Preface

             Untold Stories Are the Best

                       This Is One That Has Never Been Told   

                           Bradsher Hayes

BASEBALL WAS KING AT THE TURN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. AMERICA was looking for an idol from the college playing fields and they found one in Arthur Brown Bradsher, the best pitcher in the country. He had pinpoint control, movie star looks and cum laude intelligence. One newspaper reported, “Every woman in the South wanted to marry him and every baseball boss in the country wanted to own him.” 

The Trinity College “strikeout king” captured the hearts of the Southern fans and newspaper reporters after he pitched three shutouts in eight days in April 1902, striking out forty-three batters and allowing a total of three hits. This phenomenal performance remains unmatched in the annals of college baseball. 

The legendary John Heisman, nicknamed Arthur Bradsher, King of the Southern Diamond, after he started the 1904 season hurling twenty-five consecutive no-hit innings. 

In 1905, the pros offered Bradsher $10,000, the largest amount of money ever to a college ballplayer. Would it be his love Lizzie or baseball? Would he pitch for Boston and lose Lizzie? Or would he decide on a life of love and family

The narrative non-fiction, 95,000-word, sixty-picture work depicts much more than the exciting escapades on the ball field. It is a tender love story between Trinity college sweethearts Arthur Bradsher and Lizzie Muse, their deep faith in the Lord, and their family’s adventures on the 100-acre farm, Summerlea. 

A section in the back of the book entitled “extra innings” and a full glossary of baseball terms compliment this work which is well-referenced. 

King of the Southern Diamond came from the desire of a grandson to know his grandfather that he never met. It is based on four years of research, 300 newspaper articles, family letters, family conversations, diaries, and with special help from the Duke University library. 

Love, God, baseball, family, and adventure… King of the Southern Diamond touches all the bases.               

                                       Chapter 14

                                Eight Days in April

If I'd known I was gonna pitch a no-hitter. I would have got a haircut.

                                     Bo Belinsky                                                                                   

Bradsher’s no-hitter and nineteen strikeouts against Wake Forest caught the attention of every sports writer in the South.

        His stunning performance was his first induction into the elite No-No Club. His, and Chadwick’s, preparation for the contest really paid big dividends. Bradsher started the game striking out the first five batters he faced. He struck out the side four times.

        As shadows set in in the bottom of the ninth, he looked as strong as he did at the beginning of the game.

        Don’t get careless and focus on every pitch, Brad thought. Let’s reel in my first no-hitter. 

        The North Carolina marvel struck out the side securing the seven to nothing shutout.

        When the dust settled, there were nineteen students sitting in a row holding their K signs, for each of his strikeouts. The Trinity Twirler had the Wake team off-balance all day long with his movement, change of speeds, and placement of pitches. He struck out nineteen frustrated batters without walking a single hitter or allowing a single base hit. 

Two days later, reporters from Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte, Greenville, Anderson, and Spartanburg stood next to the fence by the bullpen. Half the press had cigarettes dangling from their lips and they all wore hats. They stood a mere five feet from Bradsher. They watched him fire well-placed fastballs and three varieties of his sharp breaking curveballs and drop balls to his all-star catcher.

        Chadwick barked out different pitches he wanted to be thrown by his star southpaw: “Drop ball on the outside corner at the knees, and fastball high and tight under the chin.” His catcher would re position himself on every pitch and shouted like a drill sergeant, “hit the black edge before every ball that was thrown.” 

        Pitch after pitch hit Chadwick’s mitt with a loud slapping sound. He hit the middle of the target every time. 

        “Holy crap!” said Walter Jones, of the Morning Post, “the kid doesn’t miss. He puts the pitch at the precise spot every time.” 

        “You aren’t kidding,” answered Fred Spatz, of the Durham Sun. “He refuses to go to the middle of the plate. If he mixes his pitches like he’s doing now, no one will hit him,” the reporter said as he took a long draw on his cigarette.

        Jack Wilson, of the Charlotte Observer,chipped into the conversation, “I’ve never seen a pitcher with the command of his curveball, drop ball, and change of pace like Bradsher possesses.” 

        “No two pitches look alike, and balls come to the hitter at all different speeds,” his sassy receiver brags to the reporters. “This North Carolina wonder is a strikeout artist that can paint the corners of the plate with every pitch. He can put a strike on a flea’s butt and isn’t afraid to throw his curveball with a 3-2 count. It’s his knockout punch.”

        His cocky catcher stood from his crouched position and reached for the water bucket a few feet away. He set it in the center of home plate and turned to walk to the bench. After he walked twenty feet with his back to his star pitcher, he yelled, “put the ball in the bucket with your 12-6.”

        Bradsher started his wind-up brought his arm back, coiled his leg and let the ball fly. He released the ball straight off the top and its intense spin took the ball from six-feet high down to the height of the bucket of fourteen inches.

        Chadwick never looked back, but when he heard the splash in the bucket, he lifted both hands in the air and flapped them excitingly and shouted, “yes!” 

        The Trinity ace smiled sheepishly as he walked past the bug-eyed reporters, a few still staring in disbelief at the bucket and the baseball bobbing up and down in it.

“Good afternoon, gentleman. I hope you enjoy the ball game today.”

