The San Francisco call., 1910-06-12

baseball games. Captain "Norrie"
Hicks of the lnvincibles. at Frank
Williams suggestion, sent out a
notice to the sporting editors OF the
city papers stating who the Invincibles
were and that they had open dates to
play mines of from IA to 16 years.
Franks idea of writing to the papers
bore good results. The papers printed
the notice in their amateur sports"
column and 'Norrie" Hicks received
many answers. fine schedule OF
games was arranged and the Invin-
cibles won a good percentage of them,
proving a strong nine The city dates
had been pretty well played Off, and
the Invincibles were signing for other
baseball worlds to conquer when
belatcd answer to the newspaper notice
arrived that caused a lot of discussion
$50 much that Frank received a note
from Joe the next day which, among
other things, said:
We want your advice about the
Factoryburg Rangers, as / remember
hearing you speak about them once
and think you said that they were a
pretty tough gang Let us know by
return mail what you think about our
playing them
Frank chuckled as he read that para
graph, then sat down and wrote reply
part of which is quoted below
Regarding the Rangers, you're up
against a hard proposition / know
because I've been there myself Fac
toryberg is only four miles up the river
from here, and our home team played
'em last summer They were the
'limit-all factory boys in the knitting
mills-and their captain, Clink Sui
Ivan, is a great ball player and has
all kinds Of tricks ready to spring, and
he's red headed and so tough that he
makes Ben Jordan look like Little Lord
Fauntleroy in comparison. Then they'll
probably ring in some players IL or
1S years old besides. MY advice is this.
Whatever you do, don't take em on
unless they agree to let Phil Harlow
act as umpire; he's square, and / guess
my team wouldn't have got out alive
IL 1t hadn't been for him. If you give
them a date let me know and Til come
over and meet you there-you can BET
it'll be a circus"
The following Friday Frank received
this telegram from joe
"Play Factoryburg tomorrow Meet
us ball grounds 2 p. m. sure. JOE
Frank arrived in Factoryburg to find
"Clink'' and .Norrier in a hot argu-
ment. "Norrie" absolutely refusing to
play unless "Phil, Harlow umpired, as
per agreement This opening row
caused an hours delay as phil" had
ia. be hunted up, "Clinks having counted
on being able to bulldoze the Invinci-
bles into playing without the chosen
umpire Evidently Harlow wasn't very
popular as an umpire in his own town.
But when the Invincibles compared
him to that hostile crowd in the stand
and their rough sneering opponents in
the field they concluded he was worth
the delav
But the hours delay was to have an
other bearing on the game. The game
should have begun at 2 p. M, which
would give the Invincibles plenty of
time to catch the 4 AT train back to the
city, 20 miles away. But now the game
was starting at o'clock. The grounds
were at least 15 minutes drive to the
station, and as Factoryburg lay on a
branch line the next train for the me-
tropolis did not leave until S:59 in the
evening. These facts made it impera-
tive that the game must be called at
4:30 o'clock to allow the Invincibles
time 20 catch their AT train, as no one
wanted To wait four hours for the next
train and not arrive. home until late at
night.
So both sides finally agreed to call
the game at 4:30 p. m. sharp. "Clink"
remarking c0ntemptuously, Why, by