Introduction

Seventeen-year-old Ruby Thomas is determined to survive—and protect her two young nieces—in the vast, swirling world of 1920s New York City. She’s got street smarts, boundless determination, and one unusual skill: the ability to throw a ball as hard as the greatest pitchers in a baseball-mad city.

Diamond Ruby chronicles the extraordinary life and times of a girl who rises from utter poverty to the kind of renown only the Roaring Twenties can bestow. But her fame comes with a price, and Ruby must escape deadly threats from Prohibition rumrunners, the Ku Klux Klan, and the gangster underworld.

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Excerpt

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

At lunchtime a few days later, Samuel Cooper told her that the Birdcage would close early that evening. “There’s a special guest coming, the daughter of a friend of mine, a fellow who has passed on, and she has a particular interest in seeing—in meeting Diamond Ruby. I won’t be able to be here, but I’d like you to give her a private tour.”

Ruby, halfway through her turkey on rye, nodded.

Cooper looked at her, as if waiting for questions. When she didn’t say anything, he gave an uncomfortable shrug and went on. “Please treat her well.”

“Sure,” Ruby said.

After another moment, he said, “Thank you, dear,” and turned away.

Ruby wondered what part of the story he wasn’t telling her. She almost called out to ask, but decided not to bother. Whatever it was, she’d learn soon enough.

*

Samuel Cooper’s special guest was a slender young woman of about Ruby’s height, with full black hair cut into a bob, a sharp chin, lips that curved upwards at the corners, and deep-set dark eyes beneath sculpted eyebrows. She was dressed in a dramatic wine-red dress and matching satin damask shoes.

Ruby had seen plenty of women with that haircut and dressed in similar clothes, but something about the visitor piqued her interest. It took a moment to figure it out: even half-obscured by the dress, the woman had powerful shoulders, muscular arms, and strong calves. She looked like an athlete, like someone better suited to a track-and-field uniform or swimming costume than to the elegant clothes she was wearing.

And there was something else interesting too. The woman was blind.

It wasn’t easy to tell, not at first. The woman’s eyes weren’t hidden behind dark glasses, and she seemed to be gazing around with great interest. Yet it became clear that she was depending on the descriptions being provided by her two companions, a roundish young man in a tan suit and a gray-haired woman wearing a flowing black dress.

Ruby went to meet them, with Allie and Amanda, suddenly shy, trailing a bit behind her.

“Thank you for inviting us,” the young woman was saying to Art. She had a warm, musical voice. “And for letting us visit after hours.” Her hands went to her ears. “I know how popular this show has become, and when there’s so much noise indoors—well, it’s a challenge for me.”

“No problem,” Art said. “Any time.”

“Let’s see what I can learn without help,” the woman went on. “Well, I smell fresh paint. And—the sharp smell of electricity, and several different kinds of cologne—and—”

“And perspiration?” Allie asked. “That’s Aunt Ruby.”

“Allie!” Amanda said.

The woman tilted her head. “Does that mean that Diamond Ruby is nearby?”

Ruby thought the woman knew very well that she had approached. After a moment’s hesitation, she took the proffered hand. It too was strong, and what the woman did with it was half a handshake, half an exploration.

“You have long fingers,” she said. “Do they help you grip the baseball?”

“Sure,” Ruby said.

“I never thought of that,” the woman said. “It must be a great aid to a pitcher to be able to wrap his—” She smiled. “Her fingers around the ball.”

She let go of Ruby’s hand. “I’ve heard these are quite extraordinary as well,” she said, reaching for Ruby’s left arm.

Ruby stepped aside and said, “Please don’t.”

The woman’s face colored, and her hand went to her mouth. The young man standing beside her grinned and said, “Our dear Helen takes liberties she never would have dared before her accident.”

Helen’s hands hung at her sides. Her face was still red. “It’s true,” she said. “Sometimes I can be quite thoughtless.”

She shook her head. “Worse yet, we haven’t even introduced ourselves. I’m Helen Callahan, and this is my mother, Margaret, and our friend Paul Fitzsimmons.”

With her dark eyes and wiry hair streaked with gray, Mrs. Callahan had a fierceness about her that reminded Ruby of Mama. Paul seemed soft and unobtrusive beside her, with his round cheeks, thinning blond hair, and kind eyes. Yet, as Ruby shook his hand, he looked her over carefully. She felt as if she were being judged.

Both of the girls were much more interested in Helen than in her mother and friend. “Was it your accident that made you blind?” Amanda asked.

