Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-08-04
TALES OF THE TURF
Ball Playing and Backing Ponies.
By Clarence L. Cullen.

lets the team take the hurdles as best 1t
may without his ghostly counsel.
Everybody isn't required to hop up and
speak at once with reference to all this,
but doesn't it look as If it might presage
Muggsy's eventual-er-well, retirement
ven say, from the sanguinary field of
base ball, of which he has been so con-
splcuous an ornament-if you like the
word-for so many years?
Because leaving Muggsy out of the thing
and making 1t wholly impersonal, there
isn't anything more deadly certain in life
Than the fact that you can't play the
hGrses and attend to the other thing,
which you call your business, at the same
time, and beat either the one game or the
other.
The pony thing Is as exacting as that
oio inaio aunt who won't let you smoke in
her house. 1t calls for every minute of
your time and 1t fairly howls for every
LIST jot and title of yCUl attention You
can't figure on what price eggs ought to
be sold at IN order to dig out a profit Of
TWO pennies a doZer or on how MANY
wagon loads Of stuff you must haul to
the Georgetown dump in order to keep I'D
with the terms Of the contract while
you're wondering whether Davy Johnson
Is going to let Roseben win this after
noon or not The Roseben wonder thing
Will beat out the other line of thinks
every time they get into conflict and the
result of the internal warfare will inevi-
Gtbiy be that you'll make q hash Of both
the business thing and the pony-playine
end of It, The horse bug takes prettv
nigh as much out of the average man as
the fagon-assaulting business. and no SEN
sible man figures on getting away with
real money at any sort of business while
lie is engaged in mixing 1t up In catch
aS-catch-can style with the why demon
rum.
And If you can't keep your mind on
what's to lie done with that last ship
ment of eggs because you're bothered
about whether Colin is going to prove
himself the crackerjack two-year-old of
the year, has the manager of a ball club
anv chance on earth to keep HIS gray mat.
ter tuned up to concert pitch as to the In
side points OF the ball-playing business
when he's wondering whether that fellow
he gave the money to to get 1t down on
Skeeart Rabbit will follow instructions
and play the pipesky just as far back as
he can get even money?
If history and things don't misstate the
facts, we think not.
In the other days the WASHINGTON ball
club had it's share Of the playing members
who found out-too late. generally-that
they couldn't mix up the horse thing with
the sport for INDUCING il which they were
drawing down salary money. Running
horses haven't anything to do with the
salary business. anyhow. They don't run
for salaried men. They just walk for
people who are regularly attached to bust
ness pay rolls.
Win Mercer was one of the otber-day
Washington players who was grueIed al
| most up to the day o. his tragic suicide
b. the horse bug.
There never was a more popular chap on
| any Washington ball club than this same
| Romeo Mercer. Ordinarily the hand
| same ball player gets the laugh and the
| boot from the fans. and his personal mil
chritude Is. for that reason, an actual
| drawback to him. for the swell lockers of
| the ball lot are usually insufYerably con-
| ceited over their fatal gift of beauty and
| show It, which makes them ridiculous In
| the eyes OF the shrewd people who attend
| ball games. Not so Winnie Mercer The re
| probably never was a fner-looktng fellow
| on professional diamond than Mercer
! and the Romeo" nickname with which he
! was dubbed by some bright chap fitted him
like a new glove. for with his shapely fig