Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Runaway wives -- Fiction; Sportswriters -- Fiction
"Well," said Peter, "to tell the truth I don't know exactly. It's just
one of those things. I've been writing about Sea Lion Harry Hall a
couple of years and now I never stopped to think up any reason for it.
It was smart of you to ask me, Pat. That's right. Don't you go taking in
things people tell you without asking why. That's the first thing a
newspaperman ought to learn. You just wait here a minute and I'll go and
find out why they call him Sea Lion Harry Hall."
Peter went over to the wire screen which ran in front of the press box
and called to a short little man who was sitting on his heels and
balancing himself with his bat which he had dug into the ground. The
player straightened up and came over. Peter conversed earnestly with him
for a moment. Then he came back. "Now," he said, "I know all about it.
Kid Elberfeld--that was Kid Elberfeld I was talking to--he says they
call him Sea Lion Harry Hall because he roars so--just like a sea lion."
For the next half hour Pat abandoned all thought of the game. Peter
rattled off words and the meaning of them. There were hits and errors
and flies and grounders. Once everybody in the park shouted and stood up
and Peter said it was a home run, but Pat gave very little heed to this.
He paid no more attention to the rooting than if it had been Peter
talking to him. It was another sound for which he was waiting. He
couldn't be burdened with learning about hits and errors or even the
thing called a home run. What he wanted was to hear Sea Lion Harry Hall
roar like a sea lion. For hours Pat heard nothing. The man just did his
exercises and threw the ball. Then something happened which made him
mad. He threw the ball and after it was thrown he walked straight up to
a man in blue who had on a false face. And he talked at him. Very loud
and hoarse he said, "Jesus, Tim, call 'em right."
"There goes the Sea Lion," said Peter who had been busy with something
else and had caught no more than the rumble. "Didn't that sound just
like a sea lion?"
Pat scorned to cry. He did not even bother to say "No." By now he knew
that the baseball park was the land of disappointment. It was a place
where things were cried up with words which were not so. Peter had said
he would roar like a sea lion. And he didn't. He was just a man who said
"Jesustim" pretty loud.
Pat heard a seal lion once. "Jesustim" didn't sound anything like a sea
lion.
Interesting inquiry might have centred around "Too hot to handle" if
Peter had used it earlier in the day, but by the time it came Pat knew
that it was just a grown up way of talking big. When Peter said, "That's
Birdie Cree," Pat did not look or even ask any questions. He knew there
was not a birdie.
Only one romantic concept came to Pat from the game.
"That's Tris Speaker, that kid in centre field," said Peter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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