Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 157, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1919 — SCORE HANGS ON FENCE NAIL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SCORE HANGS ON FENCE NAIL

St Paul Lost Game to Minneapolis In Peculiar Manner, According to Frank Isbell. Frank Isbell, one-time first .baseman for* the Chicago White Sox, recently told of one game where the result hung on a nail. “In 1898 I was pitching for St. Paul,” said Isbell. “We were not allowed to play Sunday games inside the corporation limit, and so a little park had been fitted up outside for Sunday play. The park was extremely small. The field was so short that a fence 12 or 15 feet high had been built behind It. to keep the balls from going out of bounds. “As a consequence of the small field it was almost impossible to hit out better than a two-bagger, “One Sunday we were playing Minneapolis. I was pitching for St. Paul.

Minneapolis was at bat in the last half of the ninth inning, and we were two runs ahead. There were two men out and two men on bases. The next man at bat lined out a high fly. It struck the high center field fence, about 12 feet from the' ground, and everybody was certain we had the game won. • “But we didn’t The ball struck the f ence —and stayed there. It struck directly on the .sharp end of a wire nail,'and before we could get a stepladder and clinft) up after it, the Minneapolis nine had its three runs in and the game was over.” ,

Frank Isbell.