Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-03-05
TRAVELLING WITH
THE LIVE STOCK
BY Ii. s. FULLERTON.


More base ball is played in trains and
hotels than on the ball feld--and more
queer plays are pulled Off. major league
team travels about 1850 miles a year,
exclusive of training trips. will spend sixty
five seventy days In hotels and about
twenty-eight days on trains, mostly in
sleeping cars. herded together. So, natural
ly. when eighteen men full Of animal spirits
keep together that long. there is bound to be
something doing.
There is enough going even in these
days, when the players are under strict
discipline, but what happened in the old
Gays. when the rowdies and sports pre-
dominated, was enough to drive a poor
reporter who was forced to travel with the
live stock, criticise and blame them-and
then take part In their frolicS and out
breaks-gray trying to keep from being
killed and at the same time give the news. ,
The rowdy of rowdies was Elmer Foster.
Handsome. well-bred, clean cut. of promi-
nent family. and with it all we'll educated
and something of an actor. Foster was
in base ball for the fun In tt-and he had
H. one spring the team had been through
Texas and landed in Kansas City for
week of practice games some OF the Eel
lows had been drinking and on April 10
the day salary begau-Anson served notice
that he would fine the first man he caught
taking a drink. That evening l was IN my
room on the fourth moor OF the coates
House. when a couple of the boys dropped
in Ryan strolled in a few minutes later,
and | suspected something. Ihey toio me
to keep on writing, and pefore hau mn
ished the story about seven OF the team
were congregated there. A four-gaiion
keg of beer came up, was tapped, ana
Jolly little poker party started.
All this time Arson was SITTING. grim
ard determined. down by the entrance.
every once in a while strolling back TO look
into the bar room. Before retiring; aiso' ne
strolled through the corridor Wnere tne
niavers roomed and listened. finding every
thing quiet my room was in another
PeTb The keg of beer and the poker game be-
came a nightly occurrence. one his e.;,,
oho,ft midnight Foster strolled to the WIN
dow- ard. looking out. remarked: why,
there is Capt. Anson down there py me
Doorway" The others, intent on a JACK
moi paid no attention Foster quietly
picted I'm the nearly empty beer key and
dronned Il out the wlndow-four fioors-to
The key struck the pavement with
sorp5 like a l4-inch gun going off. bound
Oh twenty feet. then banged the pave
u,ent again about fifteen feet from where
Arson was sitting-and that broke up the
poker sessions
4
Tom, Daly. the old star OF three or four
b,g league teams. was one of the widest
rovdtes in the business. only no one ever
sus,ected him he was so quiet looking
and meek hammered. But with the excep-
tion NJ Tommy Herman and Elmer Foster
no could start more trouble than any ball
nlaver that eyer broke into the game.
one day In the old times the old Chi
cago team was travelling through Kansas.
The day was hot and dusty. and every
body was worn out when the train crept
I.fci rrxT ra1
and stopped On the platform was farm
err with the kind of whiskers that made
Kansas famous. and DAILY, leaning out OF
the window. engaged him In conversation
on weather crops, stock. the chances OF
PETER becoming governor, and everything
else he could think of. Just as the train
started to pull out Tom reached out MS
hand and, saying. Well goodbye; glad
by the whiskers and dragged him the length
OF the platform. shaking the whiskers all
the way.
The great fun of travelling with the team.
of course comes during the spring training
trims for after the men settle down to the
hard work and harder travel of the long
playing season they get fussy and notionate.
worried and overstraned. The training sea-
SON. however, is pleasure trip for most of
them and they tear loose. Unfortunately
for them they train In the south, and most
southern towns do not take kindly to north
ern teams.
One spring we struck the limitissimus plus
4 the grand past master of all the bad
towns-which accurately describes Way
cross Ga. We sat there In the edge of the
Okinnokee swamp for weeks, half starved
watching the fruit trains eo.north and the
meat trains go south, and neither stopped.
We wanted amusement so every man in the
team Irsd his head shaved so we could laugh
at each other.
Then came a grand event. A travelling
faker of a tight-wire walker came to town
and strung a wire from fence one side
of the road TO telephone pole on the other,
and all the natives came TO see him walk up
and down thai wire
Billy Bull Head Dahlen stood the perform
ance long as he could, then catching hold
of the lower part OF the wire he gave 1t
jerk The performer turned somersault
aud landed on his feet In the sand of the
street. He remounted the wire at once and
-slaarked:
Ladies and gentlemen you win observe
| that | always light on my feet. No matter
(which way / fall | always light "a my feet.
! am like cat-f cannot be nurt by fall
ing
Just then Dahlen jerked the wire again
and the performer aIighted in the sand
sauarely top of his head. In an Instant
there were dozen reyolyers fashed--aiid
dozen nre-eating southerners were striv-
| ing for a chance TO kill Dahien. The others
covered his retreat and remained eau
tiously In the hotel until the next ias-
when We retreated to Savannah la safety