The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-09-17
She Knows Baseball

since l nave DecO110 a oe1oSOaA fan,' said the girl who likes to talk, sfI know what it means gruTy to live!
 1T can't help 1t if l am old-raSh1on- ed, ,'% she went on. '<I always do romp in on a style several years after 1t is an accomplished fact. Years ago, when it was the style to be crazy about baseball, I had to retire to the background and pretend baseball was beneath me Secretly read every thing could get hold of, and asked every man I ever knew to explain the game to me but somehow. couldn't comnrehend it could make an in- terestinR book out of the baseball ex- plantations I got, ranging from that of my small cousin Jimmy to that of a bank president.
 "As I remember it, Jimmy's re- marks were so tinctured with disgust at the idea that a human being could exist who was not saturated with the fine points of the game that the ex- planatory part was pale in compar- ison.
 know baseball? Gee, but you're slow. Why, the fellows on bases are always trying to skin the pitcher alive, an the pitcher he's trying to fool the batter, am the batter he gen'rulty bunts the ball when they're looking for a scorcher-don't you know what a bunt ts?;s Gee, you're ] s1owt'
 -rhere was college professor who did his best. but couldn't tell wheth- Fer he was explaining a baseball game to me or demonstrating a problem in Euclid. He enjoyed himself very much; however, and told me that it was a pleasure to explain anything to a girl who had sucn wonderful oornprehen really couldn't count that episode wasted.
 tsThe bank president complicated things My dear young woInans' he said fervent1y, stroking his mustache, why burden your head with coarse, masculine affairs? You'd look so ing something, you know, or play ing the piano! Why do you insist on spelling it al1?'
 s.It took me several years to decide that the bank president himself didn't understand the game, and he was being diplomatic instead of com l plimentary!
 1 'tStiIl struggled on. I always said, 'Oh yes! dote on baseball. if I was asked to go to game. And I l had horrible escapes. There was the awfu1ly nice man visiting here from New York. He was the man all most lost by asking why the ball i player quit playing after he had run l all around the field and kicked the thing they called the home plate. said I supposed he was mad or some l thing,-because they yelled at him so. And I was temporarily estrang- l ed from the best dancer in our set be- cause said should think the man with the bat would hit the ball sn- I stead of swhirling around in that silly I way, and it was just as we'll that the leader evidently called him back to the bench
 l q do think it's true about virtue l being rewarded, because some time i ago all the mixed up kaleidoscopic baseball bits in my brain suddenly and beautiful pattern, and to my hyE- terdcal delight, I realized that at last I I knew what the men on the diamond l were trying to do.
 I The man who at present insists on I hanging around where I am scoffed I and jeered when I, confded to him my achievement. He. .said I might be ar excellent buffer, butsnever, never, did I really know what it was all about Hadn't he sat and writhed at games while disgraced him before all those surrounding us by my inbecile ques tions2 Didn't he know2 However if he could get off the next afternoon
 he'd take me to the game.
 Well, passed the whole morning
 down town hunting a particular par E asoI that I'd had in mind for weeks
 
 land walked sixteen n1iles~9nd 4hE,
 ally found one. and I carried it de lhghtedIy to the game as a cheerfu
 possession. Tn the eighth inning tn, I51e1ders muffed the ball and fell al
 over themselves and the three men or :, bases raced home in a bunch durtns
 the excitement when nobody was no | ticfng.
 etwhen came to was on my fee
 pounding on the floor with my nev , parasoI and yelling like an Indian. , had smashed the handle of the para s sol! did not realize what I wa. doing till my escort dragged me doyl into my seat and applied soothfn,
 words and showed me the wreck il
 my hand.
 :. Yes he admitted. as he regarde, the smashed parasol, T think yoi
 qualify! But who would ever hay
 thought it!'
 'sI think concluded the girl .wh ] likes to talk, that it's worth tn 2 price of a paraso1 to be able to reaIiz T that one understands baseball. I'r as proud over my Knowledge of tn }. game as I would be if I'd been lei 2 $1,oOo, Chicago News.