Cross-Eye's Double Cross

by Anthony M. Rud

 

Cross-Eye's Double Cross

By Anthony M. Rud

KÜMMEL ain't no beverage for me. Nope! If you fellahs got any regular dope I can make a highball outa, that's different. If your cellar's getting dry I'll stick to Vichy. Oh, thanks!

No, kümmel naturally was a Proosian dish. My private notion is that Bill Kaiser used to soak up on caraway juice and that's one reason he went crazy. Anybody, even a German, is dangerous with some of it under his pod restrictor-particularly an Irishman, I guess. Look out for a Fritz whose breath smells like the inside of a loaf of Milwaukee rye bread. But when it's a harp, run for your life!

I'm retrospecting on Hindy Corrigan, of course. You guys ain't never heard the gospel about that rookie. Why? Well, because me and Walters-who got his going up the hill at Château-Thierry-was the only ones wise; and being wise ain't made me proud, so to speak. Now, Hindy's finally pickled himself in caraway. The papers tell how he cashed in up at his country estate on the Hudson, so I guess it's up to me as the only survivor to dish him out his R. I. P. and epitaph. They's a million bugs waiting to hear it too.

Hindy was the one and only guy I ever knew of who cracked down a fortune outa baseball, and he done it in one season too. Sure, I was one of the goats—but so was everybody else. Even I ain't accusing him of being partial. If he had 'a' been I'd 'a' owed him more dough by the time October come round than all them flossy actorines owes their dressmakers at the end of the year. No, he just naturally glommed onto the yellow backs wherever they was hiding, on the notion that an eagle don't care who makes it scream, I guess.

The Rats had prospects that spring about four joss sticks more aromatic than rotten. In February and March we gave up playing even semipros and took on all the high schools down in Texas, so as the scores wouldn't look so bad. The pitchers we carried was the kind you take to an old man's home for the winter, fearing they'd get so tied up with rheumatiz from the frost they couldn't hobble onto the field in the spring.

All of them had been good-once. None of them ever would be real good again. That's how we come to have them. Charley-horse Steinberg, who held the stock of the Rats that year, give me just about as much money for new players as a Scotchman wishes on his caddy. I had two rookie outfielders trying for a place on their own and one old war horse of a utility infielder. Besides the three catchers and the regulars, though, that was all. We was ready for our usual place heading the second division- facing backward-always providing we could keep nine men on the field at once. If any of the old guys broke their legs or anything I was figuring on putting Looie, the bat boy, in right field and filling in at shortstop myself. That's just how hard up I was.

One morning just about a week before the season opened I was sitting there in the dugout watching batting practice. By the way all those old boys creaked when they swung at a ball I knew it'd take a million gallons of horse liniment to keep 'em moving their joints all season. As I was chewing away and cussing Steinberg somebody comes up behind me and touches me on the shoulder.

Because I thought I was alone, I swung right round. There, standing in front of me with his foot up on the bench, was one of the oddest-looking ducks you ever flashed a glass eye on! He was a squatty, bald- headed harp and he was holding a corncob in the crookedest teeth I ever seen on a human being. But you fellows know what Hindy Corrigan looked like. He was a sort of cross between a gorilla and a gargoyle, with the ape a little bit ahead because of having more hair everywhere but on its head. When I seen him I thought right away of the Bronx Zoo and of those funny faces they carve on the handles of senior canes up at Dartmouth. I never once thought about baseball. Even when he was going his best, nobody ever accused Hindy of looking like a ball player. Maybe that's part of the reason he got away with it.

After about a second I got my eyes past his face and then I really got interested. The funny-looking guy was holding a fifty-dollar bill right up under my nose!.

"You're Seth Haskell, the manager, ain't you?" he asked, and I wondered where the deuce that big voice could come from in him.

"Ye-ah," I admitted, keeping my glims on that fifty. "What've I got that's worth that much to you?"

"That's a bet!" he returned, waving the fifty. "I want to put it on myself!" He waited-expectantlike.

"This is a ball field, not a bricklayers' picnic. You got in on the wrong ticket," I growled, because I was kinda disappointed that the guy wasn't somebody who'd owed me money and wanted to pay up; or a lawyer with a legacy from a rich uncle or something.

