El Paso Mavericks · El Paso, Texas · 1913

Poor Exhibition of Ball Saturday

October 1913: Silver City beats El Paso 9 to 5, original score, in a game so loose the score board boy deducted a tally from the visitors just to make it interesting. It did not, in the paper's words, instill any extraordinary playing ability into the members of either team.

The El Paso Herald opens its account of Saturday’s loss with the precision of a coroner: “Errors, costly and sundry, contributed to the victory of the Silver City Indians Saturday afternoon at Washington park, by the score of 9 to 5 (original).” That “(original)” needs explaining, and the explanation is the best sentence on the page: “The score board boy deducted one tally from the visiting team’s register, just to make the game all the more interesting, which, however, didn’t instill any extraordinary playing ability into the members of either team.”

The game itself was a parade of small disasters lovingly catalogued. Buckles “threw wild to second and Gurtz galloped to third.” Schultz threw to Gurtz and Gurtz relayed to Robertson, “who pegged wild to Jackson in a fruitless attempt to catch Deck, who raced home.” At one point “Harley stole home just as ‘Ducky’ Gowan walked, filling the bases,” a sentence that rewards a second reading.

The finale deserves its own subhead and gets one: “Kiefer’s Grandstand Catch.” Harley Kiefer “made a crackerjack play in the ninth, when he ran back and nabbed Eddie Ward’s high ballooner in deep right field. A hurry call was sent for the water bucket when Harley didn’t come for his turn at bat, but when the emergency arrived he was found to be O. K.” His classy catch, the paper reckons, “doubtless saved several runs to be counted against the Mavericks,” which in a 9 to 5 loss, original score, was the kind of savings worth sending the bucket for.