“Exhibit C,” I says. “Similar.
“Exhibit D,” I says. “The same, except this time they’s three clippin’s instead of two. Must be about this time them brutal pitchers was wagin’ a campaign of ruthlessness.
“Exhibit E,” I says—
“Gimme them letters!” says the Old Man. Listen. The finest cure in the world, for some complaints, is ridicule!
And the Old Man sure had somethin’ to work on!
* * * *
Anyways, when we went up against them Pawnees, next day, for the fatal game, the Old Man takes a chance. Jack is back in the line-up—in the old clean-up position.
If he’s game again, it’s a cinch we win; if not—good-night!
Us Destroyers was shakin’ dice some when Jack walks out to the plate. Right then they was two gone and a man on second.
It’s Pete Horton pitchin’, again, but this time Pete don’t try no roundhouse outs at Jack—nothing like that! This game is for blood, and no funny business; an’, thinks Pete, if this guy Adams has dreamed that he’s gonna make a comeback, here’s where I wake him up and scare him to death into the bargain—with just one pitch!
Jack had crowded up to the plate like old times. And Pete unhooks with the old beaner—an’ everythin’ he’s got—straight at that fragile-lookin’ dome of Jack’s!
As I was sayin’, you can take it from me it had the crowd guessin’ some when these three guys dumps down that big rock, the sledge, and them pop-bottle cases outside the pitcher’s box and beats it.
Goin’ back, y’ understand, to the begin in’ of that game between the Long Branch Cubans and them Royal Giants.
Then a couple of fellas wades into the diamond and one of them begins ballyhooon’ a line of stuff about how “Iron-Head” Barry, which is the other one and which now makes his bow to the audience—about how Iron-Head Barry, the guy with the cast-iron bean, or somethin’, will now oblige by lettin’ any gentleman in the crowd bust that rock, using the sledge, of course, whilst the rock is balanced on, and supported solely by—an’ absolutely no trickery nor subterfuge as you can see for yourself—the head of Iron-Head Barry!
An so then Iron-Head Barry sits down an waits for somebody to come along and kindly bust that boulder over his bean. Finally a big beef which played with the Cubans—an’ if he was a Cuban then I’m a Chinaman—a big beef comes to the front and picks up the sledge. Iron-Head, perched on them pop-bottle cases piled one on top of the other, balances that hundred pound rock on his head, keepin’ it from tippin’ with the tips of his fingers.
The big beef with the sledge gets into position, takes a wind-up and bam!
“O-o-o-f!” says Iron-Head.
Him and the rock is both intact though that blow would’ve killed an elephant.
“Come again!” says Iron-Head, fixin’ the rock so’s it rests a little more comfortably on his bald spot. “Put the jazz into it! Don’t mind me!”
And so then the big beef spits on his hands, an’—zowie!
“Woof!” says Iron-Head, and rises smilin’ from among the fragments—that rock had split into a thousand pieces! And absolutely no trickery—I seen it. After which the ballyhoo artist passes the hat. Get me?
* * * *
That beaner Pete Horton unhooks at Jack—well, it beans him! And bounds clean up into the press stand like it was shot there out of a gun! And Jack—that ball didn’t have no more effect on him than as if he had been struck by an idea—fact! He never even blinks! All he does is look surprised, then sore, and then—wade into the diamond swingin’ a long black bat and looking for Horton! Pete hadn’t hurt him—no, sir! Iron-Head Barry had nothin’ on Jack Adams! But he was insulted, see?
Well, Pete applies to the ump for protection, and gets it; and Jack—well, under the circumstances, instead of gettin’ the bench, Jack gets his base on a dead ball.
And they wasn’t never a deader ball!
Yeh—we win the game with the Pawnees; and how Jack Adams’s battin’ busted up the world seriousness is history.
And I guess that’s pretty near the finish—except a couple of morals—I ain’t no piker—an’ a letter.
As the feller says: most of us spends our life worryin’ about things that never happen—or can’t. And as the feller didn’t say: bone, like gold, is where you find it.
As for the letter, it’s one I sent to Mrs. Ameliar Jack Adams, about a month after we win the Big Series, along with a little trick automatic—a sort of weddin’ present.
“Dear madam,” I says, “the enclosed is strictly for home defense; but if you ever feel like usin’ it on Jack, why, go right ahead, and no jury wouldn’t never convict you—an’ shoot low!”
INFORM MR. SWEENEY, by Samuel G. Camp
Of course it’s old stuff now—that story about the rube who was looking ’em over at the zoo; and how, when he lamped the duck-footed Bazooka or something, he chirps: “There ain’t no such animal!”
Old stuff. It wouldn’t get you a laugh in Mugg’s Corners, Missouri, nowadays. But like a lot of other gags, and cold-storage eggs—it was good once.
And the reason why it was good was because, among other things, there was an idea behind it. Some people are so darned opinionated that they will refuse to recognize a certain fact, say, even after it has come up to the plate bigger than a barn door and beaned them between the eyes for a count of ten.
When a fellow gets that way there isn’t much you can do for him—he’s hopeless. And if it happens that a lot depends on your making one of these stand-patters see something that he refuses to see—well, you’re hopeless, too. You can take that from me.
So it was a lucky thing for me that Jim Riordan wasn’t that way. To be sure Jim took a lot of showing, or rather, he wouldn’t stand for any showing at all, which is worse yet. But when finally a certain fact loomed up in front of Jim about the size of the R-34 airship—Jim saw it.
And so, having reached the end of the story, maybe it would be a good plan to begin it.
My home town is a little place up in Massachusetts—in the Berkshires. If I told you the name of the place it wouldn’t make any difference. You never heard of it. You never will hear of it.
There are three places where you can find the name of the place in print; and if you live to be three thousand years old you will never find in that way anywhere else. These places are as follows: on the map, if it happens to be the kind of map that clutters itself all up with little things like that; in the local newspaper, published every Thursday or Friday without fail; and in the Annual Baseball Guide—because I was born there. You understand I’m not trying to pull any ballyhoo stuff for myself. I’m just telling you.
So when the bunch got in on the world’s series dough that fall, and so everything was Jake with me until next spring—I had plenty to live on over the winter, and being a single man and all, I wasn’t doing any worrying about that old rainy day that is always taking the joy out of married life, if there is any—well, seeing things shaped up like that, I sort of did a little thinking. I’ll give you one guess as to what I was thinking about.
Right. And I made up my mind that maybe one winter in a regular place wouldn’t do me any harm.
You see, I’m a small-town fellow, and—well, of course a ball-player travels round a lot, but you don’t really see much. Most of the time you are either going some place or else going away from it; and what with all the time worrying about why