"Not me!" he says, chewing on the corncob like he meant it. "Maybe I ain't much on looks, but I'm a ball player too. I'm a pitcher!"

I stand up gravely and jump on one foot like a swimmer does when he gets water in his ear. I was sure I didn't get him right.

"Pitcher!" I echoes. "Water or quoits or what?"..

"Well," he says, cocking the pipe up snappy, "I ain't cracked like them relics you got in your china set anyway. Here's fifty that says I can start the game for you next Saturday and win it!"

Right there I whistle a little tune I learnt a long while back. It's something about Little Willie and a stick of dynamite. The guy that looks like he oughta been carrying a hod couldn't 'a' hit me squarer if he'd aimed with an eight gauge. Course he was foolish-nutty as the ducks in Matteawan who aren't there because they have good lawyers. For a second I listen, though.

"Come on! Are ye game-or just broke?" he says, waving the money insultinglike. "I know they don't pay you guys enough so as you can afford to gamble much, but I thought maybe the manager——"

"Shut up, you poor fish!" I answered crossly. "When you says you were a pitcher you gave me a start, 'cause I was just kinda dreaming away and hoping that Clarke Griffith would call me up on long distance and tell me Walter Johnson wanted to be traded to the Rats. I'm short on good pitchers, as everybody knows, but I ain't that hard up!"

"Don't want to make fifty, easy money, eh?" he says kinda to himself.

"That ain't it. I got to work like sin to have a chance with that Pink Sox bunch in the first game. I can't afford to throw it, even for fifty bucks. Who in hell are you, anyway? Where'd you learn to pitch?"

"Never mind about that. Maybe I'm Slim Sallee or Grover Alexander or Babe Ruth in disguise."

"Ye-ah, and maybe you ain't."

I gave him one last look and felt sore at myself for even wasting words on him. He mighta been a good man once in the Shamrock League, but he wasn't cut out even for the bushes now. I just jerks my thumb toward the gate. That kinda acts like sticking him with a pin.

"Not a chance!" he yells, and slaps the fifty right into my hand. "Here!" he goes on. "That's to pay for an hour of your valuable time. Come on! I want to show you something!"

Boys, that was one of the crucial times of my young life and I weakened. I looked straight into those funny blue eyes of his and then at the fifty in my hand, and I just couldn't resist. He grabbed me by the arm and led me out on the field.

"So long as the boys are batting," says Corrigan, "I'll go up there and let you see me swipe at a few balls. Tell that lanky lummox who's heaving them to put all the stuff on 'em he's got!"

I was willing by then. It looked like an easy way to make him look foolish. I walked up to Lem Wilson, who is the best bet we've got, and slips him the dope.

"This here guy," I says, "wants to show us how to hit a few home runs. Will you lob 'em over for him?"

Lem kinda grins and nods. Corrigan picks up a bat and sidles awkward up toward the pan. There he takes his coat off, spits on his hands, hists his suspenders and monkeys round about half a minute. It looks a little as though he's fussed, and if it wasn't for the fifty in my jeans maybe I'd 'a' been sorry for him a little. Most of the time he's just staring out at Lem, who stands like Patience on a monument waiting for him to walk into the box.

Then Corrigan steps up. Lem slips him a bean ball right away, so as to scare him. Corrigan drops flat in the dust, out before Walters, the catcher, gets the pill back to Lem, Corrigan is up again, glaring savage like he was going to bite somebody.

Lem shoots what's meant to be a drop. Like the boom of a sailboat Corrigan swings round. By accident, like sometimes happens, he busts the leather right on the nose. Smack! Away it sails, high and far. With something like a feeling of respect, I see it clear the score board in center field. It takes a husky wallop to do that. None of my guys even had hit the board on the fly for two full seasons.

"Ye'll never find that ball!" barks Corrigan. "Try another one." Lem looks kinda sheepish, but he picks up another ball and hunches up his shoulders the way he does when he's sore. I see him wind up like a windmill and shoot his spitter across like a meteor. Corrigan never offers at that, though it cuts the outside of the pan, but stands like a wooden Indian, staring at Lem like he was going to eat him up. Well, the next ball ain't so good. It hits the dirt and Corrigan has to back away from the bounce.

"I ain't no submarine!" he yells. "Stick her over the plate!"

