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Rh then slowly began its descent to the third-base line. There was no wind, no sun. There was time enough for the farthest outfielders to have trotted in and snared it, but Leander waved all aside. It was his ball and he advanced superbly to the rendezvous, raising his hands to greet it, his red beard, blue tie and sash and white shirt and trousers a pretty patriotic symphony.

Nearer came the ball. Leander braced his shoulders for the embrace. There was an inhalation of breath from the grand stand, and the ball hit the earth with a heavy plop a good five feet behind those upstretched hands. Now Mr. Richardson did not set himself up as any great shakes at baseball, but the contrast between the sublime figure he had cut at third for eight innings and the ridiculous fruition was the stuff of Casey. Few among the spectators had not sometime winced under the flick of Leander's forked critical tongue. His bitter bread returned to him that afternoon manyfold.

Mr. Jawn McGraw's athletes do not and never have played polo, and the name has puzzled many thousands of baseball fans. James Gordon Bennett, skipper of the New York Herald, introduced polo into the United States about 1876, and the game first was played at