Westbrook Pegler

Atlanta Constitution/June 19, 1921

Recent Prima Donna Now Luring Public to Buy Soap “Certificate Free”

Recent Prima Donna Now Luring Public to Buy Soap “Certificate Free”

New York. June 18. “An’ sweetie, lemme tell you, when my gray silk stockings ripped as I was dressin’ only this afternoon to go keep a date with a certain party, I just had to sew ‘em up again. Just imagine! Me, that paid $750 for a seal wrap up in Montreal last winter—me that did specialty numbers an’ always workin’. And now I’m looking for a job in a department store. Dee-rie, you know ‘at ain’t right.”

Over the coffee-spotted marble-topped tables of the come-and-get-it lunch room you get the real “situation” in the Broadway show business from the people that have been hit hardest by the slump. The chorus girls know when things begin to rag, let the magnates whistle whatever tune they like for the good of their own courage.

It’s awful—Jeanne La Pearl, late of the ensemble of the Chlc and Cheri Shimmy Shakers, 17 weeks on tour but a dog’s death on Broadway—will tell it’s awful.

But Jeanne—called Jennie by the folks out in Terre Haute—may be prejudiced.

Take, then, the word of Ruby Belle, the lady with the low-down on what’s what and such as that from Times Square to the farthest explorations of the educational chautauqua troupes and the peripatetic tent shows. Ruby is the girl who gives them a dab of powder as they’re rushing for their trains to go on tour with a new expedition and the girl who welcomes them back with a community lipstick when they come dragging in from five days in the day coaches after disbanding in Winnipeg. Ruby is the first-aid in the chorus girls’ casual club, the dressing room of a Broadway hotel.

Says Ruby, “Of course every summer is bad but I never knew it to be so bad that the girls had to go clerking in department stores or manicuring for a living. That’s what they’re doing this year, poor kids. They’re so good when they’ve got it, too. All the girls come in and tell me about this show and that show closing and they hate to give up the stage and their hopes. But what else are they going to do?”

The Broadway Johnny is having his troubles no less than his happy little friends who used to slip an arm through his at the stage door in the alley around the corner. In the pawnshop windows on Sixth and Seventh avenues silk hats and dress capes again predominate, meaning hard times for John. And if a John does take a little lady for a nice long walk of an evening in these times he screws his face into that broke-my-garter expression of forced interest on passing the Mme. Sophie Silberman’s Parisian hat salon where Chapeaux scream for buyers at a frightful sacrifice of profit.

As an authority on how things are breaking for the show girl, Howard Kyle concedes no one the edge, for Kyle, late of Margaret Anglin’s “Joan of Arc,” is secretary of the Actors’ Fidelity league.

Kyle tells of one pretty young woman who had a prima donna role in a recent musical tragedy on Broadway, now luring the public to buy six cakes of soap and get five certificates free, in a drug store not far from her old theatre.

“I know of glrls all around here who have left the profession to sell powder and candy and women’s wear in stores they used to- patronize,” said Kyle. “Girls who used to get as much as $175 a week are working for $20 and glad to get that.”

Things are not so good on Broadway.

Westbrook Pegler

The Post-Crescent/September 30, 1921

New York. Suppose you’re sitting on J. P. Morgan’s front stoop, at Broad and Wall, in just your swimming suit and old J. P. himself comes along and says: “Kid” (you know the way he talks) “Kid, come on into the thousand-dollar hill apartment, and fill all your pockets. Nothing’s too good for my friends. Help yourself to anything in stock; all you can carry away. How’s the little wife?”

Well, your swimming suit fits tight as an earl at a Mayfair wedding and you snap back at your luck for not giving you eight fingers on one of your hands anyway.

The Yankees and Giants are caught that way.

The Polo Grounds held once, a few weeks ago, a crowd of nearly 40,000 people, the largest ever compressed into Brush Stadium. People were stuffed into all the aisles and along the stairs. They hung on the upright girders and the steel pipe rails around the back of the grandstand. And they thought themselves lucky for nearly 60,000 other people were fighting their way into the subways and along the L platform at a trot home, having been turned back by the police lines a block from the park.

And now the world’s series is staggering toward the Polo Grounds. If both New York teams are in this series the owners will be in the thousand-dollar apartment with only their hands to carry the stuff away. The national commission will not permit “standees” at a world series. This will clip off a few thousand of the crowd capacity. It has been tradition to have no crowds infringing on the outfield at the Polo Grounds, though perhaps 5,000 people could be cramped in along the center field wall. Probably no crowd will exceed 38,000 at this world’s series. But if there was room the Giants and Yanks could play to 100,000 the first two days at least, and probably to an average of at least 75,000 on the other days.

Westbrook Pegler

Pittsburgh Post/March 14, 1921

NEW YORK, March 13.—After one more championship fight in the ancient garden, Tex Rickard will reel up the ropes, uproot the posts and remove the rung that has taken in more money in six months than any other boxing enclosure since prize fighting began. The Wilson-O’Dowd fight is the last big indoor party of the season. The outdoor program ought to be very sprightly. The woods are so full of fighters, good, bad and just plain bum, that you can’t light a cigarette without singeing a couple.

There are some other fight clubs in New York, but Tex Rickard’s place at Madison Square Garden has been the only important one going since the new Walker law came into operation last fall. Rickard and his fighters have played to aggregate admissions of about $1,000,000 and it was real money, too—the kind the landlord wants the first of every month.

