Double Play

37.

The day game with Pittsburgh was rained out, and Burke drove Jackie uptown to a meeting. The wipers moved steadily. There was something sort of cozy, Burke thought, about a car in the rain. Sort of safe.

In the meeting room there was the same coziness, lights on during the day, rain sheeting down the windows evenly. There was a large table in the middle of the room and six black men seated around it. There were drinking glasses at each place and a large pitcher of ice water on the table. There was one empty chair. Robinson introduced Burke. Everyone was polite.

A white-haired Negro man gestured Jackie toward the empty chair at the table.

“Sit down, Jackie,” he said. “Sit down, please.”

Jackie sat. Burke found a chair against the wall near the door and sat in it. Everyone was quiet. Jackie waited.

“Jackie,” the white-haired Negro said, “perhaps you could ask your friend to wait outside for us?”

Jackie shook his head.

“What we have to say, Jackie, is really rather confidential.”

“He stays,” Jackie said.

“We are not comfortable with that,” the white-haired Negro said.

Jackie leaned forward at the table. Burke sat on his chair by the door as if they were talking of someone else.

“Why is that?” Jackie said.

The white-haired man didn’t speak for a moment. He looked at the other men around the table.

“He’s not one of us,” the white-haired man said.

Jackie nodded slowly, his hands clasped before him at the table.

“I have trusted him with my life for the last four months,” he said. “You gonna have to trust him for an hour. Or both of us leave.”

One of the other men at the table spoke.

“Okay, Bascomb,” he said. “Let it go.”

He was a big muscular man who had gotten fat. His nose had been broken. There were scars around his eyes, and his hands looked thicker than they should have, and a little misshapen. He looked steadily at Burke as he spoke. His black oval eyes didn’t blink. Burke looked back.

“Bascomb’s a lawyer,” the big man said. “He can’t help himself.”

Burke shrugged.

“You used to fight,” the big man said.

“You, too,” Burke said.

“You win,” the big man said.

“Some,” Burke said.

“But not enough to keep doing it.”

“No,” Burke said.

“Me either,” the big man said.

He turned back to Jackie.

“You know everybody in this room,” the big man said. “Hell, you played for a couple of them.”

Jackie nodded.

“We gave you a chance to play,” the big man said, “and treated you as good as we could.”

“Probably did, Maurice,” Jackie said. “Doesn’t mean it was good.”

“I know,” Maurice said. “Money’s hard and it’s harder if you’re a black man.”

Jackie didn’t say anything. The other men at the table were motionless. The rain was steady against the windows. Burke was silent beside the door.

“Here’s the situation,” Maurice said. “You stay in the white leagues and pretty soon some other boys be following you.”

Jackie nodded.

“And pretty soon all the teams, St. Louis, everybody, be getting Negro players,” Maurice said, “and we won’t have no players that matter, and the fans won’t come, and the Negro leagues are gone.”

Jackie nodded.

“You unnerstand that?” Maurice said.

“I do.”

“That’s gonna come no matter what anyone says now.”

“I think that, too,” Jackie said.

“So what happens,” Maurice said. “Not just to us, but to all the players — the ones that ain’t good enough, or be too old now. Where they gonna play?”

Jackie shook his head.

“You don’t know,” Maurice said. “And we don’t know either.”

“I can’t stop that happening,” Jackie said.

“We think you can,” Maurice said. “Tell him, Bascomb.”

The white-haired man cleared his throat twice.

“You know, Jackie, how much DiMaggio is making?”

“Yes.”

“You could make that much.”

“Maybe I will,” Jackie said.

“We prepared to pool our money, all the owners, and pay you what they pay DiMaggio, if you’ll play for any team in the Negro leagues.”

“Any team?”

“Don’t matter which.”

“And I don’t play for the Dodgers anymore.”

“No.”

“DiMaggio’s making eight times what I make,” Jackie said.

“You be worth it,” Bascomb said. “And you save the leagues. Give jobs to a lotta colored players.”

Jackie sat back in his chair and unfolded his hands and put them flat on the tabletop. He looked at the men gathered at the table. Then he looked at Burke. Burke didn’t move. Jackie looked back around the table again.

“I can’t do that,” he said.

“You mean you won’t,” Bascomb said.

“Whatever you like,” Jackie said.

“We could probably up the ante,” Bascomb said.

“No,” Jackie said.

“You unnerstand,” Maurice said, “what it would mean to a lot of colored folks.”

“What I’m doing now means something.”

“Maybe what we’re asking would mean more,” Maurice said.

“No,” Jackie said. “It wouldn’t.”