[jksander]

My name is Jochen Fontaine. My friends call me Joker, since it’s easier to pronounce than my given Swiss name. My parents migrated from Bern, Switzerland with their families around the turn of the century, as part of the “Swiss Colonization Society,” a group that originally had settled in Cincinnati but soon purchased land in southern Indiana in the 1850’s, a town which became known as Tell City, named after William Tell. You know about him, the apple and all. I grew up in a happy family, my father working in the fledgling furniture industry, and my mother raising us kids.

I was born in Tell City on October 8, 1910, and I always figured I was going to spend my life there, like my brothers and sisters, either working with my hands building furniture, or perhaps down the river in Cannelton, working on the locks and dam there as a Riverman. But when I was young, I learned I could throw. I could make an apple core spin and spin before it hit whatever target I threw it toward. And when kids in the neighborhood picked up that game of base ball, I caught on like a fever ... a bad joke, I know, since I am one of the many who managed to survive the flu outbreak of 1918, but hey, it’s true. And they do call me Joker, I told you.

I played ball for my high school, though our games were overshadowed by that other new game, Basketball, which drew the bigger crowds especially in the cold months. But I liked the power I could build up throwing the small ball and keeping someone from hitting it, rather than bouncing a ball and throwing it into a net. So I stuck with baseball, and when I graduated I had the grades to go to college, but I had saved up some money working for my father during the winters, and when I told him I wanted to see what I could do with this baseball skill, I was surprised to see a gleam in his eye.

“You’re young,” he told me. “This may not be your future, but if it’s your present you owe yourself a chance.” So, with his blessing, I joined a traveling barnstoring team, the Huntingburgh Raiders, up in Dubois County, a good thirty mile ride from home. We played a bunch of other pop-up teams in the region, traveling from small town to small town, playing in front of whatever local crowds we could roust between farm chores, trying to see if we could take our skills in this “children’s game” and make more of them, make the feeling on the field when that ball hit a bat or whiffed last just a bit longer before “real life” took over.

And that’s where I was playing when my life changed forever.

- - - - -

I remember seeing a man show up to watch us play during a handful of games on a stretch from Paoli down to Loogootee, but I couldn’t put a finger on him. He’d show up and sit in the makeshift stands, popcorn and binoculars in hand, just watching. For a few days he was gone, and then he came up and caught me after we put a whupping on the Shoals Miners and were ready to head back home for a few days’ rest. It’d been a warm spring, so we’d gotten to start play back in the middle of February, and after a few weeks of vigorous baseball action, I was really starting to feel good. So this interesting stranger had me intrigued.

“I’ve been watching you pitch,” he said, shaking my hand. “My name’s Don Ehrlinger, and I’m a scout with the St. Louis Cardinals. You got a few minutes to talk?”

The St. Louis Cardinals. Talk about a team I know something about! They’re about the one baseball thing people around here pay attention to, especially after they won the World Series in 1926! The guy running the team, Helmut “Hal” Fischer grew up around these parts, so we were all amazed when owner D.H. Devereaux put him in charge of the club.

“Sure, sir, I’d be glad to!” I told him, signaling a teammate as he lugged his bag of bats over toward the team bus. “How can I help you?”

“Well, son,” he tilted his head, putting his cigarette in his mouth. “Like I said, I’ve been watching you pitch, and I’ve talked to the bosses. We think you have the stuff for our minor leagues. And if you play your cards right, you should have a real good chance of making the bigs.”

He paused to let it sink in, then continued. “You have a lot of pitches, but what I like about you, Joe ...”

“It’s Jochen, sir, like a good joke ...”

“Ah, okay, Jochen, what I like is you look like you know how to get the ball where you aim, but you also haven’t built up a bunch of bad habits. Do you know what I mean?”

“Honestly, no, I’m not sure.”

“Well, you’re raw. Raw talent, with a ton of potential. And we don’t like to sign players just to bring them up and throw them to the wolves, son. We want to teach you the Cardinal way, and you’ve got movement on that ball and all the pitches that definitely get a guy like me thinking. But ...”

I knew there was a catch.

“You need to work on your control, so that stuff you’ve got doesn’t get wasted getting hit all over the park,” he said, puffing on that cigarette as he spoke. “And that’s where we can help you. You aren’t going to get there playing in tiny towns like this” -- he waved his arm around, impatiently -- “to crowds of nobodies. You have to pitch against the best. And we have the best.”

I gave him a second to see if he was done talking -- I know not to disrespect my elders.

“So you want me to play for the Cardinals?” I finally ask, sounding to myself like I was barely whispering, though I feared I may have blurted it out in an embarassingly loud fashion.

“No, not the Cardinals,” he said, shaking his head. “Like I said, we start our prospects out in the minors. Right now we only have a couple teams, one in upstate New York and one in Houston. We’d like to offer you $750 as a signing bonus to play double-A ball for the Buffaloes down in Texas.”

Texas, I thought to myself. I’ve never been farther from home than I am right now. But it also means playing real baseball, as a professional. I didn’t let myself overthink things.

“You want me to sign a deal now” I ask, reaching again for his hand. “Because all I need to do is grab my bag, I’m ready to go!”

- - - - -

I learned a lot on the way down on the train from Evansville to my temporary new home in Houston. For one, the Texas League, the Double-A minor league in which our team participated, features eight teams across the state, including in Beaumont, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Shreveport (Louisiana), Waco and Wichita Falls. The league’s been around since 1902, which is amazing to me, but they can trace the league back as far as the late 1880s if you count earlier leagues that folded in. Apparently the league is so entrenched around here that to call a blooper that bounces past the infield and into the grass has been called a “Texas League” hit for years. Something about that amused me from the first time I heard about it. Houston’s been a part of the league since the earliest days, when they were known as the Houston Mud Cats, winning a title in 1892, and after becoming the Buffloes for good they won again in 1896, 1909, 1910, 1912, 1913, 1914, and then after quite a drought they picked up number eight last season, when they beat Wichita Falls in the championship game.

So it’s not just St. Louis that knows how to win, I’ve been telling myself. They build minor league teams that win too, and I’m on one of those teams.

We start play on the upcoming season in just a few weeks ... I signed my contract with the ballclub on March 19th, and we play Waco to start the 1929 Texas League season on April 9th, so I’ve just got a couple weeks to get my arm warmed up and ready, because I’ve already heard word from the higher ups around the clubhouse that I’m likely going to be the opening day starter.

“It can be a lot of pressure,” Leo Miller, our right fielder, told me when I got here. “I’ve been around the league a while, and I’m past my prime, but I’m hearing good things about you, kid. They must like what they see, or you wouldn’t be here. So yeah, you’re going to need to perform, and do what the coaches and managers ask of you. But if you put in the work, don’t be afraid to take a breath and enjoy it too.”

I just keep soaking it in, I can’t believe this is my life.