The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1918-12-27
,ion a little bit. Out Of the forty try.

sion a little bit. Out Of the forty try.
ing for the team, twenty-eight insist
ed or being catcher. They wanted to
wear that mask. If there had been a
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 q
private, and there were sergeants, cor.
posals, and even an officer, who want
cd to catch. Stewart again came to
the rescue. Calling me aside, he said
leave 1t 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 ii. 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 It comes
to baseball. Several of them had a
bad habit of stopping grounders with
their feet, especially our shortstop. He
would see a hot grass-eater coming his
way, then. instead of using his hands,
he would put his foot In front Of 1t.
The ball would climb his leg and get
him on the chin or In the eye. After
receiving a puffed-up lip and a beauti-
full black eye, he fatty refused to play
unless I would let him wear the mask.
Americans, picture q shortstop wear
ing a catcher's mask. and then SYM
pathize with Stewart and me. The
shortstop was a sergeant, and through
diplomatic reasons, I gave the mask
to him. At this every infielder wanted
to wear 1t. Stewart solved the prob
lem by putting In another shortstop
and giving me the mask.
In England they have a game called
FOUNDERS" In which you are sup
| posed to hit the b%aserunner with the
ball to put him out. This Is general
ly a tennis ball and does not hurt very
much.
Well, those Tommies had q habit of
lamming the baseball with all their
might at the unfortunate runner. Many
al early practice was broken up this
way, because the team would lose in
terest in baseball when they had q
chance to view a fight between a giver
and a receiver.
After about ten days practice we
had picked two pretty fair teams and
arranged for a 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
! party, one or two of the players would
get wounded or killed in fact, being
a baseball player got to be q 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 a scratch.
Stewart and / also began to get fright
ened, and decided to chuck up the
whole thing before we got 1t ourselves.
Then we went further back behind
the lines. During 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 a
mile from us. This was our chance.
Stewart went over and challenged
them to a 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 a 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 1t
to the billet. This man was a great
| souvenir collector; always hammering
at ~dud" shells, trying to remove the
nose-caps.
Seeing him fooling around with the
German bomb. I told him to throw 1t
away; that one could lever trust those
things. and thatI did not want to take
any chances of losing a first baseman;
but being Of a 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 of 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-five
Mr.. Fritz plunked q stray five nine"
shell into our infield between home
and first base, making a hole big