Back to Baltimore

Well, boys, I’m goin’ right through to Pittsburgh with you if you don’t mind, and I ain’t been traded to your bunch nor the Pirates neither. It’ll be in all the papers tonight or tomorrow mornin’, so they ain’t no use o’ me keepin’ it a secret. I’ve jumped to the Baltimore Feds, and whether Knabe is figurin’ on usin’ me regular or settin’ me on the bench or givin’ me a job washin’ undershirts, I don’t know or I don’t givadam. I couldn’t be no worse off than I was up there.

Managin’ a club may be all OK if the directors is all bachelors and has all o’ them tooken a oath not to never get married. But when a man’s got a wife, they ain’t no tellin’ when he’s goin’ to die, and when he dies and she gets a hold o’ the ball club, good night. If they ever is a skirt elected President o’ the United States, I’ll move to Paris or Europe or somewheres, if I have to walk.

As for this here Mrs. Hayes, the dope about her lettin’ the directors run the club was all bunk. She’s been the boss ever since the old bird croaked, or else I’d of stuck there and finished higher with that gang than they finished since Frank Selee had ’em.

Well, sir, I’m canned out of a managin’ job, and I’m through with the big league, I guess, and I’m goin’ back where I started in at⁠—Baltimore. But you don’t need to waste no sympathy on me. I’m gettin’ as much dough as they give me up there, and they won’t be no chancet o’ me bein’ drove crazy by a skirt. Them Baltimore people used to like me OK when Dunnie had me, and I guess I ain’t did nothin’ since to make ’em sore. I’ll give ’em the best I got, and I’ll let Knabe do all the worryin’. I’m off’n that stuff, and if any boob ever offers me another managin’ job, I’ll bean him with a crowbar or somethin’.

I bet you’ll see in a few days where Mrs. Hayes gets through bein’ a widow, and her next name’s goin’ to be Mrs. William Baker Junior. They ain’t no danger o’ me forgettin’ that name. The guy that owns it is a ball player, but the only thing alike about he and the Baker Connie Mack’s got is that they both listen with their ears. You fellas didn’t never get a look at this bird because he was so good that we didn’t only play him in one game, and that was against the Philly club. If him and her does hook up, he won’t need to play no more. With them runnin’ the team together, they’ll be enough comedy without him puttin’ on a uniform anymore.

You knowed Old Man Hayes, o’ course. He was a good old scout, but he pulled a lot o’ boners, one o’ which was him marryin’ this doll. She’s a handsome devil all right; I’ll slip her that much. But he should ought to of knew that he didn’t cop her because she was a-stuck on him. She had it doped that he was about all in, and it wouldn’t be long till the dough was all hern. His heart was bad, and they was two or three other things the matter with him, and havin’ her round didn’t make him no healthier. At that, he’d of croaked sooner or later without no female help.

He was sure nuts over his ball club, and it hurt him every time we lose a game. You can see where he was hurt pretty often last year. At that, Bill Fox was gettin’ by all right with the managin’ job, when you figure the bunch he had. But finishin’ seventh didn’t make no hit with the old man, even if we thought we done pretty well to stay in the league and not get arrested. Anyway, Bill got canned and the job was gave to me. If I hadn’t ’ve needed the money pretty bad, I wouldn’t never ’ve tooken it.

Them deals I made last winter helped us a whole lot, and when we got down South this spring, we wasn’t a bad lookin’ club, barrin’ one or two positions. We was such a improvement over the old gang that the old man lost his needle and was countin’ the world’s serious receipts along in March. He kept a-askin’ me who did I think would be in the race with us. If I had of told him the truth and says we couldn’t win no pennant unless your bunch and the New York club was killed in a railroad wreck, he’d of canned me. So what was I to do but tell him we had a good fightin’ chancet to cop, when we didn’t have no more chancet than a rabbit or somethin’. I says the luck would have to be with us and if it was we might surprise everybody. That luck stuff was to be my alibi when we landed where we belonged.

The season opened and we got away good. McGraw’s pitchers was in no shape, and we skun ’em three out o’ the first four. We broke even with Philly and give Brooklyn a good lickin’. We was right out in front along with you fellas. Then we struck a slump, and you guys and Philly both goes ahead of us. The old man called me in and ast me why didn’t we stay in first place. I might of told him it was because we knowed we didn’t have no business there. But I stalled and says I didn’t want to have my club go too fast at first or they might maybe get tired out.

Then we come West in May, and the old boy come along with us. We opened up in Cincy and broke even with ’em, though they looked like the worst club in the world. The old man wasn’t feelin’ well, and a doctor told him he should ought to go home, but he says he would go to St. Louis with us. Higgins trimmed us four straight, and that finished the boss. He grabbed a train for home, but croaked on the way there.

