127-5 
October 29, 1921 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
*Kill the umpire!” 
The “fan” who sat at my left shrieked 
this murderous command as he sprang to 
his feet and waved his arms wildly about. 
I had a good look at him as he stood 
there—his hat off and his shock of light 
hair bristling as I am told a terrier’s 
mane will rise under the emotion of an¬ 
ger. lie seemed like a man of Norwegian 
blood. I imagine he was born in this 
country, but for the moment he was back 
in the centuries sailing the seas with some 
old ancestor to whom killing an umpire 
would be easier than killing a cat for 
most of us. 
“Kill the umpire !” 
And all the umpire had done was to 
hold up his right hand and very properly 
call “out.” as the runner threw himself 
headlong at first base. 
“Eat him up, umphs!” 
The fan at my right agreed with the 
umpire. He was standing on his seat 
waving the remnant of a “hot dog” which 
he had been eating. This man was of a 
different type. . I imagine that years ago 
some heavy-jawed, round-faced Polish 
peasant came to this country. I think 
he induced some pretty young Irish girl 
to assume a name with “ski” at the end 
of it. This shrieking “fan” had his 
father’s pasty skin and fat lower face 
and his mother’s black eyes and finely 
molded head. 
“Come 07 i—you out — h-h-b-ls-heih!” 
Just behind me a dignified Japanese 
had actually dropped the mask which 
usually covered his face and had actually 
became a human being. lie could only 
spit out a great mouthful of consonants 
with which he tried to express his ad¬ 
miration of the umpire, but he had be¬ 
come a true “fan.” 
And all about us stood a great army of 
howling creatures supposed to be living 
in the twentieth century, yet, in spirit, 
back in the ages before men had put on 
the thin veneer of self-restraint which we 
call civilization. That black man three 
rows in front of us! As he regards that 
umpire you know that while his body may 
be here he has gone back in spirit to the 
days when his ancestors first came down 
out of the trees. That fat man ! I take 
him to be a German professor, but if he 
could get his hands on that umpire he 
would show them how his barbarian an¬ 
cestors handled the Romans. That polite- 
looking Frenchman is waving his arms 
in delight at the umpire’s ruling. They 
are all here—Irish. Russian, Spanish, In¬ 
dian—the blood of all the races has min¬ 
gled in this army of “fans,” drawn by 
the one thing which they can understand 
in common—baseball. - 
* * * * ** 
You have guessed right in thinking that 
the Hope Farm man has come to see one 
of the games in the World’s Series be¬ 
tween the “Giants” and the “Yankees.” 
I like a good game of baseball, but the 
crowd was far more interesting than the 
actual ball playing. Imagine if you can 
a great throng—larger than the entire pop¬ 
ulation of the State of Nevada—crowded 
into one field, and the heights around it. 
Nevada covers nearly 110.000 square 
miles, yet here was a crowd nearly equal 
in size to its entire population crowded 
into a few acres. And it is probable that 
never since the great pagan games in 
Rome has such an assemblage been 
brought together. From Alaska to Aus¬ 
tralia—from Lapland to Patagonia—every 
nation and every race was represented. 
And just before* the game started that 
great assemblage rose up as one man and 
stood with bared heads while the band 
played “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It 
was an impressive scene. There was a 
sharp wind which blew the flags out 
straight from their staffs. The ball play¬ 
ers, many of them soldiers, grouped be¬ 
hind the home base, and the vast throng 
of eager “fans” waiting with bared heads 
through the music. It made one think of 
the slender yet strong thread of patriot¬ 
ism which held this discordant babel of 
breeds together as Americans. During 
the eight games which these clubs played 
the money taken in at the gate amounted 
to over $*950,000. Counting the price of 
the tobacco and food sold, the total ran 
considerably over one million dollars! 
It seems like a hideous extravagance 
while thousands of men are out of work. 
