"'No,' I smugly replied. 'I am the pitcher.'
"'You, a pitcher?' they jeered. 'Who do you think you're kidding?'
"'Just ask Bill Bradley,' I told them. 'He was there when I signed my first contract. You'll see. I'm going to pitch against you guys today, and I'm going to beat you, too.'
"'Beat us? Busher, you couldn't beat a drum!'
"So then Bill Bradley came over and said hello. As he was leaving he said, 'Richard, you're a nice boy, so I want to give you some advice before today's game. Be careful of the Frenchman.' He meant Napoleon Lajoie. He said, The Frenchman is very sharp and he's been hitting terrific line drives this past week. He's almost killed three of our own pitchers in practice, so there's no telling what he'll do in a real game, even if it is just an exhibition game.'
"I thanked him, of course, and went back to warming up. Well, I pitched the whole nine innings and beat them, two to zero. Lajoie got two hits off me, and I think George Stovall got a couple, but I shut them out—and I wasn't killed, either.
"That night Charlie Carr called me over. 'You know,' he said, 'a funny thing just happened. Mr. Somers, the owner of the Cleveland club, just came over to my hotel room and wanted to buy you. He offered me three thousand five hundred dollars for your contract with the understanding that you'd stay here all season, to get more experience, and then you would join the Cleveland club next year.'
"'Charlie,' I said, 'if you sell me to Somers, I'm going right back to the ice cream company. He had first chance to get me, and he wouldn't give me what I deserved. So long as Somers is involved, I won't play for Cleveland, no matter what.'
"'Okay,' he said. 'Don't worry. I won't sell you. Later on I'll be able to sell you for a lot more, anyway.'
"On opening day, Kansas City was at Indianapolis, and I pitched the opening game. I won two to one, and that evening the story in the Indianapolis Star read like this: 'The American Association season opened up today, and it was a beautiful game between two fine teams. Each had great pitching, with an eighteen year old right-hander pitching for Kansas City and an eighteen year old left-hander for the home team. The right-hander with Kansas City looks like he's going to develop into a great pitcher. They call him Smoky Joe Wood. But we have a left-hander with Indianapolis who is going places, too. He resembles one of the great left-handed pitchers of all time: Rube Waddell.'