Clowning Through Baseball

The bases were loaded. They called in Schacht. He threw one pitch. . . . The bases were no longer loaded. And Schacht soon was out of a job.

But Al never was meant to be a pitcher. Not with a nose that attracted line drives like steak attracts ball players. So Al took the hint and ducked into a coaching box where he couldn't lose too many games for his ball club. But Schacht’s scope demanded more room than the skimpy few feet off third base. His public had grown by leaps and bounds and all three of them demanded that Al turn his talents to making them laugh as much as they did when he tried to pitch. So Al Schacht, the rough on the diamond, the man who invented the hidden ball trick (when he was a pitcher, opposing batsmen hid the ball in the center field bleachers), the man who turned down a great career as a newspaperman (he sold ’em)—this man Al Schacht put on a top hat and tails and has since reduced every baseball crowd to a laughing, hysterical mob. And this is the way it happened . . .

Clowning Through Baseball was first published in 1941.