NELSON ALGREN
1907 EVERGREEN

CHICAGO, DECEMBER 19, 1940

DEAR ELIZABETH INGERSOLL,

THANK YOU FOR YOUR LETTER OF THE 15TH. I TRIED A COUPLE TIMES TO HIT SOUTHERN REVIEW WITHOUT SUCCESS, SO THAT THEIR LIKING FOR THAT PIECE IS NATURALLY DEEPLY GRATIFYING.

WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE FOR ME TO HAVE THE PIECE BACK FOR A DAY OR TWO, SINCE THEY WON'T PUBLISH IT TILL SPRING ANYHOW? IT WILL BE NECESSARY, FOR EXAMPLE, TO CHANGE THE NAME OF PAYCHECK TO SOMETHING ELSE. "PAYCHECK" IS ONLY A VERY SLIGHT VARIATION OF "PAYCHEK", AND THE LATTER IS THE NAME OF AN ACTUAL PERSON. NOT ONLY AN ACTUAL PERSON, BUT ONE WHO LIVES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD FROM WHICH I WRITE. HIS REAL NAME IS PACEK, AND HE CHANGED IT TO "PAYCHEK" WHILE FIGHTING PROFESSIONALLY. YOU MAY RECALL HIS DEFEAT, AT THE HANDS OF JOE LOUIS, SOME MONTHS AGO. THAT'S ONE THING THAT WILL HAVE TO BE CHANGED, NOT ONLY BECAUSE IT COULD BECOME CONSTITUTE LIBEL, BUT ALSO BECAUSE I COULD GET MY NECK BROKEN, FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING, IF SOMEONE HE KNOWS CAN READ AND HAPPENS TO GET WIND OF THE STORY. I'M NOT TOO CERTAIN THAT HE CAN READ HIMSELF, ALTHOUGH I DON'T KNOW HIM PERSONALLY WE HAVE MANY MUTUAL FRIENDS AND I'D FEEL MUCH BETTER FOR THE OPPORTUNITY OF CHANGING THAT NAME.

ANOTHER THING THAT WILL BE ESSENTIAL IS TO ADVISE THE EDITORS OF SOUTHERN REVIEW THAT THE STORY IS AN EXCERPT OF A NOVEL, AND THAT THE AUTHOR WILL THEREFOR HAVE TO RETAIN THE PRIVILEGE OF USING THE SECTION LATER IN BOOK FORM. I HOPE THIS FACT WONT MODIFY THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARD THE STORY, BUT IT IS NECESSARY THAT THIS CONDITION BE MADE.

WOULD YOU LET ME KNOW WHETHER YOU WILL SO ADVISE THE EDITORS, OR IS IT MY PART TO DO SO? ALSO, SHALL I WRITE TO THEM, TO ASK THE LIBERTY OF CHANGING A NAME OR TWO IN THE STORY, OR WILL YOU DO THIS? IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO ME WHO WRITES THEM; BUT I'M AWARE THAT THERE MAY BE A SORT OF ETHIC BETWEEN AUTHOR, AGENT, AND EDITOR TO BE OBSERVED IN THIS INSTANCE.

I WANT TO THANK YOU, AND MADELEINE BRENNAN ALSO, FOR ALL THE TROUBLE YOU'VE TAKEN WITH MY STUFF- AS WELL AS TO WISH YOU BOTH A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A PLEASANT NEW YEAR.

SINCERELY-
NELSON ALGREN

NELSON ALGREN
1907 EVERGREEN
CHICAGO, ILL.

FEB. 19, 1941

EDITORS,
SOUTHERN REVIEW
GENTLEMEN:

I AM IN RECEIPT OF A LETTER FROM MR. EDWARD C. ASWELL OF HARPER & BROS., NEW YORK CITY, REQUESTING ME TO ASK THAT YOUR MAGAZINE MENTION THE PUBLISHER'S NAME IN PRINTING A STORY OF MINE NOW IN YOUR HANDS. THE STORY IS CALLED "THEY SHOULD LA STOOD IN BED," AND REACHED YOU THROUGH AN AGENT, ELIZABETH INGERSOLL OF NEW YORK. MR. ASWELL REQUESTS THAT MENTION BE MADE OF THE FACT THAT THE BOOK WILL BE PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROS. NEXT FALL. I HOPE THIS REQUEST IN NO WAY INCONVENIENCES YOU.