It was gave out in the papers that young Mrs. Hayes would be president o’ the club, but I didn’t take no stock in that till we come in off’n the road. I was like everybody else; I figured that Williams, the vice president, and them other directors would run things.

But when we got home, after a rotten trip, she ast me to come and see her at the office. I goes, and there she is, walkin’ up and down the rug just like her husband was always doin’. When we had shooken hands, she says:

“Well, Mr. Dixon, you didn’t have no success in the West.”

“No,” I says. “We run into some tough luck.”

Then she ast me was it tough luck or rotten ball playin’, and I says it was some o’ both. Then she says:

“We’ll try and stren’then your team. I and Mr. Williams, the vice president, has decided we got to spend some dough for new players. I have gave Mr. Sullivan orders to go scoutin’ round the colleges.”

“Lay off’n the colleges,” I says. “We don’t need no more ornaments. What we should ought to have is some ball players. Besides that, you can’t buy no men off’n the colleges. They don’t sell ’em.”

She says: “I guess we can get a hold of ’em if we slip ’em big sal’ries.” Then she says: “I’d like to make this here club a team of gentlemen, and they’re more gentlemen in the colleges than anywheres else.”

They was nuthin’ for me to do then but beat it out o’ the office and get a drink o’ brandy.

We kept on playin’ our best, and that was about good enough to get us beat oftener than we win. But I was satisfied with the way we was goin’. I knowed we wasn’t topheavy with class. Sullivan came in from scoutin’, and I ast him where was his collegers. He says:

“I’ve been everywhere in the rah-rah circuit, and I ain’t saw no ball player that could carry bats in the Japanese League.”

So I figured we wasn’t goin’ to be pestered with none o’ them there birds that does nothin’ but kick the ball round because they got the habit playin’ football.

The skirt had been travelin’ a lot and hadn’t gave me no bother to speak of. But when she come back, my troubles begin. She come out to the games and set in a box clos’t up to our bench. We was playin’ Brooklyn one day, and Rucker was good. We was a couple o’ runs behind along in the eighth and no hope o’ catchin’ up, with him goin’ that way. They was two of us out, and then Rucker walks somebody and Red Smith boots one, so they was two on when it come my turn to hit. I starts up, but she calls me over to the box.

“Mr. Dixon,” she says, “this would be a good place for a home run.”

I says: “Yes, this is the right spot. I s’pose you’d like to see me hit one.”

“You bet I would,” she says.

“Well,” I says, “which fence do you think I should ought to hit it over?”

“I don’t care which fence,” she says.

Well, I goes up there and done my best to obey orders. Nobody never swung no harder’n me, and the way I was wallopin’ at ’em, I’d of knocked one o’ them walls down if I had of connected. But I missed three and we didn’t score.

Do you remember the day you fellas give us that awful beatin’⁠—twelve to nothin’? Cheney worked for you and we didn’t never have a look-in. What do you think she pulled after that game? She waited for me outside o’ the park and says she wished I’d tell Mr. O’Day not to never let Cheney pitch there no more.

I says: “It wouldn’t hurt my feelin’s if he never pitched nowheres.”

“Well,” she says, “I hope you’ll see to it, because my doctor tells me the spitball ain’t sanitary.”

Then, one day, she ast me what made Hub’s cheek bulge out so when he worked. I told her he had a ulcer on his teeth. She ast why his face was swole up that way only when he was pitchin’, and I told her I didn’t never work him only on days when his teeth was pretty sore, so’s the batters’d feel sorry for him. She must of knew I was kiddin’, but she never called me for it.

She had me worried to death with stuff like that. She wanted the suits sent to the laundry after all the games and says all of us should ought to quit slidin’ because it dirtied us up so much. I got so’s I stuck in the clubhouse a couple of hours after the games, so’s to be sure and not run into her when I come out.

Well, she goes down to Yale college on some party or somethin’, and when she come back, we was just finishin’ up with the Western clubs. We was out in practice one day when I seen her beckonin’ to me. I goes over to where she was settin’, and she says:

“I’ve got you a new player.”

“Who is he?” I says.

She says: “His name is Mr. Baker, and he has just went through Yale. He will meet you in New York.”

Then I ast her what position did he play, and she says: “He ain’t made up his mind yet. He has been busy learnin’ his lessons.”

Then I ast her wasn’t he on the Yale team, and she says: “No, but he could of been of been if he had of wanted to. The coach told him so, but he didn’t have no time to play. You could tell the minute you seen him that he was a born ath-a-lete and he’s a gentleman too, and I b’lieve he will help you in more ways than just one way.”

“Well,” I says, “they’s only one way he could help us and that is to get in there and play ball. If he can do that, I don’t care if he’s a gentleman or a policeman.”

