PIGEONS TO THE RESCUE

September 5, 1924

Mr. Stone took the day off to help me set up the new room in their house for me and Rachel, and believe me it took us the whole day just to get my clothes chest up the stairs. The banister was in the way so we had to take that off first and hammer it back on, and meanwhile Rachel's little brother and sister were running all over the place and half of their relatives were stopping over to meet me.

What this all meant was that Saul should have been going crazy because he was missing news of how Dazzy Vance was pitching up in Boston. The Braves beat his Robins bad yesterday and by the time me and Benny finally got to Brooklyn in the truck he was in such a state I thought he was going to call off the wedding. He tried to teach me a few Jewish words late last night but I was too tired to concentrate and he finally gave up and said I had the rest of my life to work on this big religion change.

Anyway, while I was busy sweeping the new room today and moving furniture around, Mr. Stone kept disappearing and coming back with little smiles on his face, stuffing small pieces of paper into his pants pocket. Around the fifth time he did this I asked what was going on and he motioned me to follow him out a back window and up the fire escape.

He had a huge pigeon coop up on the roof, with about three or four birds inside. They all had names and he introduced each one to me, and then we heard a flapping sound overhead. "Here comes Lucy!" he cried, and the new bird dropped down and landed on his hand with a coo. He petted her and pulled a rolled up piece of paper off one of her legs, where it was tied with a rubber band. He unfolded the paper and grinned.

"We got three in the 5th! Dazzy with a 1-hitter still!" It seems that a friend of his at a betting room across town would send scores by pigeon once in a while if you paid him for the service, and Saul sure had some kind of bird tab going.

Hank DeBerry had just hit a big triple to make it 5-0 Brooklyn. "Do you know what the Pirates are doing? Or my Phillies?" Saul whipped out an ink pen, scribbled the two questions on a new slip of paper, attached it to Lucy's leg and sent her off with a kiss.

We could hear Rachel's mom calling for her husband at that point, so I said I'd stay up there on bird watch while he went back down to help her. Rachel was off with her girlfriends dealing with the dress business, Benny was off finding me a pair of new shoes. so I had the next hour or so to myself up on the sunny roof. It was a nice view. Even though it was hazy I could see the Brooklyn Bridge and make out the towers in Manhattan past that.

Another pigeon with brown spots on its head and whose name I didn't know came flying in to tell me that Brooklyn had scored two more times in the top of the 7th and someone named Red Lucas was on to pitch for Boston, so I guess the Braves had flat out given up for the day.

Lucy was back by the time Saul reappeared, smelling like barley soup. "PIT 6 STL 1 after five" was on her note, along with "NYG 5 PHIL 0", so we both had reasons to be upset, even though I'd stopped caring about the Phillie season the day I walked off my batboy job.

We all had a big Sabbath evening meal, the house stuffed with two dozen friends and relatives, and I never shook so many hands in my life. I didn't see much of Rachel, but that was okay, I needed time with my thoughts instead. Benny clinked my glass of too-sweet imported wine with his later and said he was going to miss getting in trouble with me.

"Well," I said, "Guess that means we'll have to try a little harder."
—Vinny

National League games today:

at PIRATES 7-12-0, CARDINALS 1-9-1
The reason I've been reporting in the first place is because Butterworth didn't wire in his story from Forbes Field today for some reason, and I decided to do his boss from the New York Sun a favor. Old Cal would be bored with this one anyway, because Meadows goes to 17-9, Cuyler singles and homers to start two different 3-run rallies, and Hornsby goes back to his do-nothing role in big games by making an error and leaving five guys in scoring position.

at REDS 4-8-0, CUBS 1-6-3
Eppa Rixey notches his 20th win pretty easily, a Hooks Cotter homer being his only pimple. Barrett throws two balls away to help Cincy score twice in the 1st and get them going.

ROBINS 8-11-2, at BRAVES 0-3-2
Dazzy dazzles again, Brooklyn rebounds from a terrible loss yesterday by crushing Rube Marquard, and they stay ahead of the surging Giants.

SURGING GIANTS 5-12-1, at PHILLIES 4-16-2
I could've predicted this. One day after scoring over twenty runs, New York barely beats Jimmy Ring. Virgil Barnes is given a 5-0 lead and almost throws it into the sewer single-handedly before Jonnard bails him out by getting Cy to rap into a huge double play in the 9th.

NATIONAL LEAGUE through Friday, September 5
Pittsburgh Pirates	83	49	.629	—
Brooklyn Robins	77	57	.575	7
New York Giants	75	58	.564	8.5
Cincinnati Reds	75	59	.560	9
Chicago Cubs	67	67	.500	17
St. Louis Cardinals	65	68	.489	18.5
Philadelphia Phillies	55	70	.407	29.5
Boston Braves	38	97	.281	46.5