Ruby sighed. Clearly, discretion was one of the things she’d neglected to teach her nieces.

Helen recognized her discomfort and smiled. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ve heard that question many times—and I much prefer when people ask rather than merely wonder silently.” She tilted her head, seeming to fix Ruby with her gaze. It was disconcerting. “Didn’t dear Samuel tell you my story?”

“No,” Ruby said. She hesitated. “He didn’t have time.”

“Oh, yes. No time.” For a moment Helen’s expression darkened. Then she smiled again and said, “Well, I certainly have time.”

They walked over to the bleachers, Helen feeling her way through the unfamiliar territory, Paul helping her with gentle touches and quiet words. Perching on the edge of one of the benches, she said, “You don’t even know me. Are you certain you want to hear this?”

“Of course we do,” said Amanda. She and Allie were clearly consumed with curiosity.

“If you like,” Ruby said.

“Okay.” Helen took a breath. “I was a butterfly, a high-diver in a show called ‘Pure Joy’ up at the Majestic Theater back in ’19. I would dive one hundred and twenty-two feet from a platform into a water tank.”

Don’t waste your life, Mama had said. She would have considered Helen’s chosen career unforgivably inconsequential.

The thought made an odd spark ignite somewhere inside Ruby. “I could tell when you came in,” she said.

Helen tilted her head. “Tell what?”

“That you’re…very strong.”

“Oh!” Again Helen’s face colored. “I’ll take that as a compliment, so…thank you.”

She turned back towards the girls. “Well, that year I dove every day for nearly six months. But then, on my one-hundred-and-seventy-fifth dive, I made a mistake. I got distracted by a firework someone set off in the crowd and neglected to tuck my chin. You have to do that, bend your neck, to take the impact of the water on your forehead. But I didn’t, and the water hit me right across the eyes.”

Those eyes now darkened. “Two days later, I was blind in my right eye. My left followed a few days later.”

“Was there nothing—” Amanda looked stricken. “Nothing that could be done?”

Helen’s smile was wistful. “We tried everything we could.”

“Fourteen surgical operations in Europe,” Paul said.

Mrs. Callahan brushed the back of her hand across her eyes. “Too many!”

“Yes, too many.” Helen took a breath. “And they didn’t succeed. So now I can see only shadows.”

She shook her shoulders. “But I’m not complaining. I’m learning to read Braille—I’m back to reading children’s books! I’ve made many new friends, I can still sing and dance, I can even get to the subway by myself, as long as I don’t trip over a baby buggy on my way.” She smiled. “And, since I could see once, I know what everything looks like. I feel so sorry for those who have been blind all their lives—how terrible not to know what the blue sky looks like, or the green of a good friend’s eyes.”

Paul grinned.

“Our uniforms are white, with ruby-red stripes,” Ruby said.

“Are they?” Helen nodded. “Yes, I can see them.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Again, Ruby felt Paul’s gaze on her. She took a breath and said, “Helen, would you like me to show you what I do?”

Helen smiled. “Yes,” she said, “if you would do me that kindness.”

But before they could stand there was a sharp rap on the door. A moment later a loud voice came through. “Know you’re in there, Callahan!” it said. “Let me in or I’ll knock it down!”

Helen gave a smile of unabashed pleasure. “He’s here!” she said, getting to her feet.

“Who?” Amanda looked immediately suspicious, even alarmed, as if the mad Klansman was about to make a return appearance.

But Art was already swinging the door open, and his eager look put Ruby’s mind at ease.

Two men walked in. The first was a middle-aged gent wearing a fine suit and swinging a polished wooden cane. The second, also dressed elegantly, was carrying three Nathan’s hot dogs in each hand. He was big, with a broad chest and thin legs and a moon-shaped face that crinkled up into a grin when he saw Helen standing there, and again when he took in Ruby in her pinstriped uniform.

“You know, kid,” he said to her, through a mouthful of hot dog, “that guy you have swinging that big bat out front? You should tell him he doesn’t look a bit like me.”

*

Allie and Amanda were, quite simply, unable to move. Even Ruby was thunderstruck.

And how could she not be? She was, after all, standing before the most famous man on earth. Rudolph Valentino or President Harding would have been lucky to get their pictures in the newspaper half as many times as Babe Ruth did.

Helen, smiling, had her hands out. The Babe strode over to her, then looked down at his own hands, burdened with hot dogs. With a shrug, he handed them over to his well-dressed friend, wiped his fingers on his trousers, then took Helen in his arms and spun her around until her laughter rang through the Birdcage like a pealing bell.

