A lean figure walked into a Southern hotel, in the latter part of February, confronted the clerk, who surveyed him dubiously. His suit, shabby and worn as thin as paper, had obviously been made by an inferior tailor; his shirt was old and very dirty; and, in spite of the fact that his face had not been shaved for several days, the clerk could tell at a glance that it was not the countenance of an aristocrat. Before addressing the hotel employe, he respectfully removed from his head a felt hat, and requested a room. He volunteered the information that he had left his wife and children, even fishing from his pocket a photograph of them (spotted with marks that were certainly not tear-stains), which he insisted that the clerk examine. He was, he said, a baseball player. His services had been hired by a famed big league team. He had come for spring practice.
Next day, this "rookie," with his team mates, appeared on a baseball diamond. All over the South, fields "' were crawling with such players. From every cranny of the U. S., they had come, with suitcases of leather, of wicker and with duffle bags; some of them as unprepossessing as the dismal fellow just described, others; indeed, far worse; many brisk, dapper veterans who scorned the scrofulous looks of such unseasoned players and shouted harsh commands at them. They were the company of men—numbering over 500—who play baseball in the American and National Leagues.
Through the long afternoons, they tossed the ball about as only professionals can in spring practice. Small boys seated on neighboring fences , emitted jeering sounds as the famed leaguers juggled, fumbled, panted, struck out. The weeks went by. Mockingbirds sang sweet in the cottonwood trees. The players could hear, in the evening, the strumming of banjo-strings, the warm, drowsy voices of the darkies singing Old Black Joe or perhaps Dem Golden Slippers in the hotel palm room. The jeers of the small boys changed to cries of "Bravo!" For now a different drama was daily to be seen on the dusky diamond.
The ball snapped like a bullet from glove to glove. With practiced ease, players spat, gripped bats and, stepping 'to the plate, sent the pitchers' swiftest offerings in long parabolas to the spaces of verdure behind the outfielders. The agile basemen were "On their toes to , make stops, pickups, putouts and what not. Moundsmen were regaining their speed, sending across curves, fadeaways, fork-balls that baffled the sturdiest batter. Well might loud eurekas issue from the lips of the fence-warmers. The teams, after they had played some practice games against one another, entrained for the North.
More interesting than the standing of any one team at this time of year are the muscles, eyes, tempers and agilities of certain famed players. For, though there are over 500 able individuals en, roled in the two leagues, there is actually only a handful for whom the grand army of snobbish rooters has eyes, for whom hats are thrown, bottles broken, hosannas raised. And of this handful, nine great names are fanfaronaded louder than all others on the bugles of the press.