MR. ASWELL ALSO ENCLOSES A FORM WHICH ASSIGNS THE COPYRIGHT TO MYSELF; A STAMPED SELF-ADDRESSED ENVELOPE ACCOMPANIES THIS FORM. THANK YOU FOR FILLING IT OUT FOR US, AS WELL AS FOR ANY MENTION YOU MAY BE ABLE TO MAKE OF HARPER & BROS.

THE TITLE OF THE BOOK IS THE SAME AS THAT OF THE EXCERPT.

Amended
Feb. 21

NELSON ALGREN
1907 EVERGREEN

CHICAGO, APRIL 26, 1941

DEAR MR. PALMER,

THANK YOU FOR YOUR LETTER AND YOUR CHECK, AS WELL AS FOR THE
TRANSFER OF COPYRIGHT.

I INFORMED MR. ASWELL OF HARPER & BROTHERS OF RECEIPT OF THE
TRANSFER, AND ADDED YOUR OWN OBSERVATIONS ON THE DIFFICULTY OF SECURING
A NOTARY'S ATTESTATION. MR. ASWELL REPLIES THAT ".... IT WILL BE NECESSARY
.... TO SEND THAT TRANSFER OF COPYRIGHT BACK TO THE SOUTHERN REVIEW AND
GET IT ATTESTED BY A NOTARY PUBLIC. THE COPYRIGHT OFFICE IN WASHINGTON IS
USUALLY QUITE STRICT ABOUT SUCH MATTERS, AND HAS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS RE-
FUSED TO ACCEPT TRANSFERS WHICH HAD NOT BEEN NOTARIZED. YOU EXPLAIN THIS
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SOUTHERN REVIEW AND I'M SURE HE'LL BE WILLING TO
ACCOMODATE YOU."

I DISLIKE BOTHERING YOU IN THIS FASHION, BUT THERE DOESN'T SEEM
TO BE MUCH CHOICE IN THE MATTER. THANKS FOR ALL THE TROUBLE.

MADELEINE BRENNAN

ELIZABETH INGERSOLL

CONSUELO LA FARGE

ELIZABETH INGERSOLL

Literary Agents

27 EAST 62nd STREET
NEW YORK CITY

~~REgent 7-4359~~

July 19, 1941

Dear Mr. Lowell:

Two more pieces by Nelson Algren.

"The Swede Was A Hard Guy" is a
quite remarkable baseball ballad.

"The Man Who Fought Dempsey" is
a story.

By the way, is it your practise
to send agents complementary copies upon publi-
cation of issues to which they have sold?

We would very much like to have
a copy of the issue with Mr. Algren's story.

With best wishes,

Mr. J. S. Lowell
The SOUTHERN REVIEW
University Station
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

mb/fp

A new story, "Stickman's Laughter", has just come in
and is further enclosed.

WESTERN
UNION

1201

<table><thead><tr><th>SYMBOLS</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>DL=Day Letter</td></tr><tr><td>NT=Overnight Telegram</td></tr><tr><td>LC=Deferred Cable</td></tr><tr><td>NLT=Cable Night Letter</td></tr><tr><td>Ship Radiogram</td></tr></tbody></table>

14

<table><thead><tr><th>CLASS OF SERVICE</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>This is a full-rate Telegram or Cable-gram unless its deferred character is indicated by a suitable symbol above or preceding the address.</td></tr></tbody></table>

A. N. WILLIAMS
PRESIDENT

NEWCOMB CARLTON
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

J. C. WILLEVER
FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT

The filing time shown in the date line on telegrams and day letters is STANDARD TIME at point of origin. Time of receipt is STANDARD TIME at point of destination

NSD23 20 NT 3 EXTRA=NEWYORK NY 14

EDITORS, THE SOUTHERN REVIEW=

1942 APR 15 AM 6 31

:UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA BC=

:PLEASE INFORM WHEN YOU ARE PUBLISHING AND PAYING FOR ALGREN

POEM AND STORY YOU BOUGHT LAST YEAR=

:ELIZABETH INGERSOLL LITERARY AGENCY 27 EAST 62

ALGREN 27 62

THE COMPANY WILL APPRECIATE SUGGESTIONS FROM ITS PATRONS CONCERNING ITS SERVICE

2

any night of the week. " She could go by herself or take
Mrs. Prystalski some evening when he was putting in over-
time. He felt them coming his way again as though bringing
him money from home.