When he put her down again, she was breathing hard and red in the face. The Babe shook hands with Paul and kissed Mrs. Callahan, looking for all the world like he wanted to spin her too. Then he looked around till his gaze fell on Ruby again.

This time he really seemed to see her, and at once his eyes were filled with interest and speculation. He came over, put his hands on his hips, looked her up and down. “Huh,” he said. “People have been talking you up to me, but here you are, just a little thing.”

She looked up into his face, those odd, broad cheeks, flat nose, and eyes as pale and clear as a hawk’s. “Don’t have to be big to throw hard.”

He stared at her for a moment, wide-eyed, then guffawed. “Think you could throw one past me?”

“I don’t know,” Ruby said. “I’ve never seen you play, Mr. Ruth.”

He frowned. “First of all, kid, my friends call me Jidge,” he said. “Second, you never seen me play? We’ll have to do something about that. You need to visit that big stadium they built for me. I’ll make sure you all get some tickets.”

Helen linked her arm in his and said, “And Jidge will, you know, as long as someone reminds him. Otherwise, he’ll forget before he walks out this door.”

The Babe grinned at that, unoffended. “Didn’t forget you, did I?”

“No, you didn’t” Helen turned her head towards Ruby. “Jidge and I met when we made a moving picture together back in, oh, nineteen-seventeen or so.”

“I jumped into a pool from about twenty feet up,” the Babe said. “That was high enough for me.”

“Then, while I was having all those surgeries, he visited me often while I was recovering.” She gave an odd half-smile. “Everyone knows how much Babe Ruth likes to visit unfortunates.”

“Hey!” The Babe looked very discomfited.

“But it’s the truth. I was one.”

The Babe covered up his embarrassment by going back to his dignified friend and retrieving his hot dogs. A minute later Amanda and Allie were sharing his feast and laughing at something he’d said to them.

Helen, listening, smiled. “Once you’re his pal, you’re his pal forever,” she said fondly. “It’s just that he has so much going on, you know.”

“I can only imagine,” Ruby said.

“Hey, kid!”

Ruby looked over. The Babe was finishing up the last hot dog. “Didn’t I hear you could throw a little?”

Ruby nodded. “You might have heard that.”

He turned his palms up. “So am I gonna see it, or are you too busy yakking with Helen to show me?”

“I guess I could throw a couple,” Ruby said.

The Babe rolled his eyes and exchanged glances with his dapper associate, who had been standing quietly in the background with Helen’s mother, leaning on his cane. The man, who hadn’t said a word that Ruby’d heard since he’d come in, looked amused at Ruby’s manner.

Allie scurried over to her chosen spot for chasing rebounding pitches, while Amanda walked more sedately over to the speed shed. Ruby, not feeling like a clockwork girl now, got up to her position on the mound, her head down, studying the trail of scuff marks and worn-out patches she’d made, then bent and picked up a baseball.

She didn’t do anything fancy, didn’t even try to throw the hardest she could. For the first time, she wanted only to get the ball through the wire mesh and against the wall.

If she was wild, she knew that Ruth would lose interest in a hurry. He’d think it had all been tall tales, or that the people who’d been touting her to him didn’t know what they were talking about, or that she was impressive not because she could throw hard, but merely because, as a girl, she could throw at all.

“Helen?” she said.

Helen, who’d been standing beside her mother, tilted her head. “Yes, Ruby?”

“This is going to be loud, so I want you to be ready.”

That brought a smile. “Do I put my hands over my ears?”

“Not that loud.”

Still, Helen squeezed her eyes closed like a little child. Ruby took a deep breath, wound up, sighted, and threw.

It wasn’t the best pitch she’d ever thrown, but it traveled straight and true, brushing through the wires and hammering against the steel plate with a satisfying clang. The ball bounced towards the prize counter, Allie in pursuit.

“My goodness,” Paul said.

Helen opened her eyes. “That was surprising even though I was waiting for it. How do you do that?”

Ruby didn’t reply, but looked past towards the Babe, though she could barely bring herself to. She was afraid he’d appear disappointed, or even worse, bored.

But what she glimpsed was the Babe and the other man looking at each other. Ruth inclined his head a little, as if asking a question, and the older man waggled his back and forth, his lips pressed together in a thoughtful way.

Then the Babe turned to look at Ruby, a huge grin spreading across his face. “Okay, kid, maybe you could have out-thrown me,” he said.

