Sunday, July 10, 1927: Detroit

Dreams And Detroit.

Myles Thomas

Published in

The Diary of Myles Thomas

12 min readNov 14, 2016

The doctor who looked at Hoyt’s X-rays determined there was no ligament tear, nor anything else that they could see, so, last Tuesday, after eight days of rest, Miller Huggins let him go back to the mound against Washington, the day after our July 4 massacre of the Senators.

Schoolboy’s return didn’t last long.

He threw only three pitches before he signaled to Hugg that he was done.

After the game we got on the train for Detroit, and Schoolboy mixed himself a cocktail of gin and codeine.

Once we arrive in Detroit, as happens after an overnight, we stay and have breakfast on the train before heading to the stadium.

Schoolboy staggers out of his berth, still in a stupor, and without saying a word sits down with me at a table for two overlooking the rest of the train yard. Hoyt’s breakfast is just coffee. As my eggs hit the table, Schoolboy asks me if he missed anything the past two nights while he’s been drunk and stoned.

“Only Ruth, who was playing his new saxophone almost nonstop.”

“Jesus,” he says, “I thought I dreamt that.”

“Well, Mark Roth says Jidge may get his own train car because of that horn.”

“That’s probably why he brought it on the train in the first place.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I think the big guy really wants to learn how to play the sax.”

Hoyt takes out one of his codeine pills and crushes it on a plate with his coffee spoon, and then pours the medical dust into his joe. The powder floats on the top. He takes a sip, closes his eyes, and leans his head back for at least a minute. Then his head slowly comes back to the table, his eyes blinking as they go along for the ride.

“You get any real sleep last night?” I ask him.

“I don’t know.” He closes his eyes and shakes his head.

“Oh, Jesus!”

“What?” I ask him.

“I had this crazy dream.”

“What was it?”

“I dreamt I was the love child of the Babe and Gehrig.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously,” snaps Schoolboy. “Christ, Tommy. You asked me what I dreamt and now I’m telling you. Who the fuck makes up a dream — at least one he tells another guy?”

Schoolboy’s arm must still be killing him.

“Sorry.”

“Ruth and Gehrig had a child, and it was me. OK?”

“OK. Were you a baby?”

“Aren’t you listening? It was me. Me, now. OK?”

Hoyt’s dream is becoming my nightmare.

“I lived with an enormous German mother in a whorehouse right next door to Yankee Stadium. The inside was just a giant kitchen surrounded by dozens of bedroom doors.”

“How were the girls?”

“There were dozens and dozens of them, all walking in and out of all those doors. Half of them looked like my enormous mother and spoke only German. The other half looked like Louise Brooks.”

“Real-” I quickly stop myself from asking that question. I don’t want to set him off again. Instead, I ask, “What was Louise like?”

“As much as I wanted to, I never got a chance to find out. Every time she came up and talked to me, my head fell off my body. Damn those Gehrig genes.”

“Speaking of body parts, how’s your arm?”

“This one feels great,” he says holding up his cup of joe. “The one I pitch with still hurts like a bitch. Give me a cigarette, will you?”

In the cab on our way to the Navin Field, I tell Hoyt about a dream I had last night.

“I was in a Shakespeare play. It was a really big production at the Ziegfeld. All of New York society was there, along with Stanwyck and Texas, and all their theater pals.”

“Which one?”

“Which one what?”

“Which play?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you know it was a Shakespeare play, if you don’t know which one it was?”

“Because of the way I was dressed.”

“How was that?”

“I was dressed like I was in a Shakespeare play.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means I had tights on. And bobbed hair.”

“Romeo and Juliet,” Schoolboy says.

“No. I know that one. It definitely wasn’t that one.”

“Was it a tragedy or a comedy, or a history?”

“It wasn’t any of those,” I tell him. “It was just a Shakespeare play.”

“Have you even read Shakespeare?” Schoolboy asks me.

“Hey, Cabby,” Schoolboy says to the cab driver. “Which one of us do you think went to college, and which one of us do you think signed with the Giants when he was just fifteen?”

