Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1912 — FAMOUS PLAYER OF PITTSBURG PIRATES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FAMOUS PLAYER OF PITTSBURG PIRATES

By HOMER CROY.

J. H. Wagner, alias John Henry, alias John Peter, alias Hans, nee Honus, the man who made Pittsburg famous, was discovered at Steubenville, 0., and now once a year that city gets out its steam calliope and the town hall star-spangled banner, makes sad has a children’s chorus, all In honor of the shiftiest shortstop that ever strode the strand. The first time he bunched up his shoulders, juked out his neck and started on E dead run for first base, two ladies fainted and a little girl by the name of Lillie cried for half an hour. After that, before Hans started for first, the police always went ahead clearing up the track and warning nervous ladies on the bleachers to look the other way. From Steubenville he was checkerboarded to Warren, Pa., from there to Paterson, N. J., and from there he jumped into the king row at Louisville under Pulliam. For seven seasons he has led the National league batsmen, and for 14 years hand-run-ning has been keeping It over . 300. Whenever It gets very much below .340 he gets nervous and calls In the doctor every afternoon to look at hls tongue. When Honest Honus has hls baseball togs off he lives at Carnegie, Pa., where the people want to have an Iron fountain made in hls honor to be placed just opposite the town hall.

representing the Flying Dutchman with an ash stick poised ready to line out a three-bagger, with cool sparkling water gushing from the end of hls bat. Autoing is his hobby, and he owns one of the best cars on four wheels. Hls favorite indoor sport Is giving hls auto a gulp of gasoline. He reads every paper in the east that has an automobile page, and he writes for so many catalogues that the postman on Railroad avenue, Carnegie, has round shoulders and a nervous, worried expression. He knows the family and baptismal name of every automobile manufactured and can tell the make of a car by the smell of the gasoline. He owns a chicken farm with 200 hens setting around the .300 mark, and in the hatching season he sits by the incubator night and day with a book on poultry turned down on hls knee and in his hand a catalogue of automobile accessories. He has 87 blooded dogs, owns part interest in a circus and has never told his age. The Hope Diamond of the Pirates is one of the wealthiest players In the business, having so much money that whenever one of hls tires goes pop! when ho is out on the road he laughs all over to think it didn’t happen at home where it might have frightened one of hls fat pullets and made her, ran her weight off. , The Adonis of the Diamond from Carnegie has never married and hls worst dissipation is chewing a toothpick after meals. (Copyright, 1211, by W. G. Chapman.)

Artist Cesare Sketches Honus Wagner Running Out a Hit.