Well, this is just what Lem did on the next one and again Hindy swung. This time the pill sailed toward right field, long and low like the way some of these candy golfers drive a golf ball. It didn't go high enough for a home run, but it went plunk into the wire netting in front of the seats, as pretty a three-baser as you ever want to see!

"Didn't get that one up enough!" growled Corrigan. I stopped with my mouth open, just about to say something. The darned rookie was beefing because he hadn't put it in the stands! That was too much for me. I motions Lem to slip him a couple of out curves, thinking this would be something else again.

Lem obeys, but I can see the sweat coming to his forehead from where I stand in the coacher's box. He's worried for fear his arm is going bad-that's plain.

The first one Hindy fouls off and the second one he lets go by.

"Strike two!" I yells, just to encourage Lem a bit. Hindy don't pay no attention though. He just glares at Lem and waits.

The next ball is a slow one, a teaser that's easy to hit but darned hard to knock fair. It's pie for the Clark Street Bridge though. Up goes a high fly that don't come down until it's way past the bleacher ticket office over on Higg's Alley.

"Now, am I Babe Ruth in disguise or ain't I?" yells Corrigan, grinning.

I don't say nothing, but chases Lem Wilson to the showers-and he's glad to go at that. Baldy White, who's been watching all the performance, is the next victim. He's a port-wheeler and I figure he'll show the darned upstart that all major-league pitching ain't as bad as Wilson's.

It seems like Baldy's rattled or cold or something. For a couple of minutes he don't get one any nearer the pan than the Battery is to the Polo Grounds. Hindy just stands and glares. When the first fast one comes in reach of his hat he pastes it straight in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean. I ain't claiming that it made one of these nonstop flights to Ireland, or nothing like that, but I'll bet the geezers in the Azores wondered where that new shooting star come from. Last I seen of that ball it was up in the nimbuses and still going.

Baldy kinda gaped, but he was game. Three more home runs went kiting away, with a pair of fouls mixed in for good measure with one clean strike-the first ball Hindy had swung at without hitting. I called it off. There wasn't any use in wasting the whole of that fifty in lost balls. I had seen enough to show me that the harp in suspenders knew something more about batting than I did.

"You don't have to do no more, young feller," I says, stepping up to him. "Here's your fifty back, and if you come into the clubhouse now I'll get a unie and a rookie contract for you."

I wasn't sure how I could make Steinberg see it, but I needed a guy in my line-up who could hit one like that and I knew it.

Hindy shook his head.

"You ain't seen me pitch," he barked. "I'm a pitcher, I am. And I don't want no rookie contract neither."

This kinda stalls me for a second, and while I'm figuring he walks out and picks up Baldy's glove and one of the balls.

"Now send up some good batters and you go back there and empire," he says, pointing at the plate.

I nods. He's giving the party; and though he's got his fifty bucks back I'm willing to let him go on. All the time I'm wondering whether I can teach him how to catch a fly ball, so as I can make a place for him out in the field.

To keep him going, I send Sliver Chitney, our third baseman, up to bat. Sliver has a record of hitting an average of .237 for about eleventeen years or so and he ain't exactly what you'd call a greenhorn at the bat.

Before Hindy throws one at all I sees him glaring down at us; and, believe me, them eyes of his kinda made me uneasylike without knowing exactly why. Sliver feels it, and Walters, the catcher. I know, because I hear 'em say something about his looking at 'em like a cat looks at you in the dark.

Then he started a ball our way. I say that advisable, because, as you guys know, Hindy never did use no wind-up to speak of. One second he was standing still, glaring at you. The next the ball was coming and you hardly saw how he done it.

There wasn't nothing on that ball at all. It just floated over like a toy balloon. Sliver dodged like it was aimed at his bean!

"Got to call that a strike," I says. "Why didn't you hit it, Sliver?"

He mumbled something about a corkscrew that I didn't get, and came back to the plate. This time he swung, and though I could see that Hindy didn't have much more than a glove and a prayer, Sliver missed the pill by ten inches.

"One more like that and you go to Sioux City for a long rest!" I yells. The guy was making us all look more like a monkey than he was himself.

Sliver didn't have no comeback. He just dusts his hands and tries twice more. Each time he misses so far you could 'a' druv a flivver through the hole.

"Let me have the stick!" I says finally in disgust. "You couldn't hit an elephant with a feather duster."

