"Kicks just rode that horse around"

We had all kinds of fun with animals! Good, clean fun! I remember one time Greeley Jackson—you remember Greeley, don't ya?—he found a stray dog and we took him along with us on the road for a few weeks before giving it to a church in Enid. That dog was something else! We named him "Margot" just to have some fun with him. That poor little fella!

And another time, Kicks Cartwright, that base-stealing son-of-a-gun, he rode a horse onto the field somewhere in Kentucky. The umpire said, "Kicks, get that horse off the field!" and ol' Kicks yells back, smile as wide as the day is long, "Ump, get these ballplayers off my horse meadow!" And we all laughed and laughed and laughed! And Kicks just rode that horse around, waving his cap in the air!

The best time, though, was when we dressed up a chicken with a little cap and uniform. Then we fried him and we ate him.

"you ever hear a fella yodel before?"

Oh, you wanna know about this scar on my hand here? Sure, I can talk about it! Lemme ask you this--do you remember a player by the name of Oskar Harrington? Yep, you're right--"Oil Can" Oskar Harrington. Ol' Oil Can gave me this scratch!

Oil Can was kinda one of those eccentric characters you just can't believe you have the good fortune to meet. He did all sorts of things that were just downright eccentric! Used to smoke two cigarettes at the same time! Yessir, they hung outta his mouth like two walrus teeth! And he loved to yodel. You ever hear a fella yodel before? Well, you shoulda heard ol' Oil Can! He loved to yodel! And you know where he got his nickname from, don't ya? He used to walk around with an oil can slung to his belt. Said that you never knew when you'd need a good squirt of oil--heck, I don't know if he meant for a car or for himself!

Well, anyways, Oil Can stabbed me once in the hand during a card game. Accused me of cheating! Now, I'm a lot of things, but I'm no cheater! Well, anyhow, ol' Oil Can Harrington pulls out a switchblade, nicks me in the hand here, tells me I got an ace up my sleeve! I roll up my sleeve, and all I got is a mosquito bite!

I remember that Lou White--right, the lefty--was there, playing with us. He says to Oskar, "Heck, if that mosquito bite is an ace, I got a friend in Louisiana with legs that look like a rigged deck!"

Well, we laughed and laughed! Oh my goodness, did we ever laugh! I laughed so hard I almost forgot about my hand and the blood gushing from it!

Yessir, we was a bunch of idiots, but we didn't know any better!

"oh yes, he was tall!"

Tommy Preston! Now there's a name I haven't heard in ages! Of course I remember ol' Tommy--born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota. That's Iron Range country, you know. Lots of mining up there. That's about all they do in Duluth! Wake up, do some mining, come home and get some sleep. Duluth, Minnesota.

Tommy Preston--what about him? Oh, yes, he was tall! Tall as a tree on the top of a mountain! We used to let him pitch...the kid couldn't pitch for beans, but he was so goddamned tall that he could just reach up and catch a ball hit in the air, no matter where it was hit.

I mean it! I saw Tommy catch homerun hits just by putting his glove up! Oh sure, sometimes he'd have to get on his tippy-toes, but lemme tell you: Tommy Preston on his tippy-toes was about as tall as the Empire State Building.

That's right...got his head taken off by a low-flyin' cropduster in 1932, I think. Poor kid. Poor Tommy Preston.

"yessir, that's two left feet!"

Grayson Fillian? Of course I remember ol' Grayson! Used to chew up toothpicks, swallow 'em, splinters and all! We used to laugh about Grayson having enough wood in his saliva to start his own goddamn national park! Oh, how we laughed!

I remember one time we were in Kentucky to play the Danville squad--this must've been around '22 or so--and when our train pulls up into the depot and we're all piling out, ol' Grayson, that crazy coot, he couldn't find his right shoe! I remember John St. Simon sayin', "Just check your right foot!" Grayson had a good sense of humor about that sort of stuff, but he was mad as all heck! He couldn't find his right shoe, and we had a game against the Danville club!

Needless to say, we didn't have time to find his shoe--we was going straight to the field from the train station--so we had to find a replacement. Well, the only replacement we could find was a left shoe that Dusty Smith used to keep his money in!

Sure enough, there's Grayson Fillian, out there in left field, wearing two left shoes!

I remember he got a basehit off Jacky Johnston in the third inning--a nice shot into deep right--and ol' Grayson's rounding second base and he trips and falls on his face! And the umpire--Big Barnes Brannigan, that Irish so-and-so--he walks over and says, "You're clumsier than a Kilkenny chimneysweep, you are, Fillian! You got two left feet or something?"

Ol' Grayson stands up, brushes the dirt from his pants, points to his feet, and announces, "Yessir, that's two left feet!"

Boy oh boy, did we laugh at that! We about doubled over! We laughed so hard! Oh shoot, did we laugh and laugh!

Yes, sir, we was just a gaggle of screwheads, but those were happy times!

"there's nothing like sunshine"

Sunshine? Why, yes, I do recall the sun shinin' quite a lot in those days. Seems we never had a game cancelled due to rain or hail or none of the stuff you have nowadays.

Divine intervention, you say? Well, I don't know much about that, but I'll tell you somethin' that Pinky Pilsen once told me, when we was about to take the field in Punxsutawney in 1923. The sun was out and the field looked beautiful, and ol' Pinky spits out a glob of tobacco 'bout the size of a baby's fist, and he looks at me and says, he says, "Cal, if there is a God--and there just might be--then He sure as hell loves baseball!"

And did I laugh! Boy oh boy, I just laughed and laughed! I laughed so hard that my sides hurt all the way up through the third inning!

Yes, sir, there's nothing like sunshine.

"I drank all kinds of drinks!"

Sure, I remember when I became of drinking age! Granted, it was never hard to get liquor on the road--the boys always carried a sockful of snakebite on 'em, you know--but there was somethin' special about being old enough to finally get some drinkin' done.

We was in Sandusky, Ohio, and the boys decided to take me to this waterin' hole--Clem's or Ruby Grey's or something along those lines. Well, I'll be damned if they didn't shove a spout down my throat and just start pouring all kinds of fire down that chute.

I drank all kinds of drinks! Lou "Burns" McGinty was buying me shot after shot of some drink called "Devil's Spit," and ol' "Barnside" Raymond kept pourin' me somethin' called a "Tallahassee Water Spout," and Little Pete Windell had the barkeep make me a "Special Kentucky Kicker."

Lemme tell you somethin'--if a feller needed a light for his smoke, all I woulda had to do was blow on that smoke! I was breathin' fire! Oh, boy, was I ever!

Well, it was time to close up shop for that bar we was at--and on top of all that, we had ourselves a ball game against the Sandusky squad the next morning!

Well, sure enough, that next day, I was hungover like a skunk! I couldn't even walk straight! I looked like a real loony, I bet!

But sure enough--I hit two triples that day! Ran as hard as I ever did, too! There I was, drunk as all hell, and I was havin' one of the best games of my life!

That's why I tell the young players of today that a drink or three before a ball game--ain't always a bad thing!

a real fun guy

Cole "Slaw" Greene? The second baseman? Yeah, I remember him! Used to hand out chewing tobacco to kids!

A real fun guy!