Then I ast her what sal’ry was he goin’ to get.

“Oh,” she says, “you won’t need to bother about that. I’ve already fixed that up already. I have gave him a contract for five thousand.”

I ast her did she mean five thousand for five years, and she says: “No, I meant five thousand for this year.”

Then I says: “That’s as much as I’m gettin’, and this here guy ain’t even made good yet.”

“He’ll make good all right,” she says. “You can tell that from just lookin’ at him, and he comes off’n a good fam’ly.”

Well, we goes to New York, and I was waitin’ round the lobby o’ the hotel for the baggage to come in, when Kelly, the secretary, calls me over to the desk. He pointed out a name on the hotel book and ast me who was it, because the guy was registered as belongin’ to us. “William Baker Junior, Boston Baseball Nine,” was what it says. Do you get that? “Boston Baseball Nine.” Before I ever seen him, I knowed just what he was goin’ to look like, and when I seen him, he looked just like I knowed he was goin’ to. But he was a big bird⁠—so big he couldn’t get no clo’es big enough. He looked like as if he was goin’ to bust right through ’em. His hair was plastered back off’n his forehead, and his shirt and tie would’ve made a rainbow jealous.

He come up to me and says: “Is this the head coach?”

I says: “Yes, whatever that is, I’m it.”

“What time does the game start?” he says.

“Three thirty,” I says, “but we get out there about a quarter after two.”

Then he ast me couldn’t they start it some other time because he had a engagement. I says I would excuse him, and he says: “Thanks.” Then I says: “I’ll excuse you all the time if you say the word.” But he says no, that wouldn’t be right, because he felt like as if he should ought to do some work oncet in a while to earn his pay. Then he says he was pleased to of met me and walked away.

I guess he must of kept his date at a soda fountain or wherever it was he had a date at, because he didn’t show up out to the park and I never seen no more of him till the next mornin’. Then he come to see me while I was writin’ a letter and ast me could he have six passes to the game. I says: “You’d better take ten,” and I writes out a pass for ten on one o’ the hotel letterheads, and I signs Otto Hess’ name to it. He says “Thanks,” and walked away. If I’d of signed President Bryan’s name, he’d of thanked me just the same. And the pass would of been just as good.

I come out o’ the hotel about one o’clock and starts for the elevated, but the colleger was standin’ on the sidewalk and he hollered at me. He ast me was I goin’ out and I says yes, I thought I would, because I didn’t have no other date. Then he ast me would I ride out with him because he’d ordered a taxi. They wasn’t none o’ my ball players had ever tooken me to the park in a taxi before, but I didn’t have no objection, so I and him piled in, and out we goes together.

When we got through ridin’, I says. “You better let me split with you,” but he says, “They ain’t no splittin’ to be did. It’s in my contract that I use cabs to and from the grounds,” and he tells the driver to charge it to the club. Well, I butts in and says, “Here! You can’t get by with that stuff. If you’re out to give the club a trimmin’, you better pull it when I ain’t round.” Then what does he do but pull his contract out of his pocket and show it to me, and there it was, in black and white, that he was to be gave rides on the club to and from the parks where we played. Can you beat that?

We come into the grounds and I took him in the clubhouse and had Doc give him a unie. He made a holler because they wasn’t no feet in the stockin’s and I told him he was supposed to wear socks besides the stockin’s. So he leaves on the reg’lar socks he’d wore with his street clo’es and they was purple!

I wisht you could of heard the ball players ride him. They pulled some awful raw stuff, and if he hadn’t of been such a boob, he’d of lost his temper and tried to lick somebody. But I don’t b’lieve he never wised up that he was gettin’ kidded. Even when Hub called him “Gertie,” it didn’t seem to make no difference to him.

We goes out to warm up and I notice that he don’t have no cap on. I was goin’ to tell him about it, but the boys says: “No. Let him play bareheaded and give the crowd a treat.” They wasn’t much practicin’ done. The New York bunch come over round our bench so’s they wouldn’t miss nothin’. I give him a ball and a catcher’s glove and told Tyler to throw him a few. George just lobbed one at him and he got it on the meat hand. He raised a holler and tells Tyler he shouldn’t ought to throw so hard. I yells at him to use his mitt, but he says the ball stung his hand right through it, and after tryin’ all the wrong ways they is o’ catchin’ a ball, he quit and set down on the bench. McGraw calls me over and ast was I startin’ a chorus or what. I told him how I happened to get ahold o’ the bird, and then I ast him did he want to make a trade. He says:

“What’ll you take for him?”

I says: “Oh, I’ll give him to you for Matty and a piece o’ money.”

“No,” he says, “I don’t want to cheat you. Take the grandstand and a chew o’ tobacco.”

