You Know Me, Al | Page 7

indeed and specially you. You certainly
look healthy. I says You ought to see me stripped. I didn't see nothing
funny about that but I thought Lord and Weaver would die laughing.
Lord had to get up and leave the table and he told everybody what I

said.
All the boys wanted me to play poker on the way here but I told them I
didn't feel good. I know enough to quit when I am ahead Al. Callahan
and I sat down to breakfast all alone this morning. He says Boy why
don't you get to work? I says What do you mean? Ain't I working? He
says You ain't improving none. You have got the stuff to make a good
pitcher but you don't go after bunts and you don't cover first base and
you don't watch the baserunners. He made me kind of sore talking that
way and I says Oh I guess I can get along all right.
He says Well I am going to put it up to you. I am going to start you
over in St. Joe day after to-morrow and I want you to show me
something. I want you to cut loose with all you've got and I want you to
get round the infield a little and show them you aren't tied in that box. I
says Oh I can field my position if I want to. He says Well you better
want to or I will have to ship you back to the sticks. Then he got up and
left. He didn't scare me none Al. They won't ship me to no sticks after
the way I showed on this trip and even if they did they couldn't get no
waivers on me.
Some of the boys have begun to call me Four Sevens but it don't bother
me none.
Yours truly, JACK.
St. Joe, Missouri, April 7.
FRIEND AL: It rained yesterday so I worked to-day instead and St. Joe
done well to get three hits. They couldn't of scored if we had played all
week. I give a couple of passes but I catched a guy flatfooted off of first
base and I come up with a couple of bunts and throwed guys out. When
the game was over Callahan says That's the way I like to see you work.
You looked better to-day than you looked on the whole trip. Just once
you wound up with a man on but otherwise you was all O.K. So I guess
my job is cinched Al and I won't have to go to New York or St. Louis. I
would rather be in Chi anyway because it is near home. I wouldn't care
though if they traded me to Detroit. I hear from Violet right along and

she says she can't hardly wait till I come to Detroit. She says she is
strong for the Tigers but she will pull for me when I work against them.
She is nuts over me and I guess she has saw lots of guys to.
I sent her a stickpin from Oklahoma City but I can't spend no more
dough on her till after our first payday the fifteenth of the month. I had
thirty bucks on me when I left home and I only got about ten left
including the five spot I won in the poker game. I have to tip the
waiters about thirty cents a day and I seen about twenty picture shows
on the coast beside getting my cloths pressed a couple of times.
We leave here to-morrow night and arrive in Chi the next morning. The
second club joins us there and then that night we go to Cleveland to
open up. I asked one of the reporters if he knowed who was going to
pitch the opening game and he says it would be Scott or Walsh but I
guess he don't know much about it.
These reporters travel all round the country with the team all season
and send in telegrams about the game every night. I ain't seen no Chi
papers so I don't know what they been saying about me. But I should
worry eh Al? Some of them are pretty nice fellows and some of them
got the swell head. They hang round with the old fellows and play
poker most of the time.
Will write you from Cleveland. You will see in the paper if I pitch the
opening game.
Your old pal, JACK.
Cleveland, Ohio, April 10.
OLD FRIEND AL: Well Al we are all set to open the season this
afternoon. I have just ate breakfast and I am sitting in the lobby of the
hotel. I eat at a little lunch counter about a block from here and I