At the Old Ballgame Read online

“I’m a-goin’ to lick you, Mac, so I reckon you’d better show up,” shouted the Rube.

  The big fellow was mad as a hornet. When he got to me he grasped me with his great fence-rail splitting hands and I cried out with pain.

  “Say! Whit, let up! Mac’s not here. . . . What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll show you when I find him.” And the Rube stalked on down the aisle, a tragically comic figure in his pajamas. In his search for Mac he pried into several upper berths that contained occupants who were not ball players, and these protested in affright. Then the Rube began to investigate the lower berths. A row of heads protruded in a bobbing line from between the curtains of the upper berths.

  “Here, you Indian! Don’t you look in there! That’s my wife’s berth!” yelled Stringer.

  Bogart, too, evinced great excitement.

  “Hurtle, keep out of lower eight or I’ll kill you,” he shouted.

  What the Rube might have done there was no telling, but as he grasped a curtain, he was interrupted by a shriek from some woman assuredly not of our party.

  “Get out! you horrid wretch! Help! Porter! Help! Conductor!”

  Instantly there was a deafening tumult in the car. When it had subsided somewhat, and I considered I would be safe, I descended from my berth and made my way to the dressing room. Sprawled over the leather seat was the Rube pommelling McCall with hearty goodwill. I would have interfered, had it not been for Mac’s demeanor. He was half frightened, half angry, and utterly unable to defend himself or even resist, because he was laughing, too.

  “Doggone it! Whit—I didn’t—do it! I swear it was Spears! Stop thumpin’ me now—or I’ll get sore. . . . You hear me! It wasn’t me, I tell you. Cheese it!”

  For all his protesting Mac received a good thumping, and I doubted not in the least that he deserved it. The wonder of the affair, however, was the fact that no one appeared to know what had made the Rube so furious. The porter would not tell, and Mac was strangely reticent, though his smile was one to make a fellow exceedingly sure something out of the ordinary had befallen. It was not until I was having breakfast in Providence that I learned the true cause of Rube’s conduct, and Milly confided it to me, insisting on strict confidence.

  “I promised not to tell,” she said. “Now you promise you’ll never tell.”

  “Well, Connie,” went on Milly, when I had promised, “it was the funniest thing yet, but it was horrid of McCall. You see, the Rube had upper seven and Nan had lower seven. Early this morning, about daylight, Nan awoke very thirsty and got up to get a drink. During her absence, probably, but anyway sometime last night, McCall changed the number on her curtain, and when Nan came back to number seven of course she almost got in the wrong berth.”

  “No wonder the Rube punched him!” I declared. “I wish we were safe home. Something’ll happen yet on this trip.”

  I was faithful to my promise to Milly, but the secret leaked out somewhere; perhaps Mac told it, and before the game that day all the players knew it. The Rube, having recovered his good humor, minded it not in the least. He could not have felt ill will for any length of time. Everything seemed to get back into smooth running order, and the Honeymoon Trip bade fair to wind up beautifully.

  But, somehow or other, and about something unknown to the rest of us, the Rube and Nan quarreled. It was their first quarrel. Milly and I tried to patch it up but failed.

  We lost the first game to Providence and won the second. The next day, a Saturday, was the last game of the trip, and it was Rube’s turn to pitch. Several times during the first two days the Rube and Nan about half made up their quarrel, only in the end to fall deeper into it. Then the last straw came in a foolish move on the part of wilful Nan. She happened to meet Henderson, her former admirer, and in a flash she took up her flirtation with him where she had left off.

  “Don’t go to the game with him, Nan,” I pleaded. “It’s a silly thing for you to do. Of course you don’t mean anything, except to torment Whit. But cut it out. The gang will make him miserable and we’ll lose the game. There’s no telling what might happen.

  “I’m supremely indifferent to what happens,” she replied, with a rebellious toss of her black head. “I hope Whit gets beaten.”

