Evening star., 1909-05-02
CULLEN GETS AFTER
BASE BALL K|DDER
Wants the Joyous Rooter
Eliminated From the
Game.
By Clarence L. Cullen.
itten Exclusively for The Star.

Written Exclusively for The Star.
NEW YORK, April 80, 1909
Say, did you ever sit next to one OF
those .Oh, you kid sinks at q ball
game?
Sure you have. You must've. Every
body has.
Well, did you kill him or MAIN him.
or what did you do to him?
Not that there's anything inherently
vicious or mean about the ''Oh. you kid
fellow, at that. Only, he's droler. and
he can make folks sitting around him,
and particularly next to him, feel. oh. so
VARY sa-ad. He means We'll, but he ism
meant. He was never intended. He was
not devised to belong. He Was not de-
signed to exist.
In brief. the 'Oh. you kid droller is
an unhappy and non-fortuitous mistake.
whatever that means.
Y'see, that "Oh. you kid stuff is kind
O frayed around the sides and back
now, anyhow.
1t belongs, now, in the realm Of COM
edy that used to be, but that isn't.
1t never did, even at first, rise to the
sublime height of actual genius. But,
now that it has been kicking around for
quite a long spell, and has become sort
of RoaueforLish in the matter of aroma.
why, 1t has failed now to be befittins,
beseeming, becoming OF entertaining.
But the ''Oh. you kid feller doesn't
know 1t. He hates to let the thing get
away from him. He likes to munich Oh
IT, He's the kind of boy who would
stick a wad of gum to the side of the
sideboard or underneath his chair and
keep right on going back to it until it
fell among the sweepinss or the cat came
along and pulled it loose with her paw.
In New York. on the day the Yanks
opened with the Washington team. l
sat Immediately in front of one of those
..nh you Eid'' pl1lpS
I don't know why il is that heaven
seems to have provided all of these 'Oh,
you kid-ders'' with high, piercing.
suueaky. raucous, nerve-shatteTng voices.
but such, Alcynetta, is nevertheless the
case.
This one said "Oh. you kid about
every nineteen seconds throughout the
entire period of the game. That is to
say, he howled it.
He howled it, too, with the obvious
deep seated conviction that he was max
ing a sure-fit comedy hit every time he
eNuded it from his tho'ax and tossed it
out of his torso
Every time he delivered it from his dia-
phragm-and he must have done that
same at least 1885,; times during the game
he'd gaze around at us folks out of the
l.,s Of his lamps. wearing a broad grin.
as much as to inquire of us. Hey, there.
the knockout when 1t comes TO that
hold your-sides stuff? Yee-ow, but amt
"A clip proper, what?
Made Little Difference.
1t didn't make any difference to him
that everybody scowled back at him
every time he gazed around for approval
after his hurting that "Oh, you kid thing
out of his larynN. He didn't see any
scowls He wouldn't have interpreted the
scowls correctly if he had seen 'em.
The "Oh, you kid stuff wasn't wedged
I'm by him at appropriate periods of the
game He jus: sat and tossed the "Oh.
you kid squeak out of his frame at con-
stant and frequent and incessant inter-
walls. apropos of nothing whatever that
was happening out in the ball yard.
1t was as If he'd been wound up to
shoot il out just so often. and as ii the
ma chinery in him was working like new
hundred-dollar watch.
Occasionally, to sort o switch tho dice
ard give the grandstand tone. he'd say
"Oh YOU kil-id." instead of plain oh
You kid" But this variation wasn't real
ly sufficient to appreciably ameliorate the
sufferings of the folks who sat near him.
Every time he hollered ''Oh. you kid"
he breathed his hot. palpitant, almost
Scorching breath. on my rear hair and
the back of my neck
1t was as If the barber was depositinS
relays of those hot towels ON the back
of my bean af:er-er-well, after one of
those evenings
NV tympanum (Which. guess. is in
the ear somewhere. maybeD is throbbing
vet with the mere memory of the hoarsa,
roaring activities of that "Oh, you kid
der
I'd have gone anyway from there. only.
of course. the crowd being huge and
dense / was wedged in. AS it was. the
game was not nourishing 20 me. l didn't
obtain any nutriment whatever from it.
The "Oh. you kid gink had my Ang"ra
from the '.Play-ball'' minute to the wind
up. and all | could think of was that the
Borgias knew what they were about when
they devised poison dopes that they could
lab into a fellows leg without his feeling
il at all
OF course. the ''Oh you kid Iunatic
means we'll. OF course. Every nuisance
on earth and beneath 1t means we'll.
That's what they all calculate.
But the next "Oh. you kid-der' who