Westbrook Pegler
Sioux City Journal/January 6, 1926
New York, Jan. 5.—Although the robin of springtime has not begun to rehearse its gladsome yodel as yet, the ballyhoo fowl has chartered a nest among the gargoyles outside John J. McGraw’s window and is doing its croupy best to chirp the note of the harbinger.
The baseball season is neither here nor there at present, but the weeks are gliding by, as predicted, and Mr. McGraw is now engaged in recreating his New York Giants and also recreating interest in the same. His Giants varied the monotony of John McGraw’s life by losing the pennant of the National League last fall and the latter weeks of the season found the cash trade drifting to the movies, the race tracks, or, for comic relief, to the Yankee ball yard across the Harlem, where Babe Ruth and Miller Huggins were giving daily renditions of a humorous tableaux entitled: “You made me slug you; I didn’t want to do it.”
John J. McGraw is attending to the reconstruction of his ball team and the ballyhoo fowl has undertaken to rally the clientele.
Thus, when John J. McGraw sees a chance to strengthen his club, he does so and the talented fowl, leaping off into the fog, circles the town three times with excited cries of: “Master mind signs left handed bat boy in pennant quest,” or “Master mind buys star popcorn boy of Cedar Rapids.”
Under the rules of organized baseball it is forbidden to announce more than one transaction at a time, in order that the ballyhoo fowl may herald each acquisition separately.
Interested in Pitchers
Later, Mr. McGraw has been interested in pitchers. He is always interested in pitchers, for that matter, but last season he was most interested in other peoples’ pitchers, particularly those employed by his bosom enemy, Mr. B. Dreyfuss, of Pittsburgh. Mr. McGraw had some pitchers of his own, but one of them had a gum boil in his elbow, another one had a mild attack of old age, another one had a girlfriend and another one performed the remarkable feat of spraining an ankle on a slippery bath mat in a hotel room which had no bath. Then Travis Jackson, his shortstop, had a sudden case of sore leg and another important member of the staff, unaccustomed to Mr. McGraw’s pithy pleasantries as voiced from the bench, had a sudden attack of sore head. And, altogether Mr. McGraw was lucky that he didn’t have to take a few turns in the infield himself, in all his abundant flesh.
Thus far, Mr. McGraw has disposed of three athletes, one pitcher and two suspects, named Jack Bentley, Wayland Dean and Walter Huntzinger, respectively. Although Bentley is a left hander, he always seemed rational until he and Dean were traded to the Phillies for the rotund Jimmie Ring. Then he became abnormal, announcing he was glad to go to Philadelphia. Alienists say this is a sure sign and Mr. McGraw is being felicitated on his very timely deal.
After two years with the Giants, Huntzinger had shown no sign of becoming a hardened pitcher, and he may never evince such symptoms. But, anyway, Mr. McGraw has placed him in a spot where he can do no great harm to the Giants even if he becomes another Cy Young. Huntzinger has been sent to the Cardinals, who finish in first division now and again, but never win pennants.
Several Veterans Retained
Among the pitchers remaining with Mr. McGraw is Art Nehf, who Is a left hander but a trusty. Mr. Nehf never goes off the reservation and never eats animal crackers in bed. He used to pitch admirable ball, too, but last year antiquity crept over him and his future appears to be in the past tense. Then there is John Scott, the celebrated salvage case whose elbow developed a gum boil several years ago in Cincinnati. Pat Moran, then manager of the Reds, telephoned to the local soap works for the wagon to call around and get Jack Scott, but Mr. Scott wandered away to New York where he attached himself to the Giants for a job that carried him into several world series engagements and into the thick of the thick money. The gum boil recurred last summer, though, and Mr. McGraw himself may phone to the soap works for the wagon this spring.
It was Hughie McQuillan who was troubled by the tender flutterings of romance last summer, but McGraw is no moral censor and he would have overlooked Mrs. McQuillan’s vigorous public scrubbing of the family’s white goods if Hughie had been able to pitch. The upshot of it was that McQuillan lost his job and the Giants lost a pitcher who might have been able to win the pennant for them. Now McQuillan has repaired his ways and is applying for employment.
Virgil Barnes is a good pitcher, too, when he shuns the magic bath mat in the non-existent bathroom. It was in Pittsburgh that he limped into the presence of McGraw and reported he had performed a Fred Fulton while entering his bath.
“But,” said McGraw, “you puzzle me, Mr. Barnes, for there are no baths in the ball player’s rooms, and thus no bath mats.”
“That’s just what puzzles me, too, Mr. McGraw,” said Barnes, who was then suspended to ponder the very mysterious occurrence.
However, suspension was a boon to Barnes, for a manufacturer of non-skid bath materials paid him $500 to sign a testimonial saying: “I heartily recommend the non-skid bath mat and will always use it when bathing in my imaginary bath.”
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