Evening star., 1909-06-20
WON'T Do TO TR|FLE
WITH THE NATIONALS
According to Cullen, Managers
Have Concluded That Locals
Are Always Hard to Beat.
Bv Clarence L. Cullen.
Written Exclusively for The Star.

by SldlCAS ~. SoiASh'
Written Exclusively for The Star.
''Wahoo Sam" Crawford. the heavy
waiting, ye r-in-and-year- out always
he-same middle gardener of the Tigers.
sn't geared along conversational lines.
On the contrary. he is one of the most
!aciturn high-notch players in the game.
But he expressed himself with a sort of
whimsical humor about the Washington
ball club the other evening.
It's the goat-getting ball club. this
Washington outfit, If you're asking me. -
he said. Il mean by that that the Ma
ionals always have had way of making
fuckers of the clubs that are way up
there. Look at how they've got the an
sora of the Cleveland bunch! And We'll
have to be fighting em with our teeth
from now on to keep 'em from absorbing
our nanny, to judge from this last series
f games. We're always on our toes
when we swing up against the Washing
ION layout We learned that lesson a
bng time ago. If anybody around here
,ntertains the idea that when We mooch
INTO this town We're prepared TO loll ana
Oaf around the ball yard, taking things
sasy because of the presumption that all
we've got to do is to play beanbag and
'ook out of the window between times in
order to cop the series, such an imaginer
IS leaning against leaky bamboo, that $
Ill I've got to spin. Every club on the
ist tries its blamedest when it ranges
alongside the Washington team, for the
circuit long ago found out what a gang
sf mark-makers this Washington outfit is
Invariably composed of. Fielder Jones,
The former boss of the White Sox, is the
boy who'll tell you all about that the next
time you make little run out to Oregon.
where he's living now. Fielder swung
along here with his bunch, when the
White Sox were playing champion, kitty
mitch ball, few years ago. and had
series of four taken away from him just
as easy as swallowing a Concord grape.
1t took Fielder the rest of the season
TO cool out after that experience, and his
team nailed the championship that season
at that. 1t was a favorite warning of
his after that to the other clubs of the
circuit. Don't let your head sag when
you're up against that Washington push,
or you'll get something between the eyes
All of the club shippers are fully wise to
that point, Hughey not the least among
en- Jennings always says to us when
we're moving into this town, or when the
Washington gang is visiting us. Now
look out for these long-shot people. you
fellows. or they'll hang something on you
thatll make you look like clowns Keep
1t in mind that it's the under dog that's
lighting for his life.
"As a straight matter of fact" Craw-
ford went on. a bit more seriously, Il
! haven't been able to dope it out any time
these five or six years back, why this
Washington ball outfit hasn't been figur-
Ing among the first four. anyhow. right
along. I've never been in a game with
them that they haven't put up a ine
article of ball., and it's a common remark
among us after a game with the Wash
ington team, Hard gang of lumberjac cks
to hang it on, eh?' I've heard Clark Grit
fifth say time and again in former years
that he'd rather play an all-America team
4 ,l,a rfo nxx,I.
and it was a series OF bumps. due to over
confidence, that the Yanks got from
Washington when under Griff1th's guild
ance that gave him that idea.
I'D like to be in Washington to see the
fun at the end of some season-and. on
the level, l hope it won't be far off-when
the Washington club happened to drop
into good as the third or fourth notch
In the race. The doings on such an occa-
sion would be of a kind to do any ball
players heart good eh?'
I heard a lot of the same kind of stuff
around New York from the base ball
writers early in the season. Fellows like
Sid Mercer. Bozeman Bulger, Allen San
gree. told me: when I asked 'em how
the Washington club looked this year
before I'd had a chance TO see the team
work-that it was the same old story
a nifty ball club that somehow or an
other couldn't seem to grab its rightful
quota Of games. They talked particularly
of the number of games that Washington
lost by one run early in The season, and
Tulger. who's an Alabama man, ex-
pressed the deliberate conviction that the
Washington club was ''conjured" or
"ha'nted."
Most of the visiting ball players have
got slapstick out for the Potomac
drinking water. Charlie O'Leary of the
Tigers handed us that antique one the
other day. Charlie, together with George
Mullin. developed little dose of tummy-
s~i.S while here. and, overlooking what
ever dallying he and Mullin might have
made with out-of-season sea food and
such like, Charlie was there with hard
uppercut at the Potomac fluid. 1t was
idle to tel him, as ii is to tell the same
to any of lSe ball players, that that
crack about the Washington drinking
wafer degenerated into flv yahs and
yahs ago. that this town now has I'll
tration plant that trims the bacteria and
things before they have a chance to
grow a claw; and that the drinking wa
ter of this mans town now is as good as.
if not better than, any brand OF aqua
pura to be found any base ball cir
cult. The old evil reputation of the Po-
tomac water-a reputation gained justif-
ably in the old days before the Potomac
drinking water was made to behave-
still sticks, not only with ball players.
but with whole lot of other folks, and
it's hard to puncture the idea.
The real fact of the matter often is
that when the ball players hit this town
they lean too hard against sea food that
doesn't belong to the period of the year
when major league ball is being played.
and make themselves sick that way.
They know the reputation of this near
Chesapeake bay burg for the salt water
dainties, and they go rambling off an
nexing unto their diaphrams a lot of
oysters that are dredged In r"-less
months, and hard shell crabs that. per-
chance, may have been kicking around In
the barrel a leetle too long; and then.