Well, I sends him up to take his turn in battin’ practice, and he acted like as if the bat was as heavy as one o’ these here steel rails. Hess slops a slow one up to him, and instead o’ swingin’, he ducks out o’ the way and tells me he ain’t used to battin’ at such swift balls. Hess hears him pull that and the next one he throwed was a fast one, just as fast as he could throw it. Mr. Baker turns white as a sheet and drops his bat and walks to the bench.

I stuck him in the outfield in fieldin’ practice, but he looked so rotten that I took him out o’ there for fear o’ gettin’ him killed. I called him in and says:

“You’ve did enough for one day, so go in and change your clo’es and you can watch the game from the stand. Maybe you’ll run acrost that crowd I give you the passes for.”

He was willin’ to quit, all right, and the fun was over fer the day. After the game, I send a long telegram to Williams, the vice president, and tells him what a joke our new player was and that it was throwin’ money away to even pay his board, let alone that Fed’ral League sal’ry he was gettin’. I didn’t get no answer from Williams, but a letter come from the skirt. She give me a call for not sendin’ the telegram to her instead o’ Williams and ast me how could I judge if a man was a ball player when I hadn’t only saw him one day.

Well, I wires to Williams that I was through, because I’d signed to manage a ball club and not to run no burlesque show, but he jumps on a train and comes over to New York to see me. He says they was tryin’ to get her to sell out her stock and that him and the other directors appreciated what I’d did for the club and wanted me to stick.

So I stuck and went along the best I could. I didn’t pay no more attention to “Gertie” except to tell him to beat it to the clubhouse before the games started. He kept on comin’ out to the park, wherever we was playin’, and puttin’ on his unie, without no cap, and settin’ on the bench till the practice was over. Then he’d go in and put on one of his eight or nine different suits o’ clo’es, and go up in the stand and watch the game from there or else go to the matinée or somewheres.

I didn’t hardly ever say nothin’ to him, but I couldn’t make the rest o’ the bunch lay off. They tipped their hats whenever they seen him. While he was settin’ on the bench, they’d take a shot at him with the ball, and oncet or twicet they hit him, but not wheres it hurt him bad. He thought it was a accident when he got hit, but I knowed better. Every oncet in a while, somebody’d happen to step on his feet with their spikes, and then they’d beg his pardon. Some o’ them left their caps off while they was practicin’ and hollered “Ouch!” when they catched the ball. And on the train they’d get together and give college yells. He didn’t never get sore, and I don’t s’pose I would of neither if I’d been gettin’ five thousand for changin’ my clo’es a couple o’ times a day.

They tried to get him in the poker game, but they wasn’t nothin’ doin’. He says he liked to play bridge w’ist but that was all the cards he knowed. When we was on trains, he spent the time lookin’ at the scenery or readin’ magazines.

I remember one night when we was goin’ to Philly and he was settin’ acrost the aisle from I and Hub. He was readin’, and pretty soon he looks up from off of his magazine and says:

“You guys should ought to read this here story in here. It’s a baseball story and it’s about two teams bein’ tied for the pennant on the last day o’ the season, and one o’ the teams had a star pitcher that was sure to win the decidin’ game if nothin’ didn’t happen to him, so they stuck him in to pitch but in the first innin’ he strained his arm so it hurt him every ball he throwed but he didn’t say nothin’ about it, but kept on pitchin’ and win his game and the pennant, though he was sufferin’ terrible pain all the while. I call that nerve!”

“Nerve!” says Hub. “Say, that wasn’t nothin’ to what I seen come off in the Southern League the last year I was down there. The Nashville club that I was with and the New Orleans club was tied for first place, and we had to play a extra game to settle it. We had a first sacker named Smith that was the greatest I ever see. Up to the first of August he was battin’ .600 and it got so’s the pitchers wouldn’t give him nothin’ more to hit but walked him every time he come up. He offered to bat with one hand if they’d pitch strikes to him, but they wouldn’t take a chancet, and finally the umps’d just give him his base every time he come up without waitin’ for the four balls to be throwed.

“Well, it come time for this final game and we knowed we had it won if Smith was all right. The New Orleans club knowed it too, and they was out to get him. So when he got on in the first innin’ on a base on balls, their first baseman deliberately stepped on his foot and spiked him somethin’ awful. He couldn’t walk on that foot no more, but he wouldn’t quit, and after he’d drawed one of his bases on balls, every so often, he stole all the rest o’ the bases hoppin’ on his good foot.