Wilson and O’Dowd are getting $60,000 between them. Champion Johnny gets $40,000 for defending his title for 15 rounds, which foots up at more than $2,500 a round. The last time Wilson fought in New York, a few years ago, het got $1.10 a round or $11 for 10 tough rounds. Before he won the championship a year ago, which surprised Wilson no less than it hurt Mike O’Dowd, Wilson’s yearly earnings weren’t much more than he will get for a couple of rounds of this fight.

Rocky Kansas of Buffalo, who has been fighting these last eight or 10 years, will be the next outsider to cut in on the grand dinero in New York. Kansas really has earned a crack at Benny Leonard. He made a mess of Joe Welling and then beat Richie Mitchell twice. Leonard stopped Welling and Mitchell, but he had to hit them with the water bucket to do it.

But even Kansas, newcomer that he is to the really big time in the fight game, gets tongue-tied when he tries to mention anything less than $25,000. He wanted that much for fighting Willie Jackson after beating Mitchell in Milwaukee last week. Along in the fall or perhaps some time during the summer he will probably get what he asks for, except that Benny Leonard will be his opponent, not Jackson.

San Francisco Examiner/October 27, 1916

Damon Runyon Shows That Ban Johnson Wisely Held to Scouting System

Months ago this writer was inveighing against the twenty-one player limit rule adopted by the National League, and contending that it would eventually work to the injury of the ancient organization.

Ours was one of the few voices squawking in the wilderness, and we were informed by at least one baseball authority of more or less weight that it was none of our business, anyway; that it was an unwarranted meddling in the private affairs of the baseball magnates.

They were on economy bent; also they thought they were taking a crack at the baseball players by cutting down the field of big league employment; further than that, they believed they were curtailing the activities of John J. McGraw and the New York club, whose custom it was to carry a big reserve force of youngsters on the bench in process of big league development.

The economical magnates argued that by putting on a player limit the young talent would be distributed around among the clubs that were weaker financially as well as physically, and not sewed up by the outfits with the larger bankrolls, thus giving a better-balanced race. They said that twenty-one men were more than enough, and pointed out how in the old days Barney Dreyfuss won a pennant with only eighteen players, reckoning not on the changing times and advancing conditions in baseball.

They Forgot Ban

Likewise they reckoned not on Ban B. Johnson and the American League. They thought Ban would follow their example and enforce a player limit, but up to date Ban has done nothing of the kind, and today the National Leaguers, seeking an excuse for the almost total eclipse of the old organization in playing strength by the American League, are saying the limit is the cause.

We do not agree with that view. The limit is merely one of the causes. There are numerous others. It is a case of dry rot setting in all along the line; of going backward instead of going forward; of carrying ball players old beyond their big league time, and of extending economy beyond the bounds of good business judgment.

One of the biggest clubs in the National League, which formerly had the most perfect scouting system of them all, has practically abandoned that system. Once it used to bring from twenty-live to thirty-five young ball players, collected through its scouts, up from the “sticks” every spring; this year it has tagged only a very few, and these were secured in a haphazard way.

Several other National League clubs no longer have scouts. While every American League club, including the tail-end Athletics, has an elaborate system of beating the bushes for youngsters, the National Leaguers are depending on friendly tips, trades and accident to secure their playing material. It cannot be done that way.

The Crafty Johnson

There have been many changes in ownership in both leagues of recent years, and to-day no more old-line baseball men are left in the American than in the National. The difference seems to be that the newcomers to the American are willing to be guided by the judgment of their baseball associates, while some of the newcomers to the National want to apply methods learned in other lines to baseball.

The American has the advantage of being guided by the shrewdest and most far-seeing man in the game in the person of Ban B. Johnson, who is at once a baseball politician and clairvoyant. The result today is the widespread belief that the National League is distinctly outclassed by the younger outfit.

The most recent demonstration of Ban Johnson’s baseball foresight is his declaration that the world’s series must be cleaned up or abandoned. The abandonment for a couple of years would be the greatest thing that could happen to the National League. The National League magnates would probably rather continue having their league shown up by the American than lose their bit of the series, so the cleanup must be in order.

The cagey Ban’s keen ear, ever close to the ground of baseball events, heard the mumbles of discontent that arose during the Boston-Brooklyn series, and his uproar merely beat the baseball writers of the country to it. He is exactly right in what he says, and he is bound to have the support of all who have followed the series of late years.

Cut Down The Prices

The annual championship contest has developed into a form of petty graft upon the public. Prices are raised all along the line, from seats to the smallest commodities. The lift in the tariff in many cases is outrageous. The pot has become too big. It has aroused the cupidity of players and magnates, and everybody else connected with the series.

Cutting down the prices and thus cutting down the pot is the primary remedy. Then the money of the first four games, which goes to the ball players, should be divided differently. It is now cut 60 per cent to the winners and 40 per cent to the losers. If the winners’ end were made greater—say 75 or 80 per cent—we would probably have no more of these lackadaisical exhibitions where one club is just in there playing for the losers’ end.

The series should be made more of a show event; it should have a different setting. In the time of John T. Brush, a great showman, the Giants used to come tearing onto the field for a world’s series in brand-new uniforms, and they put a touch of the dramatic into the proceedings. Now the people see a couple of teams lazying around before the game in dirty campaign uniforms, and there is not the slightest suggestion of color or of the unusual in the whole proceeding.

Sioux City Journal/November 12, 1912

Pitching Is Said To Be The Easiest Route

More Chance For Youth

Youngsters Break Into Ranks Every Season—Highest Salaries Paid to Twirlers—Few Veterans Still Remain on Top

If your young son manifests an insurable desire to become a baseball player, and you find him fooling around first base, or the out-field, or the second or third, or even peering with infantile eagerness through the meshes of a mask, lead that youthful party out behind the barn and have a speech with him.

