The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-09-15

CAey say CndC Lei DlSSotlSLCS,
former first baseman~ for the
Dodgers, owns an apple orchard.
Yessir, big, Locomotive johnson,
now managing the Cleveland Indians,
has farm in Maryland. Warneke
OF the Cubs breeds prize cattle. But
not single one of these farmers"
would stand the ghost Of show Of
being admitted as delegate to the
Farmers National Convention, to be
held this year, Nov. 8 to II, in Chi
cago, not in Wrigley Stadium, though
1000 farmers are expected to attend.
All such farmers as Bissonette, john
son, and Warneke are show and
gentlemen farmers" They belong to
the other side. They probably will
be lined up that way even after the
farmers turn to bat comes.
Much has been said about football
taking the place of baseball as the
national sport. But it is baseball
still for the farmer. Tramp down
any road through the country and you
will see in the summer dusk or dur
ing blazing Sunday afternoon the
village boys, hired hands, and farmers
playing out on the lot. The baseball
field is often a meadow from which
the hay has just been cleared. A few
COWS may be grazing in the outf1eld.
The bases are rocks or bags of lime
or dirt. Where the boys have been
able to get uniforms, it is often as
result of the generosity" of some
OF the local business men. The play
ers In return act as billboards for
these big-hearted money men. Sewed
on to the backs of their uniforms are
patches carrying the name of their
patron-the local jewelryman, the un-
dertaker, the lumber dealer.
For a few hours the farmers can
almost forget the mortgage and the
price Of wheat and hogs. The bleach
ers look like cattlesheds. Generally,
these fields haven't even benches. The
players are sluggers and good pitchers.
Take any boy who starts milking at
the age Of nine, going to the woodlot
with an axe, pitching hay, and husk-
AAA6 SSAAAy ain yOo 14aSC obAOllH
ers, mighty wing, and an eye like
hawks. The hands, however, are
clumsy and so the fielding is UNI
certain. I remember stopping off at
farm school in Pennsylvania and
talking to one of the boys In the cow
barn. We've got a good basketball
and football team here. But our
baseball amt so hot, we give our
games away in errors"
WHEN it comes to pitching, the
W left-wing movement of farmers
can be proud of itself. One of the
best farm organizers in the country
still has good spitball. He is a
dairy farmer who has been involved
in some of the famous penny sales"
in which farmers bid in ten cents for
a horse and five for a COW in order
to save their neighbours chattels. And
up in Crosby, Minnesota, the chair
man of the unemployed council used
to be southpaw. Crosby is the town
that will go down in history as having
the first Red Mayor in the United
States. This comrade has worked as
a farmland. He is tall, lanky, tough
as horn, and when his control was
good, batters couldn't even smell the
ball.
The farmer, especially during the
summer when he works himself to
a hank Of skin and bone, needs re-
creation. He wants to get away from
the farm. Under capitalism all he
can get is nip at sports between
chores of Sunday or after IL or
IA hours of hard work, after a week
day. This explains why the farmer
still goes to church or to those fairs
and circuses where ten cents extra