Chi, Aug. 25.
Friend Al: Well Al I am through. Not through with pitching baseball but through working for a cuckoo that treats a man like a dog. They’s only 1 condition that I will go back to him Al and that is a contract calling for more money or a bonus or something and he has got to understand that I work in my regular turn which is the only way a pitcher can do themself justice. But he won’t agree to my turns Al as trying to manage a ball club has went to his head and his brains has been AWOL for the last 2 mos. you might say. So its going to be moveing day pretty soon for your old pal and I guess you know where I am going to move without me telling you. I have all ready wired a telegram to Jennings telling him what come off and things ought to begin to pop by tomorrow at lease.
Well Al I will tell you what come off and you can judge for yourself what kind of a cuckoo this bird is. Well the last half of last wk. he had me down in the bull pen every day warming up though he didn’t have no intentions of sticking me in there and God knows I was warm enough without going out and looking for it but every time I would ease up a little and try and rest he would look down there from the bench and motion to me to get busy and by the time the game was over Sat. p.m. my old souper squeeked like a rat every time I throwed a ball.
Well Sat. night we throwed a party over to the house in honor of Florrie retireing from business and I had 4 qts. of the old hard stuff layed away and I and a couple of Florrie’s friends husbands finished 1 of them before supper and after supper we turned on the jazz and triped the life fantastic and I half to be oiled or I can’t dance so by 11 o’clock the serch and sieze her birds could of had the run of the house and welcome. Well 1 of the husbands said he knowed a place where they had escaped from the epidemic so we went down there and they served us rat poison in tea cups and I only histed a couple to be polite but I eat something that didn’t set right and when I finely got home and put on my night gown I wished it was a sroud.
Well Al I couldn’t eat nothing when I got up and whatever it was I had eat the night before had gave me a fever and Florrie wanted I should call up the ball pk. and tell them I was sick but it was Williams’s turn to pitch and I thought all as I would half to do would be get down in the bull pen and go through the motions but when I get to the pk. what does this cuckoo do but tell me to take my turn in the batting practice as I am going to work. So I asked him what was the matter with Williams and Gleason said he don’t feel good. “Well” I said “if he felt like I do his family would be out shopping for 1 left handed casket.” So Gleason said what and the he‑ll is the matter with you now. So I told him my stomach. “Well” said Gleason “get in there and give them your fast one and curve and I will tell Schalk not to sign for your stomach.” So that was all as I could get out of him Al and they wasn’t nothing to do only grip my teeth and try and make the best of it.
Well Al to make a short story out of it I went in there so dizzy that Vick of the N.Y. club looked like he was hitting from both sides of the plate and I tried to throw a ball between him. Well I seen him fall over but he couldn’t get out of the way as I catched him right over the ear and if I had of had my regular stuff on the ball they would of been brains splashing clear up in the grand stand. Well I got 1 over for Peck and he past it up and then Schalk thought they was going to hit and run so he signed me to waist 1 and I waisted 4 and then up come Baker and I had 2 balls and nothing on him and I looked in to the bench but Gleason wasn’t looking at me and I looked out to the bull pen and they wasn’t nobody warming up so I pitched again and got 1 over the plate. Well I don’t know what kind of baseball it is for a man to hit with 2 and 0 with birds on 1st and 2nd and nobody out and the pitcher hog wild but that is what this bird done Al is take a lunge at the ball and Liebold couldn’t of catched it without a pass out check.
Well I looked in to the bench again and Gleason didn’t say I yes or no but I wasn’t going to stay out there and faint away for him or no other cuckoo. So I walked in to the dugout and said I’m through. “Through with what” Gleason says. “Through with a mgr. like you that makes a man go in there and try to pitch when I am so sick I don’t know what I am doing.” So Gleason said “That