  She went to the game with Henderson and sat in the grandstand, and the boys spied them out and told the Rube. He did not believe it at first, but finally saw them, looked deeply hurt and offended, and then grew angry. But the gong, sounding at that moment, drew his attention to his business of the day, to pitch.

  His work that day reminded me of the first game he ever pitched for me, upon which occasion Captain Spears got the best out of him by making him angry. For several innings Providence was helpless before his delivery. Then something happened that showed me a crisis was near. A wag of a fan yelled from the bleachers.

  “Honeymoon Rube!”

  This cry was taken up by the delighted fans and it rolled around the field. But the Rube pitched on, harder than ever. Then the knowing bleacherite who had started the cry changed it somewhat.

  “Nanny’s Rube!” he yelled.

  This, too, went the round, and still the Rube, though red in the face, preserved his temper and his pitching control. All would have been well if Bud Wiler, comedian of the Providence team, had not hit upon a way to rattle Rube.

  “Nanny’s Goat!” he shouted from the coaching lines. Every Providence player took it up.

  The Rube was not proof against that. He yelled so fiercely at them, and glared so furiously, and towered so formidably, that they ceased for the moment. Then he let drive with his fast straight ball and hit the first Providence batter in the ribs. His comrades had to help him to the bench. The Rube hit the next batter on the leg, and judging from the crack of the ball, I fancied that player would walk lame for several days. The Rube tried to hit the next batter and sent him to first on balls. Thereafter it became a dodging contest with honors about equal between pitchers and batters. The Providence players stormed and the bleachers roared. But I would not take the Rube out and the game went on with the Rube forcing in runs.

  With the score a tie, and three men on bases one of the players on the bench again yelled: “Nanny’s Goat!”

  Straight as a string the Rube shot the ball at this fellow and bounded after it. The crowd rose in an uproar. The base runners began to score. I left my bench and ran across the space, but not in time to catch the Rube. I saw him hit two or three of the Providence men. Then the policemen got to him, and a real fight brought the big audience into the stamping melee. Before the Rube was collared I saw at least four blue-coats on the grass.

  The game broke up, and the crowd spilled itself in streams over the field. Excitement ran high. I tried to force my way into the mass to get at the Rube and the officers, but this was impossible. I feared the Rube would be taken from the officers and treated with violence, so I waited with the surging crowd, endeavoring to get nearer. Soon we were in the street, and it seemed as if all the stands had emptied their yelling occupants.

  A trolley car came along down the street, splitting the mass of people and driving them back. A dozen policemen summarily bundled the Rube upon the rear end of the car. Some of these officers boarded the car, and some remained in the street to beat off the vengeful fans.

  I saw someone thrust forward a frantic young woman. The officers stopped her, then suddenly helped her on the car, just as I started. I recognized Nan. She gripped the Rube with both hands and turned a white, fearful face upon the angry crowd.

  The Rube stood in the grasp of his wife and the policemen, and he looked like a ruffled lion. He shook his big fist and bawled in far-reaching voice:

  “I can lick you all!”

  To my infinite relief, the trolley gathered momentum and safely passed out of danger. The last thing I made out was Nan pressing close to the Rube’s side. That moment saw their reconciliation and my joy that
it was the end of the Rube’s Honeymoon.

  How I Pitched the First Curve

  Candy Cummings

  I have been asked how I first got the idea of making a ball curve. I will now explain. It is such a simple matter, though, that there is not much explanation.

  In the summer of 1863 a number of boys and myself were amusing ourselves by throwing clam shells (the hard-shell variety) and watching them sail along through the air, turning now to the right and now to the left. We became interested in the mechanics of it and experimented for an hour or more.

  All of a sudden it came to me that it would be a good joke on the boys if I could make a baseball curve the same way. We had been playing “three old cat” and town ball, and I had been doing the pitching. The joke seemed so good that I made a firm decision that I would try to play it.