Sliver throws down the hickory, mad as a hornet, but he didn't say nothing, just looking at me kinda queer.

Well, I ain't going to be the hero of the yarn. When I got up there Hindy struck me out three times running without me even knocking a tick foul! Right then, though, I seen better what had been the matter with Sliver. That guy Corrigan had a bunch of curves that never was in the book at all! Unless you was batting it was hard to see 'em for some reason or other, but up there you didn't have no difficulty, believe me! He had a spiral twister that came toward the plate like a corkscrew cutting into a cork. Also a scallop curve that had four separate jumps in it. Them ballistic experts proved on paper that them things couldn't be true, but I seen 'em time and time again and I know what I'm talking about.

Before long I had the whole gang hooting at me when I whiffed, but I got so I didn't care. The old gorilla out there throwing them things at me was a born major-league star—if I ever saw one. I was just itching to get his John Henry on the dotted line of one of our contracts before somebody else saw him. When I'd had enough of fanning, I yanked him right off the field and into the office. Without consulting Steinberg or nobody I fixed him up a contract calling for eighteen hundred and uncapped my own fountain pen to make it easy for him to sign.

Without even reading it he shoved the contract back.

"Nothing doing!" he says. "I don't want no contract that way at all."

I tried to reason with him, telling him every player in the major leagues was tied up that way, but he wouldn't listen. When I asked him what he did want, he wouldn't even tell me either.

"You just let me pitch that opening game for you free of charge," he says, "and after that I'll tell you the kind of arrangement that will suit," he says.

Don't let 'em tell you that I didn't fight for a contract right then. I even raised the ante to two thousand and then to twenty-five hundred, because I had a regular poker hunch that I'd get stuck big if I didn't nail him down. Well, I just couldn't convince him. When I threatened to kick him out and not even let him try to play, he just grinned.

"They's other guys what ain't so proud," he says. "If you'd rather have me hunt up Muggsy McGraw ——"

That was just what I didn't want, though I didn't tell him. The Giants wasn't what you'd call rivals of us-them being fighting the Cubs for first place while we trailed the whole outfit during the season that had just gone into history, as the orator says-but still I believe always in fixing up the old proverb to read, "To him what ain't oughta be given a chance, anyway." And doping out how the Rats could get a chance to finish as high as seventh place was an equation in indifferent calculus or some such kind of math that ain't taught on the diamond.

While I was trying to hedge and save face and so on, he reaches for his hip, naturallike. In the movies this always means a gun fight starting, but among ball spielers it's something else again. It listens more like a booze fight starting. Sure as cucumbers and dyspepsia, out comes a flask-one of these fancy, leather-covered ones with four thimble-sized cups slung in the bottom.

"Redeye?" I demands, starting my managerial scowl. With ordinary guys hard liquor and ball playing get along about as well as molasses taffy and the mumps, and I know it only too well, me losing Butcher Hardy, the best left fielder in the game—but this ain't got nothing to do with Butch.

"No," he answers, casual. "Kümmel."

Before I gets a chance to say nothing more he jerks out two of the thimbles, fills 'em up from the flask and passes one to me. The flooid ain't highly colored, but innocent and pure-looking-like gin. The stink from them two little cups fills the office right away though, like asafedity in a schoolroom when the steam pipes are red-hot in winter.

I ain't never tasted kümmel, but when I sees him toss his thimbleful and reach for more I think it can't be as bad as it smells, and shoots mine. Well, all of a sudden I want to make a face, just like a kid does when he bites into a fresh lime. The dope proves up more like poison than anything I tasted since the day I nibbled a rat biscuit, thinking it was an after-dinner mint.

I keep a tight rein on my seventh cranial nerve, though, 'cause a notion just popped.

"Had much of the stuff to-day?" I asks unconcernedlike.

"Just one pint," he answers, regretful. "Y'see it's kinda early yet!"

I didn't say nothing, trying to look boredlike as if anything short of a gallon before breakfast was a teetotal day for me. Without much persuading he pours again.

Well, there ain't no use trying to camouflage it. Even with a pint handicap, Hindy wasn't bothered by the contents of the flask —— I was. By the time I had half under my belt I thought he was a good fellah and had promised him he could pitch Saturday. This was all he wanted, and with the last drop of the pint flask under his belt he beat it for the hotel where he had his duds.