“From what I can hear, I don’t think neither of youse guys went to college.”

“Thanks,” says Schoolboy. “Don’t expect a big tip.” He turns his attention back to me.

“What was the plot? Or were you in the only play William Shakespeare ever wrote without a plot?”

“I don’t know the plot, because I only had one line, and I wasn’t paying attention to the rest of the play. I just kept repeating my one line over and over, so I wouldn’t blow it.”

“What was it?”

“Hark! I hear a cannon!”

“‘Hark! I hear a cannon!’? That was it?”

“Yeah. Just ‘Hark! I hear a cannon!’ I had to really shout it, too. In the final scene of the play, I had to yell really loud, ‘Hark! I hear a cannon!’”

“Henry the Fifth,” says Hoyt. “No, wait, that only has bows and arrows.”

I ignore him.

“So the whole play I’m on stage, but off to the side, and in the back. And the whole time I’m just repeating to myself under my breath, over and over, ‘Hark! I hear a cannon!‘Hark! I hear a cannon!‘Hark! I hear a cannon!’ And this goes on, act after act, after act.”

“Shakespeare’s plays have five acts.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, if you’re in the last scene, this would have to go on act after act, after act, after act — and then you get to your act.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You only went ‘act after act, after act’ — that’s only three acts. So you just put your one line in the fourth act, not the fifth.”

I take what’s left of my cigarette and toss it out the cab window in frustration. Then I light another smoke before caving in to Schoolboy’s insane demand for accuracy.

“All right,” I say to him, shaking my head sadly. “This goes on for act, after act, after act, after act, and all I’m doing is mumbling to myself ‘Hark! I hear a cannon!’”

“Ok,” says Schoolboy. “Now we’re in the last act. And now you say your line, right?”

“Yes, but before that, no matter what’s happening on the stage — and there’s kissing and sword fights, and — ”

“Romeo and Juliet.”

Schoolboy’s beginning to really chap me off.

“I already told you, it wasn’t Romeo and Juliet. It was just a Shakespeare play. OK?”

“I think you’re wrong.”

“Schoolboy, how can I be wrong about my own fucking dream? How do you know anything about it but what I’m telling you? You weren’t even in the dream.”

We’ve stopped at a red light. Now the cab driver is shaking his head.

“So, like I said, I got this one line — ”

“Hark! I hear a cannon!,” says the cab driver.

“Right, exactly,” I tell him. “Thanks for listening.

“So, I’m trying to stay in the background and I keep repeating ‘Hark! I hear a cannon!’ to myself.

“And now, it’s the final scene of the final act. And I’m waiting to say my one line, and I’m just mumbling it over and over to myself, trying desperately to figure out the best way to say it. And I’m starting to panic.

“Should it be ‘Hark! I hear a cannon!’? Or “Hark! I hear a cannon!’? Or ‘Hark! I hear a cannon!’? I don’t know.

“I’m still trying to figure it out when suddenly there’s this enormous BOOM! And I scream out, ‘What the fuck was that?!’”

“It was the fuckin’ cannon, right?” says the cabbie.

“Yeah,” I say. “It was the fuckin’ cannon.”

We get to Navin Field and I pay the cabbie.

As we walk up to the visitors’ entrance, at Navin Field I suddenly figure it out. I say to Schoolboy, “I think I know the meaning of my dream.”

“What is it?”

“The way I’ve been pitching, I feel like a role player who can’t remember his line.”

“That’s not your problem,” says Schoolboy.

“Really?”

“No. Your problem is you can’t even remember the name of the play.”

We arrive in Detroit having won 20 of our past 25 games. Koenig’s still out with a bad wheel, having been hit in the leg with a pitch almost two weeks ago, and if anything it’s made our infield more reliable with Lazzeri at short.

The Tigers are a hot team as well — they’ve taken 18 of their past 25. For the season, Harry Heilmann and Bob Fothergill are both batting over .340, Charlie Gehringer is at .337, and Heinie Manush is also over .300.

