Manager Callahan is a funny guy and I don’t understand him sometimes. I can’t figure out if he is kidding or in ernest. We road back to Oakland on the ferry together after yesterday’s game and he says Don’t you never throw a slow ball? I says I don’t need no slow ball with my spitter and my fast one. He says No of course you don’t need it but if I was you I would get one of the boys to learn it to me. He says And you better watch the way the boys fields their positions and holds up the runners. He says To see you work a man might think they had a rule in the Central League forbidding a pitcher from leaving the box or looking toward first base.
I told him the Central didn’t have no rule like that. He says And I noticed you taking your wind up when What’s His Name was on second base there today. I says Yes I got more stuff when I wind up. He says Of course you have but if you wind up like that with Cobb on base he will steal your watch and chain. I says Maybe Cobb can’t get on base when I work against him. He says That’s right and maybe San Francisco Bay is made of grapejuice. Then he walks away from me.
He give one of the youngsters a awful bawling out for something he done in the game at supper last night. If he ever talks to me like he done to him I will take a punch at him. You know me Al.
I come over to Frisco last night with some of the boys and we took in the sights. Frisco is some live town Al. We went all through China Town and the Barbers’ Coast. Seen lots of swell dames but they was all painted up. They have beer out here that they call steam beer. I had a few glasses of it and it made me logey. A glass of that Terre Haute beer would go pretty good right now.
We leave here for Los Angeles in a few days and I will write you from there. This is some country Al and I would love to play ball round here.
Los Angeles, California, March 26.
Friend Al: Only four more days of sunny California and then we start back East. We got exhibition games in Yuma and El Paso, Texas, and Oklahoma City and then we stop over in St. Joe, Missouri, for three days before we go home. You know Al we open the season in Cleveland and we won’t be in Chi no more than just passing through. We don’t play there till April eighteenth and I guess I will work in that serious all right against Detroit. Then I will be glad to have you and the boys come up and watch me as you suggested in your last letter.
I got another letter from the little blonde. She has went back to Detroit but she give me her address and telephone number and believe me Al I am going to look her up when we get there the twenty-ninth of April.
She is a stenographer and was out here with her uncle and aunt.
I had a run in with Kelly last night and it looked like I would have to take a wallop at him but the other boys seperated us. He is a bush outfielder from the New England League. We was playing poker. You know the boys plays poker a good deal but this was the first time I got in. I was having pretty good luck and was about four bucks to the good and I was thinking of quitting because I was tired and sleepy. Then Kelly opened the pot for fifty cents and I stayed. I had three sevens. No one else stayed. Kelly stood pat and I drawed two cards. And I catched my fourth seven. He bet fifty cents but I felt pretty safe even if he did have a pat hand. So I called him. I took the money and told them I was through.
Lord and some of the boys laughed but Kelly got nasty and begun to pan me for quitting and for the way I played. I says Well I won the pot didn’t I? He says Yes and he called me something. I says I got a notion to take a punch at you.
He says Oh you have have you? And I come back at him. I says Yes I have have I? I would of busted his jaw if they hadn’t stopped me. You know me Al.
I worked here two times once against Los Angeles and once against Venice. I went the full nine innings both times and Venice beat me four to two. I could of beat them easy with any kind of support. I walked a couple of guys in the forth and Chase drops a throw and Collins lets a fly ball get away from him. At that I would of shut them out if I had wanted to cut loose. After the game Callahan says You didn’t look so good in there today. I says I didn’t cut loose. He says
