"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!

just too much bacon and beans

Oh, the eating was some of the best part of being on the road! We'd get all kinds of food depending on where we was playing--we got Cajun food in Louisiana, or we'd put together some money when we were in Maryland and split a lobster up.

The best meal I ever ate? I don't have to think twice 'bout it: this little chuck wagon by the train depot in Gasconade County, Missouri. Our train came a-rollin' in just before noon, and boy, were we hungry! Were we ever hungry!

This little old cowboy-lookin' fella is sittin' there sipping coffee out of his mug, and he's got us pegged from minute one: "You boys baseball players?"

Pete St. Dixon looks him over and says, "Yes, sir, but for now, we're just a couple of hungry dogs!" We all laughed and laughed!

The cowboy laughs, too, and he says, "You boys got a game against the local squad today, I hear--can't be playin' on an empty stomach now, can you?"

So the cowboy invites us over to his chuck wagon and just starts serving us some of the best food you could eat! We ate hubbard squash and custard pie and bacon and beans and corn dodgers and biscuits and salt pork and home fries 'n' onions and locoweed and Johnnycakes and prairie strawberries and squirrel pie and aged bear's paw and pea fruit stir.

Well, by the time we walked away from that meal, we were in no state to play a game of baseball! I'll never forget Lucky Young drinking some seltzer water at the hotel and lookin' like he was about to burst!

We went out there and lost 9-1. The only run we scored was when Tommy "Half-Hand" Shaw got hit by a pitch 'cause he was so bloated from that lunch, his gut hung out over the plate. He gets beaned in the paunch and eventually gets around the bases to get our only run. Collapsed the second he touched home!

Just too much bacon and beans, I'd say!

how Muskrat Garrison got his nickname

Muskrat Garrison? Of course I remember ol' Muskrat! One of the best outfielders you ever did see!

I met Muskrat sometime after the Great War--I'm guessing maybe 1919 or so. They sold his contract to our team for a steamer trunk and some baseball mitts. "Raw Deal," we used to call him. 

Well, we called him "Muskrat," too, so I guess he had two nicknames. There was alot of nicknames being thrown around in those days.

Clyde Brown gave Muskrat his nickname. The "Muskrat" nickname. It was on account of Muskrat being smaller than ol' Beaver Johnson. You remember Beaver Johnson, don'tcha? That's right--he played for Cincinnati. Well, Beav Johnson and Muskrat Garrison looked kinda similar, you could say, 'cept Beav was about a foot taller and maybe 60 pounds heavier than Muskrat was.

So, one day, Clyde calls Muskrat "Muskrat." Then he tells us that beavers are larger than muskrats, although they share some basic habitat and biological similarities. So, since Muskrat was similar to Beaver but smaller--well, shoot! He was gonna be Muskrat!

Clyde Brown gave alot of rodent-related nicknames. Of course, he named Muskrat "Muskrat," but he also gave Beaver his nickname. And then he later gave Rat Hines, Squirrelly Walters, Prairie Dog Sampson and Mouse Mankewicz their nicknames. 

Now that I think about it, that Clyde Brown was sorta a strange fellow.