Put on a catching glove, and examine the condition of his shooting arm. He may have a wholly unsuspected hop to his fast ball, along with a nice curve and some change of pace. Such being the case, it becomes your parental duty to admonish him to enter life as a pitcher of baseballs.

Speak to him as follows:

“Son, there is a great deal of class to a Cobb, but consider the skinned thighs which come from the sliding appertaining to the running of bases. Consider too, the daily labor—the 154 games of baseball, during which the man who would be a Tyrus must pound the pill for better than .400, or lose caste among his people.

“Consider the enormous amount of energy which must be expended every two hours out of the twenty-four by the Hal Chases, and the Honus Wagners. and the Larry Doyles of our time. Each and every day they have the same old strain and worry; each and every day they must perform their work with marvelous efficiency or be panned to a whisper. No alibis go in their cases.

Pitcher’s Life of Ease

“And then, my son, pause and think of the life, of the slothful ease of the pitcher, who works two or three times a week, but who gets practically as much money, and eke as much fame. He wins his game and the labors of the Cobbs and the other men behind him are forgotten in the gossip of his prowess; he loses and the men are sacrificed for their shortcomings, and he is excused on the ground of an off day.

“Be a pitcher, my son—be a Mathewson, or a Wood, or a Johnson and you will find the path to the vaudeville stage as easy from the mound as it is from the outfield.”

Having concluded your lecture, all you have to do is to turn your son loose with a baseball in his hand, and let him wander through the bushes until such time as some big league manager locates him on the advice of friends. A big league scout may stumble across him accidentally, but nowadays the manager usually hears about the phenoms and then sends the ivory hunter to confirm or deny the news.

The demand for pitching material is never satisfied in the big leagues. The box is the surest short cut to fame. A manager may have two or three men sitting on his bench who are better in sheer ability than men playing in his regular line—and the manager may know that to be a fact—but lack of experience, or other reasons, may keep them long in the background, whereas the pitcher usually finds big league opportunity crowding him at all stages.

Even Break for Youngsters

It is sometimes only after two or three years or steady playing that an infielder or an outfielder reaps the reward of ability, whereas a young pitcher may step immediately into the limelight. Claude Hendrix, a two-year man, and Larry Cheney and Jeff Teserau, who have had only a year of big league experience, are the pitching leaders of the National League. Hugh Bedient gained great fame after a few months on a major bench, while Jimmy Lavender, another first year man, mopped up much glory this last season.

Of course a Ty Cobb or Tris Speaker cannot long be denied, but these are exceptional cases. Every big league manager is grooming youngsters who will one day be stars of the baseball word, but meanwhile, while they are gaining their education, young twirlers, who joined on after they did, are slipping into sudden fame.

It might be argued that while the pitcher does not work as hard as the other players, neither does he last as long in the big league, but that argument is answered by the fact that several of the foremost figures in the game today are veteran heavers.

Christy Mathewson has been pitching for twelve years, and is today one of the highest salaried men in the game. He is accounted well off in this world’s goods. He is good for several years more. Ed Walsh is a comparative veteran, and still one of the five greatest heavers in the world. There is no reason why a man like Walter Johnson should not go on as long at Mathewson, or why Marquard should not last as long as Eddie Plank, who is an old-timer as ball players go, but who finished second among the twirlers of his league last season.

Good Team Not Essential

Of course, a man’s team may make a good deal of difference in respect to both gold and glory, but Nap Rucker, for instance, is probably as well paid as any high class twirler in the league with the possible exception of Mathewson, and is certainly as well known. He has missed only the added emoluments of a world’s series.

Now the pitching staff is not the whole team by any means, but nowadays the manager who wins a pennant must have exceptional pitchers. He may be able to get along with mediocrity in other positions, as some managers are doing right now, but he must have the best quality of boxmen.

So the scouts range far and wide through the tall grass looking for pitching talent, and so it is that hundreds of young pitchers are picked up every year and scrutinized by the league managers. Two hundred and thirty-two “kids” and veterans passed through the big league mill last season, after the opening games had been played, but you can almost count the really notable pitchers of the game on the fingers of your hands.

Two pitchers have commanded the highest prices ever paid for ball players. John T. Brush gave up $11,000 for Rube Marquard, and Barney Dreyfuss, of Pittsburgh, paid a price generally placed at $12,500 cash, and ball players representing nearly as much more for Marty O’Toole. Mathewson is believed to get all of $10,000 a season, and makes a considerable amount on the side every year, while Walter Johnson is reputed to draw down $7,000 a season.

Big Prices for Twirlers

There is many a pitcher whose talent is buried with poor clubs who might be a great star with a first class team, but as a general proposition the crack pitchers show their class regardless of their backing, as witness Rucker and Walter Johnson. The latest was an acknowledged marvel when Washington was nowhere in the race. Russell Ford and ‘Lefty’ Hamilton are conceded to be great pitchers, even though their clubs are neighbors to the tail end of the American League. The fame of Grover Alexander, Tom Seaton, “Slim” Salee, Vean Gregg, and several others is not submerged by the positions of their clubs.

All figures cited hereafters are taken from an unofficial summing up of the season, and while they may not be absolutely perfect, they are close enough to give a general line on the situation.

During the regular season of 1912, the two big leagues handled approximately 474 baseball players of one kind or another, of which number 122 were pitchers who did not appear in fifteen or more games. They pitched in anywhere from one to fourteen games, but did not attain the magic fifteen, which is the number that gives them place as recognized toilers on the mound.

