Zane Grey

The Redheaded Outfield Zane Grey

Red Gilbat was nutty-and his batting average was .371. Any student of baseball could weighthese two facts against each other and understand something of Delaney's trouble. It was notpossible to camp on Red Gilbat's trail. The man was a jack-o'-lantern, a will-o'-the-wisp, a weird, long-legged, long-armed, red-haired illusive phantom. When the gong rang at the ball grounds therewere ten chances to one that Red would not be present. He had been discovered with small boyspeeping through knotholes at the vacant left field he was supposed to inhabit during play. Of course what Red did off the ball grounds was not so important as what he did on. And therewas absolutely no telling what under the sun he might do then except once out of every three timesat bat he could be counted on to knock the cover off the ball. Reddy Clammer was a grand-stand player-the kind all managers hated-and he was hitting.305. He made circus catches, circus stops, circus throws, circus steals-but particularly circuscatches. That is to say, he made easy plays appear difficult. He was always strutting, posing, talking, arguing, quarreling-when he was not engaged in making a grand-stand play. Reddy Clammer usedevery possible incident and artifice to bring himself into the limelight. Reddie Ray had been the intercollegiate champion in the sprints and a famous college ball player. After a few months of professional ball he was hitting over .400 and leading the league both at batand on the bases. It was a beautiful and a thrilling sight to see him run. He was so quick to start, somarvelously swift, so keen of judgment, that neither Delaney nor any player could ever tell the hitthat he was not going to get. That was why Reddie Ray was a whole game in himsel