The number clicked over on the scoreboard: 82.5 miles per hour.

“Can you get it over even faster than that?”

“A little,” Ruby said.

“A lot,” Allie interjected, but though Ruby shot her a quelling glance, both Helen and the Babe laughed.

“Throw another,” the Babe said.

This one was 86 miles per hour.

He whistled. “You got a curve too?”

Ruby frowned. “I used to work on one, but it doesn’t amount to much. They don’t pay me for curve balls.”

“Huh.” The Babe walked unhurriedly over to her, then reached down and took a ball from the bin. “Look,” he said, holding it in his callused left hand. “I gripped mine this way, with my middle finger on the top seam and my thumb on the bottom. See?”

Ruby said yes.

“Good.” Talking baseball, he was all business, showing none of the jollity and recklessness and extravagance he was famous for. “Now, I lay my first finger here, beside the middle one, but I don’t use it to hold the ball. It’s just comfortable that way. Wait, let me show you.”

He took off his suit jacket and dropped it on the floor. Then stood on the mound, peering in at the steel plate, a large man with an expanding waistline beneath his expensive white shirt and gray trousers. “You have to keep the same speed in your arm as when you’re throwing a fast one, but the motion of your wrist is different,” he said. “Watch.”

Ruby watched as he went into a seemingly effortless wind-up and let go of a pitch that swooped and dipped through the mesh before striking the plate.

“Wow,” Amanda said.

The Babe grinned. “You try,” he said to Ruby.

It took her about ten pitches, seven of which didn’t even touch the screen, and several more suggestions from the Babe, before she threw one that dipped the way she wanted it to.

“Quick learner,” he said.

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

“Well, work on it when you can.” The Babe paused. “How about another pitch? A fade-away? A change-up?” He gave her a grin. “Any freak pitches? Shine ball? Spitter?”

Any pitch I throw, Ruby thought, is a freak pitch. But she shook her head.

“Well, you could get by with just the two, if you had to, with the speed you have.” He looked at her. “But I’ll teach you some other tricks next time.”

“I’d like that,” Ruby said. Her mouth felt dry.

She turned and, seeing that Helen was sitting on the bleachers beside her mother, walked over. “Sorry we got distracted. Would you like to see how this set-up works?”

Helen smiled. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

Ruby led her to the screen, explaining its use as Helen ran the tips of her fingers over the fragile mesh. Then they moved over to the steel plate and the shed, where Amanda told her how the speed machine and the scoreboard operated.

Helen pulled the levers, listened to the clicking of the number tiles, and said, “I see.”

Ruby took a breath, began to speak, then hesitated. She looked over at Paul, who was, as ever, watching her.

“Helen,” she said, “I could show you what I do, if you’d like. I mean…how I do it.”

After a moment, Helen nodded. “Yes,” she said, “I would like that.”

As the Babe stayed with the girls to play with the scoreboard, Ruby led her back to the mound and helped her step up onto it. When the two of them were standing there, Helen behind her, Ruby said, “Put one hand here, on my hip, and one here, on my left shoulder. Just the tips of your fingers—don’t hold on.”

Still, delicate as it was, she was uncomfortable with the contact. No one ever touched Ruby except for the girls.

“Like this?” Helen’s face was flushed, and it seemed to Ruby that she was trying to make up with all her other senses what sight no longer provided. Everything about her seemed on edge, almost quivering—her fingers twitched, her nostrils flared, and she leaned forward to make sure she didn’t miss a thing.

“Just like that,” Ruby said. “Okay, I’m going to throw one now. Are you ready?”

Helen nodded. Ruby went into a careful wind-up—the last thing she wanted to do was knock Helen off the mound—and lobbed the ball through the wires and off the steel plate with a comparatively gentle thump.

“I felt it!” Helen said. Her face was aglow. “The way the muscles of your shoulder bunched and then released, the way you shifted your weight. Now I know why you can throw so hard.”

No, Ruby thought. You don’t know the most important part, because I haven’t let you.

“Your turn,” she said.

Helen’s hand went to her mouth.

“You’re an athlete,” Ruby went on. “I told you, I saw it the moment you came in. So I’ll bet you can throw.”

“Well, I used to be able to…” Helen said.

“Then you still can.” Ruby took her hand again and showed her the dimensions of the concrete mound and where to stand on it. Helen seemed to know instinctively in which direction the screen and steel plate lay. Maybe it was a matter of sounds, Ruby thought, of echoes, of judging the movements of the air.

