Greenbrier independent. [volume] (Lewisburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1980, 1919-01-10

Schlt-pTO pan Ill the Omteu states. ~
was my Intention to catch for him.
and fill In the other positions with TIC
most likely candidates. This scheme
did no: work In with the popular YER
sion Il little bit. Out Of the forty try
Ing for the team. twenty-cicht insist
ed on being catcher. They wanted to
wear that mask. II there had been q
camera. each Of the forty would have
had a photo taken Of himself wearing
the wire cage" Here was great
dilemma. At that time was only Il
private. and there were sergeants. cor
porals. and even an officer, who want
I'd to catch. Stewart again came to
the rescue. Calling me aside. he said:
Leave 1t to me. Emp. I'll fix 'en.
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 Sims couple of times you
couldn't pay 'em to put on the cage"
The TOmmies were strange to curved
bnlls. and Stewart had speed. 1t did
my heart good to see him dampen their
ardor and dent their anatomy ut 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 ''brcak" and hit them
on the shin or knee. After five or six
had retired, rubbing sore spots and
GUESSING Stewart out. no one else want
cd TO catch, and the situation was
saved.
Tommy IS Il 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 shOrtSt0p. He
would see Il hot graSS-cater coming his
way, then. instead of using his hands,
he would put his foot in front of il.
The ball would climb his leg and get
him on the chin or in the eye. After
receiving Il puffcd-up lip and n bcnuti-
full black eye, he fatty refused to play
unless would let him wear the mask.
Americans. picture Il shOrtstOp wear
ing a catcher'S mask. and then sym
pathiZc with Stewart and me. The
shortstop was 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 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 q 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
tercst in baseball when they had
chance to view fight between a gIver
and II 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, rs 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 Il working
party, one or two Of the players would
get wounded or killed; in fact, being
baseball player got to be perfect
Jonah, and the TOmmicS 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
encd, and decided to chuck I'D the
I,nI 1t, H., e.
Then we went further back behind
the lines. During this stay we rounded
out passablc team.
A Canadian battalion. just sent out
from England, on their way to
"WipcrS," 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 q weeks time In which to
strengthen some weaknesses and to
teach the bunch a little "inside" base
ball. Then the jnx 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, l told him to throw 1t
away; that one could never trust those
things, and thatI did not want to take
any chances of losing first baseman
but being of II naturally curious dlsDo-
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 filed ut first
lA1ac l...I Il