The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-12-23
STERNBERG JEWELRY CO. -

d" Which had you rather do, says he,
go to jail or play foot ball?
foot ball
=" Ever play?' said the man.
" Never" says l.
Well. when you came in says the
man, you made one of the prettiest tack
les that ever was Then he went on to
tell me that he was the captain of the foot
ball team in that town, that the left
tackle was sick, and that week from the
next Thursday they were going to play
the team from another town near by,
and what he wanted was to have me take
the left tackles place.
This was on Tuesday, so you see there
was about eight or nine days left. | went
right into training with the team. the cap
tain introducing me as a friend from New
York. They We're practcing every day.
I'd been so accustomed to night work that
ii came pretty hard on me at first to get
used to the day work, but got used to It
in two or three days and worked along all
right They taught me all they could in
eight days, and l remembered all ] could
of it. | suppose you know great deal
more about foot ball than / do, but if you
don't ] might say that in tackling you can
do almost anything you can throw your
self at a man the way had at the captain
It his house, or you can throw your arms
around him and 'rastle with him and
throw him, if you can, but, of course no
smuggling; but you can only tackle the
man that has ball; you can't tackle the
men that haven't got it. You can put
your arm up to them to block EN- when
they try to get by you, and you can fall
against EN- II you want to, but you must
not lay hands on 'em.
well, the day came, and our crowd
turned out immense. and there was a
great lot of folks came over from the
other town Our team was a good one
and the other team had lot of good men
in 1t, too; the teams looked to me to be
pretty evenly matched. and the excitement
was tremendous You know, ! don't be-
lieve people in general have any idea Of
the excitement they get up sometimes
over foot ball games between neighboring
towns.
IT got along pretty well in the first half
obeyed orders, and only tackled the man
with the ball, and didn't do any slugging:
but l must say l cad pretty hard work to
keep from doing it, because some of the
men of the other team big fellows did GER
tainly bounce me around in the most I'M
comfortable sort of way, and / had about
all l could do TO keep from going at 'em.
But l didn't. l stuck to business and /
did good work for my side, sure. First
half, eight to six in our favor. I'd thought
the first half was pretty lively, but it
turned out to be only sort of warming
up; but it was hot in the second half, and
l had all / could do to keep from jumping
right in. Once 1 did give man what |
supposed might be called a gentle little
biff, and got warned by the umpire. Then
/ was more careful. but two or three min
yates later the same man that had seemed
TO be so particular in following me up in
the first half came at me again. though
he wanted to run me down and trampe on
me. and / did plug him. and the next min
ute ] heard the umpire shout out:
" 'Tankleton disqualified
"You understand. that was the name the
captain had given me when he introduced
me. There wasn't anything for me TO do
but to go and sit down and a substitute
took my place and / sat there and looked
on. AS ! sat there watching the game I
felt all of a sudden tremendous dry There
was little old barn near by that was used
as a dressing room, and ! thought there
might be water in that, but there wasn't.
and so I thought I'd look furthery, say
somewhere down around the railroad sta
ton I didn't have any doubt about the
captains keeping his word, but / didn't
know what might happen after the excite
ment was over, especially If the other side
got licked. They might have wanted to
know who ] was, and / have been very
particular about It, and so ! thought that
perhaps / might just as well keep along
LAS I struck into the road on the other
side Of the barn ] heard back in the field
the most terrific cheering; then everything
got quiet again They were at 1t in dead
earnest; but it so happened that there was
a train came along just as ! struck the
station. and to this day / never knew how
the game came out