The Washington times., 1905-05-07

| on. one OF 'em runs up on a ball, gives
it a kind of cutting swipe with his
racket and the blame ball, when it hit
the ground bounded away out of the
other guys reach, and the fellow that
batting again.
Pete says l, don't that convey
anything to your intelligent brain?''
Don't wot convey wot?" says Pete
~ wouldn't let any guy call me love at
no game
Keeping Tally.
''shueks, you mutt" says 7. He
wasn't calling him that-that's only
their way of keepin' tally. mean the
way he hit that ball Don't you think
we could get that cut in basebaIl-that
ugly boundd get a lot o hits safe
II wish they'd use bats like them in
a ball game. says Pete And then he
didn't think anything more about it,
being of very practical turn of mind
all that.
Sharp Curve.
But I couldn't get it out o. my mind.
You've often seen a batted ball take a
sharp curve to the right or left IN the
air which is all accidental and is caused
by some twist Of the wrist as the bat
hits the ball. Ny purpose was to find
out how to put the curve or english
-onto the ball whenever sou wanted to
euzzIe an opposin' fielder. I explained
it TO Josh Hapgood, and he told me &c
go away back and set down
'-Gittin' to bat scientific, eh?" says he
Think playin home runs an three-bag-
gers amt good enough 10 win ball
games. do you? I knowed this here
business o learnin' you bottle pool
wouldn't do no good. You'll be playin'
draws an massays. and jump shots with
a baseball yet. The advice o the man
ager o the AifaIfas, your humble ser
want, is TO stick to driyin them over
that left field fence.
Make Job Easy.
But you see was bent on bein' scien-
tifc. l wanted TO make my job easy
The way I hggered il was this:
Every time | get up to bat nowadays
the people expect me to make a home
run, and 1 have to do it. I'm expected
to stand there an catch ins or outs or
ups or drops on the end O. the bat and
put EN- far enough out so that l can
hustle around the bases and run in,
drippin' with sweat an just able to stag
ger for the water keg. What do l care
for the thunders o applause that ring
out when l do the stunt? 1t don't get
me nothin'. I'm drawin' all the money
the Alfalfa club can pay now. and
have anything left to meet the salaries
of the other feIlers. / get no more
money for making home runs than If l
made singles or two-baggers. However.
1 don't want my battin' average TO suf-
fer, so that's the reason I want to dig
up something that'H have TO run my
legs off or my lungs out maxim homers-
Wanted to Think.
My old side partner, Pinch, told me
that l better leave the brain work TO
him and stick to hittin' them out, but
o course L couldn't see IL I kept on
experimenting with the english. and
pretty soon I got so I could bat a ball
10 first base and have 1t take an ugly
bound back OF shortstop, or hit ore
down at the third baseman's feet, and
have him stoop down, confidently ex-
pectin' to pick 1t up. when it would
bound over to second base l called ii
the tangent drive then. but l see now
that it the same thing that this Ander-
got to batting that quite regularly,
maxim, say, three or four base hits a
game with II and then cnuckin in a
home run for good measure at the
wind-up. If the game was close or the
crowd was big and expected me TO
amuse them. Josh Hapgood didn't like
1t little bit, but the tangent drives
were absolutely impossible to field and
we were winning games right along.
/ couldn't see where he figgered 10 kick
ii | chose 10 make things a little easy
for myself. And ! told him so.
Of No Use.
Il amt kickin'." says he. but this
business O your rlayin more scientific
ain't goin' to do no good I feel it in
my bones that it'll hurt you. You may
get brain fever. an with vour bat out o.
the game the AIfaIfas'd have "a hard
time in these last few games that's be-
tween us and the championship again."
Josh means we'll an he's one OF the
best managers in the business, but his
obstinate way o findin' fault only made
that forward or reverse english on every
ball / batted Anyways, II didn't seem
possible then that we could lose three
out o the remain'n ten games, which
would bring us back to the Hayvilles,
who We're second.
But old man Solomon wasn't very