later on that day.

Regardless of the exact words, Tom was subdued... and pitched terribly. In the fourth inning of a game the Kings were already trailing 2-1, Tom surrendered six runs and was pulled from the game without registering an out, Slocum walking slowly to the mound, his head down, while Fred did his best to talk to a visibly smoldering Tom. When Slocum held out his hand, Tom slapped the ball into it and stalked off without a word to anyone, going through the dugout and continuing right into the tunnel in silence. The Kings lost 10-4.

Now... it was Tom's turn again. At 20-6 he was still on track for winning an Allen Award. But his mood was not good.

Dan slapped Fred on the shoulder and said, "Guess you should have gotten a psychology degree to work with these guys, heh?"

Fred chortled, took a deep breath and stood up. "Seems like it, sometimes," he said as he turned and walked off.

It was almost a relief when the game began. The team was tight - they'd come close to the pennant the year before only to blow it. And everyone remembered it - including, maybe even especially, Tom Barrell.

Pablo Reyes led off the game for the Saints, swung at the first pitch and flew out to Wheeler in right. Red Moore also swung at the first pitch, drilling a hard grounder right at Frank Vance at third, who played it cleanly and gunned him out. Dan's balky knee gave him no trouble as trotted over to the bag... something about which to be thankful, he figured.

This brought Jim Watson to the plate and he too swung at the first pitch. But this one was a looping liner that dropped over the head of John Langille for a single.

Watson rounded the bag, then came back and gave Dan a friendly "How do?"

He and Dan chatted amiably for a moment, Dan as always thinking the guy was a little too full of himself. Watson was a good player, no doubt, but he seemed to be unable to believe that others could realize that without him telling them so.

The Saints cleanup hitter was Vic Crawford, and he swung at the first pitch, but fouled it back into the screen. He repeated the feat on the second pitch. Then Tom threw three straight balls, with two of them being close enough that Dan could see his brother scowling and muttering to himself between pitches.

On the 3-2 pitch, Crawford shot a hot one right down the line. Dan, thankful that his glove was on his left hand, went to one knee - his good one, thankfully, to make the stop and then managed to get to the bag, hobbling just a little and waving Tom off as he made the unassisted putout to end the top of the first.

Slocum had penciled Dan into the third spot in the lineup. Both Bill May, hitting leadoff, and Vance, batting second, sent flies out to center that Reyes easily handled; Danny watching Vance's drive from the on-deck circle, admired the way Reyes gracefully glided to the ball. He briefly scolded himself for his bout of jealousy, but he'd have given... well, a lot... to be able to run like that again.

Stepping in against Earle Whitten, Dan got a fat fastball on the first pitch... and fouled it off. The second pitch was a little high, so he took it for ball one. The second, in nearly the same spot, was called a strike, causing Dan to scowl a bit, but he never argued with an umpire - another lesson from the Baseball Gospel According to Rufus Barrell, he mused.

The fourth pitch was a near-repeat of the first and he rifled it over Whitten's head on a line for a clean single to center. A good, solid hit that didn't require busting it out of the box.

Then he botched it up. Wheeler, in his usual clean-up spot, drove one down the first-base line on a 1-2 pitch. Dan took off, two outs, running as hard as his bum leg allowed and raced around second even as the Saints' right-fielder Nellie Dawson was scooping up the ball. Dan, unfamiliar with Dawson's arm, didn't get a stop sign from Slocum in the coaching box at third, so he chugged for third - and was thrown out. It was close, but making the last out at third... he dusted himself off, shaking his head, muttered an apology to Slocum and slowly walked back to first base for the top of the second. Harry didn't help. As he trotted past, his brother joked, "Guess the ol' man plum forgot just how slow you are."

Tom cruised through the second, 1-2-3, striking out Dawson along the way. Whitten ended up getting hurt in the home second, in a bizarre play where he pulled up lame backing up first base on a 4-6-3 double play off the bat of Langille. Harry grounded to second against Dick Parker to end the inning.

In the third, the Saints struck with three straight one-out singles, the first of which was off the bat of Dick Parker the pitcher, which Dan knew would set Tom's temper to a fine simmer. Reyes singled to push Parker to second and then Red Moore drove him home to make it 1-0. Fred gunned down Reyes stealing second for the second out and Watson grounded out to end the inning. 1-0 Saints.

Fred struck out to lead off the third, bringing Tom to the plate. He took a first pitch strike then smoked a liner into the left-centerfield gap and cruised into second with a double. But he ended up stranded there as May and Vance couldn't move him.

The Saints added two more in the top of the fourth to extend their lead to 3-0. Dan led off the home fourth. Feeling pressure to deliver something he instead swung and missed at the first two offerings. Then he fouled off the third pitch, before grounding one hard down the third base line, past a diving Hank Barnett. Hoping his leg would hold up, Dan busted it out of the box and slid in safely with a leadoff double. But, just as Tom had the inning before, Dan ended up stranded as the game remained 3-0.

That is, until the Saints tacked on two more to go up 5-0 in the fifth. The second run scored on a wild pitch and Dan saw Slocum pacing back and forth in the dugout and could almost hear him asking pitching coach Bill Libby if it was time to pull Tom. But Tom got himself under control and whiffed Heinie Buehler.

In the home fifth, Harry led off with a single. Fred followed with a foul pop to first, bringing up the pitcher's spot. Dan, from his spot on the bench, warily eyed Slocum wondering if he would pull Tom for pinch-hitter. From the corner of his eye he saw the Lightbody brothers eyeing the skipper too. But Slocum decided to let Tom hit, going through the signals from his spot in the third base coaching box.

Dan smirked when he saw that Slocum was signaling for a bunt. Tom hated sacrificing. Still, they needed a run and moving Harry into scoring position with May on deck was a smart call.

Tom laid down a good bunt between the pitcher and first base, and ran hard, but Parker tossed to second baseman Moore to get the out at first. Unfortunately, May flew out to end the inning and it stayed 5-0.

In the sixth, Tom quickly set down the first two batters, and it looked as if the pseudo-vote of confidence Slocum had given him the prior inning was paying off. Then Reyes reached on a error by Vance at third and that thunderstorm-y look returned to Tom's face. But he did recover to get Moore on a fly to left to end the threat.

The bottom of the sixth was a key one as the Kings got back into the game in a big way. Vance led off, working a 3-1 count before shooting a line drive between the first and second basemen for a single. Dan came up, took a strike, then Parker bounced one that went to the backstop for a wild pitch, sending Vance to second. Another called strike and Dan was in a 1-2 hole and just looking to make good contact. Parker dealt two sraight balls to fill the count and then served up a nice juicy one that Dan socked into the deepest part of Kings County Stadium, where it rattled off the centerfield wall. He ran as hard as he could, and his eyes widened in shock when he rounded second and saw Slocum frantically windmilling his arms. Dan went full tilt, knowing his leg would be giving him nasty reminders of this for the next week, but he slid into third in a cloud of dust.... safe!

He came home on a sharp single by Wheeler to make it 5-2 and even though Elmer Nolde followed with a fly out and then Langille hit into an inning-ending double play, Dan felt like the Kings were right back in it.

Tom worked around a two-out walk in the home seventh and the Kings got back to business in the home half: Harry led off with a double, went to third on another wild pitch by Parker and came home on Fred's groundout to short. Tom walked and May flew out. A Vance single sent Parker to the showers as Dick Pozza had seen enough. Southpaw Randy Taylor came on to face Dan who drew a walk to load the bases. Taylor's control problems continued as he also walked Wheeler to send Tom home. He got Joe Perret (hitting for Elmer Nolde) to ground out to end the inning, but the control problems of Parker and Taylor had cost the Saints two runs and it was now 5-4.

Tom allowed a run in the top of the eighth, making it 6-4, but the Kings got it back in the home half: a two-out double for Fred caused Slocum to send Frank Lightbody out to hit for Tom. There was no eruption this time, and Tom didn't leave the bench. Lightbody delivered a single to score Fred and bring it back to a one-run contest.

Del Lyons came on to pitch the ninth and worked around a one-out double by Watson. In the home ninth, down to their last licks, Dan led off with his second double of the game, went to third on a groundout to first by Wheeler and then scored on an error by Saints shortstop Tony White. The Kings were unable to further dent Randy Taylor and the game headed into extra innings.

Lyons made it interesting in the top half, surrendering a leadoff single to Buehler and hitting pinch-hitter John Collins. The go-ahead run made it to third but Lyons recovered to whiff Bob Worley to end the threat.

In the home half, Walker Moore came on to pitch, and was greeted by pinch-hitter Jake Shadoan with a single to left. May bunted him over and Vance drew a walk to bring Dan up with two on and one out. Moore's first delivery was just off the plate wide, for ball one - and the fifth straight miss by the Saints' lefty. He proceeded to groove the next one and Dan put a good swing on it, an opposite field screamer that plunked into the seats in right field for a walk-off three run bomb.

As his team mates gathered at home to greet him, Dan realized that the homer had not only won the game, but it had completed the cycle and he had put together a 5-for-5 day with a pair of doubles, three runs scored and four driven in. Even Tommy was grinning when Dan touched home plate. It looked like the Kings might not choke this pennant race after all...

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