He’s pulled some pippins on me. I wisht I’d wrote down even half o’ them, but anyway they don’t sound as good when I tell ’em as when he sprung ’em on me.
I remember we was playin’ our last series with the Boston club in 1912. They’d cinched the pennant already and nobody cared a whole lot how our games come out. I’ve got plenty o’ friends in Boston, and the first night we was there I neglected to go to bed. So the next afternoon I was kind o’ logy.
I dropped a couple o’ thrown balls at first base and was off the bag once when I had all the time in the world to find it. Well, Bull had three or four close ones to guess and he guessed ’em all against us.
“Are you goin’ to work in the World’s Series?” I ast him.
“I haven’t heard,” he says.
“If you do,” I says, “I’m goin’ to bet my season’s pay on the Red Sox.”
“If you’re lookin’ for easy money,” says Bull, “why don’t you go ahead and bet your season’s pay on the Red Sox, and then sign with the Giants to play first base?”
In 1914 I’d been havin’ a long spell o’ bad luck with my hittin’ and they was just gettin’ ready to bench me when one day, in St. Louis, I got one safe. I tried to make two bases on it, but overslid the bag and Bull called me out.
“Oh, Bull!” I says. “Have a heart.”
“They won’t bawl you for this,” says Bull. “You ain’t been here in so long it’s no wonder you forgot where the station was. I think you done pretty well to remember my name. I been umpirin’ the bases for two weeks.”
Then they was once in Boston, just last year. We still had a chance yet and we was crazy to take a fall out o’ that bunch. I was overanxious, I guess. Anyway, it was a tight game and in the sixth or seventh innin’ I got caught off o’ first. “Bull,” I says, “if you’re with the home club, why don’t you wear a white suit?”
“Larry,” says he, “you ought to play ball in your pyjamas.”
And in New York one day I give somebody the hit and run, and the ball fooled me and I didn’t swing. The fella was throwed out at second base, and Bull called it a strike on me.
“Why, Bull!” I says. “He was wastin’ that ball.”
“Sure he was,” says Bull. “All the good balls is wasted on you.”
And once in Washin’ton, we was two runs to the good in the ninth and had two men out and it looked all over. The next man—Milan, I think it was—hit a fly ball straight up and I hollered I was goin’ to take it. Well, it just missed beanin’ me and Milan pulled up at second base. The next fella hit a ground ball between I and the bag. I missed it clean. Milan scored and the other fella stopped at second. Then somebody made a three-base hit. The score was tied and the winnin’ run was on third base.
A slow ground ball was hit down to’rds me. I seen that Doran, who was pitchin’, was goin’ for the ball instead o’ the bag and I seen that the ball was mine and I’d have to get it and chase back with it myself. I done it as fast as I could and the play was mighty close. Bull called the man safe. It meant the game and we was all sore, but me especially, on account o’ them two flivvers.
“You blind owl!” I says to Bull. “Who told you you could umpire?”
“Who recommended you to Griffith?” says Bull.
That’s the way he was. You could set up all night and figure out what you was goin’ to say to him next day, and then when you said it, he’d come back with somethin’ that made you wish you hadn’t. That is, unless you was like me and kept after him just for the laughs he give you.
I and Tommy set there talkin’ till pretty close to midnight. Then we decided they wasn’t no more use waitin’ for Bull. So Tommy went up to his room and I moseyed out the front door and onto the walk. I hadn’t took more’n a couple o’ steps when I seen the guy we’d been fannin’ about. He was just goin’ in to the hotel bar. I followed him.
“Hello, Bull!” I says, when we was both inside.
“What’s the idear?” he says. “Did you come clear down here to tell me that Cady didn’t tag you?”
“No,” I says. “He tagged me all right. But I’m taggin’ you to find out what’s got into you.”
“I guess I got plenty into me now,” says he. “When a man that’s cold sober gets fired from his job for bein’ lit, they’s only the one thing to do. I’ve been tryin’ my best all evenin’ to deserve the reputation they’ve wished on me.”
I give him the double O. He could walk straight and he could talk straight. But he was kind of owl-eyed and his face looked like a royal flush o’ diamonds.
“Let’s have somethin’,” he says.
“You’ve had enough,” says I.
“That’s no sign I ain’t goin’ to have more,” he says.
“You better go to bed,” I says.
“What for?” says he. “I got nothin’ to do tomorrow or any other tomorrow. I’m through.”
“They’s other leagues,” says I. “You won’t have no trouble gettin’ a job.”
“I don’t want no job,” says Bull. “I haven’t no use for a job.”
“What are you goin’ to live on?” I ast him.
“I don’t want to live,” he says.
“Aw, piffle!” says I. “You’ll feel better for a good night’s sleep.”
“Well,” says Bull, “they’s just as much chance o’ me gettin’ a good night’s