Once again, thanks to the magic of Ruth and Gehrig and their Home Run Derby, we’re in a ballpark with a World Series atmosphere. The stands are literally overflowing.

So that they can get more fannies in the seats, the Tigers management has built new temporary stands just for this series — they’re taking them down as soon as we leave town. And they’re letting hundreds of fans stand in the outfield, roped off and lining parts of the warning track.

We start the game off like a house on fire, scoring two runs in the first inning, highlighted by a Gehrig triple. When Lou gets motoring it just takes your breath away. He’s not the fastest man out of the batter’s box, but after two steps only a handful of players are faster. He’s as big as a horse and he literally gallops around the bases.

Gehrig already has 97 RBIs in only 76 games — there’s a good chance he’ll break Ruth’s record of 168, and maybe even crack 200 this season. Hell, even the Babe is impressed by Lou.

Up until now I don’t think the Babe felt there was another player in his class, except for Shoeless Joe Jackson — he says he even patterned his swing after Shoeless Joe’s — but since 1920, when Shoeless Joe was banned from the majors, Ruth has felt peerless. But now that’s changing. He knows Gehrig is something special. Any time Ruth is in the dugout and Lou is up at bat, the Babe is as transfixed as anyone else watching Gehrig hit.

It must be strange living alone atop Olympus for so long and suddenly having another god join you.

Dutch Ruether, a mere mortal, is on the mound for us and immediately gives the Tigers their runs back and more. But it’s Detroit’s second inning that shows him the door.

Dutch gives up three triples to the first four batters in the inning. I’m sure it’s happened before but I’ve never seen it.

After the second triple, Huggins tells me to go warm up. Despite my best efforts over the past month to eliminate his faith in me, he brings me in after the third triple, with the score 5–3, and Charlie Gehringer on third and one out.

Once again, I excel at mediocrity. Over five and a third innings, I give up eleven hits, three walks and four runs, three of them earned, including a blast off the bat of Manush that just misses clearing the fence, but goes for an RBI triple. (“Hark! I hear a cannon!”)

We pull within a run, but I can’t hold off the Tigers. Having entered the play with the score 5–3, I exit stage left in the seventh with the score 10–8.

We lose the game 11–8.

We win the second game, 10–8. The Babe hits his 27th home run, an inside-the-park job. Despite appearances, Ruth can still move around the base paths (though not quite as fast as Gehrig, who collects his 100th RBI of the season).

Pipgras starts the second game but doesn’t make it out of the third inning; even though he’s leading 6–2, he can’t find the plate, so Huggins pulls him for Wilcy Moore who gets the win.

Hugg then starts Pipgras again the next day, Saturday, and George struggles again, going only four innings, giving up seven hits, two walks and six earned runs. His ERA is now up over four.

Between big George and me, it’s a race to the bottom. And he just took the inside lane.

Today, George and I are back at it. Huggins brings Pipgras in first, in relief for Herb Pennock with the Tigers leading 6–2 in the bottom of the seventh.

George pitches one inning, strikes out two of the three batters and gets the other to ground out to second before being lifted for a pinch hitter.

I’m next to the mound, to start the bottom of the eighth. When I get there it’s still 6–2. I strikeout Al Wingo on one of the sharpest forkballs I’ve ever thrown. Heilman pops up to first on a fastball with some zip. Neun reaches on an error by Jumpin’ Joe. And then Tavener grounds out to end the inning.

My arm feels electric. I can’t wait to get back out to the mound.

But I’ll have to wait for another game, since Murderers’ Row goes quietly in the top of the ninth, so Detroit doesn’t bat again. We lose 6–3.

Ruth has already had three home runs this series, and has pulled one ahead of Gehrig in their Home Run Derby, to lead 29 to 28, just past the midway point of the season.

Meanwhile, Pipgras and I are neck and neck as we round the stretch turn in our own derby, to see who can get to the bottom of Huggins’s rotation first.