Some of the 122 were recruits who came late in the season, and worked just enough to show flashes of future promise. Others were boys who were tried early in the year and failed to display enough form to warrant retention in the big league. Still others were veterans who were unable to work regularly on account of illness or injury.

Out of 118 pitchers enrolled in the National League during the season, but 52 worked in fifteen, or more games. Of 124 twirlers who wore American League uniforms only 48 passed the fifteen mark. And of the 100 pitchers in the two leagues who might be accounted regulars, quite a number were released after working in more than their fifteen games.

Five on Major Staffs

The average big league staff of pitchers who worked in turn numbers about five. Most managers feel they are blessed by the baseball gods if they have three good pitchers, or one real star and a couple of twirlers of ordinary ability. Manager McGraw of the Giants won a pennant in 1911 by expert juggling of a brace of luminaries—Mathewson and Marquard—while in 1912 he was fortunate enough to pick up a crack recruit in Tesreau.

Jake Stahl, of the Boston Red Sox, was lucky during the run of the season in having five unusually steady pitchers, one of whom approximated greatness. He had Joe Wood, Collins, Bedient, O’Brien and Hall, but when it came down to the world’s series he had to rely on two and one of them—Bedient—turned out to be a real “find” in an hour of great need.

In 1911 Connie Mack had a trio of great heavers in Bender, Coombs and Plank, but when two of that trio failed him in 1912 he lost a pennant. With Bender and Coombs in their 1911 form, it is reasonable to presume that the Athletics would have made a much better showing this year.

Clarke Griffith made a grand run with but one star pitcher. Given a Marquard, a Wood or a Plank to support Walter Johnson last season and the “Old Fox” might have been in the running until the last game. The Chicago White Sox have long been supported by the wonderful pitching of Ed Walsh, who will ever be classsed with the truly great. With a Walsh, a Joe Wood, a Johnson or a Mathewson heading their crumbling pitching staffs, or even with Mordecai Brown at his best, the Chicago Cubs might have beaten the Giants out of first place, because in Lavender, Cheney and Richie they had sufficient pitching support to carry a star through.

The Pittsburgh Pirates developed a man last season who bears the earmarks of a great pitcher, but his case demonstrates that pitching alone cannot carry a club to a pennant, even when backed by tremendous hitting. Claude Hendrix, a young spitballer, led the National League twirlers, and associated with him were three other unusually good heavers in Camnitz, Adams and Robinson, with the best hitting club in the league behind them, but it took the slow footed Buccaneers so long to get started that the pitching and the hitting were of little use.

El Paso Herald/March 18, 1912

Muggsy Twirls For Two Sides and Kicks on the Umpire.

Your correspondent attended a function last evening and a pitchers’ battle this afternoon, and, in consequence, has numerous news to impart. Prior to the same, however, your correspondent wishes to retract a statement made recently concerning the arrival of spring and beg the party’s pardon for misrepresenting his movements. 

Spring has not come. Today was a pusillanimous day. Your correspondent saw the word applied to some congressman by a Texas newspaper this morning, and any word that fits a member of congress out to do right well when hung onto a cheap, disagreeable day.

McGraw Versus McGraw

The pitchers’ battle was at Emerson Park, and was between John J. McGraw, twirler for the Giant Colts, and J. J. McGraw, heaver for the Giant Regulars, the latter winning by a close score. Pitcher J. J. McGraw, of the Colts, was welted in the pinches, while Pitcher John J. McGraw, of the Regulars, was effective in tight places. 

Batteries for today—for the Regulars, McGraw and Hartley; for the Colts, McGraw and Wilson. The rumor that McGraw ran back of the battery and caught his own delivery every time he hurled a ball was run to earth and is without foundation.

The manager of the Giants did go Doc Jekyling and Mister Hyding around Emerson Park in the cool of the afternoon today, however. He pitched for both sides, 18 innings in all, using the same hand, and a run and jump to his delivery. Christy Matthewson umpired, and had many arguments with both pitchers. It appeared to the spectators that he gave McGraw, of the Regulars, a shade over McGraw, of the Colts, although both hollered impartiality. Occasionally, the pitcher introduced the famous “Peeve” ball, made celebrated by McGraw, of the Regulars, last spring during the firing upon Atlanta, the ball being delivered by a quick toss from under the right leg.

So saying, we pass to items nearer the great heart of the commonwealth.

Devore Is the Scandal

Far be it from us to tip a gentleman’s mitt, but there is a scandal in town, and his name is Joshua Devore. Your correspondent is informed upon very good authority, which is known in canteloupe-growing circles of Maryland as Charles Herzog, that the half-portion-sized left fielder of the New York baseball club spilled a social faux pas at the annual charity ball here last night, a faux pas being a Texas colloquialism for pulling a “boot.”

Mr. Devore, according to a statement furnished by Mr. Herzog, was shaking a festive No. 9 under false pretenses. He was, in short, since the truth will ever out, present on a borrowed ticket.

He secured the loan of the ducket from some unsophisticated recruit who had prodigally invested half a seed therein, the calloused Devore making misrepresentation that he desired to show it to some friends as proof that the rookie cared nothing for four bits.

Thus Devore double-crossed charity and big Bill Johnson, although your correspondent would not tell the name of the recruit knowingly. John J. McGraw, manager of the baseball club, was apprised of the deception shortly after the facts were placed in the hands of your correspondent and whispered it to the world: so there was a raising of eyebrows as Mr. Devore floated by on the wings of Terpsichore and the borrowed ducket.

