“I bet I can beat you to third base.”
Red starts runnin’ with the ball right in Baker’s hands, and instead o’ throwin’ it, he holds right on to it and goes after Red. He wasn’t no slouch runner at that, and he made it a clos’t race, but Red beat him. The bugs was a-hollerin’ their heads off, and most o’ the ball players was so sick from laughin’ that they couldn’t do nothin’. Rig’ kept lookin’ over at me to see if I wasn’t goin’ to take the bird out o’ the game, but I didn’t have no stren’th left to shake my head, even.
After the sprintin’ race, they took the ball away from him and throwed it back to Hub. Byrne hits one at Hub, but he jumps out o’ the way so our “star” can get it, and he goes over and sticks his feet in front o’ the ball and it stops right clost to him. Byrne kept on runnin’ past first base and yelled at him to leave the ball lay, so he left it lay and Byrne goes all the way home. After that, when anybody got a hold o’ the ball, they’d throw it to him and he catched one or two the throws, but most o’ them he got out o’ the way of, and even when he catched ’em, he held onto the ball till everybody’d scored. They made twelve runs in that one innin’, and we wouldn’t never of got the side out if it hadn’t only of been for the umpires. They was tired from workin’ the mornin’ game and this one, too, so they pulled a couple o’ raw ones and wound it up.
Rig’ come over to me between innin’s and ast me did I think this was a joke. I told him it wasn’t no fault o’ mine, and explained how it had came off.
“Well,” he says, “I’ve got to catch the midnight train for New York, and we won’t never get through in time if this keeps up.”
“I can’t help it,” I says.
Then he says: “I can,” and he goes back to his position.
The colleger’s turn to bat come in our half, and Rixey rolls one up to him on the ground. Rig’ calls it another strike, tryin’ to get Baker sore, but he don’t never even look round. It’d of been OK with him if they’d called a strike before the ball was throwed. Rixey rolled another one up, and Rig’ calls it another strike. Then before Baker could say a word, and he wasn’t goin’ to say nothin’ neither, Rig’ puts him out of the gam for kickin’. Most o’ the crowd started home when they seen the show was over, but I didn’t blame the umps none—I’d of did the same if I’d of been in their place. We finished up pretty fast after that, because they wasn’t no chancet for us to ever come near catchin’ up.
After I dressed. I forgot what I was doin’ and walked right out o’ the clubhouse without givin’ the doll a chancet to make a getaway. There she was, layin’ for me.
“What did you take him out o’ the game for?” she says.
“I didn’t take him out o’ no game,” I says. “The umps didn’t like his language.”
Then she ast me what was the matter with his language, and I says I didn’t think the umps could understand it right.
“Well,” she says, “if a umpire can’t understand plain English, he should not ought to be no umpire, and I will write to the president o’ the league and have both o’ these here men discharged.” Then she says: “Mr. Baker was doin’ splendid and would of did still better if he had of been left in longer. He didn’t catch all them balls that was throwed to him, but that’s because he ain’t had no practice.” Then she says: “I’m goin’ out of town tonight, but I want you to keep on lettin’ Mr. Baker play every day, and I’ll watch the papers, and if I see where he ain’t playin’, you’ll hear from me.”
Well, I couldn’t see no joke in it when I got home that night. The ball players was wise and knowed it wasn’t my fault. But I was a-scared that the bugs and these here reporters would get after me if I let the boob play every day. And I was a little bit proud o’ the work we’d did and didn’t want to have it all wasted. I figured it all out, the way I was goin’ to get rid of him. I was goin’ to have one o’ the pitchers hit him with the ball in battin’ practice—not hard enough to kill him, but just so’s it would scare him out of baseball. I thought he couldn’t stand the gaff and would quit in a minute.
I gets out there early the next mornin’ for practice and frames it up with Young, a big busher we had that was fast as a streak and hog wild. I sends him out to pitch to us and then tells the colleger to go up there and swing till he learned how to bat. It was prob’ly a dirty trick, but I couldn’t think o’ no other way.
Well, I pulled a boner when I says anything to this here Young. What I should ought to of did was say nothin’, but just stick him in there to pitch natural, and then he’d of hit the bird by accident. But when he was tryin’ to hit him, he couldn’t even come clost. He was tryin’ to be wild, and he pitched more strikes than he ever done before in his life. Gertrude didn’t hit nothin’, and nothin’ hit
