Aberdeen Herald · Aberdeen, Washington · 1904

Aberdeen Loses in a Slugging Match

Grays Harbor, 1904. The Aberdeen Pippins lose a slugging match, the blame lands on a rabbit's foot left under a pillow, and the final score arrives by wireless dispatch once the scorer finally gets it added up.

The Aberdeen Pippins, and hold that name close, “went over to Centralia Sunday to show the boys in that neck of the woods how the national game should be played.”

You can hear the “but” coming. Here it is, and it is a beauty: “But after arriving in Centralia it was found that Farmer Brown had left his rabbit’s foot at home under his pillow where he had placed it for safe keeping the night before. It was impossible for the boys to win with this handicap stareing them in the face, and it was with faint hearts and many misgivings that they entered the contest.”

Hanson took the slab for Aberdeen and “the Centralia sluggers took to his curves like a duck to water.” “Ike” Harmon twirled for Centralia, and the way the Aberdeen hard hitters straightened out his twisters “was a caution.” So many runs crossed that the paper went to press without knowing the score, then had to stop the presses for arithmetic: “Just before going to press, we received a wireless dispatch from Centralia stating that the scorer had finally got the score added up and it stood 14 to 13 in favor of Centralia, with the hits and errors about evenly divided.”

Fourteen to thirteen. The scorer earned his supper.

Below the main event, Olympia beat Hoquiam 7 to 6 in a game whose feature “was the errors made by both teams,” eight apiece. The Herald calls it “a great game from the bleacher’s point of view and one that kept them on the anxious seat until the last man was out in the ninth,” which is the correct way to score sixteen errors. From the bleachers, an error is just a plot development.

The P. G.’s announced they would protest the umpire’s call on Baker “for cutting first base on a home run drive over the left field fence.” This establishment stands with the umpire, as always. If you cut first, the fence does not save you.