At half-past eight Banty had forty chips. At a quarter
of nine he had ninety and had torn the top button off his
shirt. At ten after ten he cashed in for forty dollars, and
the stickman pointed jokingly with the stick while Banty
tried buttoning a button that wasn't there.

"Tell 'em where you got it, Shorty," he advised Banty
Longobardi, "n how easy it was."

"Banty left through Murphy's door. He picked his way
down the littered tunnel of the #1, seeing the places
where the grey cats lived and smelling the tar-wagon smell
where someone's roof was being repaired in the summer weather.
He heard the rush of city waters, beneath the city streets,
And the passionate passing of the night through day's last express.
So came again to his own back steps and trudged up a flight
of payrolls with a pratt clutched in his bumpy, toughened little palm.
And the old payroll still on his hip.

But the door was locked and the woman was out, and Banty
stood alone in the little yellow kitchen. He stood beneath an
unshaded bulb, the yellow light on his broken face, and walked
into the tiny bedroom as into a stranger's place. There was
nothing to see in there, however, but a disheveled bed with a
chemise among the covers. He felt done in for a moment and

3. sat on the bed's very edge, rubbing the nob of his nose. He had had the bridge of it removed ten years before, at a promoter's urging, when he wasn't yet twenty and had won four professional bouts. The promoter's theory had been that Banty would have earned enough, by the time he retired, to buy a wax bridge. The theory hadn't worked out: Banty sat swinging a pavement-colored cap between his knees without any bridge at all, and tired enough for two men. But when his head touched the pillow he felt alone all over again, and rose.

He left the bedroom light burning.

"To show her I been in here too," he considered sulkily, and pulled a half-gallon empty from under the kitchen sink - an empty was good for a 16-ounce by Bruno the Bartender any time.

He sat in the abandoned tavern before a glass of winter beer. Why couldn't she have been home the one time he'd won? Once he'd lost his check at blackjack and had mumbled that he'd been jackrolled. She'd caught him in the lie, and he'd tried to convince her that she'd misunderstood, he hadn't said "jackroll", he'd said "blackjack". That was when she'd started laughing, he'd sounded that silly. But she laughed-it lethim laugh with her. That was how that one had ended. Some old woman.

Once he'd dropped ten dollars on something called Harp Weaver at Boston and she'd been home then too.

But this time, when he put them two months up on the landlord, she was gone for hours. And he didn't want to gamble any more. Banty felt he didn't want to gamble again the rest of his life. "A man's got to quit it sometime and when he's thirty and a working stiff, then that's as good a time as any," he assured himself.

It didn't matter to him where his girl was. Wherver she was

3.

It didn't matter to him where his girl was. Wherever she was, she was taking case of herself. But he wanted her by his side, to take care of him now.

"What is life without a wife," he hummed idly, tapping the sweating glass with his stubby fingers. He had jammed the knuckles of the hand in his last bout, and in moments like this the knuckles ached a little: tapping them relieved the ache.

Then he had three shots, to relieve the ache further, and began wondering how long he'd been gone. He didn't want to drink up too much of the extra payroll; but he'd give her plenty of time to get home and miss him a spell too.

Knowing that she was at her mother's didn't make the minutes pass any faster. And to her mother's was the only place she ever went that Banty didn't want to come along too. Her people didn't trust Wops. They said things in Polish about Germans and Dagoes that made Banty wish, sometimes, that he was a flannel-mouth Polack too.

The bartender was a Flannel-Mouth. Everyone in the ward was a Flannel-Mouth. Banty threw two slugs down his throat in rapid succession, waited till they hit his stomach, then wandered idly over to the bar.

"Come here, Banty commanded."

Bruno the Bartender bent an ear over the pretzels. Banty leaned over, his pudgy palms gripping the bar's edge and whispered confidentially: "When I'm in a public place..."

"Yes."

"Go on."

"When I'm in a public place - that's where I am."

7.

"Where's my pack - age?" Banty demanded, wanting to be drunk again so bad that he pronounced each word distinctly and not too politely.

"Where at is my pack-age?"

"You put the pack - age on, Friend."

"The whole pack-age?"

"The whole pack - age."

Banty swayed. They'd done it again.

"How do I feel?" he asked hopelessly, and then he began getting mad.

"I don't know," the stickman answered, solemnly, "But you look bad."

Banty rolled up his left sleeve to the shoulder. The muscle was tattooed with a pair of boxing gloves. He flexed the gloves in front of the stickman.

"What's that for?" the stickman asked.

