Los Angeles herald., 1906-07-04

( the clubs in the states. The Australian
players haven't, Of course, the patience
and discipline Of the Japanese, and
maybe they don't rag the umpire when
they think they've got a kick acomngl
! 1t isn't any unusual thing for an Aus
| tralian ump. to have to take to the
best kind of footwork he can put up
or seek the protection of the constabu-
larry.
Next to the Americans, the Austria
| lians, rank and file, are the dead
gamest sports In the whole world, and
gamblers from their hearts. They'll
bet on any old thing, and one of the
most curious handbooks l ever saw
made was the rain book, as II is called,
I'm which folks put down their coin on
their selection of the next date when
they think it's going to rain.
"As Australia is a country df long
drouths, the fellows who make these
books have a nice thing of it, but
they've been raped good and hard,
at long odds, by hunch players on the
rain proposition, at that. The Austria
lians bet on the ball games, which is
an injurious feature of the game as
played down there and one which the
people running the game in Australia
are trying to eliminate.
with scrub mines of blueiackets has
tily made up on ships on which I've
served. I've played games of baseball
i'm some queer old parts of the world.
When | was a member of the crew of
the ancient Monocacy, the 'overander.
now gone to the junk heap after its
long years of service in Chinese waters,
was on one of the mines that played
a game in Annoy, away up I'm the in
terror of China. William f.. S, Fales,
the well known writer, was then the
American vice consul at Annoy and he
acted as our umpire, moseying about
the field in his long silken robes, for
Mr.. Fales adopted the Chinese style of
dress while he was in China.
Il don't know how we'd have come out
with the natives If Mr.. Fales hadn't
been participating in the performance
in the capacity of umpire, for the
Annoy Chinese had picked up, heaven
knows how or where, a most peculiar
idea with regard to our little game.
One of the favorte ideas of the ignor-
ant Chinese with regard to American
foreign devils is that they just dote on
killing and eating Chinese babies, and
the word got around somehow or other
that us blueiackets, in playing the game
of ball, used the skulls of Chinese
babies for basebals
Chinks Curious
"A large bunch of the Chinls, very
solemn. were gathered about the field
when we began the game, and we no
ticed that when the ball was poked
among them by the batsmen they
picked the pellet up and examined it
most carefully. Maybe they came to
the conclusion that the Chinese babies
skulls were sewed up inside the leath-
er sphere, for the game hadn't heen
going on very long before we heard
lot of ominous grunts and growlingS
from among them.
Then Mr. Fales our umpire, in
Chinese togs, addressed those China
men in their own language. He seemed
to be giving it to them hot and heavy.
but whatever he said must have dis
abused their minds of that kinky notion
they had about the Chink babies skulls.
for when he had finished they all kow-
towed to him and the situation was
all right.
"A ship on which served stopped at
Callao. Peru. to coal on the up trip from
San Francisco about ten years ago. and
while we were in the port a couple of
young American chaps. shipping clerks
in the employ of American shipping
firms in Callao. came on board and
asked us, for'ard, if there were any
ball players among our crew. We told
'em that we thought we might scrape
up enough fellows to form a nine at a
pinch. You see, we preferred to stay
under cover on that point.
LAS p matter of fact, our ship had
the crack baseball nine of the whole
American navy, but weren't saying
anything about that to people who
came prowling around in strange ports
with the probable idea of scraping up
a game.
"Well, the young American chaps
Gai1 thpIr had sort nf GOr1lh nine in
Callao, made up of American fellows
working there for various shipping
houses, and they'd like to have game
with us on the following day, which
was the Fourth of July.
I'VE told 'em we would oblige 'em
just by way of celebrating the day.
We observed that we weren't much at
the game, and that we didn't expect to
put up any sort of a contest. but that
way of celebrating Independence day
in a foreign port.
American Clerks Win
Looked like pipesky for us, and
every man-jack of the crew went
ashore by special permission from the
skipper who was a fan himself to take
in the game on the following day.
There was an immense crowd of Callao
folks present, and before the game
started all hands of our crew. including
the officers, got down all the money
they could dig and scrape on our man
o'-war champion of the navy nine. We
chuckled to ourselves when those CAL
lao yaps freely gave us odds of to 1
that their little bunch of shipping clerks
'ud beat us, and we stood to make the
whOppingest kind of a cleanup.
But those nine American shipping
clerks of CallaO just took us by the
scruff of the neck and the slack of the
short clothes so to speak, and all but
ran us right smack into the Pacific
ocean They ate us up alive to the
tune Of II to 0, and there never was
minute during the game when we had
a gho@t of chance 10 get farther than
second base, any of us.
"They We're the niftiest bunch of
scrubs / never saw, and their pitcher
didn't have to take any dust from any
professional 1t wasn't till after the
game was all over and on ice for those
shipping clerks, and we'd shed our
selves of all our coin, that we found out
that their pitcher had been a swell
finger for a great university nine in
the United States for a number of
years.
Every ball he put over looked about
the size of an ants head, and he whitfield