“WON’T YOU COME?”
“Many have long since turned to dust. I sobbed and sobbed and a young man stepped out and said: ‘We are going down to the Pacific Garden mission. Won’t you come down to the mission? I am sure you will enjoy it. You can hear drunkards tell how they have been saved and girls tell how they have been saved from the red light district. I arose and said to the boys: “I’m through. We’ve come to the parting of the ways,” and I turned my back on them. Some of them laughed and some of them mocked me; one of them gave me encouragement; others never said a word. Twenty-seven years ago I turned and left that little group on the corner of State and Madison streets, walked to the little mission, fell on my knees and staggered out of sin and into the arms of the Saviour.
I went over to the west side of Chicago where I was keeping company with a girl now my wife, Nell. I married Nell. She was a Presbyterian, so I am a Presbyterian. Had she been a Catholic, I would have been a Catholic—because I was hot on the trail of Nell.
The next day I had to go out to the ball park and practice. Every morning at 10 o’clock we had to be out there and practice. I never slept that night. I was afraid of the horse-laugh that the gang would give me because I had taken my stand for Jesus Christ.
I walked down to the old ball grounds. I will never forget it. I slipped my key into the wicket gate and the first man to meet me after I got inside was Mike Kelley.
Up came Mike Kelley. He said: “Bill I’m proud of you—religion is not my long suit, but I’ll help you all I can.” Up came Anson, Pfeffer, Clarkson, Flint, McCormick, Burns, Williamson and Dalrymple. There wasn’t a fellow in that gang who knocked, every fellow had a word of encouragement for me.
That afternoon we played the old Detroit club. We were neck and neck for the championship. That club had Thompson, Richardson, Rowe, Dunlap, Hanlon and Bennett, and they could play ball. I was playing right field and John G. Clarkson was pitching. He was as fine pitcher as ever crawled into a uniform. There are some pitchers today, O’Toole, Bender, Wood, Mathewson, Johnson, Marquard, but I do not believe any one of them stood in the class with Clarkson.
We had two men out and they had a man on second and one on third, and Bennett, their old catcher was at the bat. Charley had three balls and two strikes on him. Charley couldn’t hit a high ball. I don’t mean a Scotch high-ball, but he could kill them when they went about his knee.
I hollered to Clarkson and said: “One more and we got ’em.”
You know every pitcher digs a hole in the ground where he puts his foot when he is pitching. John stuck his foot in the hole and he went clear to the ground. Oh, he could make them dance. He could throw over-handed, and the ball would go down and up like that. He is the only man on earth I have seen do that. The ball would go by so fast that a thermometer would drop two degrees. John went clear down, and as he went to throw the ball his right foot slipped, and the ball went low instead of high.
I saw Charley swing hard and heard the bat hit the ball with a terrific blow. Bennett had smashed the ball on the nose. I saw the ball rise in the air and knew it was going clear over my head.
I could judge within ten feet of where the ball would light. I turned my back to the ball and ran.
The field was crowded with people and I yelled: ‘Stand back!’ and the crowd opened like the Red Sea opened for the rod of Moses. I ran on, and as I ran I made a prayer; it wasn’t theological, either, I tell you. I said: “God, if you ever helped mortal man, help me to get that ball, and you haven’t got much time to make up your mind, either.”
I ran and jumped over the bench and stopped. I thought I was close enough to catch it. I looked back and saw it going over my head, and I jumped and shoved my left hand out and the ball hit it and stuck. At the rate I was going, the momentum carried me on and I fell under the feet of a team of horses. I jumped up with the ball in my hand. Up came Tom Johnson. He was afterwards Mayor of Cleveland. “Here is $10.00 Bill; buy yourself the best hat in Chicago. That catch won me $1,500. Tomorrow go and buy yourself the best suit of clothes you can find in Chicago.”
An old Methodist minister said to me a few years ago: “Why, William, you didn’t take the $10.00 did you.” I said: “You bet I did.”
Listen! Mike Kelley was sold to Boston for $10,000. Mike got half of the purchase price. He came up to me and showed me a check for $5,000. John L. Sullivan the champion fighter, went around with a subscription paper and the boys raised over $12,000 to buy Mike a house.
They gave Mike a deed to the house and they had $1,500 left and gave him a certificate of deposit for that. His salary for playing with Boston was $4,700 a year. At the end of that season Mike had spent the $5,000 purchase price and the $5,000 he received as salary and the $1,500 they gave him and had a mortgage on the house. And when he died in Pennsylvania they went around with a subscription to get money enough to put him in the ground. Mike sat there on the corner with me twenty-seven years ago, when I said: “Goodbye, boys, I’m through.”
A. G. Spalding signed up a team to go around the world. I was the first man he asked to sign a contract and Captain Anson was the second.
I was sliding to second base one day. I always slid head first, and I hit a stone and cut a ligament loose in my knee.
I got a doctor and had my leg fixed up and he said to me: “William, if you don’t go on that trip I will give you a good leg.” I obeyed and I have as good a leg today as I ever had. They offered to wait for me at Honolulu and Australia.
Spalding said: “Meet us in England, and play with us through England, Scotland and Wales.” I didn’t go.
Ed Williamson, our old short-stop, was a fellow weighing 225 pounds, and a more active man you never saw. He went with them, and while they were on the ship crossing the English channel a storm arose. The captain thought the ship would go down. Then he dropped on his knees and promised God to be true, and God spoke and the waves were still. They came back to the United States and Ed. came back to Chicago and started a saloon on Dearborn Street.
I would go there and give tickets for the Y. M. C. A. meetings and would talk with him, and would cry like a baby, I would get down and pray for him. When he died they put him on the table and cut him open and took out his liver. It was so big it would not go in a candy bucket.
Ed Williamson sat there on the street corner with me twenty-seven years ago when I said, “Goodbye, boys, I’m through.”
Frank Flint, our old catcher, who caught for nineteen years, drew $3,200 a year on an average. He caught before they had chest protectors and masks and gloves. He caught bare-handed. Every bone in the ball of his hand was broken. You never saw a hand like Frank had. Every bone in his face was broken and his nose and cheekbones, and the shoulder and ribs had all been broken.
I’ve seen old Frank Flint sleeping on a table in a stale beer joint and I’ve turned my pockets inside out and said: “You’re welcome to it, old pal.”
He drank on and on, and one day in winter he staggered out of a stale beer joint and stood on a corner and was seized with a fit of coughing.
The blood streamed out of his nose, his mouth and his eyes. Down the street came a woman. She took one look and said: “My God, is it you, Frank?” And the old love came back.
The wife called two policemen and a cab and started with him to her boarding house. They broke all speed regulations. She called five of the best physicians, and they listened to the beating of his heart—eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen—and the doctor said: “He will be dead in about four hours.” She said: “Frank the end is near,” and he said: “Send for Bill.”
They telephoned me and I came. When I reached his bedside he said to me: “There’s nothing in the life of years ago I care for now. I can hear the grandstand hiss when I strike out. I can hear the bleachers cheer when I make a hit that wins the game, but there is nothing that can help me now, and if the umpire calls me out now, won’t you say a few words over me, Bill?”
He struggled as he had years ago on the diamond when he tried to reach home—but the great Umpire of the universe yelled: “You’re out.” And the great gladiator of the diamond was no more.
Frank Flint sat on the street corner drunk with me twenty-seven years ago in Chicago when I said: “I’ll bid you goodbye, boys, I’m going to Jesus.” Say men, did I win the game of life, or did they?