During the next four days I put the Rats in the hands of Casso Thorpe, the coacher, and I spent my mornings and afternoons with Walters and Corrigan. We'd go off in a corner of the lot by ourselves and work like troopers. We had to fix up a whole new line of signals for Hindy, 'cause of his new curves. When this was finished I batted him grounders and taught him some about fielding his position.

He wasn't nearly the ignoramus he looked though. Spite of the fact that he wouldn't tell us nothing about his previous jobs, you could see he had played some baseball. It might 'a' been years before or it might 'a' been in a hick league somewhere, but he had the general idea good enough. Little points like covering first base and fielding bunts were new, but I put them across quick. I could see that Hindy's fielding percentage never was going much higher than his batting, but that wasn't worrying me a lot. Any guy that could hit the stuff he passed out was good enough to get on base anyway, the way I doped it.

Saturday came round and about eight hundred fans turns out for our grand opening with the Cubs. Y'see, the papers have it all figured out how we couldn't even play six, seven, eight in the Three Eyes League, so only the real rabid guys came out. Even the band I hired for the doings seemed to get tired by a quarter to three, there was so few ears to play to.

Well, I feel kinda sick, 'cause I know what's going to happen to the Rats-and my job-if we can't draw better than that. Charley Steinberg is up in the box and from the way he's looking round I can see he's got every nickel of the gate figured. Unhappy? Well, I didn't really mind if he was, only for the bum prospect.

Without doing any explaining to nobody, I warmed up Corrigan and sent him to the box. In his unie he didn't look quite so bad-kinda like a cross between Rube Marquard and Benz, with all the outstanding features of each and then some, but not so bad as I thought.

Max Flack led off for them. When the first ball come he jumped, surprisedlike, and Rigler called it a strike. Then he took two more, like as not instructed to wait out Corrigan. The first one was a ball and then another strike. From where I was I couldn't see no kind of a curve on the ball at all, but Flack was acting queer. He said something to Walters and the empire, and then walked back and swung. He missed that ball clean, took off his cap and scratched his noodle and then walked back to the coop, puzzled looking. I saw him tell something to Hollocher when he came up.

Whatever it was, it didn't do Holly no good. After taking two balls and two strikes, the Cub shortstop called for a look at the ball Hindy was using. Him and Rigler couldn't find nothing the matter with it though, and I grinned to myself. I didn't blame them a darned bit for suspecting emery or shine or something. I never did see anything like the curves Hindy used right along-and I don't s'pose I ever will again, now he's dead.

Holly whiffed, same as Flack, and up came Pick, their keystoner. He got the count to two and three, and then dumped a little grounder in the direction of Sliver Chitney. It's the first fielding chance of the season, and-true to form-Sliver messes it up. By the time he's got hold of the ball Pick is standing on first and Paskert is batting. I kinda groaned to myself, 'cause I don't know what this will do to Hindy's nerve.

It don't bother him a bit, even when Pick steals second. He gives Paskert just three balls, at which the Dodo swings three times. The side is out and I sighs a big breath of relief.

Just then I catch Steinberg's eye, looking anxious at me. I walks over to him.

"The kid looks good," he says, bending forward. "Where'd you get him?"

"Kid nothing!" I comes back. "He's costing you enough so he better be good. He's going to win the flag for us this year!"

Steinberg starts to frown incredulously, but I don't waste no more parlez vous on him. Our side is up.

Hippo Vaughan is hurling for them and he sets down Karl Luesch and Sliver Chitney without no trouble. Banning, batting third, drops a Texas leaguer back of second base and the eight hundred bugs give a faint cheer. It's the first hit of the season.

That cheer was lost in a buzz the second Hindy ambled out from the dugout. A pitcher batting in the clean-up position! Some lone bug in the bleachers remembered just then the three strike-outs in the first half inning and gives him a hand. Maybe a dozen more join in, but the applause dies quick.

Hindy doesn't offer as two balls buzz by. Both of 'em are wide. The next comes straight as a die for the pan and I see the old jib boom come swinging round. The noise Hindy's bat made in meeting that ball brought everybody in the stands up to his feet. Like the ones he hit in practice, this ball sailed out into the bleachers clean as a whistle. A thin cheer from the eight hundred greets this and keeps up while Banning and he trot in with two runs. It's the first real sign of life the Rats have shown for nigh onto two years, and the eight hundred is glad they come.