Nine months before the Guilford game, Bradsher and Chadwick made a pact. Chadwick agreed to teach Bradsher how to pitch: the relationship between a catcher and his pitcher, the mechanics of pitching, the steps necessary to become the best pitcher in the game.

        After three weeks of intense training sessions on the art of pitching, Chadwick abruptly held up his hands. Brad let’s stop and talk for a minute. “Tell me how good you want to be in the game of baseball?”

        The hard-working lefty took in a deep breath, then raised his voice, “I don’t want to be good. I want to be great! I will work until I’m absolutely the best pitcher in the college game. As you say Walter, ‘the big cheese’ that dominates the opposition.”

        “Let me give you a few morsels of advice,” Chadwick began. “Besides the daily hard work and discipline, which you’ve shown every day you’re willing to do, there’s an important mindset any great pitcher needs to have time every time he throws a baseball.

         “You need to concentrate on every pitch you ever throw. You need to learn that every pitch matters. You’ll never win a game with four or five good pitches, but it’s very easy to lose a game on four or five bad ones.” 

        “Thank you, Walter, for everything you’re doing for me. Let’s take a run to the ball-field.”

The umpire, Mr. Williams screamed “Play Ball.” Bradsher was ready to face a very good Guilford team. The reporters from three states were chomping at the bit. After watching his amazing warm-up session, they had their pads and pens ready to record another great game thrown by the strikeout-king of the South.

        Chadwick was in a crouched position ready for the start of the game when the umpire bent over the plate to brush it off. His rear end was pointed in the direction of the pitcher’s mound and he found himself looking into the backstop’s stare. The two sets of eyes were less than twenty-four inches apart; so close the catcher could smell the tobacco on the ump’s breath.

        Chadwick reached towards the plate and with his index finger tapped it on the edge. “Mr. Williams, my boy, Bradsher is going to put his balls on the black edge all day long.” 

        “I hear you, Walter,” he said with a grin. 

        From the beginning of the game, it became evident that Guilford was no match for Trinity and Bradsher. The southpaw sensation struck out the first three batters he faced. The contingency of fans who had traveled from Durham became delirious early. 

        The boys from Greensboro couldn’t catch up with his ninety-two-mile an hour fastball. He froze the batters with his curveball and made them look silly.

        After going through the Guilford starting nine for the first time, he could tell what the hitters were thinking by the way they swung at the ball the first time around. By the sixth inning, the Trinity southpaw had struck out eight batters and seemed to get almost every close call from the umpire. Chadwick was a great ambassador between his star pitcher and the ump. 

        Bradsher retired the first eighteen batters he’d faced. As he walked to the mound to begin the seventh inning, a couple of enthusiastic fans rolled six hard-boiled eggs out on the field in the direction of the mound. They screamed, “goose eggs, goose eggs, goose eggs,” in anticipation of another shutout from their southpaw star. 

        The Trinity Ace smiled at the fans' antics and thought, only nine more outs for the second no-hitter in two days. I can do this. 

        With two outs in the seventh inning, the catcher, Sellers, lifted a weak pop behind the first baseman, Smith. The ball was Smith’s play to make, but he hesitated on it. He was late getting to the ball, and it popped out of his mitt and fell to the ground. Holly crap, Bradsher thought. These fellows with these small mitts must learn to use both hands on every ball they go after. 

         “No harm was done,” Chadwick yelled out to his batterymate. Everything is okay. The no-hitter is still intact. Let’s get this last batter in the inning and regroup, he thought. “Throw him the dark ball, Brad, throw him the dark ball.” He directed his next comment to the batter, “get ready Camie, you are about to get a visit from Uncle Charles.”

        The Trinity Southpaw closed out the inning by striking out the pitcher, Cameron, on a wicked breaking ball.

        As the players made their way to the bench, the scorekeeper climbed his rickety ladder to put another goose egg on the board. To the astonishment of everyone, he put a one in the hits column.

        The fans booed for ten minutes. A half-dozen fans threw their hot dogs, bags of popcorn, and soft drinks onto the field. 

        Other fans were screaming, “Home cooking, good ole home cooking. What’d you think, we weren’t looking?” They shouted the slogan over and over for five minutes.

        Chadwick was livid. He walked over to the almost empty water bucket and kicked it fifteen feet.

        He turned next to first basemen, Smith. With veins bulging on his neck and his fists clenched, he screamed at Smith, “You can do better than that. Your pitcher deserves more than that sorry effort you made on that ball!”

        Next, the angry catcher sprinted over to the scorekeeper’s table. He slammed his fist on the table and snarled at the terrified young man that had scored the dropped pop up as a hit. “That was no hit, that was no hit,” he shouted.

        The terrified scorekeeper felt his warm urine running down his leg.

        The next thing Chadwick knew, he is being muscled by someone from behind who wrapped their arms around him to contain and settle him down. “Everything is okay Walter,” Bradsher said in a calm voice. “Let’s finish the game and catch the train back to Durham.”

                Trinity and Bradsher did just that. The sophomore strikeout king held Guilford hitless the rest of the way. He finished the day with eleven strikeouts and a 13-0 victory.

On the train ride back to Durham, Bradsher said to Chadwick, “we’re different and sometimes I don’t understand what you say and do. Walter, you are my best friend. I know you always have my best interests in your heart. “I thank you for your caring and willingness to fight for me.”