Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-02

day-one OF those real bad ones that come
to every umpire sooner or later, and 70
some Of us once or twice season l
wasn't ratified, or nervous. or anything. L
never felt better. and there was no Dig
crowd to worry over-but everything went
wrong. and I knew 1t better than any OF
these fellows who were roasting me,
II had made two or three bad mistakes
and | saved up the worst for the elghth
inning. Cincinnati was leading Pittsburg
by one run then, and Pittsburg CROWDS
don't like to be beaten. so they were blam-
ing me. although, If remember correctly,
my plumbers had hurt Cincinnati more
than they had hurt Pittsburg. In this
eighth inning Wagner doubled to start with.
and Richie hit bounder down to Cor
coran. who was playing second that day
The ball rolled slowly and Corcoran came
in fast on it. l knew 1t was going to be
close decision at first and went running
over there. saying to myself, III get this
one right. | made up my mind like
flash that Corcoran would get the ball and
throw the runner out-although l did not
see him get the BALL crouched, and, al
though 1 saw Richie cross the bag l yell
ed You're out. and put down my hands
At that second I flashed look over my
shoulder to see what Wagner was doing
and saw Leach tagging him of third Cor
coran had scooped the ball. and. seeing
Wagner turn third to try to score on the
play at first, had snapped the ball there and
caught Wagner.
Il was in a fix. I had called Richie
out at nrSt Wnen the Ddl Hduu even DSSii
thrown there but as all the players thought
| had called Wagner out, / let it go at
that and let Ritchie stay at first. have
often wondered what the crowd would have
said if Wagner had slid back to third
safely
My worst day" says Tim Hurst. was
caused by neuralgia in the face. Umpiring
is bad enough. but umpiring with neuralgia
is the limit. All the times l wasn't mis-
taken about decisions that afternoon I
gave the decisions wrong because I was
sore on the world.
THE neuralgia had pulled one side of my
face up and thrown enc eye out of focus.
When l umpired from back of the bat I
was good on first-base decisions. but
couldn't see third, and when l was behind
the pitcher | was good at third and coudn
see first. AS for balls and strikes, had
the wrong angle on every curve. The pa
pers the next day said l made half the
decisions wrong. If I got any right 1t was
by accident.
Probably the worst day I ever had" re-
piled Bob Emslie to the inquiry, was one
afternoon in Philadelphia a few years ago.
1t was all the result of absent -mindedness-
l had been working in Boston and the
weather was cold early that spring. came
to Philadelphia and found warm. sun
shiny, bright day. with birds singing and
flowers growing. I could not concentrate
my mind on the game at all-and the play
ers seemed to have as bad attacks of spring
fever as / had. The game was slow and
uninteresting, and after four or five sleepy,
uneventful innings my mind wandered clear
out of the ball grounds and OF into the
woods somewhere l was umpiring like
man in a dream How long 1 had been go
ing along that way 1 don't know. was
dimly conscious that some people were try
ing to disturb my dream. / think 1t prob
able that l really did doze off for few
minutes standing there. l was Weakened up
by Al Orth grabbing me and saying: Good
Lord, Bob what are you doing? You called
that man safe on a pop fly to Cross. Alter
that staid awake"