The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-05-07

| IllGdll cl run GU c NlllASt1l pDiAils
 ! "In this short-htt practice we devoted
 a great deal of time to driving short
 sharp hits that would cannon off at sud
 den angles. At first we just drove then
 at the floor, but as we grew more accu-
 rate the manager had small blocks set in the floor. sticking up like little
 stone in a diamond, and we had to drive
 them at the blocks. Of course, you can see that the object of this was to cause , the ball to shoot off in unexpected direc-
 tions, and if you happened to know the queer spots on the diamond it was a
 cinch to hit em safe, if you could touch | the ball.
 Things ran along in this way until
 the opening of the season, and when we | played the first game on the home
 grounds the place was jammed, We won that game just by placed hits and
 the local papers handed us all sorts of bouquets, so that we began to grow d
 bit chesty. But the manager was there
 to call us, and we steadied down. We made a runaway race of it for the first
 month and the attendance wEen we played fell off, as people grew tired of
 seeing one team win all the time We
 grew careless and lost number of
 fifth instead of first. To make matters
 games, and the first thing we knew were
 worse when we were practising one
 morning on the home grounds our left fielder, one of the best men on the team
 was stung by hornet on the eye, put
 ting him out of the game. The hornet came from a big nest in the corner of the fence and we were for burning the things out some night. The manager wouldn't hear of it, but warned us to keep away and not disturb them, and then we knew that there was real warm time in prospect for some one. It was in the second series of home games that we learned who was to be the vic tim.
 "It seems that the catcher, who had been released the season before, had caught on with one of the other teams in the league and had put them next to a lot of our tricks He was playing left field and would tip off our plays to the other men, so that it was only by the hardest kind of work that we man. aged to win one game out of three on his teams grounds. When we came to
 
 when he crippled one of our men by spiking him in the leg we had all the more reason for wanting to do business with him. There was but one game of the home series left, and we were des- perate We had tried to pick a fight with him on the grounds, but that would not work, and his manager kept him in nights after the games.
 "The morning before the last game we had long talk with the manager and when he said that he had it all fixed we were crazy to know the game, but he refused to tip us off until the time to turn the trick, During our batting practice that morning he fastened up a big bunch of rags over in the corner of the fence in right field and kept me plugging away at it. It wasn't such a big hit for me, and after few trials l had it down pat; could nail the bunch every time. Then he asked me if I could do the same thing in left. I said Yes and called to the pitcher to shoot one up until I plastered the hornets nest. I never sat down so suddenly in all my life, and when I turned to ask the manager what he meant by pulling my legs out from under me, he said:
 " Do you want to queer the whole game? Why, I should think that you could see what I wanted. Here I've had you batting at the fence corner for two hours and you don't see that that's the way we expect to put that guy out of the game! Maybe you think I had that hornets nest left up for fun? Well, you've got another think. And it wasn't because I'm tender-hearted, elth- CT But I do think that perhaps that fresh left fielder's hide isn't so thick that hornets stingers wont make any impression. If you don't push the ball right into that bunch of winged fire this afternoon you ought to quit the game. I'm beginning to think that you aren't as clever as imagined. But you know the game. I've done all l could to give you a chance to get even, and if you slip up it isn't my fault. Remember now, right into the bunch. You can do 1t, if you try, and we'll put a stop to dirty ball by other people,
 That game I'll remember after I've forgotten everything else. For six in nings neither side scored, and in the seventh they run in five on us. Our was having forty kind of fits, and the way he jabbed the assegai into us when we came to the bench was frightful. In our half of the seventh we made two runs, leaving us three to he bad It was one-tWo-three with the other side in the eighth and then we ,ame in to win the game. After two were out little single and a couple of passes filled the bases, and it was up to ne. I looked out at that guy in left | field and saw him grin. That settled it. | Two strikes were called and twice I | ouled the ball into deep left, to get MT Dirty Ballplayer to move out and play | leep. Then I got it just where I want | d it and punched it straight out over lia head.
 He saw that it was going back of | i'm and turned and ran with the ball. t was d great race, but the ball reached irst. Smash it went into the hornets | lest like a shell from a six-inch gun. | lust as it struck MT. Dirty Ball was bout six feet back. running like a deer md unable to stop himself He saw the ence and threw up his hands to break he force of the collision. What the ball idn't do his hands did The fiercest nd widest war dance ever executed vas tame to his. l tore around the ases and then lay down on the ground nd howled,
 "The other players thought he had a