Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-12-27
ANOTHER KNOCK
FROM {. CULLEN
This Time He Uses the Har-
poon on the Poor Ball
Players.
By Clarence L. Cullen.

NEW YORK. December IS, 1908
oh. well, the ball players had a pretty
good Christmas You don't have to worry
about them. They're all pretty snug
and comfy. They obtain theirs. you
know, whether school keeps or otherwise.
Hard times-are the times hadr?-don't
bother them any more than a bizzy-izzy
sandfly bothers a stranded and deceased
dogfish. The answer is almost foolishly
easy. The fans have just nachully got
to have base ball. They must and will
have base ball. Maybe some of the fans
don't eat with monotonous regularity.
Maybe some OF the fans don't redeem
the laundry from the sordid. calculating
clutch of the laundryman. Maybe they
shoo-fy the installment house collector
when he pokes around for those nine
lunar-monthly bucks on the household
furniture. Maybe they have to nudge
over to the vacant lot to furtively smoke
a corncob pipe or malignant stogie.
Maybe they stall the spouse when She
tells 'em where there's peach OF a hat
was 1898: now S1.39. Maybe they'll be
there with the soldered fist with respect
to hull lot Of things they're used to
having.
But give up the ball game? Flagg base
Can such gruesome suggestions.
And so you can dope 1t that the ball
players don't have to write or to say,
at Christmas Or at any other old or new
time: Please remit. This institution for
organized base ball players is a sure
enough Soldiers Home-if all ball players
only knew 1t.
Er-some of them don't know It,
Some Of them really do not know 1t.
At this very moment Of writing plenty
bulgy wad of holiday change in the nigh
kick, and the beers swinging in easy, are
sitting around the old back room base
burner. whiting shavings on the nod
full cat and telling the open-mouthed Hank
and Hiram that they amt nothin' In base
all tn time an don't git no probation:
that the fetal scorers all over the cir
cult have entered into a conspiracy ag in
him to rob him O. hits an t. keep his
stickin' average down to 200 when he
knows he hit 319 twicet, two years in
succession; and SO on and so on. just as
long as fuel for the basebuner holds out
to burn and Hiram and Hank are on the
listening job.
Want an Increase.
Yes, and others of them just now are
engaged in exhaling those deep chest
tones. freighted witt the, laundering
announcement that it's going to be nix
for themon that sign thing unless the club
that has the papers on them comes across
for an additional $500 or 81 900, or some
season. Them sign at the old figures?
Fer-git it! No. stree. After the way they
backed the team up when 1t was in
a tight hole las August? Well. they
guess double nix!
On various previous occasions I've
fhaSa Ia
winter leagues. But it's thing that
always frames into a laugh for me. and
l just can't make my typewriter behave
when nudge around to the topic of these
winter mixers.
Right now they're busiest with that nix
stuff. This is the open season for ball
playing mixers. Yep. they're all trough.
The ball playing bizness can run hence
forth for Sweeney and Hogan. Amt
nothin' in it. nohow. They've gotta be
showed contrack what Is. Somethin'
RIGHT has gotta be tackled onto their
contrack. Why. if they're handin' Jiggs
Donohue five Or six thousand per season,
why-huh! we'll, that's all: they re rough.
That goes. too. They can sling all the
contracks at them they wanta. But it's
nix for their J. Hancock till they're
showed.
They don't play ball t git up a sweat.
They amt all het up over the hygienic
advantages of playing ball. What they're
a1ter, "lat they re SOln L git, Is reck =
milton. with the old emerald papes tied
t the same. The old duff. That's them.
And the RIGHT duff. What do these
people think ball players is? Mice?
Well. then. Let 'em come acrost with
the duff writ down kee-rect in the papers
and then they'll see bout that sign-up
thing. Blunt until they do-aw, NIX nix,
nix!
AS above stated. that's the way it Is
NOW
However. the winter goes a-runnins
after Christmas and New Year Only
January and February to be put in
around the base burner-and then them
nutty newspaper fellers that write about
base ball begin to nudge in with gossip
about the training camps, with poetic
little "reminiscences about the sparkle of
the dimpling sea at Galveston and the
yaller roses around San Antoine and the
magnolias around Atlanta and Macon.
The nix-nixers read about the bunch
that's getting ready to report for the
training trip. They think. too wistfully,
about that little spotlight under which
they are permitted to cavort as ball play
ers and they know full well, deep in the
midriff of them, that they never could
have cavorted under any other old spot
light In the word If they hadn't been
taken into the ball-playing fold.
Sorry for Holding Out.
They wish then that they had not been
so dag-Soued defiant and positive in their