  I set to work on my theory and practiced every spare moment that I had out of school. I had no one to help me and had to fight it out alone. Time after time I would throw the ball, doubling up into all manner of positions, for I thought that my pose had something to do with it; and then I tried holding the ball in different shapes. Sometimes I thought I had it, and then maybe again in twenty-five tries I could not get the slightest curve. My visionary successes were just enough to tantalize me. Month after month I kept pegging away at my theory.

  In 1864 I went to Fulton, New York, to a boarding school and remained there a year and a half. All that time I kept experimenting with my curve ball. My boyfriends began to laugh at me and to throw jokes at my theory of making a ball go sideways. I fear that some of them thought it was so preposterous that it was no joke and that I should be carefully watched over.

  I don’t know what made me stick at it. The great wonder to me now is that I did not give up in disgust, for I had not one single word of encouragement in all that time, while my attempts were a standing joke among my friends.

  After graduating, I went back to my home in Brooklyn, New York, and joined the “Star Juniors,” an amateur team. We were very successful. I was solicited to join as a junior member of the Excelsior club, and I accepted the proposition.

  In 1867 I, with the Excelsior club, went to Boston, where we played the Lowells, the Tri-Mountains, and Harvard clubs. During these games I kept trying to make the ball curve. It was during the Harvard game that I became fully convinced that I had succeeded in doing what all these years I had been striving to do. The batters were missing a lot of balls; I began to watch the flight of the ball through the air and distinctly saw it curve.

  A surge of joy flooded over me that I shall never forget. I felt like shouting out that I had made a ball curve; I wanted to tell everybody; it was too good to keep to myself.

  But I said not a word and saw many a batter at that game throw down his stick in disgust. Every time I was successful, I could scarcely keep from dancing from pure joy. The secret was mine.

  There was trouble, though, for I could not make it curve when I wanted to. I would grasp it the same, but the ball seemed to do just as it pleased. It would curve, all right, but it was very erratic in its choice of places to do so. But still it curved!

  The baseball came to have a new meaning to me; it almost seemed to have life.

  It took time and hard work for me to master it, but I kept on pegging away until I had fairly good control.

  In those days the pitcher’s box was 6 feet by 4, and the ball could be thrown from any part of it; one foot could be at the forward edge of the box, while the other could be stretched back as far as the pitcher liked; but both feet had to be on the ground until the ball was delivered. It is surprising how much speed could be generated under those rules.

  It was customary to swing the arm perpendicularly and to deliver the ball at the height of the knee. I still threw this way but brought in wrist action.

  I found that the wind had a whole lot to do with the ball curving. With a wind against me I could get all kinds of a curve, but the trouble lay in the fact that the ball was apt not to break until it was past the batter. This was a sore trouble; but I learned not to try to curve a ball very much when the wind was unfavorable.

  I have often been asked to give my theory of why a ball curves. Here it is: I give the ball a sharp twist with the middle finger, which causes it to revolve with a swift rotary motion. The air also, for a limited space around it begins to revolve, making a great swirl, until there is enough pressure to force the ball out of true line. When I first began practicing this new legerdemain, the pitchers were not the only ones who were fooled by the ball. The umpire also suffered. I would throw the ball straight at the batter; he would jump back, and then the umpire would call a ball. On this I lost, but when I started the spheroid toward the center of the plate, he would call it a strike. When it got to the batter, it was too far out, and the batter would not even swing. Then there would be a clash between the umpire and the batter.

  But my idlest dreams of what a curved ball would do as I dreamed of them that afternoon while throwing clam shells have been filled more than a hundred times. At that time I thought of it only as a good way to fool the boys, its real practical significance never entering my mind.

  I get a great deal of pleasure now in my old age out of going to games and watching the curves, thinking that it was through my blind efforts that all this was made possible.

  Discovering Cy Young

  Alfred H. Spink

  Cy Young, the veteran pitcher, began his career in Cleveland, and Stanley Robison late president of the St. Louis National League Club, was the man who discovered Young. At the time Robison was owner of the Cleveland franchise, and the Spiders, under Pat Tebeau, were large grapes in the major league vineyard.

