“Henry, do you know who won the first race?”
“No, and you won’t either, Mr. Dahlen,” answered “Hank.” “You are fined $25, and you stay here and play the game out.”
Some one had tipped “Hank” off. And the saddest part of the story is that ”Bill’s“ horse walked home, and he could not get a bet down on him.
”First time it ever failed to work,“ groaned ”Bill“ in the hotel that night, ”and I said ‘Henry’ in my meanest way, too.“
Most clubs try to keep an umpire from feeling hostile toward the team because, even if he means to see a play right, he is likely to call a close one against his enemies, not intending to be dishonest. It would simply mean that you would not get any close ones from him, and the close ones count. Some umpires can be reasoned with, and a good fair protest will often make a man think perhaps he has called it wrong, and he will give you the edge on the next decision. A player must understand an umpire to know how to approach him to the best advantage. O’Day cannot be reasoned with. It is as dangerous to argue with him as it is to try to ascertain how much gasoline is in the tank of an automobile by sticking down the lighted end of a cigar or a cigarette.
Emslie will listen to a reasonable argument. He is one of the finest umpires that ever broke into the League, I think. He is a good fellow. Far be it from me to be disloyal to my manager, for I think that he is the greatest that ever won a pennant, but Emslie put one over on McGraw in 1911 when it was being said that Emslie was getting so old he could not see a play.
”I’ll bet,“ said McGraw to him one day after he had called one against the Giants, ”that I can put a baseball and an orange on second base, and you can’t tell the difference standing at the home plate, Bob.“
Emslie made no reply right then, but when the eye test for umpires was established by Mr. Lynch, the president of the League, ”Bob“ passed it at the head of the list and then turned around and went up to Chatham in Ontario, Canada, and made a high score with the rifle in a shooting match up there. After he had done that, he was umpiring at the Polo Grounds one day.
“Want to take me on for a shooting go, John?” he asked McGraw as he passed him.
“No, Bob, you’re all right. I give it to you,” answered McGraw, who had long forgotten his slur on Emslie’s eyesight.