You know every pitcher digs a hole in the ground where he puts his foot
when he is pitching. John stuck his foot in the hole and he went clear to
the ground. Oh, he could make them dance. He could throw over-handed, and
the ball would go down and up like that. He is the only man on earth I
have seen do that. The ball would go by so fast that a thermometer would
drop two degrees. John went clear down, and as he went to throw the ball
his right foot slipped, and the ball went low instead of high.
I saw Charley swing hard and heard the bat hit the ball with a terrific
blow. Bennett had smashed the ball on the nose. I saw the ball rise in the
air and knew it was going clear over my head.
I could judge within ten feet of where the ball would light. I turned my
back to the ball and ran.
The field was crowded with people and I yelled: ‘Stand back!’ and the
crowd opened like the Red Sea opened for the rod of Moses. I ran on, and
as I ran I made a prayer; it wasn’t theological, either, I tell you. I
said: “God, if you ever helped mortal man, help me to get that ball, and
you haven’t got much time to make up your mind, either.”
I ran and jumped over the bench and stopped. I thought I was close enough
to catch it. I looked back and saw it going over my head, and I jumped and
shoved my left hand out and the ball hit it and stuck. At the rate I was
going, the momentum carried me on and I fell under the feet of a team of
horses. I jumped up with the ball in my hand. Up came Tom Johnson. He was
afterwards Mayor of Cleveland. “Here is $10.00 Bill; buy yourself the best
hat in Chicago. That catch won me $1,500. Tomorrow go and buy yourself the
best suit of clothes you can find in Chicago.”
An old Methodist minister said to me a few years ago: “Why, William, you
didn’t take the $10.00 did you.” I said: “You bet I did.”
Listen! Mike Kelley was sold to Boston for $10,000. Mike got half of the
purchase price. He came up to me and showed me a check for $5,000. John L.
Sullivan the champion fighter, went around with a subscription paper and
the boys raised over $12,000 to buy Mike a house.
They gave Mike a deed to the house and they had $1,500 left and gave him
a certificate of deposit for that. His salary for playing with Boston
was $4,700 a year. At the end of that season Mike had spent the $5,000
purchase price and the $5,000 he received as salary and the $1,500 they
gave him and had a mortgage on the house. And when he died in Pennsylvania
they went around with a subscription to get money enough to put him in
the ground. Mike sat there on the corner with me twenty-seven years ago,
when I said: “Goodbye, boys, I’m through.”
A. G. Spalding signed up a team to go around the world. I was the first
man he asked to sign a contract and Captain Anson was the second.
I was sliding to second base one day. I always slid head first, and I hit
a stone and cut a ligament loose in my knee.
I got a doctor and had my leg fixed up and he said to me: “William, if you
don’t go on that trip I will give you a good leg.” I obeyed and I have as
good a leg today as I ever had. They offered to wait for me at Honolulu
and Australia.
Spalding said: “Meet us in England, and play with us through England,
Scotland and Wales.” I didn’t go.
Ed Williamson, our old short-stop, was a fellow weighing 225 pounds, and a
more active man you never saw. He went with them, and while they were on
the ship crossing the English channel a storm arose. The captain thought
the ship would go down. Then he dropped on his knees and promised God
to be true, and God spoke and the waves were still. They came back to
the United States and Ed. came back to Chicago and started a saloon on
Dearborn Street.
I would go there and give tickets for the Y. M. C. A. meetings and would
talk with him, and would cry like a baby, I would get down and pray for
him. When he died they put him on the table and cut him open and took out
his liver. It was so big it would not go in a candy bucket.
Ed Williamson sat there on the street corner with me twenty-seven years
ago when I said, “Goodbye, boys, I’m through.”
Frank Flint, our old catcher, who caught for nineteen years, drew $3,200 a
year on an average. He caught before they had chest protectors and masks
and gloves. He caught bare-handed. Every bone in the ball of his hand was
broken. You never saw a hand like Frank had. Every bone in his face was
broken and his nose and cheekbones, and the shoulder and ribs had all been
broken.
I’ve seen old Frank Flint sleeping on a table in a stale beer joint and
I’ve turned my pockets inside out and said: “You’re welcome to it, old
pal.”
He drank on and on, and one day in winter he staggered out of a stale beer
joint and stood on a corner and was seized with a fit of coughing.
The blood streamed out of his nose, his mouth and his eyes. Down the
street came a woman. She took one look and said: “My God, is it you,
Frank?” And the old love came back.
The wife called two policemen and a cab and started with him to her
boarding house. They broke all speed regulations. She called five of the
best physicians, and they listened to the beating of his heart—eight,
nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen—and the doctor said: “He
will be dead in about four hours.” She said: “Frank the end is near,” and
he said: “Send for Bill.”
They telephoned me and I came. When I reached his bedside he said to me:
“There’s nothing in the life of years ago I care for now. I can hear the
grandstand hiss when I strike out. I can hear the bleachers cheer when I
make a hit that wins the game, but there is nothing that can help me now,
and if the umpire calls me out now, won’t you say a few words over me,
Bill?”
He struggled as he had years ago on the diamond when he tried to reach
home—but the great Umpire of the universe yelled: “You’re out.” And the
great gladiator of the diamond was no more.
Frank Flint sat on the street corner drunk with me twenty-seven years ago
in Chicago when I said: “I’ll bid you goodbye, boys, I’m going to Jesus.”
Say men, did I win the game of life, or did they?