WISH YOU CAN BE HERE

August 6, 1924

Dear Rachel:

Good work on your Robins smacking around those dang Bucs the last few days! Keep up the winning and maybe your boys will make a race of this thing yet, because all we can do at this point is probably spoil things for whoever.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing this today in the dugout between innings of our boring stinker of a game against Carl Mays is because I wanted to tell you about a different kind of thing I've been working on with Benny and our friend Roy from St. Louis who we met out there.

I'm sure you know that coloreds play baseball, too, and from what I hear a lot of them are awful good, maybe as much as the players we know in the big leagues. We've all had a pretty big desire to prove this, so this Sunday the 10th we're putting on an exhibition game (or maybe a few of them depending on time) out in Darby at Hilldale Park, which is where the colored Hilldale Daisies of the new Eastern Colored League play. The Phils are off that day so I shouldn't have any problems, except some of the white stars who have said they're playing will have to call in sick as a big group or something. The important thing is that Commissioner Landis somehow doesn't find out because I don't think it would make us his favorite people.

I would just love it if you could come down from Brooklyn that day to take the game in. I haven't seen you in a while and it would mean lots to have your support and see your face in the grandstand if they actually have one there. Maybe you could even bring your father along and I could ask him that big question I've been meaning to right there on the spot or afterwards. I don't think Sunday is the big Jewish day so he'd probably be free to go with you.

Anyway, Rube Foster, who runs the Negro National league and I think is paying most of the dough for this idea, will be back tomorrow with some of his players and hopefully he'll have his whole team picked. We have a bunch of great players so far, meaning the white team which I'm going to help Cy Williams coach, so it should be a heck of an extravaganza, or at least an interesting one. Today I even learned that Tris Speaker from the Indians wants to play!

Let me know as soon as you can and I'll have Mama fix up a guest room for you. She's been dating Cy, by the way, even though I'm not supposed to tell anyone.

Loving and missing you,
—Vinny

CIN 201 400 000 - 7 14 0
PHI 000 000 000 - 0 5 2

WINNER-Mays (2.05 earned run average now!)
LOSER-Ring (5-14 now!)
STAR-Edd Roush (5-for-5, excited about playing those coloreds, I guess)


Other National League games today:

at ROBINS 9-13-0, PIRATES 3-7-2
Grimes matches Walter Johnson with a 16-8 record, and Brooklyn ends up splitting the series. Cuyler is at it again getting two triples and two singles but Burleigh handles the rest of the Bucs' lineup easy. The bigger and better news is that tough Pirate backstop Earl Smith goes out with a 2-week injury.

CUBS 8-12-1, at GIANTS 5-8-1
How much torture must it be to be a Giants fan these days? With the Bucs dropping two straight across town, New York turns in two rotten tomatoes against the crummy Cubs. A 2-base error by Irish Meusel and grand slam homer by Hartnett in the 1st off Mule Watson end this thing early, and Gabby homers again later just to rub it in.

CARDINALS 7-14-0, at BRAVES 2-5-1
Guess the Cards got sick of losing to these clowns. Jesse Barnes' record drops to 6-16 and seems like a good choice to be the first pitcher to lose 20 this year. Hornsby (who's also playing!) gets two hits to float right above the .400 mark.

NATIONAL LEAGUE through Wednesday, August 6
Pittsburgh Pirates	67	37	.644	—
Cincinnati Reds	63	45	.583	6
Brooklyn Robins	63	46	.578	6.5
New York Giants	59	47	.557	9
St. Louis Cardinals	54	52	.509	13.5
Chicago Cubs	49	57	.462	18.5
Philadelphia Phillies	42	65	.393	26
Boston Braves	29	77	.274	38.5