“Do you remember how far away the wires are, and how high off the ground?” she asked.

Helen nodded.

“And how far from the wires to the wall?”

“Yes.”

Ruby handed her a ball. “Then you’re ready.”

For a moment, Helen stood very still, her expression apprehensive, her hands rubbing the ball, exploring the slickness of the horsehide and the ridges of the stitching. Then she leaned back, swung her right arm in a tight circuit, and let go.

It was a creditable pitch, reasonably straight though not hard. It brushed through the wires (Ruby saw the corners of Helen’s mouth turn up at the slight scratching sound) and thumped off the steel plate.

“I did it!” Helen said. There were spots of perspiration along her hairline.

“Knew you could,” Ruby said.

But Helen raised a hand, waiting. A moment later, the clacking of the scoreboard came to them: 33.5 miles per hour.

Ruby relayed the total and Helen laughed. “I guess my career as a major-league pitcher was just nipped in the bud.”

“You throw harder than plenty of the men who come in here,” Ruby said.

“And look a whole lot better than most of the palookas who pitch against me,” said Babe Ruth, with an absolutely delighted Allie perched on his strong shoulders.

*

At the door, Helen said, “Thank you, Ruby. This was more fun than I’ve had in—well, in ages.”

“True,” Paul said, grinning. “Then again, she’s usually just stuck with us.”

But Ruby barely heard the words. She was struggling with herself, and wasn’t sure whether she had won or lost when she found herself saying, “Helen, give me your right hand.”

Helen blinked, then complied. Ruby placed the hand against her arm near the shoulder. “Now you’ll be able to see where I get the speed on my pitches,” she said, not yet letting go. “But be ready. Mine are—not like other people’s. They’re very long.”

She released Helen’s hand and stood rigid as the delicate fingers worked their way along her bicep and down the length of her forearm.

“Oh!” Helen’s voice was barely more than a breath. “I do see.”

Then, finishing the exploration, she said, “You know, they’re not that long.”

Ruby said, “What?”

“Well, of course they’re long—and you’re right, I’m sure that’s a big reason why you can throw so fast. But I’ll bet if you took a look at some baseball pitchers—men—you’d see that their arms are long too. I mean, my shoulders are big and my legs are strong, always have been, which is why I was a good diver and swimmer. We all have something.”

She paused and smiled. “I wonder if your arms seem longer in your eyes than in anyone else’s.”

“Well—” Ruby said. Her cheeks were hot.

“Yes,” Helen said. “Well! May we come back to visit sometime?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll come back too, bring some pals,” the Babe said, arriving at the door and dumping Allie back onto her feet. He turned to go, his quiet associate beside him.

“Wait a second,” Ruby said.

The two men turned to look at her.

“I don’t even know your name, or who you are,” she said to the gray-haired man.

“Colonel Edward Fielding,” he said, shaking her hand. “And I’m nobody important.”

Babe Ruth grinned.

“Believe that,” he said, “and I got a spanking new stadium to sell you.” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1) How does the Brooklyn setting help shape the story? Consider class, race, gender, citizenship, and ethnicity.

2) Diamond Ruby is set amid significant historical and cultural events. Describe the events you felt are most important to the novel. Does a particular event stand out? Were Ruby to live today, how would her life be different? How much does the spirit of the time influence the outcome of the story?

3) Ruby, Helen, Amanda, and Tania are some of the strongest and most heroic characters in the novel. Who do you see as the most heroic, and why? Does the fact that the author is male change your perspective on the book?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Author Joseph Wallace's web site
»	Book Review from the Washington Post
»	Book Review from Library Journal "As a girl, Ruby Thomas faces torment over her unusually long arms. After losing most of her family to the 1918 flu epidemic, a 13-year-old Ruby is determined to protect her two nieces. With little help from her older brother, now a broken man, Ruby uses those long arms, first to kill squirrels to feed the family and then to become part of a carny show throwing fast balls as 17-year-old Diamond Ruby. It's a hard life, and it gets harder when rum runners and gamblers take over. Even as she makes a career for herself on a minor league team, Ruby is dogged by greed and corruption. Her determined love for her family, help from some unlikely friends, and a critical throw finally give her the break she has earned. VERDICT Ruby is a keeper—a believable heroine living in a fully re-created New York world of baseball and Prohibition. There are echoes of Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but this story holds its own, allowing Diamond Ruby her place as a literary gem. This debut novel by a baseball historian may also appeal to YA readers."

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