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Show Lure of Baseball May Prove Too Strong for "Cy" Young to Resist By AL SPINK. TALL, broad-should ered, farmcr- A looking person registered at the Great Northern hot in Chicago the other day. H signed aa "Cy Young. Cleveland. Cleve-land. Ohio." Tile olurk. a Ijaseball fan of the first fh-tfroe, looked up and said: M "Tho old haeball pitcher, the fel'ow ihfit. could make thorn all bit ujj and take notice?" "That's me," snid tho farmer-looking in tin. Then he explained that ho wag In Chl-with Chl-with a couple Of carloads of hogy and lo call on friends. "Of course, you'll laugh," Touns: ya'.d a litUft later, "when I tell you that I i na y con i o back to tho game. t! u t irangcr things have happened. I know 1 here's more money in farming than 1 in busoball. but tho lure of the diamond 1 iy Rfcal and hard to keep away from.' Young pitched ball in ' the National league from JSI0 to 1010, and for twenty jwi'a hf was considered tho daddy oi all the fllngors. And. whilo he has been out. of the vame a couple of years, lie lucks as strong today as ever in Lis life, and he says his pitching arm is bct-i bct-i iur tUa-n ever. His fine health fierhaps : is due to the outdoor life he lives on liis t'ai';ti in Ohio, a few miles Lrom L'ievu-land. L'ievu-land. Kcgan Career in Cleveland. (.'v Young began his ;arcor in Cleveland, Cleve-land, and Mtniiley llobinson. lale president, presi-dent, Of tho St. Louis; National league i club. was tno man who discovered oiin g At tho t i ni o Robinson wa s the '' owner of the Cleveland frainhicc, and the Spiders, under J'at Tehran, were larg: grapes In tho major league vineyard. vine-yard. It happened that l-'aU-y Te'ceau was '.lort on pitchers 'way back about In i hoso days they did not La e scouts combing the country for talent, and the "( ipstcrs" on blooming talent were usu-alh- commercial travolefs. Jloblnson was at tho time looking over k o ) 11 e of his street ra i i vv a d pro -fi-tie at l'oit Wayne, Ind., and he uas imbibinc a few Yli.lrs of mirth," when l:e hapiumt'd to open- u;j his vocal chords on baseball. There was a commer jial : i ravolcr at t lie bar who liked basebu it, to bay nothing of having a fondness lor tbe "elixir" scuff. Stanley in ited him to have a jolt, and also I o tiii-cuss baseball. "V.n i her odd. " remarked Robinson, "that it i j to hard to get a cood base-Lai! base-Lai! pitcher nowadays. J'ni looking for a man for my Cleveland ck;b. I have offered enough real money to choke a :r;aiiholo to get a good .fellow f:-om one of the other clubs, but I can't make tho deal.' " I ia vc another, and I'll give you the Lest l!t tie three-star special you've ever bc:;rd tell Of since they named you after "Malt Qiniv," returned the commercial :ra voler. A f tor the commercial traveler and AL Stanley had inhaled their mirth water the man- of satchels and grips opened the conversation. "Say, old sport," eald the commercial traveler, "you're looking for a pitcher. A-3 1 understand tho vernacular, jou are hi quest of someone who can hurl an elusive ieat her-covered sphere, guaranteed guaran-teed to weigh in at ringside at live ounces and to be of nine-inch circumference, no more or no less, somewhere boar a little lit-tle disk they 1'oollshiy refer to aa the home plate? Get me? Discovered in Bush League. "Now, my friend, take my tip. Pack your grip and go up to Canton. They've cot a big kid up there that can do any-tiling any-tiling wltli a baseball except eat it. Pay, he's got so much speed that he burns chunks of holes in the, atmosphere. He's the shoot-the m-in-Pc to of that reservation. reserva-tion. "Watched him streak 'em over la st Sunday, and he struck out. a flock of baseball base-ball players. J think ho fanned a hundred hun-dred or two hundred. T didn't keen count, but he made a lot of them describe figure eights, stand oh their beans and wigwag for help. You get your grip; if you want a pitcher, streak It to Canton, and don't let anyone tout you off." Robinson did as he was bidden, and when ho arrived at Canton he went out to the ball yard. There was a big, lopsided lop-sided yup on the mound. He looked as thbugh nature chiseled him out to pitch hay instead of a poor little inoffensive baseball, and Robinson had to lauh when he beheld the wor id - renowned bearcy t tw Irler that his friend had tipped him off to. The big boy In the box- showed a lot of steam, and Robinson's desire to laugh was turned to amazement. He never be-j be-j held anyone toss a ball with just such : speed and precision, and with so many : curlicues on It. After the game Robinson ! eaued the young hay-miner aside and offered hint a job at a figure which made toe youth op'i his mouth. Robinson ."-lipped him transportation to Cleveland, with instructions to find his 1 w ay out to the ball yard and call on : Pat To beau, admonishing him to lie care-: care-: ful not to jjet run over by any street ears. as be (Robinson) owned the lines : and did not want any damage suits. The Iop:s;u-d !: y found his ws.v to the ball yard, for Mr. Tr-beau," blushed I like a June h; ide, and told him what he ; came for. First Pitched Against Chicago. Tebo'iu called Zin-.mor and a few of his old scouts about him. and (hey openly laughed at the unusual -looking bov who had the nerve to say that he" might bo a baseball pitcher fit lor major league company. Chicago was in Cleveland. Old fans will recall those dreaded White Stock -i n gs , wit h A n f- o n a t their head; a n r 1 such stars as Ned Williamson, Tommv Huv-s, Fred Pf offer, Dalrympie. Jimmy Uyr.-i and that sort on the roster. TLio-e old boys used to give great niich"!-s that earthouake feeling about ihe knees when they d razeed up thMr hundred-pound batons to thump the bitumen bitu-men out of anything that came near the plate. Tebeau thought it would be a good joke to pitch thp young man against the?o sluggers, and boo the effect. He told the boy he wanted him to pitch. Then they dug up a. uniform that fitted the lad like a 14 1-2 collar would incase the neck of the late Frank Gotch. Anson and his bunch were as fierce baseball pirates as ever scuttled a ship, bu t they had to laugh at the lad who was to aim the pill at them. They roared when they saw him go into the box. But pomethlng happened. The lad struck out Adrian C. Anson, world's wonder won-der with the bat; then he fanned Fred Pfeffer, the prince of second-snekers, and slipped tb ree across that Williamson missed entirely. Then those Chicago eluggers began to take notice. Pat Tebeau saw that the boy he mistook for a clown was a real jewel in the rough. The boy won that game. He made the White Stocking look like a young simian trying to shave. That night the young lad's name was on every tongue. He was Cc Young, farmer, who became a famous baseball pitcher and who made good for many a year afterward. af-terward. "Yes," said Cy, a& he stood in front of tho big desk in the Creat Northern, "I remember my beginning at Cleveland. It was a rather bad beginning, for I only won ten games that year for Te-bcau's Te-bcau's team and lost seven. "I did a little better two years later, when I won thirty-six games and lost only ten. Some record that. "I was nine years with Cleveland; then two with St. Louia: then- eight with Boston, Bos-ton, and then back to Cleveland for the finish; twenty years in all as a pitcher." "Some record that, Cy." said a friend. "Yes. and three no-hit games with it all," said Cy. a i |
