Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1886-05-06
AN uMPlRE.s STORY.
How tho National Game Cripples the Very
Best of Our Citizens.

How tho National Game Cripples the Very
Best of Our Citizens.
The living remains of a once man sat
in the Griswold House the other after
noon. He had wooden leg, wore q
pair of crutches, had Venetian blind
over his left eye and no two fingers
pointed in the same direction. He
looked so sad that he might easily have
been mistaken for a person who had
been selected as candidate for glue
factory honors. One of the clerks of
the house felt sorry for the cripple, SO
he approached him and said:
"Where were you wounded?"
"Well, should say all over" an
swered the remains, working his lower
jaw with a string tied ON his left foot
"What struck you?"
"Umpirin'. Yes, sir, umpirin'," and
the ex-base ball Judge reached forward
and tried to make a three-base hit with
one of his crutches on a cockroach that
was walking off with meal ticket that
it had stolen from the top of the safe in
the Office. Il was as good-lookin' a
man seven years ago as ever shot cram
berries on the plains of New Jersey. I
was struck on bein' an umpire, and got
position down East. l got along first
rate for awhile, never havin' more than
few fights on the ball grounds un-
til one day in Pennsylvania The
Eastwood Ears was playin' the Happy
Boomerangs.' l had the Boom's almost
beat, although they was wOrkin' like
hired men. They belonged in the town
where the game was gOin' on, and l
thought had the extra seven dollars
promised by the 'Basswoods' jest about
in my vest pocket when l made tough
decision agin the 'Booms,' and then it
seemed as though that hull town jest
laid aside business and come for me. l
always thought before that the town
was small, but l bet that ninety-five
thousand people reached for me all to
once. was hit in the back and stepped
on by men, boys and old ladies, and
none of them people weighed less than
a coal yard. Them town-ball players
began dancing the german all over me
with their spiked shoes, and l was so
full of holes l looked like big minney
pail. tried to get up and take to the
woods. l thought if l got out there l
might dig cave and live on berries
for three or four years and keep hid
and then sneak out and go to some
country where they didn't have no
treaty with this country to eytradite
man by. But 1 couldn't get away.
They seemed just gone on the idea of
entertaining me. Seeing was stran-
ger in town l suppose they thought they
couldn't do too much for me. Well, l
spent the balance of the summer in the
hospital.
'.For two years didn't monkey with
the national game. Then got tired
SEEN men cut up into brackets and cot
tage furniture in the saw mill where [
worked. l was always selected to take
the chaps home to the widows, and so
thought after all was about as safe be-
back agin umpirin'. Same old luck
though. About the third week l had
another town hit me for helpin' an out
side to win. 1 broke away from the
crowd and run under the grand stand
and I'm burned if the hull thing didn't
fall on me. Nobody else got scratch.
had to have my leg sawed off after
that. Well. I'm goin' up to Lake SUI
perior as shippin' clerk in a giant pow
der factory. Before 1 left home, in
New Jersey, had a breast-pin made
out of my upper set of false teeth and
give it to the girl I've been engaged to
three different times. Every time L
got hurt that girl would say: 'Willyum
you're hardly the same man you was
once, lets git ingaged ovir again. and
/ give her three different rubber rings.
Baseball has grown to be the National
game, and job of umpirin' is jest the
thing to give patryotic young man
chance to die for his country. but I'll
take my chance as superintendent of a
cyclone or earthquake rather than in
sist on any more umpirin'. "-Detro't
Tribune.