The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-05-13
HOME RUN HAGGERTY


For two days after Getemwhenyou-
about the rubber-armed shortstop and
the leather handed catcher which were
SIch stars in the All Star league, Pinch
Hobbs wasn't his own self. He was
grumpy and cross and always talkin'
like he was in dream, and finally one
day. after he'd muffed a fly and messed
up grOunder and then missed pref
ty throw / made to catch a runner at
second, / couldn't stand it no longer,
''Wot in thunderation is the matter
with you Pinch? Do you want to lose
'!The matter" says Pinch, is one rub
armed shortstop, an if you had any
you'd feel the same way about a leath-
"shucks.'' says l. That's where the
shoe pinches. Pinch, is it? Gettin' jeal-
YES" says Pinch: "it hurts my proud
spirit to know that there's man playin'
shortstop in these here United States
who has got anything on me. And L
won't stand it. I'm going to start out
west till find the rubber-armed marvel,
and challenge him TO a straight-out test
Of shortstopping skill. 1 won't rest till
So that was how it happened What
Pinch said went with US two, and the
next morning we, havin' got leave of alb
a train out o Alfalfa and headed west
ward on our mission We had to travel
-
the territory that we knew about, but
pretty soon we got into a strange coun-
around Delvin Desert o. Doubedee.
1t looked like good baseball country
at that, and pretty soon we seen a bah
ground In the outskirts O. town and
a pennant floatin' from the flagstaff,
an we got off and found it was a place
called Mesquite, which had ball team
beat IL out OF the pennant in the Prairie
league for four years. We found the ball
teams hotel and got hold of the man
ager-
His name was Cagey Calkins, and I'll
admit that he was sharp guy and knew
ball players. But in his palmy days he
never could reach Josh HapgoOd's shout
der for real brain Still. he had ideas.
voS ss%s e,nf fSur TIME Wns err sonar are
thin, rather warm in the grass-eating
Yes" says Cagey Cal1ins. Were
warm, and were warm on the trail of
the fifth pennant. We aim to be quin-
UP tSple Winners WY, We ain afraid OF
Chicagos, or any O. them teams"
What I want to know" says Pinch,
amt so much how good your team is
as to whether you've got a certain rub
ber-armed shortstop and leather-handed
ketcher on it,
Quit your jokin'." says CaIkins. who
ever heard of such cuff as that on d ball
nine?'
Then Pinch told him over again the
All star league story, and how them two
valuable pieces of baseball property had
run away, and Call<ins says: "Shucks.
We don't need any rubber-armed short
stop and leather-handed ketcher. Why?
Because we got a pitcher with two steel
wings He pitches every day. He never
gets tired, he never kicks for more saIa-
~, and he never kicks at the umpire
He's 1t with a big I, and he's the rea-
son why we won the pennant four years
in succession"
Wei. me an Pinch both said we'd like
to see this here Bessemer-armed phe-
nomenOn, so we went out to the ball
grounds while they were practicing that
afternoon and watched him warm up.
And then we seen the reason why he
never kicked for no more salary. He was
nuthin' but iron and steel and bolts.
and screws figger,. standin' there in the
pitchers box with Mesquite" painted
on his chest, and a uniform painted onto
him, and no face at all. only what some
joker had painted on with stove black
! ing. And them two steel arms were long
and just hung loose there with holes in
| the end for a ball to shoot out.
Now, I don't know what made the
/ that when CallOins went out and slipped
baseball into the piece o statuary' s
shoulder and twisted a crank one o. the
big arms began to swing and pretty soon
IL was gofn' around fast il look ed like
the spOkes of wheel that's goni' a
mile a minute, and just then there came
! sound like euttin' a deck O. cards and.
zip, the ball shot up across the plate an
as there wasn't any catcher there il hit
a two-inch plank in the backstop, splin-
tered it an kept on and under the grand
stand.
/ Pinch TO Calkins, that you use that in
/ games?"
Sure" says Calkins.
An the other team stands for it?'
! Right you are says Calkins. They
have to stand for it They've tried and
| tried 10 get machines to beat it, but they
can't do it. The mechanical genius al
| Mesquite has got EN- feazed Besides
! this is natural ball player
| 'How's that"' says 1, nightly inter
| ested.
Because he's run by natural gas
/ says Calkins. There's a well right un-
| der where he stands, and all We have Il
do is TO turn a plug and light HIM up and
ne. run for twenty-one innin's without
! lOOkin' at him"
He amt the only. ball player can play
| Pinch, with a kind of a sideways glance
at me But Callcins never noticed tht
joke and went on talkin'.
He told us that after each innin' the
phenom was brought in and stood by the
bench. and the other nine would take
their machine out and put him in. We
found out that every nine in the league
had some different kind of a mechanica
pitcher, but none of them was as gooC
as this here natural gas article
They're always gettin out o. order
says ne AT some critical point in the
game they're liable to lose their nerve
Just like flesh and bones and tobac<er.
cheWtn' pitcher, and hurl ten shilIins
worth o horsehide over the grandstanf
and into the next state, or into the gran-