The Washington herald., 1914-06-14
CAPTURE Convict
BASEBALL TITLE
All-Stars of Lansing Prison
Defeat Crack Negro Team
of Leavenworth.
EX-BANKER IS UMPIRE
But the Federal Prisoners Get One
Victory by Walloping Metho-
dist Bible Class.
EX-BANKER IS UMPIRE

Leavenworth. -Kans-. June 13.-Through
a great gap in the towering walls of the
Federal prison came a roar of voices, a
rising yell from throats hungry for
sound.
Five years ago that would have spelled
only one thing. but today not one of the
scant sprinkling of guards in the watch
towers frightened hold on their rifles.
| The noise inside lessened, became indi-
vidual calls. Then a sharp crack and a
| little pellet scared above the walls. Base
ball in a prison field only partly in
| closed!
Three Years of Baseball.
The Federal prison has had baseball
for three years. but never until today
had the experimenters gone so far as to
bring outside ball teams into the prison.
In the morning nine came up from
the State prison at Lansing to play for
the convict championship of Kansas. The
team from the Kansas penitentiary was
accompanied by more than twenty prison
rooters, the prison band, sixteen guards
and a number of prison officials. The
rooters, the most proficient among the
fans doing time at Lansing. were dress
ed in discharge suits. The Lansing team
wore gray baseball suits and the Federal
prisoners blue.
The Federal prison has a baseball
league of two teams, the Booker rs. a
negro nine, and the Brown Sox, or white
| team. To the negroes, as the best ball
players of the prison. went the honor of
meeting Lansing.
A Banker Convict an Umpire.
Two men stepped out on the field and
shook hands. They were the umpires.
one a prison guard from Lansing, the
other a Superior (Nebr.) eX-banker, who
is staying here as a result of clause
IN the national banking act. On the ball
field the two men met on equality and
they were the undisputed governors of
that little track.
Baseball is such a human thing! The
man in the hundreds on the bleachers
blurred out the convict. They became q
yelling kidding, sweating, exhorting
bleacher mob. A band-no, two bands
were playing. Men got hot in the sun
and walked over to a water barrel and
therf strolled back to the bleachers. You
forgot the similarity in the straw hats
and caps and saw the infinite variety that
lies in human countenances blazed with
excitement.
Choice of Seats to 'Trusties."
1t was all baseball. except the peanut
butchers. Yes. except there was no ''um-
pire batting" Authority rested on that
quiet, unostentatious ex-banker and not
a man called him ''robber'' or thief"
And he made signally fair umpire, too.
But
"ouy. Guy, ouy, he swings like an old
-gatei"
Buck Weaver, you hold it like a coaf
pick"'
The roar swelled and died and swelled
again. The bands from the two prisons
competed and then Joined forces in the
same bandstand. A man in prison blue
was dancing the Highland fling in
front of the bleachers. Over in the grand
stand was Thomas W. Morgan, the war
den. visitors from Lansing and Federal
TRUSTEES, black, and white. The "trus-
ties have the choice of the grandstand,
seats.
1t was real baseball they played and
the Federals led at to / until near the
end. when Lansing came through with
q to /: victory. But the several hun.