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Show gSPEA SPORTS By ROBERT McSHANE S Relaaied by We item Newspaper Union ii NICK ALTROCK, baseball's funny fun-ny man who has delighted generations gen-erations of fans, didn't become one of the game's supreme jesters strictly strict-ly through choice. Until a June day of 1912 in Cleveland, Cleve-land, Nick was a mere pitcher a good one, but nothing more. In the years that went before he had established es-tablished himself as an idol of Chicago's Chi-cago's South Side by his pitching feats for the "Hitless Wonders." During 1906 he led all the Sox pitchers pitch-ers in winning the pennant. He won 20 victories that year as compared com-pared with Doc White's 18 snd Ed Walsh's 17. In the World Series with the Cubs he beat Mordecai Brown in the opening game, 2 to 1. But back to that June day in 1912. Nick had been traded to Washing-. Washing-. ton in 1909. Washington shipped him to Minneapolis, then to Kansas City. He was finally brought back to Washington as a relief hurler. It was during a game with Cleveland, when Washington was trailing 2 to 0, that Clark Griffith looked at Nick and asked: "What in the world did I ever hire you for?" The Fateful Answer Nick figured the question wasn't at all unreasonable, but he yelled back at Griffith: "Just put me out on that third base coaching box and yon'H find out." Griffith followed Nick's suggestion. sugges-tion. Gregg, the Cleveland pitcher, walked the first man, and that's when Altrock, The Clown, was born. He went into a phantom boxing act that convulsed fans and players of both teams. . Even Gregg, the opposing op-posing moundsman, was getting a real belly laugh. To make it short, the Washing-tonians Washing-tonians picked up four runs that inning and when Nick got back to the bench, Griffith decided that his early-game question had been answered. an-swered. Be had hired Altrock to be funny. There were plenty of squawks when Nick first started his funny stuff. Howls of protest were heard from managers. One sports writer !TTV ' t f ifw f NICK ALTROCK suggested that if Altrock intended to make a three-ring circus out of baseball base-ball he might well spread sawdust over the infield. Ban Johnson was league president then. Enough protests came his way to make a command performance perform-ance necessary. Ban, a big, slow-moving slow-moving individual, laughed heartily at Altrock's clowning and told him to keep it up. No Regrets for Nick Though k was one of those spur of the moment remarks that resulted result-ed in Nick's new profession, he never regretted it. He has found rich pickings pick-ings in the comedy business. Though he hasn't pitched competitively competi-tively since 1918, yet year after year he has held down a high-salaried big league job. He has clowned in tank towns and before world series customers. He has, supplemented his income by vaudeville appearances appear-ances and through writing a syndicated syndi-cated comedy column. No, Nick hasn't any regrets. He started his career at Grand Rapids where, after winning 17 out of 19 games, he was sold to Louisville for $300. From there he went to the National league where the highest salary was $2,400. Finally he got with the White Sox, strictly as a pitcher. His only frivolous friv-olous moments came when he stepped in at first base to cut a few capers during infield practice. Then came that fateful day in June of 1912. After clowning for the past 29 years Nick can afford to spend his winters in Florida, golfing and fishing. fish-ing. He probably would be spending spend-ing his winters in an altogether different dif-ferent fashion if Clark Griffith hadn't grown a bit disgusted during that particular Washington-Cleveland encounter. en-counter. Why should Nick have any regrets? re-grets? Sport Shorts AN ESTIMATED 80 per cent of the nation's golfers can't break 100 . . . Burleigh Grimes was suspended sus-pended indefinitely as Grand Rapids Rap-ids manager because he expectorated expectorat-ed in an umpire's face. Plenty of fans cheered the suspension . . . Ty Cobb shot a 74 in qualifying for a golf tournament in San Francisco recently ... Ed Willkie, brother of the Republican presidential nominee, nomi-nee, starred at left guard for the Navy in 1919 and 1920. |