“It come along the twenty-first innin’ and the score was six to six. He’d scored every one of our six runs by walkin’ to first and then hoppin’ the rest o’ the way. Well, he walked in the twenty-first and starts hoppin’ to second. The catcher knowed they was no use to throw to second or to third neither, because Smith was so fast, even on one foot, that he was bound to beat it. So the catcher just kept a hold o’ the ball, knowin’ Smith wouldn’t never stop till he got clear home. Along come Smith, hoppin’ for the plate, and the catcher run out to meet him, but he hopped clean over the catcher’s head and scored the run that beat ’em and won us the pennant. They was about sixty thousand people out there, and they tried to carry Smith off o’ the field on their shoulders, but he hopped into the clubhouse before they could catch him. And when he took off his shoe, two toes dropped out!”

“My!” says the colleger, with his mouth wide open. “I should say that was nerve. And didn’t this here Smith never get into the big league?”

“No,” says Hub. “He got blood-poisonin’ in that foot and they had to cut his whole leg off, and the National Commission’s got a rule that you can’t play in neither big league unless you got two legs.”

After that, Baker and Hub hung round together all the time. He fell for everything Hub told him, no matter how raw. He was givin’ Hub a good time, and it’d ’ve been all right if we could of stayed on the road all the while, but I knowed when we got home, the doll’d ast me why wasn’t I playin’ him and then the trouble’d start.

Sure enough, when we come in off o’ the trip, she called me to the office and put it up to me.

“Well,” I says, “I don’t think he’s got enough experience yet. You just let me handle him and keep him on the bench awhile, and maybe he’ll develop into a pretty fair ball player.”

I suppose I should ought not to of gave her no encouragement about him, but I was figurin’ all the time that she’d be boughten out o’ the club pretty soon, and then I could can him. At that, I didn’t have no objections to keepin’ him except that I knowed he was cheatin’ the club out of about two hundred bucks every first and fifteenth. If I had to let him go, the gang’d of missed him, especially Hub.

I run into Williams one day and ast him when was the skirt goin’ to sell out, and he says they’d tried hard to get her stock away from her, but she’d made up her mind to stick it out till the end o’ the season, but that Williams and the other directors was thinkin’ about takin’ it up with the rest o’ the league and tryin’ to force her out, but she’d gave ’em her promise that she’d sell in the fall if they still thought she should ought to. So they was nothin’ for me to do but make as good a showin’ as I could and figure on next year.

It was after the mornin’ game on the Fourth o’ July that she horned in again. She tells me that her brother and bunch of his friends from Yale college is comin’ to the afternoon game, and they want to see their pal perform. I says I’d let him practice and they could watch him if they come out early enough, but she says, no, that wouldn’t do: some o’ them boys was sayin’ that they didn’t b’lieve he could play ball, and she wanted to show ’em that he could.

Well, I thought awhile, and then I made up my mind that if he had to be gave some position, he might as well have mine and I could take a rest. So I tells the umps about the change and then I goes back to the bench and sits in a corner where they wasn’t nobody could see me.

I wisht you could of been there. The papers had a lot o’ stuff about it, but they didn’t tell more’n half. Hub was pitchin’ and we was playin’ Philly. He got the first two of ’em out, and then Cravath hits one down to the colleger on a perfect hop. I was lookin’ for him to throw it wild after he got it, but Pat Moran was coachin’ at first base, and he hollers to him to throw it to second. So what does he do but just like Pat tells him to, and naturally Maranville wasn’t there to cover because they wasn’t no play. So the ball goes out in the outfield, and Cravath got clear round to third base. Then Magee busts one, and they got a run. I thought Hub’d be sore, but he wasn’t. When he come in to the bench, he was laughin’ his head off, and he says:

“Don’t never take me out o’ this game. This is one battle I want to see all the way through.”

Well, Devore leads off for us, and he walks. The colleger’s up next, and I tells him to bunt. The first two Rixey throwed him was a mile outside, but he bunts at ’em just the same. Then Rixey curves one, and he tries to duck, but he can’t get out o’ the way. The ball hit him in the sleeve or somewheres, and Rigler tells him to take his base, but he wouldn’t move.

“What’s the matter?” says Rig. “Why don’t you take your base? Are you hurt?”

“No,” says the colleger, “but the manager says I was to bunt.”

Well, we had to drive him to first base, and then he steals second, or tries to, with Devore standin’ right there. Devore don’t move off’n the bag, so they tagged “Gertie” out. When he comes in, I ast him what was he tryin’ to pull off. He says Luderus had told him to steal. Then I says:

“Don’t never pay no attention to what them Philly guys tells you. If I want you to steal a base, I’ll send you a night letter.”

We didn’t score, and nobody hit nothin’ at him in their half o’ the second, though they was all tryin’ to. Hub was tryin’ to let ’em, too.