Latham Also Makes Loan

Mr. W. Arlington Latham, of Lynn, Mass., and other places, was also observed at the function last evening in the best of spirits and a borrowed tuxedo. Someone tacked a card to Mr. Latham’s back proclaiming to an interested world that the plumage was not his own, which quip caused Mr. L. to skulk, Achilles-like, in his tent for all of five minutes. He suspects John J. McGraw, and so does everyone else who saw McGraw do it.

Skirting the crowd with surreptitious footstep was Arthur Devlin, a fisher of men. He would prowl each group inquiringly, then suddenly dive in and impale an unsuspecting recruit with an avaricious stare, at the same moment presenting a subscription list to the young man which pronged the youth for a brace of bucks. Arthur is collecting for the Giants’ dance next week—the farewell to Marlin.

Thus did social festivity go forward in our midst last evening.

El Paso Herald/March 11, 1912

Wilbur Robinson, Coach of the Pitchers for the New York Giants, Teaching the Star Pitcher of the National League How to Pitch.

Each morning and afternoon Willbert Robinson, the veteran coach of the Giant pitchers, sallies forth to Emerson Park with a big round piece of flat rubber under his arm. He seeks a secluded corner of the yard, with the fence at his back. carefully places the flat piece of rubber on the ground in front of him, dons a huge catcher’s mitt and crooks a finger on his right hand at a lean, knockkneed youth in uniform. That means that Robbie is ready for the consideration of unfinished business, whose other name is Rube Marquard.

When is a baseball pitcher a finished article? When he wins twenty-four games and loses but seven, leading the heavers of the National league? No! At least Robinson says not. Rube Marquard did all that last season, but the man who is credited with his development last year declares that he is not yet complete. And so a pitcher whose left arm cost the New York management $11,000, and who is valued at several times that amount right now, and who is one of the most talked of men in baseball, has to go through a course of sprouts like the veriest recruit, because his mentor says he is not finished.

Robinson expects to increase Marquard’s effectiveness twofold. He expects to see him become the greatest left-hander the game has ever known, because he avows that Rube still has “stuff” which he has never uncovered in the big league. But he also declares that the pitcher has quite a little to learn about his business, and so he is endeavoring to finish him out.

Has Personal Control of Marquard

Last spring Robinson came down here and assumed personal charge of Marquard at a time when the fans had given the lefthander up as a hopeless lemon. As McGraw had long claimed. Robbie quickly discovered that the Rube had everything in the way of “stuff” that a great pitcher should have, but control of nothing. He worked with him patiently day in and day out, and at the opening of the regular season he turned him over to McGraw with the comment: “This fellow will do.”

A glaring fault, to the Oriole, was Marquard’s failure to hold baserunners closely to first, in which respect a lefthander should be particularly good. So this spring the coach is again going over his pupil very carefully, working him toward better control and toward perfection in numerous other respects; and he believes that by the time the season opens he will be able to tell McGraw: “Here is the best lefthander that ever was.”

So it will be seen that a man may be a star and still be a long way from being a finished player. Pitchers like Mathewson and Rucker might be classed as completed works of art; pitchers such as Marquard, Gregg and Alexander need the final touches. One year of great success does not make a finished player. The next year may see a big slump. Men like Matty and Rucker or Johnson and Walsh are comparative certainties until they commence to go back, but the meteors of a single year are uncertainties every spring for two or three seasons.

Has Been Doing Only Light Work

Marquard has been doing a little light work since his arrival here, and he declares that he is heavier than last season and that his arm has not developed a trace of soreness. He put in the winter on the vaudeville stage, but says he doubts if he will engage in that line of work again. He is now twenty-four years old.

This was a cold and dreary day after a night of the heaviest rain experienced in this part of Texas in years, and attended by thunder and lightning, which is a rarity in the Lone Star state. A little running around the park was about the only work indulged in by the players.

A Dallas paper announces that Joe Gardner, manager of the Texas league club of that city, has stated that he has his pick of the Giant recruits this year. McGraw has done considerable business with Gardner in the past. Fletcher, Drucke, Munsel, and Evans are among the men he has secured from that club.

The St. Louis Star and Times/December 1, 1912

After First Three Minutes of Play the West Point Boys Never Had a Chance—McReavey Distinguishes Himself—Much Was Expected of Keyes, Famous Army Back.

You taxpayers will doubtless be gratified to hear that you are now 6 points stronger on sea than you are on land in a football way, an increase of 3 points over the last fiscal year.

This advance was demonstrated in fifteen minutes here by future Admiral J. H. Brown of Annapolis. Md., who is just now occupying the inconspicuous position of right guard on your Naval Academy’s eleven after your Army and your Navy had fought all over the several valuable West Philadelphia town lots occupied by Franklin Field without coming to any definite conclusion.

In the closing period of the annual trouble between the defenders of your soil and water goals, future Admiral Brown dropped two explosive shells in the nature of field goals into the Army powder magazine and gave the young salts their third successive victory over the young men who are preparing for careers as bosses of privates.

If you detect a slight tinkle of side arms or the tramp of infantry, or even the wash of the sad sea waves in this report of football progress, remember the martial nature of the scene, which militates against calm.

It was along about four bells of the dog watch that future Admiral Brown went into the conning tower to have a con. For three periods the Navy had repulsed the boarders and also the roomers from the Army, and was doing a little lodging itself from time to time. Brown tried a shot from the 42-yard line at the Army goal, but missed. Then Markoe of the Army was detected sniping future Commodore Rodes of the Navy with a soft-nosed fist, in violation of rules of civilized warfare, and the Army was penalized to such an extent that the ball wound up on the Soldiers’ 25-yard line.

