Well it come along the 9th inning and we was tied up with the score 2 and 2 and I had Larry Gardner swinging like a hammock all day but this time he hit a fly ball that either Weaver or Jackson ought to of caught in a hollow tooth but they both layed down and died on it and Gardner got on second base. Well they was 2 men out and Hoblitzel was the next man up and the next man after he was Scott their shortstop that couldn’t take the ball in his hand and make a base hit off a man like I so instead of me giveing Hobby a ball to hit I walked him as we call it and then of course it was Scott’s turn to bat and Barry their mgr. hesitated if he should send Ruth up to hit for Scott or not but finely he left Scott go up there and he was just dragging his bat off his shoulder to swing at the first strike when I whizzed the third one past him.
That is what we call inside baseball or stragety whether its in baseball or war is walking a man like Hoblitzel that might be lucky enough to hit one somewheres but if you don’t give him nothing to hit how can he hit it and then I made Scott look like he had been sent for but couldn’t come. Afterwards in the 11th inning Duffy Lewis hit a ball that he ought to of been traded for even swinging at it because it come near clipping his ear lob but any way he swang at it and hit it for three bases because Jackson layed down and died going after it and Lewis scored on a past ball and they beat us 3 to 2.
So that is what we call stragety on the baseball field and it wins there the same like in war and this war will be win by the side that has gens. with brains and use them and I figure where a man that has been in big league baseball where you can’t never make a success out of it unless you are a quick thinker and they have got a big advantage over men that’s been in other walks of life where its most all luck and I figure the army would be a whole lot better off if all the officers and gens. had of played baseball in the big leagues and learned to think quick, but of course they ain’t everybody that have got the ability to play baseball and stand the gaff but the man that has got the ability and been through the ropes is just that much ahead of the rest of them and its to bad that most of our gens. is so old that they couldn’t of knew much about baseball since it become a test of brains like it is now.
I am afraid I have eat up a lot of space with my little Article on War and Baseball so I will end this little article up with a little comical incidents that happened dureing our training trip down in Mineral Wells, Tex. a year ago this spring. The first day we was out for practice they was a young outfielder from a bush league and Mgr. Rowland told him to go out in right field and shag and this was his reply. “I haven’t never been in this park before so you will half to tell me which is right field.” Of course right field, is the same field in all parks and that is what made the incidents so comical and some of the boys is certainly green when they first break in and we have manys the laugh at their expense.
That is what I wrote up for them Al and I wound it up with that little story and I was reading over what I wrote and Johnny Alcock seen me reading it and asked me to leave him see it so I showed it to him and he said it was great stuff and he hadn’t never dreamt they was that much stragety in baseball and he thought if some of the officers seen it they would pop their eyes out and they would want to talk to me and get my idears and see if maybe they couldn’t some of them be plied to war fair and maybe if I showed them where it could I would get promoted and stuck on to the gen. staff that’s all made up from gens. that lays out the attacks and etc.
Well Al Alcock is a pretty wise bird and a fine boy to if you know how to take him and he
