The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-05-18

phone) in "a painfully loud voice that
sounded like banjo:
"P-l-e-a-s-e play ball. boys"
Its almost as exciting as 'ping-pong'
or twiddle-de- winks,'" declared Peggy.
the while | watched The Tired Person
move down three or four seats in front of
us, light another "stogie" and unbutton
his coat so l knew something was going
to happen.
You've probably read the official score
of that days game long ago and you
know how Manuel was skiddooed from
the box and Bauer put in, and the
jamboree that happened then
But you don't know, perhaps, that the
real deus ex-machina was The Tired Per-
son of red cravat fame. who made OBJ
servations something like these:
Give us Flehartyi Put the big fellow
| in the box All. you Fleharty. There
he Isl Good for you, Moley! You know q
thing or two! Now, push it to 'em. Fle-
harty, That's a good fellow. Deliver the
goods, That's right! Give 'em another
like that just to show your friendly feel
ing. Come on now, throw us ball, Hit
somebody over there on the fencel That's
| a good fellow. 1t amt too late yet! Do
something! Save the game!'
| There's no use trying to tell you who
was lin and who was out" and what
| they did and what they didn't do.
| That's history now.
| But all of a sudden Mcbride hit ball
and knocked 1t somewhere up in the blue
canopy of heaven. and the "bleachers''
all rose one man, and everybody made
noise like a top and The Tired Person
whooped and yelled till he fell back in
| his seat purple mass of excitement.
The Barons still stood chance to win,
| play ball, boys," shouted the red-cra-
waited man. Were countin' on you, Fle-
| harty Give 'em the dope right
And all the while the Nashville coach
was hopping around on one foot in con-,
| tortions terrible to behold, while the
| Baron coach was doing Loie Fuller
| dance that had Gertrude Hoffman beat
block.
why does the man back of the batter
wear the life preserver?" blandly asked
Peggy at that moment.
"A baseball crank told me once that
he wore it to protect his shirt front in
case his teeth got knocked out" ex-
planned.
Look at that sacrifice hit" shouted The
Tired Person, just at this point of the
game.
"What on earth is sacrifice hit?" in-
CURED Peggy.
Its when a batter hits the ball lightly
to confuse the players in the fields and
let the men on bases get home,"I ex-
planned.
''You don't mean a good player would
knock ball that 'bungles,' she replied,
| Just To-"
| why, of course in order to save those
on bases,'I told her. That's the wonder-
| full part about baseball. The individual
merges his own personality. his individ-
| uality into the whole. It's fine team play
| that makes great baseball"
| But who could explain anything with
| The Tired Person and everybody else
shouting and screaming and going on like
| wild Indians
| The pitchers were the ones everybody
| seemed to have 1t in for and every time
| those who were in knocked a decent
ball It seemed imperative to make a
| change in the box.
You could hardly keep UP with the
changing.
"Play ball. boys." shouted The Tired
| Person again. Were counting on you.
Fleharty. Would you get 1t over the tele-
phone or by letter? Would you hear us II
| we'd cry Play BALI Come on now! Give
| us something to wake us ur! Something
| easy. Come on Fleharty, Can't you
hear us calling You You,. You.!'
| And then the last half of the ninth came
| to sudden stop and everything was over,
| AS we started to the trolley we heard
| The Tired Person growing like bear
and we saw him light another "stogie
and both of us felt morally sure Just what
he was saying-but that's another story,