Brown’s Range-Finder

Brown had adjusted his range-finder and personally packed the ball to the Army’s 12-yard line. McReavey tried to assist him, but was halted by Markoe for not having the countersign, and Rodes was driven back by Houston to the Army’s 23-yard line. That satisfied Brown and he fell back and deftly kicked a goal for the first score of the game.

There was evidence of delirium in the American navy. A shower of yellow lemons rained down upon the field from the Annapolis section. The lemons had been carried by the sailors to tone up their vocal organs while engaged in singing their many little ditties. A storm of ochre-colored flags broke over the mass of dark uniforms banked in the north stand. The Army sat in gray, disconsolate silence on the opposite side of the field.

Soon after a lift from the Navy turrets touched Lamphier of the Army as it descended and Gilchrist of the Navy fell on the ball. This was in the general latitude and longitude of the Army’s 30-yard line. On two more plays the Navy was driven back for a loss and Brown was reduced to the extremity of kicking a field goal from the 38-yard line.

Last year and the year before the Navy scuttled the Army by scores of 3 to 0, both on field goals by Dalton Brown, who comes to take the place of Dalton, is 21 years old, 6 feet 2 inches tall, or about the height of a fighting mast, and weighs 206 pounds. He will be a big help to the country when he gets his full growth.

There were 30,000 persons, including army and navy officers, and some representatives of the taxpayers present this afternoon, and the game has all the spectacular sidelights of these annual classes. It was no great shakes as a football game, because the Army had retrograded from the form displayed earlier in the season and the Navy had no great expectations when it first came in. The field was almost as wet and heavy as the bottom of the ocean as a result of recent snows, hails and rains and other incidents of the weather, and this condition was expected to favor the Navy, which is more accustomed to water than the Army. However, it seemed no advantage nor disadvantage to either side.

Army Opens Attack

The Army opened the attack by directing a heavy bombardment against the sentry of Navy’s defense, using Geoffrey Keyes as a field gun.

Early in the first period the soldiers had crushed a hole in the Navy’s armorplate midships, or at least along about the dorsal fin, and the advance guard of the Army was peering through the aperture at the Navy’s 17-yard line.

Keyes was then pushed up with a charge of leg power to try a shot at close quarters. He couldn’t get the range, however, and his drop kick was a sad fizzle.

In the second period a punt from Rodes was blocked by Markoe, who crawled through a porthole on the starboard side of the Navy and knocked the ball down just as it left Rodes’ shoe. Merrill at last got the ball and had a clear course before him, but the Navy threw out grappling hooks and Merrill was compelled to lay down on the Navy’s 10-yard line. A couple of line drives brought nothing to the Army and then a fumble gave the ball to the Navy, and that was the best chance the Army had for a touchdown.

There was every prospect that the game would finish a tie when the fourth period opened. The attack on both sides was quite feeble and friendly. While neither side had any starting offense, then Brown was wheeled up and the pastime was quickly adjusted in favor of the Navy.

Sweet Songs of Sailors

But for future Admiral Brown the only feature of the occasion would have been the singing of the sailors, mentioned heretofore in connection with the lemons. Our government is fortunate in the number of baritones and bassos developed in the rank and file of the Navy today. They will do much to lessen the tedium of lonely vigils in far waters in years to come.

After the game the Navy jubilated on the field. The sailors marched over under the Army goal and tossed their flags over the bar. They did not throw their caps across, as is the custom at other colleges, showing a lively regard for your taxpayers’ money. While this was going on the youngsters representing the Army sat huddled up in their stand, a picture of gray military gloom.

It was great day for a football game, a Sunday school picnic or any other kind of athletic outing. The sun shone with hitherto unpublished brightness, lighting up quite a number of spots in Philadelphia which have long maintained a discreet gloom. This does not include the interior of the City Hall or Postoffice Building, however.

Philadelphia succumbed early to the invasion of the football hosts without firing a shot, depending on her hotel men to take vengeance on the invaders, which same was done forthwith. Soon after sunrise this morning several regiments of spectators known as the Philadelphia Reserves marched into town and threw up a line of trenches along Broad street in the vicinity of the Bellevue Stratford Hotel, which was the bivouac of the innocent bystanders. From this point the “specs” sent out reconnoitering parties well supplied with ammunition in the way of tickets to the game and heavy casualties were reported from the visiting bank rolls.

Without Prejudice

The downtown section was lavishly decorated with the colors of the contending teams. Businessmen judiciously used both colors, showing impartiality to the salary of the army or the stipend of the navy.

Huge flags hung over every door and the well-known somnolence which is said to be prevalent in this city at most seasons of the year was wholly lacking, save among the waiters and other public servitors.

A Riot of Gold Braid

Uniforms began to appear in the hotel lobbies not long after sun-up, the wearers of which seemed to be just getting up or just going to bed. You can never rightly judge this important matter from a uniform. There were generals and colonels and captains and admirals, commodores, commanders and ensigns in profusion, but nothing below the grade of lieutenant was displayed on any counter.

There was not even a sergeant-at-arms or a corporal of police to be seen anywhere on the premises, while a private would undoubtedly have been given a drumhead court-martial and sentenced to be shot at daybreak had he attempted to insert himself in the scene.

As per advertisement in these columns yesterday morning, there were many diplomats from the general exhibit at Washington, but they seem well behaved and caused the authorities no trouble. Also there were many officials and attachés of the national government, who attracted general sympathy because they are to lose their jobs so soon.

The army and navy crowd is the gayest and most colorful of all the football crowds. There is no other crowd which assembles as a matter of annual habit anywhere in the East that compares with it, for no other crowd can wear so much gold braid without attracting undue attention.

