The Garland City globe. (Garland, Utah) 191?-1925, 1918-12-07

sion II little bit. Out of the forty try
Ing for the team, twenty-eight insist
ed on being catcher They wanted {,
wear chat mask. II there had been ,
camera, each of the forty would hay,
| had a photo tnlSen of himself wearing
| the "wlre cnger Here was grea
| Dilemma. At that time was only ,
private, and there were sergeants, cor
porals, and even an officer. who want
I'd to catch. Stewart again came L
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 then
wear the mask, and III send in some
curves, and when the ball cracks then
on the shins couple of times yor
couldn't pay 'em to put on the cage
The Tommies were strange to curved
balls, and Stewart had speed. II did
my heart good to see him dampen Their
nrtor and dent their anatomy Mt the
same time. The Tommies would see
the ball coming to them and would
reach up their hands to get Il. Then
the ball would ''break" and hit them
on the shin or knee. After five or six
had retiredp rubbing sore spots and
cussing Stewart out. mo one else want
cd to catch. and the situation was
saved. ~,
Tommy Is q natural born soccer
player and clever with his feet. but
stupid with his hands when It comes
to baseball. Several of them had q
bad habit Of stopping grounders with
their feet, especially our shortstop. He
would see a hot grass-cater coming HIS
way. then, instead OF using hls 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 a puffed-up lip and beauti-
full black eye. he fatty refused to play
unless I would let him wear the mask.
Americans, picture a shortstop wear
Ing q 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 iniielder wanted
to wear II. 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 baserunner with the
ball to put him out. This is general.
ly tennis ball and does not hurt very
much.
Well, those Tommies had habit OF
lammlng the baseball with all their
might Mt 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 fght between givcr
and q 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. us is usual IN baseball. things
beRan to happen. A jlnx seemed to
rest on our candidates. Every time we
had to 60 up the line on working
party. one or two of the players would
get wounded or killed; In fact, being
baseball player got TO be a perfect
Jonah. and the Tommios commenced
getting superstitious. II 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 mp the
whole thing before we got II ourselves.
Then we went further back behind
the lines. During this stay we rounded
out 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 q game for the following Sun
day. The challenge was accepted.
We had weeks time In which to
strengthen some weaknesses and to
teach the bunch little "lnside" base
ball. Then the ink 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
al ~iud' shells, trying to remove the
nose-caps.
Seeing him fooling around with the
German bomb, i told him to throw II
array; that one could never trust those
things, and that 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 on and
another vacancy to be filled at first
base. What we said about him would
not be At for publication.
The game was scheduled for two
O'clock, and exactly at one-thirty-five
Mr.. Fritz plunked a stray "fiye nine"
shell into our i,field' between home
and first base. daking hole big
enough for timber to'hlde In. This
meant picks ami shovels for all hands
20 Ill In the hole.