Judge, 1913-06-21 · page 5 of 24
Judge — June 21, 1913 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents a humorous story titled "A One-man Game in Pleasant Valley" by Horace Seymour Keller about Lemuel Pembrook, a small-town justice of the peace who was obsessed with baseball. **The joke:** Pembrook captained the North Siders against the South Siders forty years prior, winning decisively. He never recovered from this glory and constantly references it. When a friend from the city visits, Pembrook insists on playing a one-man baseball game alone (illustrated by the cartoon showing him pitching to himself), which the friend finds absurd and embarrassing. The satire mocks small-town provincialism and aging athletes clinging to past athletic achievements. The top panels contrast "the man from the East in the West" with "the man from the West in the East"—likely illustrating cultural misunderstandings between rural and urban Americans.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
‘The man from the East in the West. A One-man WHEN Lemuel Pembrook, justice of the peace of Pleasant Valley, invited his friend from the big city to come up for over Sunday and try his private trout preserve, he had no designing problem up his sleeve. This gentle old man, who had dispensed justice for, lo! these thirty years, was not a man of wiles, questionable or nefari- ous leanings—only at odd or intermit- tent periods. He was possessed of one weakness, hobby or call it what you may—base- ball. Forty years ago he captained the North Siders against the South Siders of Pleasant Valley. Won out, too, thereby covering himself with glory and embrocating liniment for a week after. Thus was he smitten as well as bitten by the lure of the game. He had never forgotten the occasion, though he had never allowed himself to A TOUCH OF REAL LIFF in YMOUR KELLER Game By HORACE § FOR THE JUNGLE LEAGUE Baseball enthusiast—Wouldn't he make a great pitcher? The man from the West in the East Pleasant Valley participate personally in any ball game since that winning event. “Once was enough—just once and no more. Cindy said I went like a foundered horse for a week. I did; I felt like one. But the North Siders won out, and the South Siders, captained by Eli Pivens, had to settle for the ice cream and strawberries. Eli never got over that crack. He’s been my natural enemy ever since; has been trying for thirty years to get elected justice of the peace of Pleas- ant Valley. I beat him every time. That’s glory enough for any old base- ball fan.”” The good old steadies in Perkins’s cheap-cash-and-barter store shifted uneasily on the nail kegs, cluttered their kip-skins, hemmed and hawed, and gazed in open-eyed and wide- mouthed astonishment. And well they might. The tall, lank form of Eli comicbooks.com