A large part of the crowd were women, thousands of whom wore the gold and blue of the deep sea water boys, and thousands more the black and gray of the army. They all wore yellow chrysanthemums, which was a neutral color on this particular occasion.

Damon Runyon

El Paso Times/June 26, 1923

Damon Runyon Finds in Montana Town Tragedy of “Big Idea That Failed to Grow Up,” as Loyal Villagers Face Heavy Financial Losses

Civic Pride to Put Up Last Dollar for Bout

Citizens Pledge Their All to Guarantee Dempsey-Gibbons Contest, After Early Payments of $224,000 to Ensure July 4th Program

SHELBY. MONT., June 25. Something that strikes the writer as touching on tragedy is going on in this little Montana town, still in the blood raw of municipal life. It is the tragedy of a big idea that failed to grow up. If you ever had an idea that so failed you, that is indeed tragedy. Sitting in a small room in a frame hotel last night, we heard the story from the lips of some of the men who conceived the idea, from the dreamers of the dream of staging a world’s championship fight in this place. And having heard it, we can now understand their motives, We have looked into the mystery that has been puzzling the east the mystery of “why Shelby?” It seems reasonably certain as this is written that the Dempsey-Gibbons fight will take place in Shelby on July 4^th, just as scheduled, but present indications are that it may take place at terrific sacrifice to many loyal men. It may leave some of them “broke.”

Financial Fizzle Expected

It may be one of the greatest battles for the heavyweight title in the history of the prize ring. It will have an amazing scenic setting. Yet the present indications are that it will be a financial lizzie, and therein lies the tragedy. As we sat listening last night a cold rain was falling outside. You could hear it pattering softly in the puddles of water in the clay streets, already ankle deep in mud. The men who talked wore heavy boots. They were fine, upstanding men, strong western types. They spoke with great candor. They pretended no sophistication. They admitted that they were babes in the pugilistic woods in the beginning, and that they wandered around until they got lost.

Through an open window we could see the lights of Shelby gleaming vaguely from the doors of restaurants and stores. Solly Harris, the pugilistic promoter who has achieved fame as the occupant of the only room with bath in Shelby, sat at our elbow, corroborating with nods the statements of the talkers.

Shelby’s Growth Amazing

Solly came here five years ago to assist the promoters of the fight. He is now a Shelby pioneer, and can tell amazing tales of the startling growth of the town which rose from 700 to 4,500 inhabitants in a few months. Silent city-wise, brought up on Manhattan, always indigenous to the big town, Harris speaks of the boom of Shelby with pride.

Five weeks of life in a new town, where day one sees houses springing up on barren lots, new businesses blossoming on every hand, where every day there is visual evidence of progress, have tinctured his blase blood with the spirit of the new town, the spirit that makes every man at heart a booster, a boomer.

The Dempsey-Glbbons fight goes back to this spirit.

A small group of men in Shelby wanted to do something big, wanted to attract attention to their little town, which they believe to be one of coming big towns of the west, what every western man with a spark of vitality in him believes of his own town.

They had nothing in particular to sell. Oil has been discovered near Shelby, several paying wells are now flowing, but oil will sell without a ballyhoo. The impression that the advertising of the oil fields was behind the Dempsey-Gibbons fight seems to be entirely erroneous.

What the Shelby men wanted to do more than anything else, as the writer gathers, was to attract attention to their part of the state by putting over an apparently impossible feat, feeling that the world would then say of them, if they could do that, they could do anything.

A Vision of Achievement

Then, although this seems to have been a dream quite in the background, some of them felt that they could eventually put over a $10,000,000 irrigation project, long planned and long discussed, which would make this section of Montana boom like a garden.

This is a dry farming region. For six years they have had no crops. Most of the farmers are broke after putting in some of the best years of their lives here.

This year, few of them bothered to put in crops, mainly for the reason that they could not go to the expense. Ironically enough, rain has been falling off and on for weeks. This is part of the tragedy.

You must not definitely connect the Dempsey-Gibbons fight and the irrigation project which would be the salvation of the farmers, save in that they were all fragments of the general dream of doing something big, something that would bring Shelby up from the dead level of mediocrity among towns. So it all started with a telegram from Sam Sampson, one of the citizens of Shelby, to Jack Kearns, manager of Jack Dempsey. The telegram never reached Kearns, but was opened by Kearns’ New York representative, Dan McKetrick. The writer happened to be in McKetrick’s office when he got the telegram, and remembers Dan’s laugh as he tossed the message over.

Collins Takes Kearns’ Trail

McKetrick didn’t take it seriously, and Kearns didn’t take it seriously when he heard of the matter. They thought it was one of the usual telegrams managers of champions receive from small town “bugs” bidding on big fights. Sampson eventually faded from the proceedings, but other citizens of Shelby took up where he left off and kept wiring Kearns.

Their insistence finally aroused Kearns’ interest, especially when they engaged Mike Collins, former manager of Fred Fulton, now editor of the Boxing Blade, and a well-known boxing promoter of Minneapolis, to dicker with him for them. Collins was in the room last night while the talk was going on, a handsome Irishman, with a serious expression. He will get little out of this thing save thanks.

Loy J. Molumby, one of the state officers of the American Legion, also entered the proceedings and it was Molumby and Collins who finally closed the match after following Kearns to Salt Lake. Through Molumby and Collins the little town of Shelby agreed to terms that everyone In the boxing world thought impossible for anyone except the biggest boxing promoters, part of the terms being the immediate payment of $144,000 to Kearns and Dempsey. It was all easy enough so far, and Shelby went about building a splendid arena and advertising the fight with great confidence.