  It happened that Patsy Tebeau was short on pitchers way back in 1893. In those day they did not have scouts combing the country for talent, and the “tipsters” on blooming talent were usually commercial travelers.

  Robison was at the time looking over some of his railroad property at Fort Wayne, Ind., and he was lapping up a few “elixirs of mirth,” when he happened to open up his vocal chords on baseball. There was a commercial traveler at the bar, who liked baseball, to say nothing of having a fondness for the “elixir” stuff.

  Stanley invited him to have a jolt, and also to discuss baseball. “Rather odd,” remarked Robison, “that it is so hard to get a good baseball pitcher nowadays. I’m looking for a man for my Cleveland club. I’ve offered enough real money to choke a manhole to get a fellow from one of the other clubs; but, say, I can’t make the deal.”

  “Have another, and I’ll give you the best little three-star special you’ve ever heard tell of since they named you after Matt Quay,” returned the commercial traveler.

  After the commercial traveler and M. Stanley had inhaled their mirth water the man of satchels and grips opened the conversation.

  “Say, old sport,” said the commercial traveler, “you’re looking for a pitcher. As I understand the vernacular, you are in quest of someone who can hurl an elusive leather-covered sphere, guaranteed to weigh in ringside at five ounces, and to be of 9-inch circumference, no more or no less, somewhere near a little disk they foolishly refer to as the home plate. Get me?

  “Now, my friend, take my tip, pack your grip and go up to Canton. They’ve got a big kid up there that can do anything with a baseball except eat it. Say, he’s got so much speed that he burns chunks of holes in the atmosphere. He’s the shoot-’em-in-Pete of that reservation.

  “Watched him streak ’em over last Sunday, and he struck out a flock of baseball players. I think he fanned a hundred or two hundred. I didn’t keep count. He made them describe figure ‘eights,’ stand on their beams 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.”

  Robison did as he was bade, and when he arrived at Canton he went out to the ball yard. There was a big, lop-sided yap o
n the mound. He looked as though nature chiseled him out to pitch hay, instead of a poor, little inoffensive baseball, and Robison had to laugh when he beheld the world-renowned bearcat twirler that his friend had tipped him off to.

  The big boy in the box showed a lot of steam, and Robison’s desire to laugh was turned to amazement. He’d never beheld anyone toss a ball with just such speed and precision and with so many curlicues on it. After the game Robison called the young hay miner aside and offered him a job at a figure which made the youth open his mouth.

  Robison slipped him transportation to Cleveland, with instructions to find his way out to the ball yard and call on Pat Tebeau, admonishing him to be careful not to get run over by any street cars, as he (Robison) owned the lines and didn’t want any damage suits.

  The lo-sided boy found his way to the ball yard, asked for Mr. Teabow, blushed like a June bride and told him what he came for.

  Tebeau called Zimmer and a few of his old scouts about him, and they openly laughed at the unusual looking boy, who had the nerve to say that he might be a baseball pitcher fit for major league company.

  Chicago was in Cleveland. Old fans will recall those dreaded White Stockings, with Anson at their head; and such stars as Ned Williamson, Tommy Burns, Fred Pfeffer, Dalrymple, Jimmy Ryan and that sort on the roster.

  Those old boys used to give great pitchers that earthquake feeling about the knees when they dragged up their hundred-pound batons to thump the bitumen out of anything that came near the plate.

  Tebeau thought it would be a good joke to pitch the young man against these sluggers and see the effect. He told the boy he wanted him to pitch. Then they dug up a uniform that fitted the lad like a 14½ collar would incase the neck of Frank Gotch.

  Anson and his bunch were as fierce baseball pirates as ever scuttled a ship, but 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 something happened. The mere boy struck out Adrian C. Anson, world’s wonder with the bat; then he fanned Fred Pfeffer, the prince of second sackers, and slipped three across that Williamson missed entirely.