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Show I TWENTY ' YEARS AMONG THE BUSH LEAGUES 1 1 e g a n ; - 9 EVEN" though they may be mighty i trying at the time they are pulled, I there is nothing funnier than a , hush league umpire's decisions in a tiKht fit. The bush umpine does not g"et a fancy salary by any means, and thei'Hfor too much should not be expected of him. but just the ?;une they put over dcclstor.n sometimes that a smail school-ooy school-ooy wouia be ashamed of. I have seen dozens of them that pave me a tremendous luih, but I think about the richest one 1 ever saw come off was brought about by Bob Clenalvin, an old-time old-time player. And by the way, this same Glenalvin was a second baseman with f tM m uooBfSl j c I'LL BUST YA IM 1 rcY' UM(-1HE UM(-1HE 3C AfTEP 00 Ya SEE ( fUt Willi "fHRIHOlO j Charley Comiskey's team in $t. Paul way back in the dead past. You wouldn't think anything of the kind from a man of his experience, but it cam.o off, just tile same. Needed Game Badly. Take a mind's eye picture of this finish I to a prame th.it we very decidedly needed ' riirht at that time, because we were fighting fight-ing to hold the lead and it was tough truest euSH k fTN UMPlffr? DRWc ) 'yr3?7 A MAWitR TO i 4 17 L woke thaw sledding. I had the Muscatine team and we were playing with Clinton in the lat-ter's lat-ter's grounds. The .score was 3 to 1 in our favor, last half of I lie ninth the bases were full, with two men out and two strikes called on thy batter, who was not ordinarily a strong hitter. I didn't feel in the least uneasy over the situation, and was particularly par-ticularly fjrarified when my pitcher put a third si rike over at which the batter swung tremendously and missed it by a foot. Wo started to leave the field, hut imagine my horror when Glenalvin yelled at us to come back. It appears that just as our pitcher started to wind up to I Sflf.COMc BACK-J K. here an' r deliver that third strike and retire the side. Glenalvin had turned around towards to-wards the stand in an effort to locate a baseball fan there who had heen panning him all afternoon. The fellow finally got on Glenalvin's nerves to such an extent thru he turned his back to the game and tried to locate him. lie was so mad that he wanted to punch his face. Puts It Over the Fence. I tried to argue with Glenalvin that the batter had struck out and that the game was over. The batter admitted it, but Bob was stubborn and said that inasmuch as he hadn't seen it, it didn't go. There was nothing left to do but resume re-sume the sranifi, which we did. Now for the horrible finish. My pitcher put over another right in the groove and that batter didn't do a thing with it but slam it over the fence for a clean home run, scoring three runs ahead of him and losing us the came by a score of 4 to 3. Just one of the little incidents that drive a bush league manager to worse than drink. I'ndoubtedlv the greatest time of the ball player's life is the kid days when he starts in to learn the first rudiments of : the great American game. Such days never return. Then the boy hasn't a care in the world, there is less than nothing on his mind, and as for worrying about the future -there is no such word in the boy's vocabulary. Some very good ball players got their starts around the lots of St. Paul and Minneapolis, just as many another bunch of boys have been turned out of other cities. I got my start as a ball player in St. Paul, and well remember the wonderful wonder-ful occasion of tho first trip out of town to play a game. Play Game in Litchfield. Our team, which had been winning often enough to attract attention, got an offer for the Fourth of July game at Litchfield, Minn. You can Imagine what a lot of excitement that created In our gang when the terms were received and dLscussed. . It finally was agreed to play for $30 a side, the Litchfield management agreeing to pay our hotel bill, but we would have to furnish our own railroad transporta- tion. That was quite a problem, since we found that the fare would amount to ,j"!.i.:5 each way. Very quickly and without a dissenting voice we agreed to beat our way to Litchfield. Only the secretary of the club was to go on ahead in the regular reg-ular way. So the night of July 2 we all secreted ourselves aboard a freight train and were on our way. We got as far as Darwin after a tough trip and slept almost in a. graveyard. The morning of the Fourth we walked the remainder of the way into Ijitchfield ami had a good breakfast at the hotel. The first thing a kid ball rlayer does if 1o go out and look over the ball park, which wc promptly did immediately immedi-ately after breakfast. And after that was done we started in WHERE'1? WNfcYf ffi - mM to play what the bushers cm 1 1 "hotel ball." We got into our suits and then went out into the street in front of the hostelry and started pulling off a few fancy stunts and monkey shines while a big crowd of the natives looked on. Win? Well, 1 guess we did. We simply I had to win, because that 530 side bet looked a.s bis: as a bunch of world's series money to us just then. The score was to 0 in our favor, the home team never having a look-in. Half the town was down to the depot to s?e us off, and you can imagine their surprise when they saw us flipping a freight that was going- in the direction of St. Paul. Surely "them was tlie happy days" for all of us. When They Forget. Probably the most common cause of boners anywhere in the country is the f'f V ifca is To Hit 'em WrlrircTHEy ain't - fegj . jgr TWEY AINT UOdGDY f - in im Field so jg. L I'LL HIT IT OUT failure of the ball player to keep accurate count on the number of outs in an inning. "I thought there were two out," is the wail of the player after he has committed some atrocious play that probably threw away the game. Once upon a time I am told that Doc Gessler, then playing center field for the old Cubs, long before tlie famous Chance machine began to upset the baseball world, performed a trick that got a big laugh all over the land. With the bases full and one out in the ninth inning, he caught a long fly out near the clubhouse, tucked the ball in his pocket and started to race for the shower hath. He supposed, of course, that the fly he caught made the third out and be was losing no time in getting off the field. Here's one tha t happened in IS 13 tnat was somewhat similar, but even worse as far as results were concerned. In tlie Gessler case the Cubs happened to have lead enough at the time to nullify the boner and the Cubs finally won tho game. It was entirely different in the case I am about to relate. I had the Waterloo team at the time and we were playing Davenport. Fred Finney, playing left field for the latter club, is tiie hero of the play. I may say that Ray Chapman, afterwards a big league star, was playing shortstop on the same team and figured prominently in the play, although in no way in the bone end of it. Two Out. Eases Still Full. The clubhouse in Davenport is in left field and only a few steps from where the left fielder ordinarily stands. The game was close, but we needed a couple of runs to win in the ninth inning. We got the bases loaded with only one out when the next batter put up a short fly to Finney, which he gathered in neatly for the second out of the inning. Finney immediately threw the ball back to the infield and the game progressed, with the bases still full. The fly was too short for the man on third to score. The next batter 1 remember very well it was Guy Dickey, an old Chicago player rapped out a long, high fly to left field and. as it looked like an easy catch for Finney, the game seemed to be over, with my team on the losing end. To the great astonishment of everybody, as the fly sailed gracefully out towards the place Finney should have been, it was discovered discov-ered there was no Finney there at all! After making the second out of the inning, Finney, In the firm conviction that he had made the third and final put-out put-out of the inning and tiiat the name was over, had stepped over to tlie clubhouse ;'V , ftt A BuSM and by that time had most of his ball suit off. preparing to get under tlie shower. show-er. Nobodv in the game and none of the spectators happened to notice that he had left the field, so exciting was the action "in tlie diamond. Chapman was quick to notice what had happened and raced almost out to the fence in left field to retrieve the ball. But it was too late. All four runs scored, giving giv-ing us a winning lead which Davenport could not overcome in their half of the ninth Inning. If you were manager, what would you say to a player who did that? THE TOE CHAMPION. 'I win!'' tho beaten fighter cried, And laughed a long and hearty laugh. "Although lie knocked me goggle-eyed I beat him to the telegraph''' |