Well, there ain't any use detailing that game. You can find it in the papers of April fourteenth for that year. Hindy held 'em. They got five hits in all, four of which Killefer, their red-headed catcher, pickled away. We beat 'em seven to nothing, Hindy getting another homer and a double. The last two times he batted Vaughan passed him, which same was some compliment to a rookie pitcher.

Right after the game Hindy makes me his proposition. I had sorta prepared Steinberg for a jolt, 'cause I figured Corrigan would strike for five thousand or something like that-the same being nothing for a regular player but a whole lot more than any rookie ever got from us.

Over the kümmel flask, though, Hindy pulls the funniest one I ever heard.

"The only contract I get is one that you give me," he says. "I don't sign nothing."

Which being exactly the way flats ain't rented and baseball teams ain't run.

After a lot of beefing I got his proposition. He wants to play for us on a commission basis, so to speak. He says he'll pitch any time I want him to, and pinch hit if I need him in other games. Every time he pitches and wins he is to get five hundred dollars; every time he loses he pays us back two hundred and fifty bucks. He figures the first game as nothing in his pocket, only if he loses two games he'll owe us nothing either.

Of course I fight like a wildcat and tell him how absurd his notion is. He explains, calm as anything, that any ordinary pitcher who was paid that way would make about enough to feed a white rat-if he was lucky. Also he points out that I don't need to pitch him if I don't want to, and when he don't pitch he don't earn no money. While I'm thinking how grand it would be just to have him for a pincher, without paying him nothing, the same hunch hits him too. He says that when he goes up to pinch hit he'll pay us twenty-five bucks if he don't get on base. If he does get on by a hit we pay him a hundred. If it's a pass, or anything like that, nobody pays nobody.

"That's an edge you can have!" he concludes.

For two whole days I scraps with him before I even put it up to Charley Steinberg. Then I only do it 'cause Hindy has his grip packed ready to hunt another club. Incidentally, Wilson and Baldy lose two games to the Cubs in these two days which we could 'a' won with Hindy either pinch- hitting or pitching. Steinberg took a day to figuring it all out on paper and then agreed that Hindy's proposition was fair enough. He didn't see how Corrigan could crack down more than two or three thousand that way, even if he was good. I gave his signed agreement to Corrigan. It wasn't my funeral, and I needed Hindy.

Well, there ain't no use telling you guys much about that season. Hindy proved up to be an iron man. I started pitching him once in five days and he won every start. The trouble was that the rest of the Rats were so badly shot that we had a hell of a time winning any of the other games. I got Hindy down to pitching every fourth day and sometimes finishing a game that looked like a possible victory. He pinch- hit in every game, except during one week when his ankle went bum.

It wasn't till the middle of July that Hindy lost a game. We was then in second place, with the Giants a game and a half ahead of us and the Cubs about that much behind. Things had got so that when Hindy was scheduled to pitch we could count on from fifteen to twenty-five thousand fans and on the days in between about four thousand-coming just to see him bat once! Charley Steinberg kicked at first when he had to pay, but he wasn't no fool. Even with what Hindy was cracking down, the Rats were making real money for the first time in years.

Hindy ran up against Dick Rudolph. Rudy was hurling one of those days when he could go ninety-nine innings without letting a guy get as far as second. It was in the fourteenth that Hindy blew up. They made eight runs off him in that one inning. I never believed but what he just got tired of working that hard and throwed the game, knowing he had two loses coming that wouldn't cost him nothing. He was drinking that danged kümmel all the time, you know.

You remember, I told you all of us were his goats? Well, Hindy didn't stick to the one graft he was putting over on Steinberg. He sat in at the boys' poker games and got them to raise the limit from two bits to four dollars. Then he got 'em going on seven- card piquet instead of draw-the seven- card game being something like stud, only faster and collected all the salaries of the bunch in addition to his own. Even I got bit bad. It seemed like you couldn't keep outa a game with him, even when you didn't want to play.

