At the Old Ballgame by Jeff Silverman Page B

was easy.
    Frank Chance, the manager of the Cubs, has a funny superstition which is of the personal sort. Most ball-players have a natural prejudice against the number “13” in any form, but particularly when attached to a Pullman berth. But Chance always insists, whenever possible, that he have “lower 13.” He says that if he can just crawl in under that number he is sure of a good night’s rest, a safe journey, and a victory the next day. He has been in two or three minor railroad accidents, and he declares that all these occurred when he was sleeping on some other shelf besides “lower 13.” He can usually satisfy his hobby, too, for most travellers steer clear of the berth.
    McGraw believes a stateroom brings him good luck, or at least he always insists on having one when he can get it.
    â€œChance can have ‘lower 13,’” says “Mac,” “but give me a stateroom for luck.”
    Most ball-players nowadays treat the superstitions of the game as jokes, probably because they are a little ashamed to acknowledge their weaknesses, but away down underneath they observe the proprieties of the ritual. Why, even I won’t warm up with the third baseman while I am waiting for the catcher to get on his mask and the rest of his paraphernalia. Once, when I first broke in with the Giants, I warmed up with the third baseman between innings and in the next round they hit me hard and knocked me out of the box. Since then I have had an uncommon prejudice against the practice, and I hate to hear a man even mention it. Devlin knows of my weakness and never suggests it when he is playing the bag, but occasionally a new performer will drill into the box score at third base and yell:
    â€œCome on, Matty! Warm up here while you’re waiting.”
    It gets me. I’ll pitch to the first baseman or a substitute catcher to keep warm, but I would rather freeze to death than heat up with the third baseman. That is one of my pet jinxes.
    And speaking of Arthur Devlin, he has a few hand-raised jinxes of his own, too. For instance, he never likes to hear a player hum a tune on the bench, because he thinks it will keep him from getting a base hit. He nearly beat a youngster to death one day when he kept on humming after Devlin had told him to stop.
    â€œCut that out, Caruso,” yelled Arthur, as the recruit started his melody. “You are killing base hits.”
    The busher continued with his air until Devlin tried another form of persuasion.
    Arthur also has a favorite seat on the bench which he believes is luckier than the rest, and he insists on sitting in just that one place.
    But the worst blow Devlin ever had was when some young lady admirer of his in his palmy days, who unfortunately wore her eyes crossed, insisted on sitting behind third base for each game, so as to be near him. Arthur noticed her one day and, after that, it was all off. He hit the worst slump of his career. For a while no one could understand it, but at last he confessed to McGraw.
    â€œMac,” he said one night in the club-house, “it’s that jinx. Have you noticed her? She sits behind the bag every day, and she has got me going. She has sure slid the casters under me. I wish we could bar her out, or poison her, or shoot her, or chloroform her, or kill her in some nice, mild way because, if it is n’t done, this League is going to lose a ball-player. How can you expect a guy to play with that overlooking him every afternoon?”
    McGraw took Devlin out of the game for a time after that, and the newspapers printed several yards about the cross-eyed jinx who had ruined the Giants’ third baseman.
    With the infield weakened by the loss of Devlin, the club began to lose with great regularity. But one day the jinxess was missing and she never came back. She must have read in the newspapers what she was doing to Devlin, her hero, and quit the national pastime or moved to another part of