Base Ball Returns -- Not a Moment Too Soon!

Rooters, cease chewing your mustaches and grab your megaphones, drums and cornets! Base Ball contests resume to-night, with the Bostons meeting the "Rays" of Tampa.

Suffering through the annual mid-season pause routinely brings the otherwise fit to the brink of nervous exhaustion. How else to explain the tale of this poor gent, which I picked up from the news wires. Surely a man in his right mind would never complain about a banquet of sausages!

No, these actions betray the signs of a Rooter longing for a finely twirled tilt:

Sausage Gets on the Nerves

CHICAGO — Linked sausage, long drawn out, served for breakfast, dinner, supper and between meals, drove Charles Jensen from his home at 3629 Harper avenue. It got on his nerves.

Liverwurst, German sausage, schnapps and bologna is poor diet for a steamfitter who earns $35 a week and wants steak once in a while. It's bad for the nerves.

Charles told Municipal Judge Torrlson in the court of domestic relations the other day that he had run away from sausage, his wife and six children.

"She gave me bologna for breakfast, llverwurst for dinner and German sausage for supper," he said "Once in a while she changed the diet with frankfurters and schnapps. I want steak once in a while.

"Honest, judge, it got so bad that every time I heard a dog bark I could smell dinner cooking. I can't work on a delicatessen diet of sausage all the time. I earn $35 a week and want steak."

"It isn't sausage. It's another woman," declared Mrs. Jensen. "He ran away from me four months ago and went to another woman somewhere on the Pacific coast. He liked sausage all right until he got 'moony' over the other woman. Sausage may not be good for married men who love other women."

"Sausage or woman — It doesn't matter," said Judge Torrison. It's just a plain case of nerves. You've looked at each other so long across plates of weinerwurst that you've got on each other's nerves. Cut out the sausage once in a while and you will get along all right. Better read a book on the control of the nerves."

Judge Torrison ordered Jensen to pay his wife $12 a week.

Derbies? I'm More of a Boater Man

Loyal readers may recall my chagrin at the arrival of the annual Four-Ply-Drive Derby.

My opinion has not changed on this sweltering July evening, even tho’ our home-town hero "The Colossus" captained the American League squad chosen to whange away at the dew drops delivered by their hand-picked hurling partners.

No, I would prefer to get this mid-season pause behind us “toot sweet,” as the vaudeville joke-slingers say.

July Skyrockets!

30,000 perplexed Rooters rushed home from Fenway Park yester-day evening to check the date on their wall calendars. Did we not, as a nation, just complete our Independence Day celebrations, or was Father Time somehow turned about to revisit the Festival of the 4th?

Their bafflement was understandable, given the pyrotechnic spectacle performed by the Boston bats-men: A sextet of screamers!

Hapless Oriole hurlers held the Bostons’ clouting prowess much too cheaply, as evidenced by the repeated launching of the sphere into the July night sky. Hub-area reflexologists will undoubtedly be overwhelmed to-day with patients seeking relief from the crick-necks developed after watching six pills arc over the stadium fences!

Yet no Rooter will complain for his discomfort, as the offensive explosion propelled the Red Stockings to the pinnacle of the Eastern Division standings. Let us enjoy this lofty perch a while, gents!

The Blasted Doldrums!

The Red Stockings’ once-mighty batting brigade now resembles a great clipper ship becalmed in the horse latitudes. There’s no vim to their swinging. No clout in their ash. No huzzahs and handshakes from cheerful team-mates welcoming a compatriot back from the full-circuit of the diamond.

Accordingly, there are no “wins” in the recent box-scores, and this Rooter is getting restless! When the lone “run” achieved by the squad comes from the surprise swat of "Simple Jack" Lackey, it is apparent that there is a malaise among the Nine.

Why, I’ve seen my grandfather direct Rummy Pete to put down cows with the Trembles who yet appeared more healthy than this lot of lulus!

Gentlemen, please return to your fence-busting feats, and bring joy back to Rooters’ hearts!

All Wrapped Up!

According to wire reports from the city's news-houses, Red Stockings helmsman Terrence "Terry" Francona spent much of the week-end huddled in the dug-out, wrapped in a rough burlap chemise. The body shaking and pursed lips of the inimitable Skipper must have led many to diagnose an acute case of the grip, or at least a mild ague.

