“I mean that if you don’t want to sign at our figures Louisville’d be the ideal spot for you,” says I.
“What’s your figures?” he ast.
“I’m willin’ to give you $4,000,” says Mr. Edwards.
Hagedorn swelled up.
“If you think I’ll take a $2,000 cut, you got me wrong,” he says.
“All right,” says I, “and I hope the Kentucky climate agrees with your legs.”
We sent Lefty Grant a contract for $5,000 and after a little crabbin’ by mail he signed. Joe Marsh stood for a $1,000 cut, and Bones McChesney, shaved from $3,500 to $3,000, refused to sign and got himself sold to Toronto. I didn’t cry over losin’ him; he’d always been fat from his neck up, and in the last two seasons the epidemic had spread all over his body.
Now it don’t often happen that a seventh-place club begins lookin’ like a pennant contender between October and February. But that’s what come off with us. Our worst weakness last year was at shortstop and third base and back o’ the bat. Well, I talked to a lot of Association men durin’ the fall, and they told me that I had a second Schalk in this young Stremmle from Indianapolis. And I got swell reports on Berner, the shortstop we drew from Dayton. Both these guys, I was told, were ready. They wouldn’t need no more seasonin’.
And then along come the league meetin’ in New York, and I happened to catch the St. Louis gang when they were thinkin’ about somethin’ else, and they traded me Johnny Gould for Hype Corliss and Jack Moran, two guys that I’d kept down in the bull pen all summer so’s the bugs couldn’t get a good look at ’em. There was my third base hole plugged up and the ball club was bound to be a hundred percent better, provided Hagedorn signed and give us his best work, or that young Lahey, the first sacker we bought from Davenport, made good. I wasn’t worryin’ much about him, as I figured right along that Hagedorn would take his $4,000 when he seen we were in earnest.
O’ course he had a little bit the best of us in the argument—that is, he would of had if he’d knew enough. Him and Lahey was the only candidates for first base, and no matter if he played the position in a hammock, he’d be better than an inexperienced kid from the Three Eye. Even if he wasn’t never worth a nickel over $4,000, here was a grand chance for him to hold us up. All he had to do was lay quiet at home, and when it come time for us to go South we’d of looked him up and met his demands. But no, he didn’t have the nerve or sense to go at it the right way.
Instead o’ keepin’ us guessin’, what does he do but hunt up excuses to come and hang round the office and try and get a hint o’ whether we were goin’ to stand pat or back down. I was alone the first time he showed.
“Hello, Bill,” I says. “Did you bring your fountain pen?”
“What for?” he says.
“To sign that $4,000 contract,” says I.
“Oh, no,” he says, “I wasn’t thinkin’ nothin’ about the contract. I come up to see if they was any mail for me.”
“Not now,” I says, “but you may be hearin’ from the Louisville club in a few days.”
“What would they be writin’ me about?” he says.
“Maybe they’ll hear about you wantin’ to move there,” I says, “and they’ll probably be askin’ you if you’d care to take a job with ’em.”
“Well,” says Bill, “you won’t catch me playin’ ball with Louisville.”
“Who was you thinkin’ about playin’ with?” I ast him.
“Nobody,” he says. “I’ve decided to quit.”
“That’s fine, Bill!” I says. “Somebody left you money?”
“No,” he says, “but I got some o’ my own saved up.”
“How much?” I ast him.
“Close to $2,000,” says Bill.
“Fine work!” says I. “You must of lived pretty simple to save $2,000 in seven years.”
“I never skimped,” says Bill.
“Well,” I says, “I don’t know how you managed. But it’s nice to feel that you won’t never have to skimp again. If you can get six percent for your money, that’ll mean $120 a year or $10 a month. That puts you on Easy Street. All you’ll have to get along without is food, clothes, heat and a place to live.”
He paid us another visit Christmas week, thinkin’, maybe, that Mr. Edwards would be runnin’ over with holiday spirits.
This was a bum guess. The old man’s got more relatives than a perch, and when he was through buyin’ presents for all o’ them he wouldn’t of paid a telephone slug for the release o’ Ty Cobb.
“No mail yet,” I says to Bill when he come in.
“I wasn’t expectin’ no mail,” he says. “I was just wonderin’ if I left a pair o’ gloves here last time.”
“A pair o’ tan gloves?” I says.
“Yes,” says Hagedorn.
“I didn’t see ’em,” I says. “I found some gray ones.”
“How is everything?” he says.
“Fine!” says I. “It looks like we’re goin’ to have a regular ball club.”
“Well, I hope you do,” Bill says.
“Gould’s goin’ to help us a lot,” says I, “and they tell me Stremmle and Berner’s both good enough for anybody’s team. And then, o’ course, we got young Lahey.”
“Who’s young Lahey?” ast Bill.
“Can’t be you never heard of him,” I says. “He’s the first sacker from Davenport that everybody was after. They say you can’t hardly tell him from Hal Chase when he’s in action. And he cracked the marble for about .340 last season.”
“Hittin’ .340 in the sticks and hittin’ it up here is two different things,” says Hagedorn.
“Not so different,” I says. “A bird that can hit .340 anywhere can hit pretty good.”
That’s right, too. But the truth was that Lahey’s figure had been eighty points shy o’ what I credited him with. And from what I’d learned from some o’ the Three Eye
