We go home to Chi and are havin’ a hot battle with Pittsburgh. This time Speed’s turn come when they was two on and two out, and Pittsburgh a run to the good—I think it was the eighth innin’. Cooper gives him a fast one and he hits it straight up in the air. O’ course the runners started goin’, but it looked hopeless because they wasn’t no wind or high sky to bother anybody. Mowrey and Gibson both goes after the ball; and just as Mowrey was set for the catch Gibson bumps into him and they both fall down. Two runs scored and Speed got to second. Then what does he do but try to steal third—with two out too! And Gibson’s peg pretty near hits the left field seats on the fly.
When Speed comes to the bench Hank says:
“If I was you I’d quit playin’ ball and go to Monte Carlo.”
“What for?” says Speed.
“You’re so dam’ lucky!” says Hank.
“So is Ty Cobb,” says Speed. That’s how he hated himself!
First trip to Cincy we run into a couple of old Ishpeming boys. They took us out one night, and about twelve o’clock I said we’d have to go back to the hotel or we’d get fined. Speed said I had cold feet and he stuck with the boys. I went back alone and Hank caught me comin’ in and put a fifty-dollar plaster on me. Speed stayed out all night long and Hank never knowed it. I says to myself: “Wait till he gets out there and tries to play ball without no sleep!” But the game that day was called off on account o’ rain. Can you beat it?
I remember what he got away with the next afternoon the same as though it happened yesterday. In the second innin’ they walked him with nobody down, and he took a big lead off first base like he always does. Benton throwed over there three or four times to scare him back, and the last time he throwed, Hobby hid the ball. The coacher seen it and told Speed to hold the bag; but he didn’t pay no attention. He started leadin’ right off again and Hobby tried to tag him, but the ball slipped out of his hand and rolled about a yard away. Parker had plenty o’ time to get back; but, instead o’ that, he starts for second. Hobby picked up the ball and shot it down to Groh—and Groh made a square muff.
Parker slides into the bag safe and then gets up and throws out his chest like he’d made the greatest play ever. When the ball’s throwed back to Benton, Speed leads off about thirty foot and stands there in a trance. Clarke signs for a pitch-out and pegs down to second to nip him. He was caught flatfooted—that is, he would of been with a decent throw; but Clarke’s peg went pretty near to Latonia. Speed scored and strutted over to receive our hearty congratulations. Some o’ the boys was laughin’ and he thought they was laughin’ with him instead of at him.
It was in the ninth, though, that he got by with one o’ the worst I ever seen. The Reds was a run behind and Marsans was on third base with two out. Hobby, I think it was, hit one on the ground right at Speed and he picked it up clean. The crowd all got up and started for the exits. Marsans run toward the plate in the faint hope that the peg to first would be wild. All of a sudden the boys on the Cincy bench begun yellin’ at him to slide, and he done so. He was way past the plate when Speed’s throw got to Archer. The bonehead had shot the ball home instead o’ to first base, thinkin’ they was only one down. We was all crazy, believin’ his nut play had let ’em tie it up; but he comes tearin’ in, tellin’ Archer to tag Marsans. So Jim walks over and tags the Cuban, who was brushin’ off his uniform.
“You’re out!” says Klem. “You never touched the plate.”
I guess Marsans knowed the umps was right because he didn’t make much of a holler. But Speed sure got a pannin’ in the clubhouse.
“I suppose you knowed he was goin’ to miss the plate!” says Hank sarcastic as he could.
Everybody on the club roasted him, but it didn’t do no good.
Well, you know what happened to me. I only got into one game with the Cubs—one afternoon when Leach was sick. We was playin’ the Boston bunch and Tyler was workin’ against us. I always had trouble with left-handers and this was one of his good days. I couldn’t see what he throwed up there. I got one foul durin’ the afternoon’s entertainment; and the wind was blowin’ a hundred-mile gale, so that the best outfielder in the world couldn’t judge a fly ball. That Boston bunch must of hit fifty of ’em and they all come to my field.
If I caught any I’ve forgot about it. Couple o’ days after that I got notice o’ my release to Indianapolis.
Parker kept right on all season doin’ the blamedest things you ever heard of and gettin’ by with ’em. One o’ the boys told me about it later. If they was playin’ a doubleheader in St. Louis, with the thermometer at 130 degrees, he’d get put out by the umps in the first innin’ o’ the first game. If he started to steal the catcher’d drop the pitch or somebody’d muff the throw. If he hit a pop fly the sun’d get in somebody’s eyes. If he took a swell third strike with the bases full the umps would call it a ball. If he cut first base by twenty feet the umps would be readin’ the mornin’ paper.
Zimmerman’s leg mended, so that he was
