One Down, 713 to Go

Damon Runyon

There is not enough of Hughy High to make one good-sized hero for our story this morning, and so we add to him Luther Cook and thus compile a sufficient subject. Hughy and Luther, bunched together, make something to talk about. They assisted this community in taking a notable decision over the municipality of Boston, Mass., yesterday afternoon.

The shades of the thirteenth inning were falling fast up at the Polo Grounds, and the Wild Yanks and the Boston Red Sox, champs-presumptive of the Amur-r-r-ick-kin League, as Ban Johnson calls it, were clustered in a tie. The count was three all, with Will Evans, the gesticulator, eagerly scanning the horizon for evidence of nightfall, when Hughy and Luther amalgamated and broke up the pastime, the final tally being 4 to 3 in favor of the grand old Empire State.

In our own garrulous way we shall now endeavor to tell you just how it happened, omitting only such details as we deem unfit for publication.

Hughy High, small, but efficient, opened that thirteenth with a single to centre. Walter Pipp struck out, Hughy High stole second. Luther Cook singled over Heine Wagner’s head, just out of Heine Wagner’s reach and mid the mad mumble of the multitude. Hughy High came tumbling in across the h.p. with the winning run. How was that for High?

Having described the most important incident of the game, we now feel constrained to warn the compositors to clear away all obstructions below, and to either side, so we can run right on down this column, and over into the next, in telling about the goings-on prior to the moment mentioned, beginning with that hour in the ninth when we boys tied ’er up.

Luther Cook figured in that, too. One was out in the ninth, when George Ruth struck Luther with a pitched baseball. George pitched the baseball left-handed, and by giving it the body-follow-through, he succeeded in raising a tumor on Luther’s shoulder. Cap’n Roger Peckinpaugh subsided without a struggle, while Luther tarried at first, rubbing his wounded torso, and glaring at George Ruth. That made two out, and it looked as this story would have to open with sighs, when Luther Boone—but by all means a separate paragraph for Luther.

Luther Boone doubled to right, a solid, smacking, soulful double that knocked the bleacherites back on the butt of their spines from the crouch that precedes the rush for the exits, and which scored Luther Cook with the tying tally.

A moment later Luther Boone went on to third, when George Ruth made a bad throw trying to catch him off second, but Leslie Nunamaker could not bring him in, and the game passed on into extra innings and to the big punch in the story as outlined above.

Well, it was quite a pastime. Everybody said it was a great game to win. Everybody was so delighted that they almost forgot about Dominick Mullaney, who was cast for the character of the bad guy in this tale. Not that we intend to make Dominick out, because you know the size of Dominick. The day that we blacken the character of Dominick is the day after Dominick leaves town, and gets well beyond the confines of this newspaper’s circulation.

In the seventh inning, with we ’uns needing a run to tie, Luther Cook singled. Peckinpaugh was duly expunged, and Boon hit the right field wall with a blow which put cook [sic] on third. The ball hopped back off the razor-backed sign in [sic] right into Hooper’s hands, and Hooper threw to first, instead of second, as Boone anticipated.

Boone had taken “that old turn” after hitting first, in accordance with the advice of all the coachers, and was several feet off the bag when Hoblitzel got the ball. Dominick said he was out, and the rally bogged down right there.

The crowd discussed Dominick in audible tones on account of that decision, and some thought it might be a good thing to assassinate him at once, but no action was taken on account of Dominick’s size, and the presence of Ban Johnson.

We have been wondering ever since the season opened why Wild Bill Donovan has been keeping little Jack Warhop warmed up down there in right field, and the reason developed yesterday. It was for the purpose of having Jack pitch this game, and Jack pitched very well indeed while he was pitching, proving the efficacy of warming-up.

In the eighth inning, Charles Mullen batted for Jack, but nothing came of it, as Mike McNally, the Sox’s new third baser, and the noisiest man in the whole world, next to Baumgartner, the Phil pitcher, made a smashing play on Charley’s drive. Fritz Maisel got an infield hit that inning, stole second, moved to third on Carrigan’s bad throw, and scored on Hartzell’s out.

Cyrus Pieh finished the game for the Yanks, and this story would be wholly incomplete without an eulogy of Cyrus. Tall, thin and very interesting, Cyrus would have a column all to himself did space permit. He compiled a masterly finish. Pieh had the crust, as you might say, to use a slow curve on some of the sluggers of the Sox, and he made them appear mighty futile and inefficient.

In the eleventh he gathered up Scott’s slow roller and made a two-base bad chuck to Pipp. Then he fanned McNally. Henricksen, who once broke up a world’s series pastime on Chris Mathewson—long and long ago, that seems—batted for Cyrus Pieh any time he feels that way about it.

Henricksen singled and Scott took third, Henricksen moving to second on the throw in. Then Cyrus Pieh fanned Ruth and Hooper. How was that for Pieh?

Fanning this Ruth is not as easy as the name and occupation might indicate. In the third frame Ruth knocked the slant out of one of Jack Warhop’s underhanded subterfuges, and put the baseball in the right field stand for a home run.

Ruth was discovered by Jack Dunn in a Baltimore school a year ago when he had not yet attained his lefthanded majority, and was adopted, and adapted, by Jack for the uses of the Orioles. He is now quite a pitcher and a demon hitter—when he connects.

In our boys’ end of the eleventh, Pipp led off with a single, but Wild Bill had Cook up there trying to sacrifice, and after failing in two attempts to bunt, Cook struck out. Whereupon he flung his bat far from him and took on an expression of intense disgust. Evidently the only way Luther likes to bunt is from his shoe cleats.

It was in that inning that Luther Boone was purposely passed for the first time in his brief career. In other days pitchers would have passed the whole batting order to get at Luther, but yesterday Ruth let him go to fire at Nunamaker, and Leslie did not betray Ruth’s confidence. he lifted a fly to Hooper.