``Oh, I don't know! Pretty fair, I guess!''
yelled a tenor-voiced fan; and he struck the key-
note. And the bleachers rose to their feet and
gave the Rube the rousing cheer of the brotherhood
of fans.
Hoffer walked to first on a base on balls.
Sweeney advanced him. The Rube sent up a giant
fly to Callopy. Then Staats hit safely, scoring
the first run of the game. Hoffer crossed the
plate amid vociferous applause. Mitchell ended
the inning with a fly to Blandy.
What a change had come over the spirit of that
Quaker aggregation! It was something to make
a man thrill with admiration and, if he happened
to favor Chicago, to fire all his fighting blood.
The players poured upon the Rube a continuous
stream of scathing abuse. They would have made
a raging devil of a mild-mannered clergyman.
Some of them were skilled in caustic wit, most of
them were possessed of forked tongues; and Cogswell,
he of a thousand baseball battles, had a
genius for inflaming anyone he tormented. This
was mostly beyond the ken of the audience, and
behind the back of the umpire, but it was perfectly
plain to me. The Quakers were trying to rattle
the Rube, a trick of the game as fair for one side
as for the other. I sat there tight in my seat,
grimly glorying in the way the Rube refused to
be disturbed.
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