Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-07-17
THE DIAMOND
THE BAT WAS
 A MIGHTY STICK
Hit. By the Score and Runs Even More Made Meriden Feel
 Sore-0ther Results.

An old man sat in the grand stand I yesterday out at Reidyille and sever al times looked around and wondered where all his boy companions were 1 Surely he murmured, this cannot be the year of 1908, I must certainly
 be living back in the eighties. The game l see before me must be that of
 my boyhood days. And yet l cannot recall the faces of the players. Roger Connor Is not there, neither is Patsy
 Kennedy, nor Jack Burke, nor Bill I Mellen, nor Dan Phelan, nor Billy Madden, no they are all missing, and l yet they used to hammer the ball like that back in those palmy baseball days. The Monitors and the Rose Hills have long since passed into baseball desuetude. These must be their sons or grandsons or they could
 never accomplish such feats of bats manship. My, but how young l feel again. Hit it out there Nick, you are the only relic of my happy days that seem to recall. Wow, no supper for
 me tonight, I have found the new elixir of life, l am young again, don't care if they never get out
 whoop, let the hits sizzle, three
 cheers for me and then three cheers more, bang" And then they quietly
 led the old baseball fan away and Maurice Reid administered to his 1 wants. - s.r .
 And could you blame young or old to go daffy on such a contest? Base ball history has been smashed to smithereens. All records have been whirled into oblivion. Swatfests have been paralyzed and the baseball world astounded. Remember the date. July 16, 1908. Pin the teams in your hat bands, Waterbury and | Meriden, 46 hits with a total of 55. Six two sackers and three three-bag- | gers. Five pitchers in battle array. Three of them driven to the prison 1 pen. Great, wasn't it? No wonder i many of the wives missed their hus- bands at the supper table. It was long after the evening meal when the slaughter had ceased and the dead and dying were gathered in. The old rivals had fought to finish and the results were frightful on both sides. 1 Never again will such scene be en- acted on a ball field. It couldn't be repeated. Did the fans get their moneys worth? Just ask them and they will sadly reply, that Billy Lauder should not have made that hit in the tenth inning which brought in the winning run, for they hun gered for more of the juicy ones.
 Just listen to the tale of woe in a few words. In the first inning Meri- | den landed on Sillery for triple and two singles and two were in. Wa terbury landed on Stevens for a triple a double and three singles and three runners were home. Meriden did nothing in the second. In our half we landed four more safe one basers andwith one misplay, four more were tagged on to our score. In the, third Meriden slashed Sillery for a couple of singles and with two free walks, two more runs were rung up. In the fourth we got safe drive which with passed ball and an error of center gave us another notch higher up. But the fifth, my what a. jamboree. Meriden got five singles, one double and four free passes and eight men had crossed the winning goal. Did we do anything? We'll some. and then lot more. Mansfield, the Holy Cross twirler had been. called into ac- tion and his debut was disastrous. Three two-baggers, a single. two free passes, one hit by the pitcher and three bad plays gave us seven on our side of the fence. We added one more in the sixth on a single and A double, while Meriden remained idle. Sillery had been invited to the bench in a sulky frame of mind fin the fifth inning, while the slaughter was in progress and MePartlin, the veteran. was sent up to take his medicine. He got it good and plenty in the seventh and Farley was called into action. In that seventh Meriden got only two singles and a double, but two free passes, three errors and one hit bv the pitcher sent Meriden scootipe skyward with seven more runs and fin the lead for the first time. Water bury was not to be denied, however. and steadily plugged along. In our half of the seventh one came on two singles and two misplays. In the eighth Meriden seooped in another on a triple and a sacrifice to the outfeld Ia our half We tied up things on three singles and free pass. In the ninth neither did anything. The tenth saw Billy Lauder go over into Frank FItx- patriek's territory and drop a ball 1 and this runner came over the pIate with a run on sacrifice and a sim gle and the fans said things no, complimentary of Mfr Lauder. Tn. our half. they took it all back. FItzpat- rick. first up, singled. was sacrificed To second and came home with inc tv- ing score on Nicholas safe drive and an error of left field. which sept Nichols to second. Then. came Lauder and with three balls and two strikes on him he slammed the bali over he shortstop's head and Nichols was home with the winning run and he barbecue was over. The score.
 Waterbury.
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