"That's the army," Banty explained.

He stood a moment, thinking it all over. "I'll see you in hell with your back broke, gambler," he said suddenly, rolling up the other sleeve to expose the right muscle. That was tattooed with a broken heart.

"What's that for?" Someone that sounded like Punchdrunk Murphy asked on his other side.

"That's the navy," Banty explained. But his voice sounded intimidated to his own ears; when he felt Murphy's fist grip his arm, urging him through the shadowed door, he went humbly.

When Banty tried his own back door, the knob turned easily. The light he had left in the bedroom was out. He sensed her lying awake in the dark, banking on the rent and

8.

worrying about where he'd been with the rent, money. Knowing that she did not speak because she did not want him lying to her, knowing that she could tell where he'd been, by his movements, without making him lie like a schoolboy. Sometimes he almost wished she'd ask foolish questions like other women did, and get fooled by the answers, too.

He undressed in the kitchen, wishing that there were a front room with one of those fancy red plush sofas in it so he could crawl onto it on nights like this one and pretend to her, in the morning, that he'd been too drunk to know where he was lying down, he couldn't remember a thing. "I don't like to set on plush anyhow," he thought, wandERINGLY, "I never set on plush in my life. I bet she'd like settIN' on plush too."

"Banty!"

As though she'd read his mind. As though they had a plush couch and he'd been planning to evade her for a few hours with it. He did not reply. Maybe she'd ask him something foolish just this once, and he'd give her an answer as mocking as the stickman's laughter.

"You went out of the house 'n left all the lights on and the back door wide open."

"I thought somebody'd come in 'n leave us somethin' — Ha! Ha! "

His laughter broke. It hadn't sounded like the stickman's after all.

He stood in the bedroom doorway in his long workman's underwear, shifting on his naked feet. She sat up and pulled on the light.

"What's the matter with you. Quit disguisin' your eyes. There. Look at me. You don't look drunk. Come over here."

She certainly had her own way of putting things, the old woman.

9.

He took his hands off his eyes, ceasing the pretense of shielding them
from the light, and wished humbly that he were a Polack too now, feeling
somehow that that would fix everything. He tried to think whether
Punchdrunk Murphy were a Polack, but couldn't decide. If he just wasn't
a Wop things like this wouldn't be happening to him week in and week
out.

Every time you saw in the papers that some guy was going to the
chair, it was a Dago. Why didn't they fry a Greek or a Swede for a
change?

"Are you coming to bed or are you going to stand there on one
foot all night?"

When she saw him shuffling toward her she switched off the light
and lay back waiting for him in the dark. When he reached the bed he
had only to wait a moment for her to take his head on her breast.

That's the kind of old woman Banty had himself.

"My fault," she assured him softly, like a story-teller making up
stories to put a child to sleep. "I knew it was pay-day but I went out
anyhow just the same. No supper for poor Banty either. Poor Banty.
Lost all his money and no supper either. Wanted to go to community
singing and got himself drunk up instead."

She felt his tenseness lessening. Felt his tears between the
shadowed valley of her breasts. And knew they were for her. His body
His body jerked a little, once, as it was relaxed toward sleep. She
held him so, watching the calculations of the wall, till his breath
began coming regular and untroubled. When his hand clutched at hers in
sleep she smiled a little: she could feel the place in the hand where
the knuckles had jammed. Perhaps it was because his hand was firm and firm.

Nothing had been lost after all.

Nelson Algren

THE SWEDE WAS A HARD GUY - 2 -

THERE WAS GANDIL, WITH A BLACKLEG GAMBLER'S FINGERS,
THE BEST FIRST-BASEMAN'S HANDS IN THE BUSINESS,
AND THE NERVE OF A GOVERNMENT MULE.

SAYING:

"I GIVE A DAMN. I GOT MINE."

FELSCH, A SOBER BAVARIAN BARTENDER

WHO CAME TO THE OUTFIELD FROM MILWAUKEE AND MANY FRIENDS.

AND LATER RETURNED

TO THE WRONG SIDE OF THE SAME MILWAUKEE BAR.

TO DRINK BITTER BEER ALONE.

THE SPIKED SAND AT THIRD BELONGED TO AN ARMY HAIRCUT

AND A BULLDOG TRICK OF WEARING A PITCHER DOWN

CALLED BUCK WEAVER —

A BACK-OF-THE-YARDS PLUG-UGLY SPITTING BLUE-SEAL SCRAP
HALFWAY TO THE PITCHER'S BOX AFTER EVERY FOUL.