The third innin’ was a bear. Dooin hits one at him, and he jumps out o’ the way. Rixey struck out, and then Dooin starts to steal. I’d told Maranville to take all the pegs, but he thought it’d be more fun to leave ’em to “Gertrude.” So he hollers to him to cover. Whalin makes a perfect peg, and the colleger surprises everybody by catchin’ it. But when he’d catched it, he steps on the bag instead of tryin’ to tag Red. Then Red says to him:

“I bet I can beat you to third base.”

Red starts runnin’ with the ball right in Baker’s hands, and instead o’ throwin’ it, he holds right on to it and goes after Red. He wasn’t no slouch runner at that, and he made it a clos’t race, but Red beat him. The bugs was a-hollerin’ their heads off, and most o’ the ball players was so sick from laughin’ that they couldn’t do nothin’. Rig’ kept lookin’ over at me to see if I wasn’t goin’ to take the bird out o’ the game, but I didn’t have no stren’th left to shake my head, even.

After the sprintin’ race, they took the ball away from him and throwed it back to Hub. Byrne hits one at Hub, but he jumps out o’ the way so our “star” can get it, and he goes over and sticks his feet in front o’ the ball and it stops right clost to him. Byrne kept on runnin’ past first base and yelled at him to leave the ball lay, so he left it lay and Byrne goes all the way home. After that, when anybody got a hold o’ the ball, they’d throw it to him and he catched one or two the throws, but most o’ them he got out o’ the way of, and even when he catched ’em, he held onto the ball till everybody’d scored. They made twelve runs in that one innin’, and we wouldn’t never of got the side out if it hadn’t only of been for the umpires. They was tired from workin’ the mornin’ game and this one, too, so they pulled a couple o’ raw ones and wound it up.

Rig’ come over to me between innin’s and ast me did I think this was a joke. I told him it wasn’t no fault o’ mine, and explained how it had came off.

“Well,” he says, “I’ve got to catch the midnight train for New York, and we won’t never get through in time if this keeps up.”

“I can’t help it,” I says.

Then he says: “I can,” and he goes back to his position.

The colleger’s turn to bat come in our half, and Rixey rolls one up to him on the ground. Rig’ calls it another strike, tryin’ to get Baker sore, but he don’t never even look round. It’d of been OK with him if they’d called a strike before the ball was throwed. Rixey rolled another one up, and Rig’ calls it another strike. Then before Baker could say a word, and he wasn’t goin’ to say nothin’ neither, Rig’ puts him out of the gam for kickin’. Most o’ the crowd started home when they seen the show was over, but I didn’t blame the umps none⁠—I’d of did the same if I’d of been in their place. We finished up pretty fast after that, because they wasn’t no chancet for us to ever come near catchin’ up.

After I dressed. I forgot what I was doin’ and walked right out o’ the clubhouse without givin’ the doll a chancet to make a getaway. There she was, layin’ for me.

“What did you take him out o’ the game for?” she says.

“I didn’t take him out o’ no game,” I says. “The umps didn’t like his language.”

Then she ast me what was the matter with his language, and I says I didn’t think the umps could understand it right.

“Well,” she says, “if a umpire can’t understand plain English, he should not ought to be no umpire, and I will write to the president o’ the league and have both o’ these here men discharged.” Then she says: “Mr. Baker was doin’ splendid and would of did still better if he had of been left in longer. He didn’t catch all them balls that was throwed to him, but that’s because he ain’t had no practice.” Then she says: “I’m goin’ out of town tonight, but I want you to keep on lettin’ Mr. Baker play every day, and I’ll watch the papers, and if I see where he ain’t playin’, you’ll hear from me.”

Well, I couldn’t see no joke in it when I got home that night. The ball players was wise and knowed it wasn’t my fault. But I was a-scared that the bugs and these here reporters would get after me if I let the boob play every day. And I was a little bit proud o’ the work we’d did and didn’t want to have it all wasted. I figured it all out, the way I was goin’ to get rid of him. I was goin’ to have one o’ the pitchers hit him with the ball in battin’ practice⁠—not hard enough to kill him, but just so’s it would scare him out of baseball. I thought he couldn’t stand the gaff and would quit in a minute.

I gets out there early the next mornin’ for practice and frames it up with Young, a big busher we had that was fast as a streak and hog wild. I sends him out to pitch to us and then tells the colleger to go up there and swing till he learned how to bat. It was prob’ly a dirty trick, but I couldn’t think o’ no other way.

Well, I pulled a boner when I says anything to this here Young. What I should ought to of did was say nothin’, but just stick him in there to pitch natural, and then he’d of hit the bird by accident. But when he was tryin’ to hit him, he couldn’t even come clost. He was tryin’ to be wild, and he pitched more strikes than he ever done before in his life. Gertrude didn’t hit nothin’, and nothin’ hit him. So fin’lly I give up and sent Young to the clubhouse and started the reg’lar practice.

