We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
The
CLOWN PRINCE
of
BASEBALL
Seventy million people have seen him "in person" during the last 28 years . . . and he was the "most requested" male entertainer to appear before our GIs in World War II.
By LARRY RAY
IT happened in the ninth inning of an International League game be tween the Buffalo Bisons and the Jet-' sey City Skeeters in the early 1920's. The score was tied. Two men were out, the bases empty, and the next batter was the pitcher — comparative' ly, a little fellow — perhaps too small for baseball. He'd already won for himself the sobriquet "The All-American Automatic Out," but his real name was Alexander Schacht, and things looked none too bright for the Jersey City nine.
The opposing pitcher, over-confident, became careless, and the Skeeters took fresh hope when Alexander went high-legging it to first with a base on balls. A moment later a snappeg from the angered Bison pitcher caught the runner napping off base. In a desperation head-first plunge to
get safely back, Schacht upset Wiltse, the first baseman, and the play at the bag was lost in dust. When Wiltse got to his feet, however, the ball seemed to be lost, too, and he looked wildly around to find it. Schacht corralled a split second in which to appraise the situation, brushed himself off and streaked for second, where he hooked the bag in a near-perfect slide, got up, dusted himself off again, and, while pandemonium broke loose in the enemy infield, cut the grass for third. Poor Wiltse, meanwhile, was being driven to madness by the frantic shouts of his team-mates for the ball. If the runner scored, it meant the ball game.
Standing on third like a young leprechaun, while the fans were j screaming in glee or anxiety, and the j players of both benches were on their j feet, jumping up and down, Al tucked his head low and bolted for home, where he maneuvered another sensational, dust raising slide.
"Safe!" roared umpire John O'Brien. And Al leapt to his feet shouting, "We win!" But at this point the umpire spied the ball as it rolled innocently away from Al's feet.
"Oh, yeah?" the umpire moved his j scarlet and navy blue bulk to a posi i