It wasn't that he was much luckier than us, either, or that he was crooked. It was just an edge he had 'cause of his being able to bluff better'n anyone I ever seen playing. Knowing what I know now, I kinda wonder that Hindy let us in on any pots at all but he did. I don't s'pose he won more'n two out of five pots when seven of us was playing, which goes to show he wasn't really what you'd call mercenary-only he didn't never lose. For a long time every hand he'd bluff he'd lay face up on the table, saying quietlike, "It pays to advertise, the guy tells me!"

Then naturally we'd call him every time he bet for a while-and he'd have 'em. He bluffed so frequent, though, and we was so poor at telling when that we just got to calling always. Y'know what that means. Winning at poker is a combo of betting right and calling only when the percentage demands. After we started that Hindy couldn't 'a' lost if he'd tried, him knowing cards better'n most of us knew our fingers.

'Long about August the bunch began giving I O U's. Hindy dropped out then and didn't play any more. He didn't really need to, 'cause I doped it out he got at least half of all the coin every one of us had drawn to date. Anyway, he was branching out in his deals in a way that made four-dollar limit look like pitching pennies. Understand, I didn't butt wise at the time, I was busy figuring how the Rats was good for about six pennants in a row, having Hindy. If I'd knowed I'd-oh, well, I didn't anyway.

We went ahead of the Giants on August eighth by trimming them three straight on their home field. In the first Hindy held 'em to two hits, we winning three to nix. The second was put on ice by him pinching for Roger Brett in the sixth and pounding out a four-carat swipe with the bags populated. The last of the series we actually won without Hindy, him having too much kümmel aboard even to put on a unie that day. I hunted him out and stuck him in a Turkish bath, lecturing him on the evils of turpentine and other strong drink in general and kümmel in particular, but you might as well try to argue a pelican outa eating fish. He ended up by persuading me to drink a thimbleful of the cussed stuff! You can't fight too hard with a pitcher who wins darned near all his games, likewise leads the league in batting with an average of .527. Maybe you could, but I couldn't. When I got Hindy's cold-blue glims sparkling at me I was player and he was manager-and I don't feel so bad about admitting it now.

The minute the Rats got in the lead hell broke loose generally. The fans of our town, never daring before to think that a pennant might possibly be coming their way, smelled blood. No matter what day it was, we got a capacity crowd. They was just a bunch of vegetarian lions that got an appetizer of antelope gore. Crazy? Well, I knew those Tessie fans of Boston in the old days of Speaker, Hooper and Duffy Lewis, and all I can say is, the Rats' rooters had 'em backed off the map.

Our bad luck started simultaneous, though. Chitney breaks his ankle. Baldy gets trouble with his arm. Walters splits a finger. With the small bunch we're carrying, these things put us in a hole, particular as Shenner, the second-string catcher, ain't never been able to hold Hindy any too well.

Our winning percentage drops. The two- game lead we have over the Giants fades. They come even and then go ahead. We spurt for a few days and pass them again. It's just about all square at the home stretch, the lead going back and forth and the bugs as crazy as locoed steers. Every paper in town was carrying a double-pink sheet and most of the space was articles about the great mystery, Hindy Corrigan. With all their sleuthing and butting in, the scribes never got past speculating where I dug him up and wondering what it was gave him his pitching ability and batting eye.

Well, the end came all too sudden. New York obliges by losing the last game to Philly. That leaves us just a little bunch of ten-thousandths of a per cent behind, with one game to play with the Cubs in Chicago. If we win we get into the world's series. If we lose but I ain't counting on that none, 'cause I've got Hindy to pitch and the Cubs ain't any too peppy now on account of being out of it.

Well, they pitches Tyler and I starts Corrigan. Five innings blow by in which they get one hit-that red-headed Killefer again-and make no errors and no runs. We make four hits and three errors and score once when Hindy's double against the fence sends in Brett.

Then the trouble begins. With Tyler batting to start the last of the sixth, Shenner blows a third strike, letting Tyler get to first. Flack gets hit by Hindy on purpose, but the empire don't see it. Then La Farge messes a grounder on first and there's three Cubs roosting on the bags.

Right then I am some nervous and get Shenner to stall a little over his shoe string. In the meantime Hollocher goes up to bat, but for some reason or other Mitchell dopes it out to change. He calls Holly and sends a lanky recruit up to bat.

The guy's name is Burfee, or something like that, as clear as I can get from the megaphone, but he is a new one with the meanest-looking face I ever seen on a ball player. He's got a long thin nose and eyes set closer together, and a mouth that slants down at the corners.

