Where do you Get that Noise? by Ring Lardner

Now I don't care how big a goof a man is, he'd ought to know better than get smart round a fella that's slumped off in his battin'. Most o' the time they ain't no better-natured fella in the world than Carey; but when him and first base has been strangers for a wile, lay offen him!

That's how Hawley got in bad with Carey -- was talkin' too much when the old boy wasn't in no mood to listen.

He begin to slump off right after the Fourth o' July doubleheader. In them two games a couple o' the boys popped out when they was sent up to sacrifice. So Cap got sore on the buntin' game and says we'd hit and run for a wile. Well, in the first innin', every day for the next three days, Bishop led off with a base on balls and then started down when he got Carey's sign. And all three times Carey cracked a line drive right at somebody and they was a double play. After the last time he come in to the bench tryin' to smile.

"Well," he says, "I guess that's about a record."

"A record! Where do you get that stuff? " says Hawley. "I come up four times in Philly in one game and hit into four double plays."

"You brag too much! " says Carey; but you could see he didn't want to go along with it.

Well, that last line drive seemed to of took the heart out of him or somethin', because for the next week he didn't hardly foul one -- let alone gettin' it past the infield.

When he'd went through his ninth game without a blow Hawley braced him in the clubhouse. "Do you know why you ain't hittin'? " he says.

"Yes," says Carey. "It's because they don't pitch where I swing."

"It ain't no such a thing! " says Hawley. "It's because you don't choke up your bat enough."

"Look here! " says Carey. "I been in this league longer'n you and I've hit better'n you. When I want advice about how to hold my bat I'll get you on the wire."

You know how clost the clubs was bunched along in the middle o' July. Well, we was windin' up a series with Brooklyn and we had to cop the last one to break even.

We was tied up in the ninth and one out in their half when Wheat caught ahold o' one and got three bases on it. Cutshaw raised one a little ways back o' second base and it looked like a cinch Wheat couldn't score if Carey got her. Well, he got her all right and Wheat come dashin' in from third like a wild man.

Now they ain't no better pegger in the league than this same Carey and I'd of bet my life Wheat was runnin' into a double play. I thought he was a sucker for makin' the try. But Carey throwed her twenty feet to one side o' the plate. The run was in and the game was over.

Hawley hadn't hardly got in the clubhouse before he started in.

"Do you know what made you peg bad? " he says.

"Shut up! " says Smitty. "Is that the first bad peg you ever seen? Does they have to be a reason for all of 'em? He throwed it bad because he throwed it bad."

"He throwed it bad," says Hawley, "because he was in center field instead o' left field or right field. A center fielder'll peg wide three times to the others' oncet. And you know why it is, don't you?"

Nobody answered him.

"I'll tell you why it is," he says: "They's a foul line runnin' out in right field and they's a foul line runnin' out in left field, and them two lines gives a fielder somethin' to guide his throw with. If they was a white line runnin' from home plate through second base and out in center field you wouldn't see so many bad pegs from out there.