Fallin’ down on that made me meaner’n ever, and I doped out something else. I tells the colleger he stood too far from the plate when he swung at a ball. I says: “When you go up to bat in the game, keep one foot on the plate.” figurin’ that the guy that pitched for Philly would try to drive him away and either wound him or scare him to death.

Alexander worked for them, and Baker stood right on top o’ the plate. Dooin called the umps’ attention, and the umps warned him, but he wouldn’t move. Fin’lly Alexander shot one up there and he didn’t duck in time. It catched him in front o’ the ear, and he dropped like as if he was shot. I bet I was the most scared guy in the world. For a minute I felt like a murderer, and I wasn’t never so glad in my life as when I seen him get up. He staggered round a little, and I had ’em bring him over to the bench. I stuck myself in to run for him, and some o’ the boys took him in the clubhouse and got him fixed up. He wasn’t hurt bad, though he got a mean lookin’ bump.

We was startin’ West again that night and I didn’t never expect him to show up for no trip. But there he was, down to the train, with his wagonload o’ scenery.

“Well,” I says, “you got your nerve.”

“Yes,” he says, “I’m goin’ to show Hub that they’s more’n one game ball player in the world.”

He was still thinkin’ about that one-legged guy in the Southern League.

We opened up in Pittsburgh, and I kept him on the bench. I knewed Mrs. Hayes would wire and ask me why wasn’t he playin’, and when she did, I wrote to her sayin’ he was hurt by that there blow on the head. But that alibi wouldn’t get by very long, and I figured I’d have to frame somethin’ new.

The first night in St. Louis, I thought up somethin’ and got Doc, the trainer, to help me pull it. I buys two tickets to a show and gives ’em to Doc with instructions to ask the colleger to go along. After the show, they was to go to Tony’s for lunch. He was to order two beers, and then I was to drop in and catch Baker with a big stein in front of him. Then I was to swell up and suspend him for drinkin’. Doc done his best, but the bird says beer made him sick and he wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with it. So when I come in, he was eatin’ some kind o’ fancy sandwich and lappin’ up a lemonade or somethin’.

He ast me the next afternoon why didn’t I let him play, and I says:

“You ain’t no ball player and you wouldn’t be no ball player if you kept at it a thousand years. You should ought to be trimmin’ hats.”

“Mrs. Hayes thinks I’m all OK,” he says.

“Yes,” I says, “and you could start one o’ these here Carnegie li-berries with what she don’t know about baseball.” I says: “Why don’t you quit?”

Then he says: “I can’t quit because I can’t afford to lose this here sal’ry.”

I says: “What do you mean, you can’t afford? You had plenty o’ clo’es when you joined us,” I says, “and you must of had money o’ your own or you couldn’t of boughten them clo’es.”

Then he says his old man give him a allowance of a hundred a month and he spent all o’ that on his clo’es, and that the old man had told him he would double this here allowance if the boy showed he could earn five thousand bucks a year when he got out o’ college, and the old man didn’t care how he earned it. So he’d told Mrs. Hayes the whole story and she’d tooken pity on him and give him the job. I ast him wasn’t they no other way he could “earn” the money, and he says he s’posed they was lots o’ ways, only this here way was easiest.

I says: “Yes, but you ain’t earnin’ nothin’ here. You might just as well stick fellas up on the street as draw a sal’ry as a ball player. You’re stealin’ it either way.”

He just laughed, and then I says:

“Don’t your old man care if you mix up with us tough guys?”

“No,” he says, “the old man don’t care, but the old lady does. I told her you was a nice, polite bunch o’ fellas and she fell for it, or else she’d of made me cut this out and come home.”

The hunch come to me all of a sudden, and I says:

“What’s your old lady’s name and where does she live at?”

He told me, and I couldn’t hardly wait till I got back to the hotel.

I don’t know now just what I wrote, but it was some letter. I told her we was a bunch o’ stews and that when we wasn’t lushin’ beer or playin’ poker, we was going to burlesque shows. I says her son was pickin’ up a awful bunch o’ language and drinkin’ his fool head off. I says he was stuck on a burlesque queen and was spendin’ all his dough on her. And I wound it up by sayin’ that Dixon, the manager, had killed his wife and they wasn’t no tellin’ when he’d cut loose and kill somebody else. I didn’t sign no name, but just put “From a Friend in Need” down at the bottom.

It was in your town that he heard from her, and he showed me the letter. She says he was to come home at oncet and that she’d made the old man promise to come through with a extra allowance without makin’ him do no work for it. But if he didn’t cut out the ball playin’ and beat it for home, he wouldn’t never get another nickel out o’ none o’ them. She hadn’t gave no reason for writin’ this way, and he was up in the air. I told him we was sorry to lose him, but maybe it was best for him to quit playin’ ball, even if he hadn’t never started. He left us the second night in Chi. Hub was good and sore at me. He says I’d spoiled the season for him.