AND FINALLY, LIKELY AS NOT, SHOVING A WEARY FLOATER ONTO SHIELDS AVENUE.

A SANDLOT ANIMAL, ALL HEART AND HARD LIVING,

WHO WOUND UP COACHING A GIRL'S SOFTBALL TEAM

AND NO HEART LEFT IN HIM AT ALL.

THE SWEDE WAS A HARD GUY - 4 -

THE LEFTHANDER AND THE RIGHTHANDER MET
BETWEEN THE BATBOY AND THE WATER-COOLER.

HE HANDED CICOTTE A DIRTY ENVELOPE
WITH NO ONE BUT RAY SCHALK WATCHING.

SCHALK GOT THE LEFTHANDER INTO A PIER-BRAWL UNDER THE STANDS:
WENT UP TO THE SHOWERS WITH HIS KNUCKLES ALREADY SKINNED
AND BEAT CICOTTE IN FRONT OF THEM ALL.

THE MEN IN THE PRESS-BOX NEVER KNEW.

SCHALK GOT ONTO THE STAND AFTER JIMMY RING HAD TALKED
BUT DIDN'T MENTION A PIER-BRAWL.

IT NO LONGER MATTERED BY THEN.

CICOTTE, THE POOR BOY DOING THE BEST HE COULD,
ON A PAIR OF KNEES SO KNOCKED THEY COULDN'T BETRAY A PITCH.

THE FRENCH-CANADIAN FAMILY MAN WHO COULDN'T SAY YES AND COULDN'T SAY NO.
AND SO WOKE, THE MORNING AFTER,

IN SOMEONE ELSE'S ROOM AT THE WARNER HOTEL
WITH TEN ROTHSTEIN GS, UNDER HIS PILLOW

AND A NEW SAYING FOR AMERICANS ON HIS LIPS:

"I DID IT FOR THE WIFE AND KIDS."

THE SWEDE WAS A HARD GUY - 5 -

WHICH WAS TRUE. BUT TOUGH ON THE WIFE AND KIDS.

HE CRIED ON THE STAND AND COULDN'T SAY WHETHER GANDIL OR ATTEL
HAD GOTTEN THE REMAINING SEVENTY-FIVE GS.

"I'VE LIVED A THOUSAND YEARS IN THE LAST TWELVE MONTHS,"

WAS ALL HE SAID WHEN ASKED WHO HE THOUGHT HAD PUT THE MONEY THERE.

THEN CLIMBED OFF THE STAND AND THE WIFE AND KIDS DIDN'T SEE HIM FOR SIX WEEKS.

THAT WAS EDDIE CICOTTE'S WORLD'S SERIES.

HE WENT TO WORK FOR FORD'S BENNETT AND NEVER TALKED BASEBALL AGAIN.

IT WAS ALL ONE TO THE GAMBLING MEN: THEY SAT IN THE PRESS-BOX ALL THROUGH THE FALL.

IT WAS ALL ONE TO THE PRESS.

ATTEL, THE PROFESSIONAL FIXER

MAHARG, WHO DRANK WITH MCMULLEN,

KING TENNES FROM THE GREENCASTLE SYNDICATE

IN FROM SARATOGA TO GET IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR

AND BURNS, PHILADELPHIA BILLY,

WHO BROUGHT THE LAMBS TO THE SHEARING.

ROTHSTEIN HIMSELF DIDN'T SHOW:

HE LOST MORE THAN HE'D WON ON THE FIRST TWO GAMES

WHEN KERR BEAT JIMMY RING OFF BY HIMSELF IN THE THIRD

AND WHETHER IT HAD BEEN HERZOG OR HAL CHASE WHO'D OFFERED BENTON

800 SOLDIERS TO THROW ONE
NO LONGER MATTERED BY THEN.

THE SWEDE WAS A HARD GUY - 6-

AN ASSISTANT BAILIFF LOST A TWENTY-SEVEN-YEAR-OLD MOUSTACHE ON THE SERIES
AND SO CALLED OUT TO CICOTTE,
WHEN THEY WERE SMUGGLING THE PITCHER FROM THE GRAND JURY ROOM ON THE SIXTH FLOOR

TO AN OFFICE ON THE FOURTH:

"DID YOU GET A BATH, EDDIE?"

MEANING AN IMMUNITY BATH.

