Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1918-12-20

sion little BIZ. Out Of the forty try
ing for the team. twenty-eight insist
ed on being catcher. They wanted to
wear that mask. IL there had been q
camera, each Of the forty would have
had a photo taken Of himself wearing
the "wire cage" Here was q great
dilemma. at that time / was only a
private. and there were sergeants. cor
porals, and even an officer, who want
ed to catch. Stewart again came to
the rescue. Calling me aside. he said !:
Leave IL to me. Emp. I'll fix 'em.
I'll try out each one in turn. Let them
wear the mask, and I'll send In some
curves. and when the ball cracks them
on the shins a couple of times you
couldn't pay 'em to put on the cage"
The Tommies were strange to curved
balls, and Stewart had speed. 1t did
| my heart good to see him dampen their
ardor and dent their anatomy at the
/ same time. The Tommies would see
the ball coming to them and would
reach up their hands to get it. Then
the ball would "break" and hit them
on the shin or knee. After five or six
had retired, rubbing sore spots and
cussing Stewart out, no one else want
| ed to catch, and the situation was
| saved.
Tommy is a natural born soccer
player and clever with his feet, but
| stupid with his hands when 1t comes
| to baseball. Several of them had a
| bad habit of stopping grounders with
their feet, especially our shortstop. He
would see hot grass-eater coming his
way, then, instead Of using his hands,
he would put his foot in front Of it.
The ball would climb his leg and get
| him on the chin or In the eye. After
receiving puffed-up lip and beauti-
| full black eye, he fatty. refused to play
unless would let him wear the mask.
| Americans, picture shOrtstop wear
| ing a catcher's mask, and then SYM
| pathize with Stewart and me. The
shorts.op was sergeant, and through
| diplomatic reasons, I gave the mask
to him. At this every infielder wanted
to wear it. Stewart solved the prob
lem by putting in another shortstop
and giving me the mask.
In England they have game called
FOUNDERS" in which you are sup
posed to hit the baserunner with the
| ball to put him out. This is general
~ tennis ball and does not hurt very
much.
Well, those Tommies had habit of
| lamming the baseball with all their
might at the unfortunate runner. Many
an early practice was broken up this
way, because the team would lose in
terest in baseball when they had a
chance to view a fight between a giver
and receiver.
After about ten days practice we
had picked two pretty fair teams and
arranged for scrub game. Stewards
side won, due to his pitching.
Then, as is usual in baseball, things
began to happen. A jinx seemed to
rest on our candidates. Every time we
had to go up the line on working
party, one or two of the players would
get wounded or killed; in fact, being
a baseball player got to be perfect
| Jonah, and the Tommies commenced
getting superstitious. If one of our
| team happened to be working among
ten or twelve other company men, he
was sure to get hit, while the other fell
| lows came through without scratch.
Stewart and also began to get fright
ened, and decided to chuck up the
whole thing before we got it ourselves.
/ Then we went further back behind
. the lines. Turing this stay we rounded
out a passable team.
A Canadian battalion, just sent out
from England, on their way to
"Wipers," went into billets about
mile from us. This was our chance.
Stewart went over and challenged
them to game for the following Sun
day. The challenge was accepted.
We had a weeks time In which to
strengthen some weaknesses and to
teach the bunch little "inside" base
ball. Then the jinx popped up again.
| On the morning of the game with
the Canadians, our cleverest infielder.
the first baseman, picked up an old
German hand grenade and brought it
| to the billet. This man was great
souvenir collector; always hammering
at ~dud" shells, trying to remove the
nose-caps.
Seeing him fooling around with the
| German bomb, told him to throw it
away; that one could never trust those
things, and thatI did not want to take
any chances of losing first baseman;
but being OF naturally curious dispo-
sition, he refused to do so. Taking the
! bomb out behind the billet, he proceed
ed to take liberties with its mechan-
ism; result, right hand blown off and
another vacancy to be filled at first
base. What we said about him would
not be fit for publication.
The game was scheduled for TWO
| O'Clock, and exactly at one-thirty
Mr.. Fritz plunked stray five nine"
shell into our infield between home
and first base, making a hole big
enough for timber to hide in. This
| ,ooont ,,icLyS and ShOvelS for all hands