I'm nervous, but I got lots of confidence in Hindy, providing the other guys back him up. And then suddenlike I see Hindy shoot the pill across.

That is, it starts toward the plate and then changes its mind and goes out and away with a noise that breaks my heart. The mean guy knocked it clean to Wilmette! Four runs, putting them three ahead!

Hindy and I fought all the way to the ninth, but that inning was the end. We got two runs and they got one-and the Giants won the pennant. I didn't dare go back to Ratville for six months, the fans were so mad.

When I saw Hindy he had on cit's clothes again and was soaking up kümmel.

"Why did you give that guy Burfee that kind of a ball?" I growls, sidlin' up to him ready for a scrap or anything.

"I don't want to tell you now," he says, "cause maybe I wanta play next year. I can't tell yet."

"D'you mean you throwed it?" I yelled, jumping up.

He shook his head and kinda grinned, looking for his corncob.

"Nope," he said. "That's something that ain't in my line. I just made a hell of a mistake."

"What was it?" I asked quick. He wouldn't tell me then-said it would give away his system. I had to let it go at that.

Well, before the next winter was up you all heard about Hindy's deals on the Street. He took the thirty thou he got from ball playing and poker with us and ran it into a million on margins. Then two millions and then ten-and he wouldn't play no more baseball naturally.

One time we was in New York, playing the Giants, he came round to see me. Came in a big limo with all the trimmings. After I chewed at him for giving us the slip and talked over the past season, I just happened to think.

"Can you tell me now what went wrong down there in Chicago? I been waiting to hear."

He looked at me kinda funny for about a minute. Then he nodded and reached in his pocket for the flask.

"You have been a good fellah, even if you was manager," he says, "and you boys' money gave me my start. I guess I've got plenty now anyway, but I don't want to spill the news just yet. If I tell you can you keep your trap shut?"

I promised, 'cause I was as curious as all get-out.

"Well," he says, grinning, "you know them scallops, curves and spirals and so on you seen me throw?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I didn't never throw them at all! Them things was impossible!"

Guess my eyes must 'a' popped, but I didn't say anything. I couldn't.

"Before I tell you about them," he went on, "you gotta know something about me. For ten year before I butted into the big league I was known as Kellini, the hypnotist. Well, I wasn't a fake, but my graft went dead. The public got tired of seeing my kind of show. So I doped out a plan how I could make real money. I took a couple of weeks off and learned how to throw a straight ball and how to hit one when it came over just right. Then I went to the Rats."

"And — and you —— "I gasped.

"Hypnotized 'em!" he laughed. "Sure! When a batter came up I got him under control and made him see curves that wasn't there. Walters saw 'em sometimes and sometimes he didn't. The empires never. The reason Shenner couldn't catch me was 'cause he was too weak. He'd see 'em awful.

"It was the same way when I went up to bat. I'd hypnotize the pitcher so he'd toss me straight balls and not too fast. Then I'd bust 'em over the fence!"

"Good night!" I says. "Then you didn't have no curves at all?"

"Nope-just thought curves. I made a bunch of them newspaper men see 'em so I could get away with it, but it was all bunk from start to finish. Like the poker games. Some of you guys was easy subjects."

"Easy marks!" I retorts. Then I see I gotta swallow the medicine anyway, so I grins. "But how about that guy Burfee, who busted us in that last game?"

Hindy kinda shrugs his shoulders.

"Some guys I could hypnotize and some I couldn't," he says. "That guy Killefer of the Cubs was beyond me. Remember how he used to hit? Well, when this guy Burfee strolls up I can't catch his eye at all. I try hard, but somehow or other it won't take. Then I happen to notice him standing in the box. He ain't looking at me at all! He's watching something over in the first- base stands! So I tries to slip over a strike on him, and you know what happens.

"It ain't till after the game that I find out that guy Burfee is cross-eyed! When he's waiting for a ball, batting right-handed his left eye is pointed out at Addison Avenue somewhere! Being that way probably makes him harder to hypnotize too. Anyway, that's how he came to hit that homer."

I was quiet for quite a while and helped myself to some of his kümmel. "And I s'pose that's how you're making your dough now?" I says finally.

"Yeah!" he admits, "but don't tell the world-leastwise not quite yet."