BACK TO THE LOSING BUSINESS

July 11, 1924

I woke up with a scattered cloudy head, which is usually what happens if you spend most of a night in a secret speakeasy drinking German beer out of icy glasses and keeping half-dressed women away from you. Heinie got me going with a bigger cup of coffee than usual, and we grabbed a streetcar out to Redland Field.

Carl Mays was throwing for the Reds, meaning everyone on our team could have used their own pot of coffee. George Harper especially has it in for Killer Karl, and joked in the club house about walking up there with a bullet-proof vest under his uniform shirt. The truth is that even though Mays killed that Chapman guy with a beanball four years ago, it was still an accident, and the way they were letting dirty balls get used in games back then, it's a surprise no one else got their lights knocked out.

Anyway, even if it disturbed Mays to no end, it sure seems to have bothered the teams he pitches against, because he was 10-5 going into this one. Harper snatched his bat out of my hands, walked up to the plate to start the game, and drove the second pitch clean out of the ball park! Roush doubled in Boob Fowler in the last of the 1st to tie things, but then Mays settled into his typical groove slot, wiping out the next eight Phillie hitters with ease. Harper singled with two outs in the 3rd and stood on first base clapping his hands at our dugout like some nut, but it didn't exactly get us going. Heinie weakly popped out to end the inning.

Carlson threw his usual tough game, but Cincy wasn't about to lose three in a row to us. After a Roush single leading off their 6th and a wild pitch, Al Wingo doubled in the go-ahead run. Four straight singles got them two more in the 7th, Roush driving in his second and third runs on the day, and then Mays got even better. Except for a Wilson double and Cy Williams walk in the 9th, he retired everybody else and finished us off in less than seventy minutes.

The players were nice to me after because Harper had a homer and single and couldn't exactly blame my bat-handling , but the worse news is that now we're on the train to Pittsburgh for a Saturday double-header with the first place Bucs, who are 6-1 against us. No one plays baseball on Sunday there, which is why we had to double up, and by the time they're through with us, we might all need to recover in church.

Good night, reader-people!
—Vinny

PHI 100 000 000 - 1 3 0
CIN 100 001 20x - 4 13 0

Other National League games today:

at PIRATES 7-11-2, BRAVES 6-11-0
Everything else in the league was back to normal. Boston came back from losing 4-0 to score six runs in the 5th thanks to two more Pirate errors, but than the Pie Traynor triple show began off Benton and the Bucs had squeezed out another one. For their credit, the Braves played great this time against the league leaders, almost winning three of four.

ROBINS 11-13-0, at CUBS 1-7-3
Dazzy Vance goes to 13-4 and belts his third homer in his last two starts, and Rachel can breathe easy again.

at CARDINALS 7-15-1, GIANTS 4-8-4
After racking up huge hit totals for two days, the Giants get hoodwinked most of the game by Leo Dickerman and make four horrible errors to put the Cards ahead 6-0 through six innings. Ray Blades gets four hits and knocks in four, but the amazing news is that George Kelly hits a fly ball over a fence for one of those home runs, meaning McGraw may be forced to raise him up from the seventh spot if he does it again.

NATIONAL LEAGUE through Friday, July 11
Pittsburgh Pirates	53	27	.663	—
Cincinnati Reds	50	34	.595	5
Brooklyn Robins	49	35	.583	6
New York Giants	46	35	.568	7.5
St. Louis Cardinals	40	42	.488	14
Chicago Cubs	37	45	.451	17
Philadelphia Phillies	33	51	.393	22
Boston Braves	22	61	.265	32.5