The Washington times., 1905-06-25

the agency of the squeeze play (Which
Pinch Hobbs and me perfected in the
Corndroppers League years back.
little splatter of hit to tho pitcher
won ball game. a guy who rooted
for the losing team says as he was
goin' out. kind o. sadly:
Queer way to lose that game; a meas
ly sacrifice hit did it"
Queer way to lose. The expression
brought out a long train of thought,
and started it choo- chooing through my
mind Queer game, And then l thought
of Chanceville, Ariz, and the queer
way We won game there, and a bunch
o money-and we won it on a strike
out. Did you ever hear of a thing
like that before-or since? A man
striking out and winning a ball game?
You might say that the uueerest game
OF ball the famous Alfalfas ever went
up against was the time they played
the Whizzers. of whizzerville, where
they play progressive ball-that is. in
the first inning only singles count. in
the second only two-baggers, in the third
only thrce-baggers, in the fourth only
home runs, and they went on with
five, six. seven. an eight-baggers till
the ninth innin. where they made a
jump. for some Nason or other, an
to win game in the ninth innin' down
there you had to knock the bail for a
twelve-bagger-or about six miles.
Made Twelve Dagger.
Now, if you remember the day the
AlfaIfas played the Whizzers 1 won the
game in the ninth innin' with a scratch
twelve-bagger. They said it was a
scratch in Whizzerville, though / claim
ed it was about as hard a drive as /
ever stung a league ball for. The rea-
son they called 1t scratch was that it
didn't go sailin' out into the next coun-
ty. but because it hit the shortstop's
hands, glanced off EN-, shot down the
back o his shirt. KEEP on through his
pant leg and stockin. and lodged in
the heel Of his shoe. ] had only got
eight times around the bases when he
found the ball, cause the crash had
knocked the shortstop out and he
couldn't tell his nine where the ball
was They might have got me out then,
only for the fact that the ball had been
driven into the nails of his shoe, and
they had to get a cold chisei to cut il
loose
You might say that that was a queer
game for a team that had been used
TO playing only the regular American
brand of baseball. But shucksi The
Alfalfas have had 50 many queer sets
o. rules fired at EN- that nothin' seems
hard now. That's why I've brought you
through the Whizzer game to the day
we played the Chanceville team out in
the Arizona desert.
Great Gambling Town.
Chanceville. as its name implies. is
the greatest gambling town on earth.
]. amt no relation to Frank Chance.
the Chicagos' first basen1an. In. fact, l
never heard o. no ballplayers ever hail
ing from there for they all stay home.
YOU can't bet on is barred in Chance
vile you can bet on every horse in every
race that is bein' run in the United
States that day. an there amt no dis
trict attorney to jump in an raid the
pool rooms an keep you from losin'
your money. You can play poker, rou-
lette, fan-tan. or craps-in fact, games
you can't bet on is haired In Chance
vile. That's the reason they came
near barring baseball till they found a
way of making a gambling game out of
il. with quick action for your money.
The motto of the town is: Take a
chance.
1t was some time after our Whizzer-
vile game that we struck Chancevilie,
and we had been sweepin' thiHgs before
us clear through Texas. Arizona, and
New Mexico. We got into the town one
Saturday morning about II O'Clock, and
as we stepped off the cars we were
eyed by curious crowd. Suddenly a
big fellow with sombrero hat climbed
UP on Il box. took slate from his
pocket. scrubbed on il, hung il up, and
then pulled out big roll O. bills. This
was written on the slate: