“Well,” says Hagedorn, “if he makes good, you won’t have no use for me.”
“No,” I says, “but I’d hate to see you go back in the bushes.”
“Don’t worry!” he says. “I’m goin’ to stick right here in town.”
“And live on your savin’s?” I says.
“No,” says Bill. “I’m just about signed up to play with the Acmes in the semipro league.”
“How much are they givin’ you?” I ast him.
“Fifty a game, and they only play Sundays,” he says.
“Yes,” says I, “and they’re doin’ well if they play twenty games a season. That nets you $1,000, and you’ll have somethin’ like six days a week to spend it in.”
“I can work at somethin’ durin’ the week,” he says. “Maybe sell automobiles or somethin’.”
“You could do that in the winter, too,” I says, “if you didn’t waste so much o’ your time comin’ for your mail and lookin’ for your gloves.”
“How’s Mr. Edwards?” says Bill.
“Fine and dandy!” I says. “Want to see him?”
“What would I want to see him about?” says Bill.
“You might be able to sell him a car,” says I. “He’s right in the spendin’ mood now. His nieces and nephews and Mr. Wilson’s peace note has relieved him o’ the few hundreds he had left after last season. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d reconsider cuttin’ your contract—maybe give you a bonus just for the devil of it.”
While we was talkin’ Mr. Edwards come out from his private office.
“Hello, Hagedorn,” he says. “Ready to sign?”
“At my own figure,” says Bill.
“That’s good,” says Mr. Edwards. “Conley and myself was afraid you might accept the cut, and we couldn’t hardly afford to keep an extra first baseman at $4,000 a year.”
“It’s best all round,” I says. “Bill’s goin’ to make more dough than we could possibly give him; he’s goin’ to sell cars durin’ the week and play semipro ball Sundays. And maybe he can master the barber trade and pick up a few extra hundreds Saturday nights. But even if he don’t make a nickel, he’s got $2,000 hoarded up.”
“That’s fine!” says the boss. “I like to see thrift in a young man. And it always seems like a pity that so many boys squander their earnin’s and have to keep on slavin’ as ball players till they’re thirty years old and past the prime o’ life.”
For three or four days early in January they was an epidemic o’ lockjaw in Washin’ton, and the market come up enough for Mr. Edwards to take a trip to New Orleans. He left me in charge o’ things, and my job consisted o’ makin’ up stories for the newspaper boys and entertainin’ Hagedorn about once a week.
Once he dropped in to find out Joe Marsh’s address; it’d of been impossible, o’ course, to inquire by telephone. Another time he just happened to be passin’, and happened to remember that he was carryin’ a letter that his wife had ast him to mail, and wanted to know if I had a stamp.
I entertained him every time with dope on Lahey and what a whale of a man he was goin’ to make us. But one day he come up loaded with some real facts about the guy I’d been boostin’.
“I thought you told me Lahey hit .340 with Davenport,” he says.
“I did tell you that,” says I.
“Well,” says Bill, “somebody was stringin’ you. I seen the Three Eye records the other day and they give Lahey .262.”
“That don’t mean nothin’,” I says. “The scorers probably had it in for him.”
“And he made more boots than any first baseman in the league,” says Bill.
“That shows he was hustlin’,” I says. “The more ground you cover, the more you’re liable to kick ’em round. Besides,” I says, “he was so perfect that the scorers probably thought he’d ought to make plays that would be impossible for a common first sacker.”
“Another thing,” says Hagedorn: “I happened to run acrost Jack Wells that played in the league with him, and he tells me Lahey’s a left-hand hitter. Well, Gould’s a left-hand hitter and so’s young Berner, and you already had two left-hand hitters amongst the regulars. Your club’s goin’ to be balanced like a stew on a wild bronco. McGraw and them’ll left-hand you to death.”
“What do you care!” I says.
“It’s nothin’ to me,” says Bill.
“Well, what do you suppose we better do about it?” I ast him.
“If I was you,” he says, “I’d try and get myself a first baseman that hits right-handed.”
“It’s too late to get anybody,” says I. “I guess we’re just plain up against it. I wisht you hadn’t made up your mind to retire.”
“I’d play for you,” says Bill, “if you’d meet my price.”
“That’s up to the old man,” I says, “but I know he won’t back down. He wouldn’t give in to one man when he’s stood pat on all the rest o’ them.”
“It won’t be just one man,” says Bill.
“What do you mean?” I ast him.
“He’ll be lucky if he’s got anybody when the showdown comes,” says Bill. “The fraternity’s give orders that nobody’s to sign till you hear from them, and you won’t hear from them till the leagues meets its demands.”
“That don’t affect our club,” I says. “We got every man already signed up except yourself.”
“Yes,” says Hagedorn, “but signed up or not signed up, they won’t report till the fraternity tells ’em to.”
“You’ve been playin’ long enough to know better’n that,” says I. “If you think any ball player’s goin’ without his prunes to help out some other ball player, you got even less brains than I figured.”
“They’ll have to strike if the fraternity says so,” says Bill. “They’re goin’ into the Federation o’ Labor and be like any other union. And if they don’t strike when they’re ordered to they’ll be canned out o’ the fraternity.”
“Well,” I says, “suppose you was Ty Cobb, draggin’ down a measly $16,000 a year, or whatever he’s gettin’. Which would you do