Take the count";,- at large and compute 
the value of the time lost in watching the 
score and discussing the games, it is doubt¬ 
ful if $5,000,000 would cover it. It was 
a crime to spend this vast sum of money 
in this way, while thousands of people 
were suffering for the common necessities 
of life. Its effect upon the youth of the 
country was deplorable. Yet if you could 
have been at that game, seen the people 
who attended and studied the psychology 
of that crowd, you would 1 have understood 
the futility of crying out against it. I am 
rather inclined to think that prohibition 
has done much to increase the size and 
fervor of these great crowds. It has 
meant more spending money for the sport¬ 
ing classes, and without question many 
of these men acquire a form of mental in¬ 
toxication at such contests which some¬ 
how substitutes for a physical spree. 
I have seen men and women acquire 
about the same form of intoxication at 
revivals or political meetings. A man 
may become mentally exhilarated or 
drunk over the discovery of a new bug. 
Probably such people as well as those who 
were raving over this ball game became 
better citizens as a result of their emo- 
Thc RURAL NEW-YORKER 
tional intoxication. It shook them to 
their foundations and opened up new 
springs of life. 
* * * * 
1 was interested in the way this great 
throng was fed and watered. Many of 
them came early, so as to capture a seat— 
and waited five hours or more before the 
game started. For my part, I brought 
several small books to read. Hazlitt’s 
essay on “The Fight” seemed appropriate, 
and Victor Hugo’s “Last Days of a Con¬ 
demned Man” made a good antidote. 
Some of us brought a lunch along, but 
most of those “rooters” depended on sand¬ 
wiches, “hot dogs” and peanuts for food 
and “pop” or root beer for drink. Some 
of you may not quite understand what a 
“hot dog” is. Waiters dressed in white 
circulated through the aisles carrying big 
baskets. One side of the basket contained 
long, slim rolls, each one slit down the 
middle. The other side of the basket con¬ 
tained a small tin oven or fireless cooker 
filled with hot frankfurter sausages. All 
you had to do was to hold up one finger 
and produce 15 cents. At. that the “hot 
dog” man would seize a roll with his left 
hand, Jay it open with his thumb, spear 
a sausage with his fork, slip it inside the 
roll, give it a quick smear of mustard and 
the “dog” was hot! I estimated that at 
least 55,000 of these “dogs” were sold 
during 1 he game. You held them in your 
hand, gnawed them down and then licked 
your fingers. It was a balanced ration, 
even if not sanitary. I ligured that out 
of the 15 cents paid for this lunch the pro¬ 
ducer of the meat and bread received one 
cent. The “pop” and root beer were 
served in little bottles containing about 
half a pint. You held up your finger and 
the waiter selected a bottle, whipped the 
cork off, stuck a straw into the bottle and 
passed it along. Even the “straw” was a 
fraud. It never saw a rye field, but 
was made of paper. You kept the bottle. 
It might make a convenient instrument 
for expressing your opinion of the umpire 
when other forms of language failed. The 
most remarkable thing about it all was 
the way these waiters served sandwiches 
and bags of peanuts. The sandwiches 
were wrapped in paper. With a quick 
twist or jerk of his wrist the waiter would 
throw the package at least 150 feet into 
the crowd and always hit the right hands 
held up for it. Then the “fan” would 
throw the money back to the waiter. I 
watched this game for half an hour and in 
all that time not a package or a dime was 
lost. This crowd had developed a sort of 
honor and fair dealing. If a sandwich 
missed the proper hand it was always 
passed to the owner. If a dime or * a 
nickel fell short, it was always picked 
up and handed to the waiter. These men 
might rave in excitement over some part 
of the game, but they knew when to stop. 
They realized that fighting or unfair ad¬ 
vantage would turn that'c-rcwd into a mob 
which would mean riot or murder. It is 
curious how each member of a crowd of 
this sort seems to realize that he must 
play the game and contribute a little 
share of self-restraint. 
5k Sj« 5k 5k 9|c 
But the game. It was a great perform¬ 
ance of the art of ball playing—too good 
to suit me. for I like to see more batting 
and base running. Promptly at 2 o’clock 
four men in blue suits walked out on the 
field—the umpires. One called balls and 
strikes at the home plate, while another 
stood near each base. The “Giants” in 
white uniforms took the field. A great 
roar went up from the crowd as a big, 
round-shouldered, hulking man shuffled 
down to the pitchers’ “box.” 
“Eat ’em up, Phil! Sinoke ’em out, 
Douglas.” 
