not believe that such a place was really in the world, and Pop laughed and said, “She is a big 1, she is a big 1, she is a big 1,” several times over like a busted record. “She is the park to end all parks,” he said, and I hadn’t no argument there. There was not a worn spot in the grass, and around the infield the sod was brown and smooth like some kind of polished wood.
By game time there was about 30,000 there, although it looked just about empty for they can seat 80,000 if need be. The bleachers was full. There is a big clock behind the bleachers which is the famous clock that more people can see at 1 time then any other clock in the world. Sometimes you will see a man sitting on the big hand and riding around, polishing up the numbers. We bought scorecards and pencils and checked the cards against the boards, and everything checked.
The Mammoths at this particular time was rather a different club from a few years later. It was an old club that the newspapers sometimes called The Nine Old Men, many of them past 30. It won its last pennant in 45, whipping Chicago in the Series in 6 games, Sam Yale winning 2, which I remember hearing in Borelli’s. But it was not about to win any more pennants and everybody knowed it.
The players begun to straggle on the field, coming up through the dugout, and my heart missed a beat every time a new face come on the scene. Little pepper games started up here and there, 1 fellow hitting slow and easy to 3 or 4 ranged out in front of him, just loosening themself up. Every time they worked around to a position where I could see their number I would check it against the card, and slowly the field filled up with Mammoths and the Boston players, and Egg Barnard, 1 of the Mammoth coaches, begun to loft flies to the outfield with a big long fungo bat.
It is a beautiful sight to see a good outfielder gather in a fly ball, moving over as graceful as you please while from 250 or 300 feet away someone has tossed the ball up in front of himself and laid into it and sent it upward and upward in a high arc until the ball is just a white speck against the blue sky, and then it hits its highest point and begins to drop, and you look down and there is a player loping over, moving fast or slow, depending on how he sizes up the situation, and he moves under the ball and it zooms down in his glove. It looks so easy when a good ballplayer does it. It is not easy. Ask any kid that has ever tried to play ball whether it is easy, and he will tell you. But when a big-league ballplayer does it it looks easy because he is so graceful, and he gathers it in and then runs a few steps on his momentum and digs his spikes in the ground and wheels and fires that ball back where it come from, and it hops along, white against the green grass. I watched them shag flies awhile, and then batting practice, and soon afterwards Pop poked me and he said, “Here he comes, Hank,” and about 30,000 people seen him just an instant after Pop, and he come up the dugout steps with his jacket on and his glove on his hand, and a cheer went up and some of the people stood and clapped, and he turned and talked to another player for a few seconds, and then he moved on those long legs down to the warm-up rubber.
A batboy run up and took his jacket, and Red Traphagen moved over behind the warm-up plate, and Sad Sam took the ball the batboy give him and studied it awhile, and then he studied the rubber under his foot and scuffed it up some. Near him there was kids hanging over the rail and waving scorecards, and a little girl leaped the rail and run towards him and the whole park begun to laugh, and some men in park uniforms come charging out from the stands, and the little girl run up to Sad Sam and he just stood there with his arms folded, waiting for them to take her away. The men of the park closed in on her and hauled her off, and the people begun to boo. He begun to warm, unwinding and throwing down the line to Red, throwing
By game time there was about 30,000 there, although it looked just about empty for they can seat 80,000 if need be. The bleachers was full. There is a big clock behind the bleachers which is the famous clock that more people can see at 1 time then any other clock in the world. Sometimes you will see a man sitting on the big hand and riding around, polishing up the numbers. We bought scorecards and pencils and checked the cards against the boards, and everything checked.
The Mammoths at this particular time was rather a different club from a few years later. It was an old club that the newspapers sometimes called The Nine Old Men, many of them past 30. It won its last pennant in 45, whipping Chicago in the Series in 6 games, Sam Yale winning 2, which I remember hearing in Borelli’s. But it was not about to win any more pennants and everybody knowed it.
The players begun to straggle on the field, coming up through the dugout, and my heart missed a beat every time a new face come on the scene. Little pepper games started up here and there, 1 fellow hitting slow and easy to 3 or 4 ranged out in front of him, just loosening themself up. Every time they worked around to a position where I could see their number I would check it against the card, and slowly the field filled up with Mammoths and the Boston players, and Egg Barnard, 1 of the Mammoth coaches, begun to loft flies to the outfield with a big long fungo bat.
It is a beautiful sight to see a good outfielder gather in a fly ball, moving over as graceful as you please while from 250 or 300 feet away someone has tossed the ball up in front of himself and laid into it and sent it upward and upward in a high arc until the ball is just a white speck against the blue sky, and then it hits its highest point and begins to drop, and you look down and there is a player loping over, moving fast or slow, depending on how he sizes up the situation, and he moves under the ball and it zooms down in his glove. It looks so easy when a good ballplayer does it. It is not easy. Ask any kid that has ever tried to play ball whether it is easy, and he will tell you. But when a big-league ballplayer does it it looks easy because he is so graceful, and he gathers it in and then runs a few steps on his momentum and digs his spikes in the ground and wheels and fires that ball back where it come from, and it hops along, white against the green grass. I watched them shag flies awhile, and then batting practice, and soon afterwards Pop poked me and he said, “Here he comes, Hank,” and about 30,000 people seen him just an instant after Pop, and he come up the dugout steps with his jacket on and his glove on his hand, and a cheer went up and some of the people stood and clapped, and he turned and talked to another player for a few seconds, and then he moved on those long legs down to the warm-up rubber.
A batboy run up and took his jacket, and Red Traphagen moved over behind the warm-up plate, and Sad Sam took the ball the batboy give him and studied it awhile, and then he studied the rubber under his foot and scuffed it up some. Near him there was kids hanging over the rail and waving scorecards, and a little girl leaped the rail and run towards him and the whole park begun to laugh, and some men in park uniforms come charging out from the stands, and the little girl run up to Sad Sam and he just stood there with his arms folded, waiting for them to take her away. The men of the park closed in on her and hauled her off, and the people begun to boo. He begun to warm, unwinding and throwing down the line to Red, throwing
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