Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 27, 1925 — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“WE WANT MABEL!” 923 team attracted no reportorial gallery, but | The old players were conserving ther several of the best men in the business were powers, sparing themselves, hoping to last shifted by their editors to Oakville to follow longer in the big game. They took no um- her around. necessary chances. How the nation laughed when she called § But the radiant, cheerful blonde who Spike Dugan, the left-handed pitcher, to smiled down on them during their practise her box at the ball park after the game and began to have an effect on them. What is said to him earnestly: called an old man in baseball is a doddard ‘Mr. Dugan, I think I have discovered of thirty-five, and at thirty-five one is not why the batters hit your throws so readily. immune to the lure of big blue eyes and If you would hurl the ball with your right bright golden hair. The old boys, uncon- hand, intsead of your left, I am sure you sciously, began to hump themselves, The could pitch better.” youngsters burned to become distinguished “He would pitch just as well,” was the for Mabel’s sake. reportorial conclusion. The day that big Harry -Jones stole The day she proposed that they use second marked the regeneration of the team. cricket bats instead of what they were The catcher was so surprised to see him swinging with, on the ground that, being start that he held the ball a fraction of a wider, they were more likely to meet the second too long and Harry beat it to the ball, was a red letter occasion for the base by a daring slide which brought Mabel scribes, and her Couéism as applied to a to her feet screaming, “ Well done, Mr. ball team hit the risibilities of everybody. § Jones,’’ while Crab McNulty’s eyes stuck They photographed her at every oppor- out of his head. tunity. Her pictures crowded the prize That same afternoon Frank Glenn, the fighters off the sporting pages. She was third baseman, threw himself sidewise after always referred to as Mabel, a discourtesy a long foul fly, and came up with it in his in the news columns which she soon ac- might glove. Five years before, on the Bos- cepted without protest. ton Red Sox, he had made such catches. The attitude of the team was a curious Such incidents continued. The Crab, who mixture of humiliation and pride. The boys had one of the keenest baseball brains in loved her for her sweetness, ingenuousness, the business, began to lie awake nights and her gorgeous, flamboyant beauty, and devising new plays. The pitchers steamed they were ashamed of her, and of them- up, but the batters kept pace with them. selves, for the ridicule she was bringing The youngsters took to going out to the down upon them all. park an hour or two before regular practise But Mabel was learning baseball. She to work up their batting. And then a little was at the park early and late, she talked college recruit who Crab McNulty had continuously to McNulty, driving him mad _ ignored up to this time got a chance in a with her absurd suggestions, but causing practise game and shut the regulars out with him to drive his team harder than he had ~-a curiously deceptive delivery. done in years. He came from a small Southern college The Zulus had been beaten so long that and was hanging around, paying his own their attitude was one of hopelessness. They expenses for an opportunity to make the went into a game expecting to be licked, team. Crab went over, after the third and they got what they expected. The fight inning, and stood behind the catcher in an had been knocked out of them, their work effort to fathom the mystery. He saw the was perfunctory. ball do fantastic things, and he couldn't ““What’s the use” represented the way understand how it was dote. they fielded, ran bases, pitched and hit. | Harry Hosmer, of the New York Earth, McNulty knew that his young players were dropped into town a few afternoons later the dregs of the minor leagues, he expecting and astanished the country next day hy nothing from them and did not try hard to declaring that Mabel had @ good ball chub get anything from them. : which might burn up the league. conniclooolkks Co