Then we were sure that the great 
“Shufflin’ Phil Douglas” was to try to 
hold his castle against Marmion and all 
the world. He was not an impressive fig¬ 
ure, this raw-boned man, with feet so 
large that it seemed impossible for any 
human being to move them rapidly. He 
stood there in the center of the diamond 
with ball held up against his face. To a 
novice it would seem like an attitude of 
prayer or whispered instructions to the 
ball, but it was a far more prosaic per¬ 
formance. In truth, the great Douglas 
was spitting on the ball. He is the fin¬ 
ished exponent of the famous “moist” or 
“saliva” delivery. I doubt if this gentle¬ 
man is strong on the study of physics, 
but the great object of a baseball pitcher 
is to give the ball such a violent twist 
that its whirling force will overcome the 
force of gravity and jerk it back and forth 
out of a straight line. When one side of 
the ball is moistened, the pitcher gets a 
firmer grip with his fingers, and also the I 
wet side, being a little heavier, curved 
the ball out of its straight course some¬ 
what like an uneven stone thrown at a 
bird. And so the great “Phil” spit on 
the ball and then threw it with a mighty 
heave. It came sailing up to the plate, 
but when within two feet of it seemed to 
hesitate and dodge to one side, like a boy 
who dodges to escape the stick in the 
teacher’s hand. It seemed impossible for 
any man to hit such a ball, but almost 
before we knew it the “Yankees” had two 
men on bases and two out. It would 
have been a dramatic situation if right 
then the great “Babe” Ruth could have 
walked up to the plate and knocked one 
of his celebrated home runs. But the 
great Ruth was out of the game with an 
injured arm. and he could only fume and 
rage as a batter named Pipp marched up 
to beard the Douglas in his hall. It was 
a foolish fancy, no doubt, for this Pipp 
was of anything but a lordly form ; but 
there came into mind the famous meeting 
between Marmion and Douglas in Scott’s 
Hudson River View—From Photograph Taken in September, 1921 
The Factory That Makes This 
COUD-^AIR 
HOT .AIR 
CO^DAIR 
STewarT' 
ONEPIPE 
FURNACE 
the same factory 
that for 89 years 
has been and is still 
making the well known 
and good old reliable 
STEWART 
Stoves and Ranges 
MANY STEWART Cookstoves made forty, fifty and 
sixty years ago are still in service. STEWART ONEPIPE 
Furnaces are built in the same skillful manner, from the 
same high grade materials—built for long faithful service. 
THOUSANDS of them now in use are doing wonderful 
work—they abundantly HeaT the whole house, use % to x / 2 
LESS fuel than usual, do away with the dirt, drudgery and 
fire danger of stoves—and KEEP THE CELLAR COOL. 
BACK of every STEWART ONEPIPE Furnace 
stands this immense Manufacturing Plant pictured above, 
covering many acres of space, together with the entire re¬ 
sources and reputation of this 90-year-old company. THIS 
to the purchaser of a STEWART ONEPIPE Furnace is 
ASSURANCE OF APX>LUTE SATISFACTION. 
LOWEST PRICES OF YEAR NOW IN EFFECT 
GET YOUR STF /ART ONEPIPE NOW 
^ T RITE TODAY FOR ILLUSTRATED BOOKLET—FREE 
and name of our nearest dealer. 
LLER & WARREN CO.. TROY. NY 
5mcel83LMakers of STEWART Stoves.Ranges.Furnaces 
Chicopee Corn Husker 
Does not Shred 
It Husks 
Stalks are fed from upper platform to 
snapping rolls on top, which removes 
the ears and drops them to six husk¬ 
ing rolls below. Endless apron, eight 
feet long, carries stalks to end of 
machine, for bundling or feeding to 
ensilage cutter. 
The Chicopee Corn Husker can be operated 
by a 4 to 6 h.p. engine, and under good conditions will husk 40 to 60 bushels an hour. 
Write for catalog and prices. Husking time is almost here. How are you going to do it this year? 
Bateman and Companies, Inc. 0mill Y 
Grenloch, N. J. Lansing, Mich. Worcester, Mass. 
When you write advertisers mention The R. N.-Y. and you’ll get a 
quick reply and a “square deal.” See guarantee editorial page. 