NOT KNOWING, BEING ONLY A BAILIFF'S ASSISTANT,

THAT ONLY ONE MAN WAS BEING BATHED.

COMISKEY, OLD COMISKEY,

WHO KNEW EVERY SLEEPER IN EVERY CONTRACT

AND SPENT TEN GS, ON PINKERTONS

BUT DIDN'T LIKE PAYING ANY PLAYER OVER FIVE.

WHO OFFERED AN EXTRA TEN FOR EVIDENCE THAT ANY MAN OF HIS HAD THROWN A BALL GAME.

AND NEVER PAID OFF WHEN IT WAS GIVEN AT LAST.

WHO PLAMED THE HERO FOR THE NEWSPAPERMEN AND MACLAY HOYNE.

AND SAVED HIS PURSE

AND HAD HIS HEART BROKEN ALL THE SAME:

"IF ANY OF MY PLAYERS ARE NOT HONEST I'LL CLOSE THE GATES OF THE PARK

"I'VE SPENT A LIFETIME TO BUILD," HE THREATENED.

"IT LOOKS AS THOUGH FOOTBALL IS THE ONLY CLEAN GAME WE HAVE LEFT,"

PEGLER COMMENTED HOLDING HIS HANDS CLASPED BEHIND HIS BACK.

THE SWEDE WAS A HARD GUY -8-

SO HE HAD SAID IT AT LAST, LIKE HE ALREADY WISHED THAT HE HADN'T,
AND KEPT ON SAYING IT TO KEEPING FROM HEARING IT CLEAR:

"A HARD GUY. YOU DON'T KNOW."

AND THE CHARGE WAS CONSPIRACY.

"I'LL NEVER BET ON ANOTHER BALL GAME IN MY LIFE," SOMEBODY SAID,
AND FOR SOME REASON THAT CAUGHT ON FOR A WHILE.

AND THE KID IN KNEE PANTS CAUGHT ON WHEN HE RAN AFTER JACKSON
ACROSS CHOPPED GRASS:

"SAY IT ISN'T SO, JOE."

AND SHOELESS, HIS GLOVE ON HIS HIP,

HIS FACE AS BROWN AND CREASED AND PASSIVE-APPEARING AS THAT GLOVE,
GETTING BEWILDERED A LITTLE:

"I WISH TO GOD IT WARN'T."

IT WASN'T TOO HARD TO BEWILDER SHOELESS JOE.

"I BEEN AT HALF-SALARY," WILLIAMS SAID,

AND GOT OFF THE STAND AND LET IT GO AT THAT.

"I BEEN JOBBED," HAPPY FELSCH SAID UNHAPPILY

OF THE DOUBLE DOUBLE-CROSS OF GANDIL AND ATTEL.

AND GOT DOWN OFF THE STAND.

# THE SWEDE WAS A HARD GUY - 10 -

AND THE WEEK-OLD ALKY ON HIM. THE SOCKS RIPPED OUT AT THE HEELS.

THE OVERSIZE ARMY COAT WITH ALL BUT ONE BUTTON GONE.

FORGET CHASE AND LEFTY WILLIAMS AND LITTLE NEMO LIEBOLD

AND DO NOT BE REMEMBERING THE MOST NATURAL MAN EVER TO WEAR SPIKED SHOES.

THE CANNIEST FIELDDEER AND THE LONGEST HITTER,

THE GOOD, EASY NATURE WHO COULD RUN WITH CAREY OR FIELD WITH HARRY HOOPER.

WHO SQUATTED ON HIS HEELS,

IN A UNIFORM MUDDIED AT BOTH KNEES,

TILL THE BLEACHER SHADOWS GREW LONG BEHIND HIM.

WHO WENT ALONG WITH CHICK AND BUCK AND HAPPY

BECAUSE THEY ALWAYS TREATED HIM SO FRIENDLY-LIKE,

HARDLY LIKE YANKEES AT ALL.

WITH WILLIAMS BECAUSE LEFTY WAS FROM THE SOUTH TOO.

AND WITH RISBERG BECAUSE THE SWEDE WAS A HARD GUY.

WHO MADE AN X FOR HIS NAME AND COULDN'T ARGUE WITH COMISKEY'S SLEEPERS,

BUT WHO COULD PICK A LINE DRIVE OUT OF THE AIR TEN FEET OUTSIDE THE FOUL LINE

AND RIFLE ANYTHING HOME FROM ANYWHERE IN THE PARK.