“My!” says the colleger, with his mouth wide open. “I should say that was nerve. And didn’t this here Smith never get into the big league?”
“No,” says Hub. “He got blood-poisonin’ in that foot and they had to cut his whole leg off, and the National Commission’s got a rule that you can’t play in neither big league unless you got two legs.”
After that, Baker and Hub hung round together all the time. He fell for everything Hub told him, no matter how raw. He was givin’ Hub a good time, and it’d ’ve been all right if we could of stayed on the road all the while, but I knowed when we got home, the doll’d ast me why wasn’t I playin’ him and then the trouble’d start.
Sure enough, when we come in off o’ the trip, she called me to the office and put it up to me.
“Well,” I says, “I don’t think he’s got enough experience yet. You just let me handle him and keep him on the bench awhile, and maybe he’ll develop into a pretty fair ball player.”
I suppose I should ought not to of gave her no encouragement about him, but I was figurin’ all the time that she’d be boughten out o’ the club pretty soon, and then I could can him. At that, I didn’t have no objections to keepin’ him except that I knowed he was cheatin’ the club out of about two hundred bucks every first and fifteenth. If I had to let him go, the gang’d of missed him, especially Hub.
I run into Williams one day and ast him when was the skirt goin’ to sell out, and he says they’d tried hard to get her stock away from her, but she’d made up her mind to stick it out till the end o’ the season, but that Williams and the other directors was thinkin’ about takin’ it up with the rest o’ the league and tryin’ to force her out, but she’d gave ’em her promise that she’d sell in the fall if they still thought she should ought to. So they was nothin’ for me to do but make as good a showin’ as I could and figure on next year.
It was after the mornin’ game on the Fourth o’ July that she horned in again. She tells me that her brother and bunch of his friends from Yale college is comin’ to the afternoon game, and they want to see their pal perform. I says I’d let him practice and they could watch him if they come out early enough, but she says, no, that wouldn’t do: some o’ them boys was sayin’ that they didn’t b’lieve he could play ball, and she wanted to show ’em that he could.
Well, I thought awhile, and then I made up my mind that if he had to be gave some position, he might as well have mine and I could take a rest. So I tells the umps about the change and then I goes back to the bench and sits in a corner where they wasn’t nobody could see me.
I wisht you could of been there. The papers had a lot o’ stuff about it, but they didn’t tell more’n half. Hub was pitchin’ and we was playin’ Philly. He got the first two of ’em out, and then Cravath hits one down to the colleger on a perfect hop. I was lookin’ for him to throw it wild after he got it, but Pat Moran was coachin’ at first base, and he hollers to him to throw it to second. So what does he do but just like Pat tells him to, and naturally Maranville wasn’t there to cover because they wasn’t no play. So the ball goes out in the outfield, and Cravath got clear round to third base. Then Magee busts one, and they got a run. I thought Hub’d be sore, but he wasn’t. When he come in to the bench, he was laughin’ his head off, and he says:
“Don’t never take me out o’ this game. This is one battle I want to see all the way through.”
Well, Devore leads off for us, and he walks. The colleger’s up next, and I tells him to bunt. The first two Rixey throwed him was a mile outside, but he bunts at ’em just the same. Then Rixey curves one, and he tries to duck, but he can’t get out o’ the way. The ball hit him in the sleeve or somewheres, and Rigler tells him to take his base, but he wouldn’t move.
“What’s the matter?” says Rig. “Why don’t you take your base? Are you hurt?”
“No,” says the colleger, “but the manager says I was to bunt.”
Well, we had to drive him to first base, and then he steals second, or tries to, with Devore standin’ right there. Devore don’t move off’n the bag, so they tagged “Gertie” out. When he comes in, I ast him what was he tryin’ to pull off. He says Luderus had told him to steal. Then I says:
“Don’t never pay no attention to what them Philly guys tells you. If I want you to steal a base, I’ll send you a night letter.”
We didn’t score, and nobody hit nothin’ at him in their half o’ the second, though they was all tryin’ to. Hub was tryin’ to let ’em, too.
The third innin’ was a bear. Dooin hits one at him, and he jumps out o’ the way. Rixey struck out, and then Dooin starts to steal. I’d told Maranville to take all the pegs, but he thought it’d be more fun to leave ’em to “Gertrude.” So he hollers
