The Southpaw Read Free

once in awhile and keep things straight in your mind.
    Pop is everything you could ask for, and more, born and raised in Perkinsville. When he was a sophomore at Perkinsville High he was the first-string pitcher, though I will admit that is no special trick even in a place which takes their baseball so serious as Perkinsville. He finished up and would of graduated but got sick and tired of school in his senior year and took off in May, right after the Tozerbury game which is always the wind-up for Perkinsville High, and went to Cedar Rapids in the Mississippi Valley League, winning 12 and losing 5 on what was left of the year. He says he always wished he had stood for graduation, though I myself graduated from Perkinsville High and can’t see any special benefit in it. Graduation night was probably 1 of the most boring things I ever been through. I wore a cap and a gown and felt unusually foolish and wouldn’t of bothered to go a-tall except it give Pop a terrific thrill. Aaron said it was rubbage and I agree. Aaron belongs to the Board of Education of Perkinsville and once in a fit of disgust voted to abolish the whole entire system. He got ruled down.  He usually always does.
    Pop played 2 years with Cedar Rapids, weighing about 180, standing 6 feet in his socks and just about full growed. The second year he won 19 and lost 7, mighty good pitching in any class of ball.
    The exact story on what happened after the second year is still not clear in my mind and probably never will, though after last summer I can actually see where a man might do what Pop done. It is partly on account of last summer that I am writing this book for the benefit of the 100,000,000 boobs and flatheads that swallow down everything they read in the papers, in particular the writing of Krazy Kress in “The The Southpaw Star-Press.” That fat horse’s tail! All I know is that Pop simply up and quit after the second summer at Cedar Rapids. He done this in despite of the fact that his wife that he married the previous winter was expecting a baby, which was me, and in despite of the fact that Pop had all the makings of a great. He could of been an immortal. He was fast and had good control and an assortment of curves of all speeds and a smart head for baseball. More then anything he loved the game, and when you love the game of baseball you eat it and sleep it and are bound to succeed if you got the stuff to go with it.
    Pop was none of your average ballplayer. He was the stuff which greatness is made of. They will tell you in Borelli’s barber shop in Perkinsville that Pop was the greatest that ever come out of the area, not even barring Slim Doran that won 18 and lost 11 in the 1 good year he had with Newark before his arm give out from a cold he caught in Montreal.
    Pop could of went up with Boston the following year, and you would think he would of jumped at the chance. But he didn’t, and I do not know why, and over all the years I have pumped him time and again for the answer but never got a good 1. All I know is that he built on land he bought from Aaron, located right next to Aaron’s house about 1 mile up from the Observatory, and he got the job driving the school bus, which he still does, also working as caretaker at the Observatory, and he pitched semi-pro ball for a long time for the Perkinsville Scarlets, right up till last summer. They play the touring teams such as the House of David and the Cuban clubs and the Columbus Clowns.
    They used to play only Sundays until night ball come in, and now they play Wednesday nights as well.
    Concerning my mother I can tell you practically nothing, for she died when I was 2. Pop don’t talk much about her. About the only thing she means to me is I think of her whenever I write my middle name, which is Whittier, because she was a fan of a poet by that name. Holly says Whittier was quite famous.
    When professional baseball lost Pop it lost a great southpaw. Yet you might say that between Pop and my