The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-01-29

That season l batted well and stole
 that, based on the number of chan
 have beaten every player before or {
 That season was featured by the
 really wonderful playing of Jennings, hard hitters. and when it came to
 baseball brains nd player ever had
 anything on them.
 Another great factor in our victory
 was Wilbert Robinson. He was smart as whip behind the bat and, my! how he could "bust that old apple"
 as the players say today. "Soft soaped, Umpires
 Robbie was of immense service in | salving the umpires behind the plate. He had way of making them like
 him. But for his diplomacy and soft soap we would have got the worst of
 n any a close decision. I was continu
 ally pecking at them from third and it took the combined efforts of Robbie
 ard Manager Hanlon to keep me from 1 getting put out of the games. was ! in hot water continually, it seemed. 1 Maybe I deserved it. Anyway, Rob- | bic was the sugar and l the vinegar of the club.
 To help me in preparing these
 memoirs, friend has just sent me
 lot of newspaper clippings of those days. One will give you an idea. It 1 is an interview given to a paper by
 Arlie Latham, who was then um- pirinm. We had just protested his working in our games: | What the Umpire Said | Robbie and McGraw are working both ends against the middle. Robbie i sleeps in salve factory and McGraw 1 eats gunpowder every morning for I breakfast and washes 1t down with
 warm blood. When poor, inoffensive
 and we'll meaning umpire appears in Baltimore Robinson meets him at the
 plate, shakes hands with him and
 remarks; I'm glad you came over. 1 They tell me you've been doing great 1 work out west. The boys say you
 are the best in the business, and be- ! tween us I'm glad you are here. I These are pretty tough games, old
 man, and that other fellow we had here was little to the bad Of course, he's good fellow, but I'm 1 glad you are here. You want to
 
 day. Great lad-keep your eye on
 tl'at outside corner. He gets lots of
 'em just on the edge. The other fell | low missed em.'"
 | And all this time" concludes Latham "McGraw is barking and
 sEapping around the umpire's heels and threatening to bite him. If one l system doesn't work. the other one usually does. The Orioles are not getting much the worst of anything" | Won In Ninth, IA to 13 Not man on our club ever believed that we were beaten, regardless of
 the score. In one game in Boston the Beancaters had us IS to up to the
 the box. We went in for our half and | knocked in 14 runs. That was the l greatest rally ever hope to 4e. We met the Beaneaters in the Tenn pie cup series and won out with com | parative ease. We were in the pink | of condition this time. The former ex- perience had warned us against talk ing part in too many dinners and l other forms of celebration in Balti- 1 more. 1 The Orioles played in two more l Ttmple cup series after that but we never lost again.
 lOWdfQ thc clu Oi ehc 1oiu scdSOu l it became evident that the Orioles had won the pennant; that the Bean | eaters, as the Boston club was then known, would be our opponents in the Temple cup series. Almost imme- diately ugly rumors began to circu- late around Boston.
 | Hints of Scandal
 | One of the newspapers hinted that | all was not right. That was enough. Soandalmongers all over the city were whispering that the big series | had been fixed. There was consid- 1 erable gambling among the fans at | that time and to repeat a rumor was almost the same as stating a fact These damaging rumors, which | were absolutely untrue, started over | SC me dissatisfaction about the distri- button of tickets. If I remember right, 1 1t lad something to do with the mum Der of free tickets Anyway, trouble | started. There was just as mucl ex- citement then over the Temple cup 1 SC ries tickets as there is now over the worlds series-proportionat so, | l mean.
 Though we have had no rumors about post-season games being fixed since the worlds series idea begar- excepting the Black Sox scandal of ] I9ly-you will remember that for
 several years sensation was started