Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 140, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1911 — PRIDE TAKES FALL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PRIDE TAKES FALL

JUDGE IS PUFFED UP OVER ATTENTIONS RECEIVED AT THEATER. IS MISTAKEN FOR MURPHY OrvaL Overall Prove® That Sometime* "Cub I* Match for Bear—Capt. Anson’* Experience With Pirate* In. China Sea,

By HUGH S. FULLERTON.

Judge William McSurely (they used to call him “Billy” when he played ball over at the University of Wooster in Ohio) is -long on law, dignity and driving at golf. He became rather famous in Chicago in presiding over the first trial of Lee O’Neil Browne and in other cases and naturally felt a small pride in the fact that he had won his way to the top in the Windy City. His pride fell several degrees a few weeks ago. With a friend Judge McSurely went to a Chicago theater. The house was crowded and it was almost impossible to get good seats. The best that the jurist and his friend could do was to secure two seats second row from the back and behind a post. They were just seating themselves when a smiling and solicitous usher descended upon the judge and whispered: “You don’t want to sit back here. Follow me and I’ll give you good seats down in front”. He took them into a box, hovered over them, ordered the water boy and the program boy to furnish everything and tried to give them the best the house afforded. “You see,” whispered the judge to his guest, “it pays to be a well-known person in Chicago.” And the guest was duly impressed. About a week later the judge took another friend to the same theater. Again the friendly and solicitous usher descended upon him and gave him the freedom of the house. He expressed surprise that the judge should have paid for tickets, and invited him to come at any time and bring a party. Judge McSurely was beginning to feel at least as. big as a Supreme Court justice when the usher whispered: “Mr. Murphy, Pm awfully sorry the Cubs lost, but we’ll beat ’em next year.” The usher had mistaken the plump, rotund jurist for -“Chubby Chaidie” Murphy. ' Orval Overall, &e Giant Cub pitcher, was the hero of an adventure on his vacation last winter that proves that, sometimes, a Cub is the match of a bear. Overall’s home is at Visalia, in California, and during the early winter, before the snows shut off all approach to the famous Yosemite Valley, Overall led a party of friends on a camping trip into the valley. The party was to spend ten days in tents exploring the Yosemite and, although they were not intending to hunt on government land, they took guns with them as a means of self-defense. The big grizzly bears in the upper part of the valley are extremely friendly, embarrassingly so, tg tell the truth. They have been protected from hunters until they feel just as any other Native Son does —that it is legitimate to loot any visitor. So instead

of attacking camping parties lhe big silver tips usually loiter aroiind to collect means of subsistence from the tourists. In the party were two practical jokers of the kind that think justifiable homicide a good joke. Overall, having seen many bears, wasn’t a bit timid, although the ladles In the party were. The bears that came prowling around the camps to seek food usually started a panic among the women and because of this It was arranged that the four tents should be set up with the tent for the women In the center and the others surrounding it to protect them from bears and other wild anlmals> Overall had a small tent all to himself and voluntarily slept there to protect the cook tent and contents from the marauding bruins. That gave the practical jokers a grand idea for a joke. While Overall was showing some of the women the beauties of the valley the "jokers'*' bltehed a flitch of bacon to a string and proceeded half a mile into the forest. Then they proceeded to lay trails, dragging the bacon along the ground from various parts of the woods, each trail ending at lhe side of Overall’s tent To finish the joke they hid the flitch of bacon under Overall's mattress.

The party retired early, being weary, and scarcely had the lights gone out than bears began to sniff along the bacon trails. Overall warsweetly sleeping when two huge grizzlies arrived at the junction of their trails and simultaneously showed their noses under the flap of his tent and .began rooting for bacon. Overall was rolled over and his mattress turned on top of him. The jokers meantime were doubling up with laughter. There was An upheaval and from the opposite side of the tent burst OveralL Instead of fleeing, however, he seized the pole of the overturned tent and sailed into those two bears, making singles, doubles and triples every time he swung. For a moment the bears threatened to fight, but the hitting of Overall was too hard and they retreated at top speed, one carrying off the

bacon, and the jokers and the women, who had been aroused by the roars of the grizzlies and Overall, saw the big Cub pitcher chasing two grown grizzlies at top speed, belaboring them with the tent- pole and vainly tryirig to recover the lost bacon. Bob Pettit, the veteran ball player who died at Derby, Conn., a short time ago, once led a Pirate crew that would have made Captain Kidd envious. Incidentally It was not until after Anson had retired from baseball and gone into politics that anyone dared speak to him concerning the Pirates who held up his ship and tried to make him walk the plank in the China sea. The piratical attack led by Pettit happened in 1888 during the trip of the Chicago and All-Amer-ican teams around the world. The Pirates were Pettit, Tom Daly and Jimmy Ryan—and it is not telling secrets to admit that, in those days, they did not have to do much rehearsing to become real Pirates. The ship on which the American players, led by Spalding and Anson, was loitering through the Indian ocean and the China sea. The sailors were telling fearful tales of Malay and Chinese pirates. Guns had been mounted on the decks of the liner and the sole topic of conversation was pirates. That put an idea into the heads of Pettit, Daly and Ryan. They enlisted a few of the crew of the liner and laid the plot. The following day the ship was trembling with preparations to repulse attacks. The rumor spread among the players and members of the party that three junks, filled with pirates, had been sighted and that an attack might be made at any time. Shortly after midnight that night the Pirates broke loose. Those who saw Pettit lead the attack declare that Morgan, Kidd and that gang would have looked like minor leaguers compared with him. He was some pirate, and Daly and Ryan were almost equally ferociouslooking. The main attack was directed upon Anson’s cabin. The pirates swarmed there and began battering the door and when they broke in Anson was defending the ship with his big bat and threatening "to demolish all the Malays in the sea, apd it took Mrs. Anson three days toAiig her jewels out of the places Cap had hidden them when the alarm was raised. “It’s too bad," moaned a Cub fan to Manager Frank Chance after the unfortunate (for the Cubs) world’s championship series had been finished. “We had a better ball club, a better fielding club and I know the Cubs play better inside baseball ” “Inside baseball?” snorted Chance; “Inside baseball? How can a team play Inside baseball when they are hitting the ball at you so hard you’re lucky to keep your legs from being carried onto the outfield? It took all the inside baseball we knew to keep from getting killed by batted balls.” (Copyright, 191 k by Joseph B. Bowles.)

When Cub Meets Cub.

Capt Anson and the Pirates.