Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1912 — EXCELLENT QUALITIES OF CUB SHORTSTOP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

EXCELLENT QUALITIES OF CUB SHORTSTOP

(By HOMER CROY.) Joe Tinker, the king pin of the Cubs, has invented a scheme to kill sacrifice hits and has sculled on the Missouri river. He never smiles so clamorously, cleaving a Royal Gorge from ear to ear, as when he puts on his athletic undershirt and haste's riverward to scull as light as a gull hither and yon. In the winter time when the front gates are locked, when the snow blows on the bleachers and the Durham bulls are herded in the stables, Joseph Tinker, Esq., emulates the flnecut bovines and does some barnstorming himself. As Reginald Montmorency, with a goatee on his chin and a puttee on his shin, he comes upon Sullen Steve just as he has bound the beautiful Gladys to the railroad track, hard and fast, while onward, onward, ever nearer, with singing rails and hissing steam, comes the Cannonball Limited. With flashing eye Reginald M. Tinker steps up to Sullen Steve, one hand loitering suspiciously near his hip-pocket, taps him on the shoulder, and in clear, vibrant tones says, “Have a care, Sullep Steve, or fain will I use vforce on your all but unworthy body. Unbind that girl, I say, or you will have Reginald Montmorency to settle with. Haste, or you wilt rue your foul work!” Tinker has also been on the sleeper route with other plays, checkerboarding from watertank to watertank, learning to wear a fur overcoat and do his soft laundry in the washbowl of his hotel room, appearing on the bills as the coach in “Brown of Harvard.” In “A Home Run” this Thespian of the diamond went clear

through the thrills of love, intrigue and ultimate happiness to the curtain speech with never a tremor, always willing in a company to play the hero when the box office receipts were heavy as the villain when the manager couldn’t afford to send him out for a shave. Tinker is the' goat getter of King Christy, fearing the mighty Mathewson no more than a Kansas zephyr. When other batters come up before Matty and grow dizzy with fright until the diamond rocks -and tilts up at second base, and slashes around to port every time he crooks his elbow, Tinker is as steady as a painted ship on a painted ocean qnd lines them out for first nearly every time up. He fields with either hand and ia one of the highest jumpers in the business, being able to leap so high on rainy afternoons he has to wear leggins to keep the mud out of his shoe-tops when he lands. The Minute Man of the Cubs has had the appendicitis and now 'owns an apple ranch in Oregon. When he is not acting or writing for a sporting page he is at home dressing up his trees, putting belts around them, arranging them artistically so that some will have high waistlines and some lew with here and there a hobble. On Saturday afternoons instead to goir_g to town and sitting around on the courthouse steps, or attending a free lecture on the corner of Main street and Monroe avenue by the agent of Dr. Dink’s Dark Drops, Joe Tinker has the time of his life by staying home, getting out the hand power pump and spraying his trees for Gypsy Moth. (Copyright, 1911, by W. G. Chapman.)

Joe Tinker as Artist Cesare Sees Him.