The spectator., 1919-03-07

1 sion a little bit. Out of the forty try ing for the team, twenty-eight insist ed on being catcher. They wanted to wear that mask. If there had been a l camera, each of the forty would have had photo taken of himself wearing the "wire cage" Here was great | dilemma. At that time was only a private. and there were sergeants, cor l porals, and even sn officer who want | ed to catch. Stewart again came to 1 the rescue. Calling me aside, he said :: "Leave it to me. Emp. I'll fix 'em. I'll try out each one in turn. Let them wear the mask, and I'll send ill some l curves, and when the bah 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. It 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 1t. Then the ball would "break" and hit them pll titS SIi.u Oi hICc. AltCi DNC VI had retired, rubbing sore spots and cussing Stewart out, no one else want ed to catch, and the situation was saved.
 Tommy Is 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 groundcrs 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 flatly refused to play unless would let him wear the mask. Americans, picture shortstop wear ing 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 it. Stewart solved the prob lem by putting in another shortstop and giving me the mask.
 In England they have a game called ''rounders." in which you are sup posed to hit the baserunner with the ball to put him out. This is general ly a tennis ball and does not hurt very much.
 We'll, those Tommies had habit of lnmming 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 chance to view fight between 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 OUT 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 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 fel- lows came through without scratch. Stewart and I 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 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 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
 
 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 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 it's 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-five Mir. Fritz plunked stray five nine" shell into our infield between home and first base. making hole big opourh for a linhar to hido fin This