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December 31, 1904
224 Maple Street, Kenilworth
Harmon Floyd was very glad his new place of residence was "uptown" enough to have electric power, and he was even more glad Mrs. Frances O'Rourke was up-to-date enough to have it installed in the home she owned, the one in which Floyd had rented a room. As he stretched out on his bed, propped on three pillows, the light from the bulb above him was bright enough for him to make out the notes he had painstakingly written on the papers he held in his hands.
Floyd was the general manager of the Kenilworth Oaks. The nature of his work remained somewhat mysterious to even the most knowledgeable rooters, people like James Belding. The definition James had given his friend Peter Martin had been fairly close. Floyd was indeed mainly responsible for assembling the Oaks roster. That meant tomorrow was perhaps the most important day of the year, and not just because it was January 1.
Tomorrow was the Inaugural Player Draft for the Keystone League, and Harmon would be making the picks for the Kenilworth club.
Two weeks earlier, at the league office in Harrisburg, a clerk had pulled twelve tokens from a fine silk top hat and determined the order in which the twelve clubs would make their selections. The Oaks had been drawn third. Harmon Floyd was pleased with this outcome.
For one thing, he would be able to select an excellent player in the first round. The draft was to be run in serpentine style, meaning the Oaks would then have the 22nd overall pick, and after that, the 27th. Harmon thought having a shot at three of the best 27 players in the pool gave him a decent chance at setting his employers up with the nucleus of a fine ball club indeed. That seemed, to him, to be an even bigger advantage of his club's draft position.
Harmon ran his eyes over the names listed on the first sheet of paper. He had written FIRST ROUND at the top, in big, bold letters. He didn't think the Oaks would have a chance to land the first player on his list, a hard-throwing right-handed pitcher named Pep Galvin. Harmon was sure the Allentown Fleetwings would take Galvin off the list with the very first pick.
The next name Harmon had written down was that of Johnny Kelley, an athletic second baseman from the northwestern part of the state. There was very little Kelley couldn't do well on a ball field; he was a slick fielder and a mobile baserunner, and he hit the ball hard and often. Kelley was 29 years old, and ideally Floyd would like to pick a younger player, but Kelley's ability was undeniable and would make him hard to pass up if he were still available when it came Kenilworth's turn to pick.
Harmon liked Roxy Perkins almost as well. Perkins was an outfielder, with enough range to man the center garden and better-than-average power. He was also only 25, which gave him an edge over Kelley.
There was another pitcher high on Harmon's list. Al Goff, from Scranton, threw even harder than Galvin, but his pitches lacked the deceptive movement that made Galvin's so hard to hit.
Harmon put the papers down on the bed beside him and closed his eyes. He reached up and pushed his dark brown hair back from his forehead. The way he saw it, the Oaks would have one of the two best pitchers in the draft, or one of the two best position players. That didn't seem like a bad situation to be in, and when Harmon thought about it, he smiled. He wasn't sure which of the players he would choose, but he was confident he'd pick a good one.
He got up from the bed and tucked his notes into his leather briefcase, which he placed beside his dressing table. And, then, as he did every night, he turned to look at the portrait on the table, a portrait of a young woman with light, curly hair and a sweet smile.
Adeline Floyd was 24 when that photograph was taken. Six months earlier, she had married Harmon in the little church in Saint Davids.
Two weeks after she smiled for her portrait, Adeline fell ill. The doctor said it was pneumonia. He'd done his best, but he couldn't save her. Adeline was buried in the cemetery of the church where she'd been so recently wed.
That was eighteen years ago now. Harmon had never remarried. He'd never met a woman who made him smile the way his Adeline had done.
He looked at her picture one more time, turned out the light, and got into bed.
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