Life, 1927-04-21 · page 10 of 39
Life — April 21, 1927 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two main pieces of baseball humor: **"The Tonic"** (top comic strip) shows a man taking a patent medicine tonic, then hallucinating wildly—suggesting the product contains alcohol or powerful drugs that cause delusions. **"The Point of View"** (main article) presents contrasting perspectives on baseball strategy from a batter and pitcher, humorously disagreeing about proper technique and baseball theory. **"Isn't He Terrible!"** (bottom cartoon) depicts a marriage proposal at a baseball diamond, with the caption playing on the absurdity of choosing a sports venue for an engagement ring presentation. The overall page satirizes both patent medicine culture (common in early 20th-century America) and baseball's obsessive fan base, mocking how seriously people took the sport.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
(The batter tells it.) “Se I kids this bozo along and looks the first couple over so as to see what he's got and also to make him think he can sneak across a third one just like them—and sure enough, he falls for it 5 and gives me one right where I'm expecting it—so I just take a firm grip on the old war-club and pastes that apple through the in- field so fast it’s half-way to the fence before they know what's happened— and if the bird in left hadn’t made a lucky one- handed pick-up it would have rolled clear to the fence and given me a triple and maybe even a homer. I socked that ball, that’s what I mean—” (The pitcher tells it.) “—and any one can see from the way he stands at the plate that this sap’s a sucker for a really good outshoot so I heaves the first two past him before even sees them. And then I gets the flash from Bill for a slow one over the middle of the pan, which is just plain dumb because even this bushleaguer can lean on that kind. But that kind of ham fooling around is supposed to be The Point of View deep strategy stuff and anyhow or- ders is to obey the signals so I serves up a cream puff as per instructions and, naturally, he connects—but even then if this bum excuse for a Isn’t He Terrible! She: Tu18 18 A FUNNY PLACE TO BE GIVING ME AN EN- GAGEMENT RING. He: Yes—you MIGHT ALMOST CALL IT—HEH-HEH—A DIAMOND IN THE RovGtt! shortstop we got hadn't been asleep he coulda knocked it down and had an easy throwout at first. I ask you what chance has a guy pitching for a team that’s both dumb and slow on its feet? Can ¥ ‘ eriter relates his version of the episode.) “McGlump hit a scratch single to left.” Edward I. Gordy. The Compleat Baseball Fan E knows the first name and all the nicknames of every big league player; He can rattle off the bat- ting averages of Ruth, Cobb, Speaker, Hornsby and Frisch for the last eight years; He carries the club stand- ings of both major leage teams in his head; He knows exactly what ought to be done to bolster up every infield in both leagues; And he gets around to st the local semi-pro team # least twice each season. “T) OES your wife go # for athletics?” “Absolutely! You should see her jump at conde sions!" comicbooks.com