Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/294

 —This afternoon I attended a baseball game in Johannesburg; a deciding game between clubs which had won six games each. The players were nearly all miners from California and Colorado. There were probably seven hundred spectators present, and although most of them were Americans, only one of them wore an American hat. I was the one exception, and some were disposed to guy that when I passed in front of the grandstand. The hat generally worn by the men here is a fuzzy affair made in London, and many of them are of a greenish color. The hat can be wrapped up and put in a traveling-bag, and is generally worn with the brim turned down all the way 'round. A great many caps are also worn The game was exactly like a very good amateur game in the United States, except that several of the players were elderly. One player, a doctor, was as old and fat as I am, and I'm in no condition to play baseball. I was told that this doctor is the enthusiast who keeps the game going in Johannesburg. Two of the grayheads were about the best players in the game; one of them was a man named Wilson, and he was a noted base-stealer. One player was called "Denver." "Come to life, Denver," a spectator cried, when he went to bat, and "Denver" didn't do a thing but smash the ball on the nose for a home run. Another player was called "C. C.," and I found that his nickname was "Cripple Creek," the name of the American mining camp he came from. One of the pitchers was called "Texas," and he won the game, 6 to 4. American baseball slang was constantly coming from the spectators, and I could have easily imagined myself in an