Alas, were it only an illness confined to the Fearless Leader of Heroes. The truth was more difficult to bear than a tumbler of castor oil after a Revere Beach roller coaster trip: The Red Stockings' ash sticks were as silent as the day they were hewn from the woods of Methuen. Altogether poor clouting from the gathered nine led to a four-match stretch of arid and unforgiving terrain.

Fortunes be had, however. Sunday's match felt the hand of the Almighty tipping the scales in the Boston's favor. Those ne'er-do-well High Seas Marauders from the City of Pittsburgh committed a Pennsylvania's worth of follies, from pill-booting muffs to tender-handed boners amongst the fielding corps. That allowed plates from the Heroes from the Fens, despite their ash sticks still remaining as ineffective as a North End wastrel mounting a campaign against indecency and opium dens (imagine such a scenario!).

A remarkable message to send!

You've probably noticed, loyal reader, that your correspondents at FCC have been away for some time now.

Well, the truth can now be told: Hurdy, SD and I were on a secret scouting mission to sniff out some Nipponese pitching talent in Honshu and Hokkaido, now that Mr. Matsuzaka has subjected himself to the surgeon's scalpel.

It is important to keep those Eastern tourists flocking to Yawkey Way, so their Yen may be spent on Wally dolls and miniature replica bats!

So this explains our protracted absence. We trust our many thousands of avid rooters will not begrudge us the need to take time off for this important work.

Alas, we were not able to uncover much in the way of shuuto hurlers and gyroballers in the Land of the Rising Sun. We did enjoy some delectable sashimi and some potent sake, however.

And we did receive a rather startling telegram, sent to us directly from the Lower Depths tavern on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston Towne:

BOYS, WE HAVE OURSELVES A TEAM HERE. THEY HAVE MADE QUICK WORK OF THEIR RECENT COMPETITION. CONSECUTIVE SWEEPS OF OAKLAND, NEW YORK AND TORONTO. NINE GAMES AND COUNTING. AND ROUTS LEFT AND RIGHT! SO FAR 83 RUNS SCORED. SEE YOU SOON STATESIDE.

We all had a good laugh upon the receipt of that note. Obviously some pie-eyed punter had spilled a tall can of Narragansett on the telegram machine, causing typographical errors to be made, because such preposterous numbers simply cannot be true. Can they?

Timber!

Heavens to Murgatroyd! I haven't witnessed a sustained swinging of lumber like that since the failed gold rushers of '49 took to felling the giant redwoods of Humboldt County!

Why, the hurlers of the Lake Erie Tribe had nary a chance in the face of such a potent onslaught of batsmanship! They were akin to an unlucky spelunker, standing afore a darkened cave, from which flew thousands upon thousands of rousted bats!

Cleveland soft-tosser Mitch "Pitch Don't Belly Itch" Talbot was almost certainly not expecting his afternoon to play out as it did. Nor, in truth, was your humble scribe!

A dozen hits, and eight earned runs in merely three innings! Seven of those in just the first frame!

A circuit clout from Lil' Hands Petey! Followed close on by a single! And another single! An error! A sacrificial fly ball! A single! Yet another single! Meanwhile, the men moved round the bases in a steady and joy-making counter-clockwise motion, like the gaily painted ponies of a child's carousel toy.

The hits came hard and fast. And some of them went far!

Salty! Pow! The Colossus! Kaboom!

Why, even speedy but scuffling Carl Crawford decided to take advantage of these advantageous circumstances! He had his biggest red letter day in his Red Sox flannels so far, going a perfect four-for-four with two doubles, a circuit clout, three runs scored and two runs-batted-in!

By the time five further runs were pasted to the scoreboard in the sixth, the result of this contest was more than preordained. The boys from Boston had shown these would-be world-beaters who, in truth, is boss.

Such an outburst was hardly needed of, course, with the steady left hand of Jonathan "Nothin' Doin" Lester, ever in control as he trundled forth to his best-in-baseball seventh win!

It seems that day-time base-ball suits the Bostons very well indeed. So let's be thankful that tomorrow's match is similarly to be played at a post-meridiem hour.

May the afternoon sun continue to shine on the local nine!