Show FIRST BASEMAN NEW YORK highlanders r b hal chase as seen by artist cesare by HOMER CROY hal chase the great billiard play er Is also captain of the yankees he ile would rather play billiards alter after being out on ft a months month a camping trip with nothing to stay the inner man except canned calf a tongue pemmican and an uninterrupted view or theland the land than have a plush button gold en backed chair in the dining room of the waldorf with three waiters and a 11 to heed his beck A three cushion barrom Is as easy to him as a pickup pick up he was born in los angeles 28 years ago and began playing three ole cat 25 years ago come spring and could look an umpire in the eye and tell him to go to as the clever and lamented shakespeare Shakea peare would mildly put it before he could pronounce at 14 he played second base for the home town team and when he had multiplied it by two he was the youngest and best looking manager between the pacific seaboard and mat tys checkerboard he has such good shoulders and leaps so gracefully that he hai hag to have a penknife operated by foot power t to open his mashing notes his wile wife stamps the date on the bak back while hal jr picks up the elings he ile i v ent ant one year to college mak ing L major of second base a minor of handball and a bluff at calculus the faculty faulty couldn t see him with a microscope and full lights on sigh ing with relief when be he climbed in the chair car homeward bound but ever since he made good they have been so kicking mad that they have been going about with their ankles strapped together to keep from pun bishing tl ti em selves his hobbles hobbies are hunting and horse back riding when he gets out of his Us baseball bas base etall trall togs his favorite outdoor diversion Is beeping keeping his heels in hia his elbows stiff and his thumbs pointing up he can give a riding master the lag nine buttons and pound on the floor for the culled man la in the white coat before the riding master gets hia his horse reined up the gib boom of the yankees Is mild and good natured until somebody asks him to make a speech at a baseball banquet at which his finger nails nip into his palms until the blood spurts and he begins to look like lady mac mae beth at the labor day matinee with a perceptible grinding of his molars tol fol lowed by a pronounced twitching ot of his kicking muscles he ile Is the greatest first haseman baseman be tween the canadian pacific and the gulf stream and owns a home in leonia N J there are hundreds ol 01 men who own homes there but chase admits it when winter comes though hal mind it he can read para dise lost he would rather read milton Mil toris s great home run than have a box at grand opera with the dent and ave cream and anc lady fingers served between dats he ile has read it three times and is no on the last lap of 0 the fourth when he wants to be deliriously joy ful he puts on his house slippers and reads a chapter out oud to his wile wife stopping now and then to close hia his eyes and quote in a dreamy full throated tone high on a throne ot of regal state which tar far 1 outshone the wealth of ormus and of 0 ind until hal jr begins to string spools on tom a tail tall then hal sr gets up throws the cat eat out the window and goes on with the full throated I 1 copyright 1911 by W G chapman |