A Ball Players Career | Page 4

any more. In my youthful mind book-knowledge cut but a small,
a very small, figure, and the school house itself was as bad if not worse
than the county jail.
The idea of my being cooped up between four walls when the
sunbeams were dancing among the leaves outside and the bees were
humming among the blossoms, seemed to me the acme of cruelty, and
every day that I spent bending over a desk represented to my mind just
so many wasted hours and opportunities. I longed through all the weary
hours to be running out barefoot on the prairies; to be playing soak-ball,
bull pen or two old cat, on one of the vacant lots, or else to be splashing
about like a big Newfoundland dog in the cool waters of Lynn Creek.
About that time my father had considerable business to attend to in

Chicago and was absent from home for days and weeks at a time. You
know the old adage, "When the cat's away," etc.? Well, mouse-like,
that was the time in which I played my hardest. I played hookey day
after day, and though I was often punished for doing so it had but little
effect. Run away from school I would, and run away from school I did
until even the old man became disgusted with the idea of trying to
make a scholar of me.
Sport of any kind, and particularly sport of an outdoor variety, had for
me more attractions than the best book that was ever published. The
game of base-ball was then in its infancy and while it was being played
to some extent to the eastward of us the craze had not as yet reached
Marshalltown. It arrived there later and it struck the town with both feet,
too, when it did come.
"Soak Ball" was at this time my favorite sport. It was a game in which
the batter was put out while running the bases by being hit with the ball;
hence the name. The ball used was a comparatively soft one, yet hard
enough to hurt when hurled by a powerful arm, as many of the
old-timers as well as myself can testify. It was a good exercise,
however, for arms, legs and eyes, and many of the ball players who
acquired fame in the early seventies can lay the fact that they did so to
the experience and training that this rough game gave to them.
So disgusted did my father finally become with the progress of my
education at Marshalltown that he determined upon sending me to the
State University at Iowa City. I was unable to pass the examination
there the first time that I tried it, but later I succeeded and the old man
fondly imagined that I was at last on the high road to wealth, at least so
far as book-knowledge would carry me.
But, alas, for his hopes in that direction! I was not a whit better as a
student at Iowa City than I had been at home. I was as wild as a
mustang and as tough as a pine knot, and the scrapes that I managed to
get into were too numerous to mention. The State University finally
became too small to hold me and the University of Notre Dame in
Indiana, then noted as being one of the strictest schools in the country,
was selected as being the proper place for "breaking me into harness,"

providing that the said "breaking in" performance could be successfully
accomplished anywhere.
To Notre Dame I went and if I acquired any honors in the way of
scholarships during the brief time that I was there I have never heard of
them. Foot-ball, base-ball and fancy skating engrossed the most of my
attention, and in all of these branches of sport I attained at least a
college reputation. As a fancy skater I excelled, and there were few
boys of my age anywhere in the country that could beat me in that line.
The base-ball team that represented Notre Dame at that time was the
Juanitas, and of this organization I was a member, playing second base.
The bright particular star of this club was my brother Sturgis, who
played the center field position. Had he remained in the business he
would certainly have made his mark in the profession, but
unfortunately he strained his arm one day while playing and was
obliged to quit the diamond. He is now a successful business man in the
old town and properly thankful that a fate that then seemed most
unkind kept him from becoming a professional ball player.
Looking back over my youthful experiences I marvel that I have ever
lived to relate them, and that I did not receive at least a