Prospects Brighten

Then came the date of the second payment of $100,000 to Kearns, and a delay in raising the money. It is said that enough tickets had been sold on the outside to take care of this second payment, but the money is held in escrow and could not be released.

The hitch compelled some of the original promoters of the fight to drop into the background. It was necessary to bring in new financial blood. The delay, and the talk over the delay, undoubtedly hurt the gate receipts. It gave rise to doubt as to the fight coming off. Cancellations of reservations began coming in.

Things have looked brighter the past few days, but the most optimistic doubt if the fight will draw enough money at the gates to “break even.” It seems a great pity. There is nothing humorous to the writer in the potential financial failure. He would like to see it averted. These men of Shelby are fine, courteous men. Even at a time when it does not look any too happy for them they find time and occasion to manifest their hospitality to visitors.

To Pay Final Installment.

They are determined that the fight shall come off if it takes the last dollar In town. They expect to pay over to Kearns and Dempsey the final installment within another 24 hours and thus relieve all suspense in that direction. With a certainty that the fight will take place, who knows but a miracle will occur, and the great arena, now awaiting occupants will fill to the brim, leaving something for the men who have staked so much as a matter of civic pride?

It Is nothing to laugh at.

You look at Shelby, and seeing it with the eyes of casual observer, you see only a muddy little town with clapboard houses, and store buildings erected with great haste.

You look at Shelby, straggling along the railroad tracks, and you see just another town like scores of other towns dotting the prairies of the west and you may possibly wonder that anyone could find civic pride in such a place.

You may think possibly that the civic pretensions of such a town futile—foolish. You see the citizens of Shelby in raincoats and boots, bending their heads to the drizzle and you may think of them as dull, prosaic. But if you could look into the hearts of the men at Shelby, and into their minds, you would find there the loyalty, born of honesty of purpose, and the pride of race that has made America.

Damon Runyon

Buffalo Courier/August 14, 1923

Argentinian Floors Opponent Twice – Sponge Tossed In – Jeff Smith Wins

Philadelphia, Aug. 13 – The “Wild Bull of the Pampas” came out of his corner for the second round against Charley Weinert of Newark, fairly snorting tonight. Rigidly upright, his eyes glaring, his black hair tossing, his long hairy arms extended stiffly, he pawed once, twice, and then a third time at the pale Weinert.

His great hands fell against the back of Weinert’s neck with a heavy thud. Weinert went down partly from the effect o the punch, but more from being wore down. He got up weakly as Referee “Pop” O’Brien started to count. Then Firpo rushed him, clubbing with both hands.

Toss in Sponge

A punch back of the ear upset Weinert again. Charley fell on the canvas flat on his back. O’Brien started another count. Weinert got to his hands and knees and then to his feet. Another terrific smash back of the ear dropped him again. Then a dripping sponge flew into the ring from Weinert’s corner.

The Jersey man, who left his pugilistic future in the cabarets of New York and the good looks that once gave him the name of “the Adonis,” lasted one minute and 49 seconds of the second round against the “Wild Bull.”

The 25,000 Philadelphians packed in the National League ballpark, expecting to get a line on Jack Dempsey’s next opponent, did not have much chance to see the real Firpo, because Weinert’s resistance was brief and rather weak.

The Jersey man got through the first round by keeping his left hand busy, but a couple of body blows in that round undoubtedly hurt him. He was strong enough coming out of his corner for the second round, and went right at the “Wild Bull,” appearing with his left and driving Firpo to the ropes. Then Firpo rushed and his tremendous strength quickly overwhelmed Weinert.

Argentinian Wide Open

Firpo’s system of boxing with his right—to some boxers his potential weakness against Dempsey—was again apparent tonight. He was wide open, as usual, and Weinert had no trouble reaching his face with a left.

However, Weinert’s left was a very weak affair, and Firpo rushed right through it, so to speak.

Firpo fought Weinert with great confidence from the first bell, and there was no doubt of the result at any time, although during the first round Weinert’s efforts inspired some of his admirers to wild shrieks of “Knock him out, Charley.”

Physically, Weinert seemed a mere suggestion of his old self.

Jimmy De Forest Absent

For the first time since his arrival in this country, Firpo was not handled by Jimmy De Forest. He had Scotty Montieth and a couple of friends from the Argentine behind him.

Frank Flournoy, matchmaker, represented Tex Rickard at the ringside, and breathed a sigh of relief when Weinert fell in the second round.

The million-dollar-September gate—the Dempsey-Firpo fight—is saved.

The Fight By Rounds

Round one—Charley was short with a left to Luis’ head, and bounced back as Firpo swung a right. They clinched. Weinert jabbed with his left, then rushed Firpo to the ropes. Missing a left uppercut, Weinert hooked that hand to the nose. Firpo smashed a right to the head. They clinched. It was Weinert’s round.

Round two—Firpo slugged Weinert with his right on the head. It was a vicious blow. Both missed rights to the face. Firpo floored Weinert with a right to the head for a count of two. Charley struggled up and was smashed down with the clublike right for a count of seven. As he made his feet again, Firpo swung a terrible right and a strong left, and Weinert went flat and stayed that way.

Jeff Smith Wins

Jeff Smith, Bayonne, N.J. middleweight, outpointed Andy “Kid” Palmer, Philadelphia, in eight rounds.

Nate Goldman, product of the marine corps, outpointed Bobby Barrett, Philadelphia lightweight, in the first eight-round preliminary in the opinion of a majority of newspaper men at the ringside.

Danny Kramer, the lefthanded junior lightweight of San Francisco, was outpointed in the eight round semi-final by Alex Hart of Cleveland, in the opinion of the writers.