Evening star., 1909-07-18

same old fraZZled thing. In just ABOUT lne
same old tone Of voice. It's called bro
midiom A man by the name of Gelett
Burgess, In q book called Are You A
Bromide" first called commonplace, sort
o. moth-eaten observations. bromidioms.
Burgess, maybe, knew what he meant.
ANYHOW, it's a cute little word. that bro
nnidiom. and 1t must mean something.
This is going to be about few base
ball bromidioms that you hear whole
lot, and then quite frequently, here in
li'r oil Wash'n'n.
"Sa-av, IL Wash'n'n only had a ball
club that could finish at the top OF the
wouldn't be big enough to hold the
crowds.
Old friend. that one. hey?
Yessiree an old. old matey, sure enough.
Hadn't heard that one for quite num-
ber of years till 1 stepped off the train
here the other day after an absence.
And maybe it didn't sound familiar,
coZy-homey-like, sort o natural ana
echoistic of the flown years. like the
chimes of St Aloysius and the fiat
wheeled cars clomping along the Avnoo
and sich.
Yeppee, it brought the old years back
to me, sure enough.
Why. I heard the same old thing said
Washington ball club used to play In the
long-disappeared vacant lot catty-corner-
ed from the old B. 0. station-and
that's going some for the remember
thing. We quite young Wash'n'n ball fans.
Heard il, in fact, as long ago as when
they were playing ball up yonder on .
street when l used to peek at the games
through a knothole in the fence, with the
other eye occasionally sweeping the horl-
zon for prowling cops
IF Wash'n'n only had a ball club that
could finish,' etc. etc. What evanlshed
memories of the inferred years that an
tique bromidiom does fetch up, to be sure!
But it's one of those never abandoned
bromidioms. 1 heard il almost before I'd
got out of the Union station when
zephyred into town the other day Man
in front of me in the street car was get
ting it out of his system. just exactly
as If he were expressing some new and
startling truth.
And. listening to him. sez to myself
We'll. it's no dream. I'm home again,
all right
Almost made the tears stream down
my cheeks TO hear that old verbal pal
once more. honest. particularly so soon
after I'd breezed in.
AS to the meat contained In that bro
mdiom:
Why. cer'nly, cer'nly.
OF COURSE It's true.
Who's denying that it's true?
The beauty of It is that is true every
where else, just about the same as 1t Is
In Washington
It's true, for example in no less a city
than New York. which ranks as some
town in this western hemisphere.
The American League team over there,
you'll remember, hasn't been incinerat-
ing any considerable stretch OF the Hud-
son river for quite passel of moons now.
So that you'll hear, today, right over
yonder in New York. variation OF the
al hr,v, a trry,N fnr1< to "a
sence:
Gosh. IL Frank Farrell could assemble
a team that could compete with the Giants
and finish quite up yonder in the Ameri-
gilt mine or nuthin. would he?'
It's true In st. Louis, again.
why, shucks alive. st. Loo 'ud be the
best American League town on the hull
circuit If only Jimmie McAleer could hold
together a team that would give EN-
something that would even look ike run
for the flag
You'll hear that stuff out there all the
time.
Same in Cleveland. Cleveland fans have
been bitterly disappointed with their ball
club more often than any other fans In
North America. particularly because
Cleveland always has had the makin's or
a swagger outfit, and particularly again
because the Cleveland bunch usually have
looked like pennant possibilities at some
section of every season at least.
And so, out there in Cleveland. they
switch the same old bromidiofn around
to make 1t read:
..Geewhillikens, IL Larry 'ud fetch that
gang of his under the tape In front only
once. why. wouldn't the town go nutty.
though
hard luck and such like. has fallen down
so often on the Cleveland fans that they
fell 10 saying cut there, in a bitter. ire
sponsible sort of a way, that those guys
that run the Cleveland club don't want 10
win the flag" This was just one OF those
street raves, Of course, but you heard that
kind of stuff on every side.
You'll hear 'em repine bitterly In Brook
lyn over the sad, sad showing. practically
right along, of the trolley dodgers OF the
National League.
You'll hear 'em groan. In fact. in any
and every old majo league ball town
where the club takes large young ride
on the long tobog.
The only difference is that. baseballi-
cally speaking. Washington has been
friyoling around In the callar-crypt so
long that the gloomy bromidiom has be-
come kind Of crystallized like stalac-
tite, so that II Is almost as visible as
one of the public buildings as soon as
you hit the town.
Another of the bromidoms is this one:
Fact Is. they know that Washington'N
support a ball club. whether II finishes
at the bottom or not, so they don't care
durn about bracing up the team"
Now. you wouldn't think that enough
sentient, almost-reasoning human beings
would get that one out OF the diaphragms
often enough to have 1t CONCEAL. as it
has. into bromidiom. would you?
Because, y'see, IL sure is the thorniest,
the craggedest hunk of downright imbe
cility that ever emerged from the thorax
es OF collective assortment or oipeds
since the world began.
This bromidiom, which I've heard just
as often since sitting in this time as
used 10 near IL way back yonder in
the discard of the drifted years In
PIE responsible for the Washington base
ball club hate money just about as badly
as you hate tarantulas, scorpions. pun
adders and hooded cobras.
It's equivalent TO saying that the stock
holders in the Washington base ball club
and everybody interested In the cutht
from a business point OF view, despises
the word dividends worse'n a HiRdoo
hates a Tommy Atkins.
And It's equivalent to whole lot OF
other things besides.
Still, that ancient, fiyblown, foolish lit
the bromidiom rattles around disguised
Sure-enough human observation, and
plenty of the people who expe 1t from
their nlidriffs really and truly look, for
the time being, as II they believed 1t.
You'd really suppose. listening unto
them they uncoil the frivolous little
remark. that the projectors of the D. C..
base ball outfit jes' nachully LOVED to
see the team fioundering and waiiowing
around down there in the muck of the
cellar, for some deep. dark. inscrutable
and probably malevolent purpose and
reason of their own.
You'd actilly suppose that the owners