The Birmingham Age-Herald · Birmingham, Alabama · 1913

Bob Messenger Is Leading Base Thief

Birmingham, 1913. Bob Messenger has purloined the base stealing lead, annexed 47 bases and set his sights on Jimmy Johnston's 81 burglaries on the cushions. The Age-Herald covers larceny the way it deserves.

A man named Messenger leads the league in stealing, and the Age-Herald treats the whole business as the crime spree it plainly is.

“Speedy Bob Messenger has purloined the base stealing lead in the Southern from the grip of Dave Robertson. The Alabama cyclone has annexed 47 bases in 84 games, while his nearest adversary, Dave Robertson, has stolen 41. Speeding like a demon of late, Messenger has wrested the premiership from the speed merchants of the circuit and will no doubt maintain it for the diamond trophy.”

Purloined. Annexed. Stolen. Wrested. Four verbs in three sentences and every one of them actionable.

It gets better. “After a very slow start, Bob advised his followers to ‘watch his smoke.’ From that time on, Bob has never missed an opportunity to add a theft to his string. If he should continue at his present pace he will outclass Jimmy Johnston’s record of 81 burglaries on the cushions.”

Burglaries on the cushions. Whoever wrote that filed the best line in the Sunday paper and went home satisfied, as he should have.

Below the prose sits the evidence table, “the 10 leading base runners, including the games of Friday”: Messenger of Birmingham at .536, Robertson of Mobile at .461, then Starr, Wares, Stock, O’Dell, Hendryx, Elwert, Jantzen and Marcan. Mobile has four of the ten, the Barons two, and the Billikens three in Wares, Elwert and Jantzen. A league where the standings had a column for larceny and a diamond trophy waiting at the end of it.

There is a diamond trophy on the line for stealing the most bases. The Bleacherite sees no reason to say more.