I felt so good about gettin’ him off’n my hands that I went out there and played like Cobb or somebody the rest o’ the trip. Maybe you fellas remember how I hit ag’in’ you them last two days. I done even better’n that in Cincinnati and New York. It was the best trip we’d made in a good many years, and the bugs at home went crazy over us. They was ten thousand out to the first game of our serious at home with St. Louis⁠—on a Thursday, at that.

O’ course I knowed they’d be a argument with the skirt. Our winnin’ streak wouldn’t make her forget to ask me what had became o’ Baker. When she ast me, I sprung the stuff about him gettin’ a letter from his mother, but I didn’t tell her nothin’ about the letter I’d wrote. She didn’t have nothin’, but she looked pretty sore and forgot all about givin’ me the glad hand for what we’d did in the West.

We done pretty well at home ag’in’ St. Louis and Pittsburgh. Then you fellas come along and I guess I don’t need to tell you that we was goin’ good. I was beginnin’ to think we maybe might keep it up and throw a scare into some o’ you birds.

She didn’t never come out to yesterday’s game, but I didn’t suspect nothin’ wrong till Kelly, the secretary, come into the clubhouse after me. He tells me that she wants to see me down to the downtown office.

“All right,” I says. “I’ll beat it down there right after the game.”

“No,” says Kelly, “she wants you right now.”

So I took my unie off and beat it down there in a taxi. The girl in the front office told me to go right on in, and in I went. There was the dame, settin’ at the desk where poor old Hayes used to set. And they was two big coppers with her. Without sayin’ “How d’ya do” or nothin’, she opens right up on me and says:

“These here officers is here to protect me. If you start somethin’, you’ll get nothin’ but the worst of it.” Then she pulls a letter out o’ the desk and says: “This here letter is from Mr. Baker’s mother, and in it she tells me why she made her boy come home. Somebody has tooken the trouble to tell her some fac’s about this here ball club⁠—my ball club that I was proud of! But I ain’t proud of it no more. I ain’t proud o’ no gang o’ hoodlums that don’t do, nothin’ but gamble and drink and run round with actresses and lead young men astray.”

“Is that all?” I says.

“No,” she hollers, “that ain’t all. Mr. Dixon, you killed your wife!”

“That’s a whole lot o’ bunk,” I says. “I didn’t never have no wife, so how could I kill my wife when I didn’t never have none?”

“Don’t lie to me!” she says. “Even if you didn’t never have no wife, you killed somebody, maybe a innocent girl that was wronged.”

“Cut the comedy,” I says. “They’s nothin’ to that stuff. Somebody’s went and gave the old lady a bum steer.”

“What for?” she ast.

“Prob’ly,” I says, “because somebody was tired o’ having that boob on the ball club and figured that was the best way to get rid of him.”

“We won’t discuss it no fu’ther,” she says. “I called you up to tell you you ain’t managin’ the club no longer. You can stay here under the terms o’ your contract and play ball if you want to, but maybe you wouldn’t want to work for the new manager.”

“Who is it?” I says.

“That’s none o’ your business,” she says. “I will tell you when the proper time comes.”

Then I says: “Is the seamstress comin’ back?”

“The who?” she hollers.

“That there colleger,” I says. “If I was you, I’d get him back, because you and him is certainly a grand combination. It’s hard to tell which one o’ you knows the most about baseball, you or that bird. Even if you couldn’t use him as no ball player, you could chop up his head and build a new grandstand.”

“He was smart enough to go through Yale college,” she says.

“No.” says I. “He didn’t never go through no Yale college. If they was any college that he went through, it was this here Wellesley college.”

Then I turns and beats it for the door.

Well, sir, they ain’t nothin’ more to tell except one thing. When I come out o’ the door into the outside office, I bumped right square into “Gertie.” He was smilin’ like a big kid, and he says: “Hello, there!” Well, I didn’t say nothin’ to him, but I give him a good kick in the shin, and I stepped all over his patent-leather shoes. Then I went on about my business.

I wired and they wasn’t nothin’ to it. He told me to come on and join ’em in Pittsburgh, and I just had time to get my stuff together and catch this train.

I guess she won’t try and get no injunction out agin’ me. But I wisht she would. I’d like to tell my story to a judge, provided the judge wasn’t no woman.

You know who’s goin’ to manage that club, don’t you? And you know who’s goin’ to be president of it. Well, sir, I’ll bet you anything you want to bet that they won’t even finish in Mass’chusetts.