After supper Gleason went out on the porch with me. He says Boy you
have got a little stuff but you have got a lot to learn. He says You
field your position like a wash woman and you don't hold the runners
up. He says When Chase was on second base to-day he got such a lead
on you that the little catcher couldn't of shot him out at third with
a rifle. I says They all thought I fielded my position all right in
the Central League. He says Well if you think you do it all right you
better go back to the Central League where you are appresiated. I says
You can't send me back there because you could not get waivers. He
says Who would claim you? I says St. Louis and Boston and New York.
You know Al what Smith told me this winter. Gleason says Well if you're
not willing to learn St. Louis and Boston and New York can have you and
the first time you pitch against us we will steal fifty bases. Then he
quit kidding and asked me to go to the field with him early to-morrow
morning and he would learn me some things. I don't think he can learn
me nothing but I promised I would go with him.
There is a little blonde kid in the hotel here who took a shine to me
at the dance the other night but I am going to leave the skirts alone.
She is real society and a swell dresser and she wants my picture.
Regards to all the boys.
Your friend, JACK.
P.S. The boys thought they would be smart to-night and put something
over on me. A boy brought me a telegram and I opened it and it said You
are sold to Jackson in the Cotton States League. For just a minute they
had me going but then I happened to think that Jackson is in Michigan
and there's no Cotton States League round there.
_Paso Robles, California, March 9._
DEAR FRIEND AL: You have no doubt read the good news in the papers
before this reaches you. I have been picked to go to Frisco with the
first team. We play practice games up there about two weeks while the
second club plays in Los Angeles. Poor Allen had to go with the second
club. There's two other recrut pitchers with our part of the team
but my name was first on the list so it looks like I had made good.
I knowed they would like my stuff when they seen it. We leave here
to-night. You got the first team's address so you will know where to
send my mail. Callahan goes with us and Gleason goes with the second
club. Him and I have got to be pretty good pals and I wish he was going
with us even if he don't let me eat like I want to. He told me this
morning to remember all he had learned me and to keep working hard. He
didn't learn me nothing I didn't know before but I let him think so.
The little blonde don't like to see me leave here. She lives in Detroit
and I may see her when I go there. She wants me to write but I guess I
better not give her no encouragement.
Well Al I will write you a long letter from Frisco.
Yours truly, JACK.
_Oakland, California, March 19._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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