“The next play of mine will be a baseball production, because I will be sure then of having some runs.”
Last week I posted a story about De Wolf Hopper’s pal Digby Bell and the mysterious fate of the latter’s signature piece, “The Tough Boy on the Right Field Fence.” That dialect bit was once thought hilarious and even a rival of “Casey at the Bat.” Gags and wheezes of the past tend not to hold up well, as evidenced by this pun-laden baseball sketch of Hopper’s (“De Wolf Hopper in His Eccentric Baseball Juggling Act”), from Comical Confessions of Clever Comedians, 1904; by F.P. Pitzer, edited by Hopper.
“Of all pastimes,” began De Wolf Hopper, with his usual drawl, “there is none that appeals to me more than baseball. I am an enthusiastic baseballist. I am fond of the ‘bleachers.’ I might have acquired this fondness through my long association with chorus girls. But they tell me I had hardly come into the world when I adopted the national game. I ‘bawled’ continually, which prompted my father, and occasionally my mother, to hold down my “base’ quite frequently. They did good team work.
“When I developed into boyhood, I used to go out in the lots and knock out ‘fungoes’ and window panes. I became so proficient in doing the latter that everybody in the neighborhood had the old glass in their window sashes replaced with new, at father’s expense. My baseball, as it were, gave everybody a pane.
“I shall never forget those days. Neither will the chums of mine who are struggling in their professions with bumps and contusions on their craniums caused by my reckless pitching. I remember how I used to go home with my shirt ripped up the back, my suspender buttons missing, my hair disheveled and everything lost but my appetite. Each one of my fingers was pointing in a different direction, and they were bunged up so badly that I had to clasp my hands in three parts when I said my prayers.
“And my nose was always peeled like a potato. And mashed at times like a potato, too. But my skinned nose was brought on — or, rather, off — through my own carelessness. Every now and then I would endeavor to reach a base by diving down into the impenetrable earth and coming up on the base. Invariably, however, I came up on my nose. I had gotten onto the wrong scent, so to speak; and, in my endeavors to become a ‘star,’ I came near being an ‘angel.’
“About this time I longed for a baseball suit. I got one. A neighbor sued to regain one hundred dollars damages. I had broken every pane of glass in his house. That was the most expensive suit I ever had in my baseball career. Yet I lost it in the end, and all that remained was the belt I got from my father.
“When I thought I was able to catch anything from smallpox to a fly ball, I decided to become a professional ball player. My friends said I was off my base to think of such a thing; but, despite these friendly aspersions, I joined a team.
“We called ourselves ‘The Immunes’ because our playing was contagious. We must have all been vaccinated, because we never caught anything excepting a bundle of epithets every now and then from the manager. We made more errors than are on a specimen proof sheet in the back of the dictionary.
“One big fellow on the team told me he was a base-runner. And he was. He was the basest runner I ever saw.
“Before the game commenced the manager came over to me and asked what particular position I played. I told him I played none in particular. He discovered that later on. After long deliberation he decided to put me at shortstop. It was the shortest stop I ever made in that position. Some impertinent Japanese ‘fans’ standing near by told me I had a responsible position on the team, because everything passed through my hands. I told them some ‘fans’ look better when they’re shut up.
“The first time I got up at the bat I knocked a safe hit. I reached first. Then the coacher told me to steal a base. I tried it; but kleptomania never did run in our family, and I considered that the fellow who touched me with the ball had slighted me. I felt put out. And I was.
“At the beginning of the second inning the manager put me in the pitcher’s box, and when the inning was finished everybody wished that the box the manager had put me in had been a pine one. I was a star pitcher; that is, I continually pitched for the stars instead of the home plate.
“I had prepared a set of secret signals with the catcher, of course. For an inshoot he would wobble his big ears, an outshoot he was to look crosseyed for fifteen seconds, etc., etc. The first ball I threw was an outcurve. It almost knocked the batter’s eye out.
“When I thought I was able to catch anything from smallpox to a fly ball, I decided to become a professional ball player. My friends said I was off my base to think of such a thing; but, despite these friendly aspersions, I joined a team.
