Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-10-2012

Dan Brouthers on Dad Clarke, El Paso Herald, April 10, 1912:

“As all oldtimers know, Clarke lost out with the old Chicago club because he obeyed Anson‘s signals. Strange but true—the old man had told him that a cough would be the signal to make a quick throw to first, and, during morning practice, Uncle [Anson] thoughtfully coughed—a real, and not an artificial cough.  Clarke immediately drove the ball across, and caught [Anson] in the Adam’s apple.  Clarke beat the old man to the rear fence of the park by just two jumps, and never returned to change his uniform.

Clarke’s reaction to a Brouthers grand slam:

‘You’re a paid agent of the big league magnates, you are, and they hire you to go around the country spoling the chances of promising young pitchers like me. You knock the ball over the fence, like you done today, you big ___ ____, and then the magnates, using them scores to prove their cases, refuse to pay any decent salaries to us when they get us…If I was as big as you, I’d darned soon knock your nose flat, you spy, you traitor, you buster up of good men’s livelihoods!’

Once again, I feel the need to mention that they don’t make threats or insults the way they used to.