ANOTHEII GOMEZ? Flies in Right Field

30 UPPING his hands to his mouth, Manager Joe McCarthy of the Boston Red Sox hollered at a C long, youthful left-hander who was shagging ANOTHEII GOMEZ? flies in right field. " Hey, Gomez, come in here a min ute!" Then with a grin which seemed to suggest a trace of nostalgia, McCarthy said to the photogra pher at his elbow, "1 always make that mistake when By HOLMES ALEXANDER 1 see that kid." Maurice J. McDermott, Jr., the elongated youth who came loping toward the Red Sox dugout in re sponse to McCarthy's call last summer, didn't really resemble Lefty Gomez, the old Yankee star. But Mc Maurie McDermott, lean young southpaw of the Boston Red Sox, Carthy's remarks illustrate both the irony and the is the pitehin' image of the onetime New York Yankees' star glittering promise of Maurie McDermott's career. Young Maurie, now twenty-one and a five-year man in the Red Sox organization, is not today the best left-handed pitcher in the American League; but he's the wildest, the fastest, and many baseball pundits think he has the stuff to become one of the greatest. And while Maurie hasn't yet achieved it, he was born and raised to greatness and has had it thrust upon him by proclamation. From the time he was three, Maurie has been in training as a big-league pitcher. Since he was fourteen, baseball scouts and critics have been comparing him with Gomez, Lefty Grove and other celebrated southpaws of yesteryear. All this adds up to quite a handicap for an earnest, unspoiled yoCmg man who simply wants to make good in his profession and to help the pennant- starved Red Sox to ajjhampionship. Last August 6th, in the dining room of a Boston hotel, Maurie looked up from a sizzling steak dinner and said to me: "This talk about greatness is much too soon. I'll settle for being just a good starting pitcher for the Red Sox." His Adam's apple bobbed emotionally as he added, "And 1 think I have arrived at that." Next day at Fenway Park, before a sellout Sunday crowd, Maurie had three Detroit Tigers on base, and up to bat came Art Houtteman, the opposing pitcher, who was celebrating his own twenty-second birthday. Houtteman slammed a line-drive double into center field for three runs. That one hit scored as many runs as Maurie had given up in his previous three games together. After that, he didn't win or even finish an other game all season. Maurie wasn't around when the Red Sox slogged off the field that Sunday with a 6-4 defeat and a seven-game winning streak broken. He was dismally getting into street clothes and preparing to meet the disappointment of two men who believed deeply in his pitching genius. His father and Uncle Eddie had driven all the way from Poughkeepsie, New York, where the McDermotts now make their home, to see him go against the Tigers. They were hoping to ' watch him add another victory to his abbreviated season's record of five won, two lost, two of the wins being shutouts. One reason why Maurie feels compelled to make good in the majors is that his father didn't. McDer mott, Sr., during the middle 1920s was a speed-ball southpaw, a teammate of Lou Gehrig and Leo Durocher at Hartford. " r was faster than Maurie," Mr. McDermott says factually, but something went wrong with his arm before he was ready for the majors. He switched to the outfield and was making a new start there when he decided to get married. No longer feeling free to gamble on his baseball future, McDermott, Sr., took a stay-at-home job at Poughkeepsie and played semi- pro ball after work. But he was determined to have a big-leaguer in the family, which eventually grew to six children, Maurie, the first-born—August 29, 1928—was it. The father says: "When he was three, I gave him a baseball and taught him to toss it up and catch it. At six, he had his first pair of spiked shoes and was throwing to me in the back yard. I took him with me to the ball parks where 1 played and umpired in those days. When he was eleven, he found a pair of his Uncle Eddie's white flannel trousers and scissored them down to look like baseball pants. From then on I knew for sure that we had a ballplayer." Here, of course, are the elements of the classic father-son success story. But life doesn't always move toward an automatic happy ending. There are some rasping setbacks and uniesolved climaxes in Maurie* McDermott's story. He's about as normal a young athlete as you'll find anywhere, {Contimiedonpage 68) McDermott stands six feet, two inches tall and weighs 160 pounds. He's fast and "just wild enough" Collier's for February 11, 1950 PRODUCED__j5 « ""BY• UNZ.ORG« ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 31 Collier's SHORT SHORT She said gravely, "Anybody could tell right away you were from Maine." "They could?" I was surprised how much it pleased me. It gave me a feeling of identity; I was a person, after all, in this impersonal city, and sud denly felt stronger, more self-assured. She hurried beside me, her coat collar turned up against the fine February drizzle, her face glowing with youth and eagerness both. "It's starling to come down harder," I said. "Let's duck in somewhere." The gray clouds hanging over the city were gather ing more swiftly and drops of water spattered on the sidewalk; up and down the avenue umbrellas began to sprout like mushrooms. I led her down a side street to one of the cafes in the vaults of Radio City. We found a table by a window, and I signaled to a waiter. "What would you like?" 1 asked her. "I'd like a Ma'tini," she said. "Two Ma'tinis," I pronounced dehberately. HE tops of the towers of Radio City were lost in Tthe fog, but their thousands of windows glittered with light. She leaned sideways and craned her neck and looked up at them through the gloom, her eyes as bright as raindrops: "It's beautiful. It's like 1 dreamed it would be." "This city? It's a mess when it rains. All the streets jammed, and everybody fighting for a cab." "Back home when it rains the trees drip on you and the gutters are full of water, and there's nothing to do but sit indoors and wait for the rain to stop." She frowned. "I don't want to go back, not for a long time, anyway." "What would you do here?" The waiter set down the drinks, and she considered her glass for a moment, twisting the stem intently. "I sing." She glanced quickly at me to catch my reac tion. "Don't laugh. I've got a pretty good voice; my music teacher and the folks that have heard me all say so. I'm going to be a singer." "Look, kid," I said, a Uttle brutally—but I in tended to be brutal—"forget it. New York eats little girls alive. You'll be lonely. This is the loneliest place As I started ijast her she said, "Pa'don me, which w;iy is Pa'k Avenue?" and I halted in my tracks in the .world. Nobody speaks to atjybody—" "You spoke to me." I tried again. " It's not like a little town. There you have neighbors; you have friends. Somebody cares what happens to you." Now all at once I realized what the emptiness was, and my voice got tough. "Go on back where you came from." "I'm not going home," she said, setting her jaw stubbornly. 1 recognized that New England jaw. torn " You don't believe I can make a go of it here. Well, I'm going to show you. I'm going to show everybody. I'm staying right here." "What will you do for money?" "I—" She fished in her purse, and took out a rail road ticket. "I've got the other half of my round trip. I can turn it in at the station." The rain was stopping; the puddles were draining HAD a letter from her just the other day. It was later; of course, my old job was always waiting for down metal grilles in the concrete, and the transient in a young excited scrawl: she was so happy, she me back home, and so forth, and so forth, but I could shrubbery around the plaza dripped neatly. Back had done the right thing, she never could thank read between the lines. Three years is a long time to home the tree trunks would be black and shining, me enough. Meeting you on the street corner that wait, when you're waiting to be married. and the fragrance on the drenched evergreens would afternoon was fate, she wrote, underscoring the word Oh, I had been so sure of myself when I left home. be sharp and clean. I could smell the lich odors of three times. Do yon believe in fateF I do. Because III I would grab New York in my bare hands, I would wet earth, even though the ground was probably deep never know why you stopped and spoke to me . swing it aloft by the tail, I would send for Katherine in snow at that moment.

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