Baseball in the 1890s would never be mistaken for an afternoon at the ladies’ bridge club. But for one game the players and even the umpire tried…
“You can try to refine and civilize baseball all you want,” remarks Jim O’Rourke, co-manager of the Ee Ya Orators, “and you can make a parlor game out of it by giving the umpires power of life and death, but you can’t kill off the players’ tongues unless you stun ‘em with an ax. Baseball can be made a gentle, manly game, all right, but you can’t get the Caspar Milquetoast stuff into it, no matter how much the writers and the magnates may talk about its progress toward perfection. Nothing doing, The public can’t hear the line of talk that still goes on due to the enormous foul area at Robison Park, and its just as well the public is out of rubbering range.
“Whatever the case, Robison Park was a dandy. The ballpark was generations ahead of its time in some ways. Some years past Brad P. had purchased the club from German entrepreneur Chris Von der ahe, who had constructed a state-of-the-art facility, including an adjoining amusement park, beer garden, a race track in the enormous confines of the outfield, a water flume ride, and an artificial lake, which was used for ice skating in winter. Be that as it may, several prior contests between the Orators and New Orleans Thrill were well contested, but good hard play was interpreted by the local media as akin to rowdyism. There was a particular outcry by a comment made by Orator catcher King Kelly:
“People go to see games because they love excitement and love to be worked up. That is one reason why I believe in "kicking" now and then on the diamond. Look at the Bertrand Island Carnies. It has been the most successful in this country. Why? One good reason because they are "chronic kickers," and people flock to see them to witness the sport. The people who go to ball games want good playing, with just enough kicking to make things interesting thrown in.”
There had been a lot of talk and newspaper criticism in New Orleans concerning the previous games between the two clubs, with the roughhouse work and bad language and we wanted to show press and public that we could be good, decent people after all. The long and short of it was that some of the boys on the Orators and the Thrill got together and decided that they wanted to pull off a polite and courteous game, just to see how the thing would work.
“We agreed to try out the polished conversation and the gold rule stuff for this one occasion. It would be some conversation, too, believe me, if we could get Arbiter Tim Hurst into the parlor process, for Tim was rarely known to use the proper display of the King’s English. And so a most peculiar affair was played on May 10th, 1897.
“The first half inning went by something lovely. Even when Tim called a strike on Cal McVey that was a foot over his head, there was no outbreak. Says Cal, very gently: ‘Wasn’t that ball a trifle high, Mr. Umpire!’ And says Tim, all courtesy: ‘I fear I may have erred in judgment, Mr. McVey. Kindly overlook it if you will.’ But then again, although Cal is a big strapping gent, he is a teetotaler by all accounts, with a mild mien. And later on in the affair, when Jennings went down to second in a cloud of dust, and Tim said ‘Out!’, Hughie jumped up, red in the face yelled: ‘What the ---,’ and caught himself in time. ‘Pardon me,’ says Hughie, ‘but I honestly thought that Mr. Barnes failed to touch me.’ And says Ross Barnes, equally polite: ‘I am under the impression I did touch Mr. Jennings,’ just as nice as you could read in a book of etiquette. But it was in the bottom of the ninth that the blow-off came. “And in the very next inning the blow-off came. Barnes grounded a single between third and short. Brouthers clouted a double down the left field line, but as Barnes was making a bee-line for the tying run, Jennings “slipped”, and seemingly tripped up Barnes, who had to hold at third. The usually unflappable George Wright, then coaching third, gave Hughie a kick in the backside, whereby Hurst stated: “get your f#%$ing a#$ off the field.” And then all hell broke loose.
“You krauthead,’ shrieked Wright, ‘what am I out for?’ ‘You red-headed stiff’, roared Barnes at Jennings. ‘I oughter knock your block off, an’ for 2 cents I’d do it.’ And this bum umpire is a porch-climbing robber.
“’You’re a piece of stinking cheese’, snarled Jennings, ‘ “’For Moses’ sake remember,’ I interposed, ‘that this is supposed to be a polite and courteous game just to show how well we can behave---‘ And then Thrill skipper Roger Craig kicked me in the arse with his spikes.
“’I can lick every man ay yez!’ howled Tim Hurst, ‘and I’ll do it, too, if ye’re not back in yer places inside av half a minute.”
Postscript - This is an extremely loose adaption of a story published by the Milwaukee Journal of August 20 1912, its intent being to bring to life the simulated game played on May 10th between these two ALL TIME BASEBALL clubs.
Paul J. Nebenfuhr
a.k.a. Paulie Allnuts
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