“We called ourselves ‘The Immunes’ because our playing was contagious. We must have all been vaccinated, because we never caught anything excepting a bundle of epithets every now and then from the manager. We made more errors than are on a specimen proof sheet in the back of the dictionary.
“One big fellow on the team told me he was a base-runner. And he was. He was the basest runner I ever saw.
“Before the game commenced the manager came over to me and asked what particular position I played. I told him I played none in particular. He discovered that later on. After long deliberation he decided to put me at shortstop. It was the shortest stop I ever made in that position. Some impertinent Japanese ‘fans’ standing near by told me I had a responsible position on the team, because everything passed through my hands. I told them some ‘fans’ look better when they’re shut up.
“The first time I got up at the bat I knocked a safe hit. I reached first. Then the coacher told me to steal a base. I tried it; but kleptomania never did run in our family, and I considered that the fellow who touched me with the ball had slighted me. I felt put out. And I was.
“At the beginning of the second inning the manager put me in the pitcher’s box, and when the inning was finished everybody wished that the box the manager had put me in had been a pine one. I was a star pitcher; that is, I continually pitched for the stars instead of the home plate.
“I had prepared a set of secret signals with the catcher, of course. For an inshoot he would wobble his big ears, an outshoot he was to look crosseyed for fifteen seconds, etc., etc. The first ball I threw was an outcurve. It almost knocked the batter’s eye out. They told him to get up left-handed so that I could try for the other eye, too.
“My pitching was frantic. So was the crowd. Some said I reminded them of a certain New York surface car, because I had a dead man’s curve. I pitched the sphere with such force the batter could never see it — it was always in back of him. The umpire kept on yelling ‘balls,’ and I protested against a non-union umpire who never called strikes. I thought this levity might soothe the howling mob. But it didn’t. It was a pitched battle, and they came near pitching me over the fence.
“My untamed throwing rattled the catcher and he commenced to give me all the signals at the same time. This was too much for the manager, and he retired the backstop, claiming that no man could play on his team with St. Vitus’ dance.
“Then I braced up, and, after that, everybody struck out — they struck out the ball for three bases. Yet, with all my poor pitching, there was consolation in the fact that I never let a man get more than one run at a time.
“I was a sort of favorite after that inning. I received friendly comments from everybody. Some told me I ought to go back on the farm and pitch hay. Another called me a glass-armed, tin soldier and a highball Hussar, while others said I couldn’t hit the sea with a codfish ball or knock a ball farther than a flea could toss a steam engine. I only smiled at these endearing cognomens.
“When we started in on the third inning they tried me behind the bat. The grounds we played on were rather small, and I had to stand with my backbone up against the rough boards of the grand stand. Every time I stooped to pick up a low ball I’d come up with enough splinters in my spinal column to make an artificial backbone for a codfish. Besides, my blouse seemed to be the receptacle for peanut shells, fruit skins and other rubbish that was thrown over the bulwarks of the grandstand. And they usually entered my loose garment via the back of my neck.
“When I bent myself up like an accordion behind the batter, I heard one young lady say to her companion:
“‘Isn’t it a shame to have such a pretty face in a mask?’
“My chest swelled.
“‘But,’ she continued, after a short pause, ‘I suppose they’ve got to put that on him to keep his face from falling apart, it’s so cracked.’
“My chest collapsed.
“These remarks, however, did not dampen my ardor, and I was as successful a failure behind the bat as I was anywhere else.
“After that the manager put me in right field. I left; and as I walked away, the crowd applauded and hurled expletives and other kinds of refuse at me.
“Since then I have been playing baseball off and on — generally off; and I have come to look upon myself as a good judge of baseball. I say judge, because I’ve been on the bench so long.
“The next play of mine will be a baseball production, because I will be sure then of having some runs.
“In conclusion, I can only say that I desire my executors, at my death, when my horses expire, to have their hides made into baseball covers.”
De Wolf Hopper on Baseball was originally published in Our Game on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.