PLAY BALL

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Ott sent the seed back across the plate. "Wasn't he the guy who tried to renegotiate his contract, but the team's owner said, `We finished in last place with you, Big House. It's a cinch we can finish last without you.' "

"Sure enough," said Newt, as the ball hit mitt, "the next day his manager pulled him aside and said, 'Nobody knows this, Big House, but one of us has just been traded to Kansas City.' "

"Did he ever do any prison time?" asked Doc Thromberg, stepping up to take a cut or two.

"Nope," said Ott, "you're thinking of Jailbird Conroy. Ol' J.B. once went to give a speech at the local high school and the principal asked him, What'd you take in school, Conroy?' " He twirled a bender by Doc, so Newt answered, "Mostly overcoats."

"What about Slippery Elmer Jones?" Doc offered, getting ready to try again.

"The spitball pitcher?" Ott said, popping the pill. "They kept three stats on him."

"Won, lost and relative humidity!" Doc cracked, hitting a wormburner to first.

Purvis Jacobs leathered it and stepped on the gateway. "An ump once accused Slip of using a foreign substance on the ball. He said, 'No sir, it was manufactured right here in the U.S. of A.' " Purvis snapped the ball to second.

Lem Tucker caught it cleanly. "So the ump searched Slippery. Found a note in his glove. It said, 'You're getting warm.' "

A short flip to August Carmichael at shortstop. "Couldn't field, though," said August. "Didn't he drop a grounder hit back to the mound 'cause he lost it in the sun?"

A. C. underhanded to McCannon at third. "No," Cleedy said. "When they asked why he dropped it, he said, 'Too much spit.' "

Down to Newt at the platter. "Baseball weren't the only ball Slip was keen on," Newt offered. "Studied them crystal ones, too. Said 'I've seen the future. It's a lot like the present. Only longer.' "

Newt flipped the tater up to Lester Hogshead, the ump, and said, "Let's play ball."

And that's the way they warm up on the diamond down in Plumtree County.

Editor's Note: The first reader to write in and correctly identify the real baseball players associated with at least 12 of the jokes and descriptions recounted here will win a free baseball autographed by the starting nine of the Plumtree Crossing Cuspidors. (Need help? Read Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf's wonderfully entertaining Baseball Anecdotes, Oxford University Press.)

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