She says: “I guess we can get a hold of ’em if we slip ’em big sal’ries.” Then she says: “I’d like to make this here club a team of gentlemen, and they’re more gentlemen in the colleges than anywheres else.”
They was nuthin’ for me to do then but beat it out o’ the office and get a drink o’ brandy.
We kept on playin’ our best, and that was about good enough to get us beat oftener than we win. But I was satisfied with the way we was goin’. I knowed we wasn’t topheavy with class. Sullivan came in from scoutin’, and I ast him where was his collegers. He says:
“I’ve been everywhere in the rah-rah circuit, and I ain’t saw no ball player that could carry bats in the Japanese League.”
So I figured we wasn’t goin’ to be pestered with none o’ them there birds that does nothin’ but kick the ball round because they got the habit playin’ football.
The skirt had been travelin’ a lot and hadn’t gave me no bother to speak of. But when she come back, my troubles begin. She come out to the games and set in a box clos’t up to our bench. We was playin’ Brooklyn one day, and Rucker was good. We was a couple o’ runs behind along in the eighth and no hope o’ catchin’ up, with him goin’ that way. They was two of us out, and then Rucker walks somebody and Red Smith boots one, so they was two on when it come my turn to hit. I starts up, but she calls me over to the box.
“Mr. Dixon,” she says, “this would be a good place for a home run.”
I says: “Yes, this is the right spot. I s’pose you’d like to see me hit one.”
“You bet I would,” she says.
“Well,” I says, “which fence do you think I should ought to hit it over?”
“I don’t care which fence,” she says.
Well, I goes up there and done my best to obey orders. Nobody never swung no harder’n me, and the way I was wallopin’ at ’em, I’d of knocked one o’ them walls down if I had of connected. But I missed three and we didn’t score.
Do you remember the day you fellas give us that awful beatin’—twelve to nothin’? Cheney worked for you and we didn’t never have a look-in. What do you think she pulled after that game? She waited for me outside o’ the park and says she wished I’d tell Mr. O’Day not to never let Cheney pitch there no more.
I says: “It wouldn’t hurt my feelin’s if he never pitched nowheres.”
“Well,” she says, “I hope you’ll see to it, because my doctor tells me the spitball ain’t sanitary.”
Then, one day, she ast me what made Hub’s cheek bulge out so when he worked. I told her he had a ulcer on his teeth. She ast why his face was swole up that way only when he was pitchin’, and I told her I didn’t never work him only on days when his teeth was pretty sore, so’s the batters’d feel sorry for him. She must of knew I was kiddin’, but she never called me for it.
She had me worried to death with stuff like that. She wanted the suits sent to the laundry after all the games and says all of us should ought to quit slidin’ because it dirtied us up so much. I got so’s I stuck in the clubhouse a couple of hours after the games, so’s to be sure and not run into her when I come out.
Well, she goes down to Yale college on some party or somethin’, and when she come back, we was just finishin’ up with the Western clubs. We was out in practice one day when I seen her beckonin’ to me. I goes over to where she was settin’, and she says:
“I’ve got you a new player.”
“Who is he?” I says.
She says: “His name is Mr. Baker, and he has just went through Yale. He will meet you in New York.”
Then I ast her what position did he play, and she says: “He ain’t made up his mind yet. He has been busy learnin’ his lessons.”
Then I ast her wasn’t he on the Yale team, and she says: “No, but he could of been of been if he had of wanted to. The coach told him so, but he didn’t have no time to play. You could tell the minute you seen him that he was a born ath-a-lete and he’s a gentleman too, and I b’lieve he will help you in more ways than just one way.”
“Well,” I says, “they’s only one way he could help us and that is to get in there and play ball. If he can do that, I don’t care if he’s a gentleman or a policeman.”
Then I ast her what sal’ry was he goin’ to get.
“Oh,” she says, “you won’t need to bother about that. I’ve already fixed that up already. I have gave him a contract for five thousand.”
I ast her did she mean five thousand for five years, and she says: “No, I meant five thousand for this year.”
Then I says: “That’s as much as I’m gettin’, and this here guy ain’t even made good yet.”
“He’ll make good all right,” she says. “You can tell that from just lookin’ at him, and he comes off’n a good fam’ly.”
Well, we goes to New York, and I was waitin’ round the lobby o’ the hotel for the baggage to come in, when Kelly, the secretary, calls me over to the desk. He pointed out a name on the hotel book and ast me who was it, because the guy was registered as belongin’ to us. “William Baker Junior, Boston Baseball Nine,” was what it says. Do you get that? “Boston Baseball Nine.” Before I ever seen him, I knowed just what he was goin’ to look like, and
