PLAY BALL FOR HOME
TOWN, SAYS BECKLEY.
Ball Player Who Has Observed Trac-
tion Lines Throughout Land
Picks Kansas City
for Home.
JAKE BECKLEY.
Jake Beckley, the idol of local baseball fans and one of the most popular men in the profession, has bought a home.
"I bought it here," said the great ball player, "because here is where I want to live. I have had no home for so long that I lived under my hat. 'Buses mostly were my homes, and never in the same town more than a week. Now I can see where I want to light, and it is right here in Kansas City. They say there are other places better. I want to say after being in all that everybody else has been in and more than only myself and the natives have been in, Kansas City has them all skinned. I am narrowing down the years till we catch up with St. Louis. It is a great town."
"They say it is not, Jake, and that its street cars are on the bum," said a fan who, one of a party of half a dozen, had been listening to the player talk shop.
HAS BOUGHT HOME HERE.
"It is not on the bum, and the town is not. Here is where I have fixed to live. I tell you that I have bought a little home here. I have been all over this continent, from the snow up in Canada to where it was hotter than this in Mexico, and right here is where I camp. I do not like to say how big I think Kansas City will be when I get ready to quit it, for I expect to live to be an old man. I am feeling pretty good now, thank you."
Mr. Beckley was then asked how he happened to pick out Kansas City.
"I picked out Kansas City because I have been in the other towns," said Jake. "I was in New York and got lost as soon as I got off Broadway. They have one street there and if you get of of it you are in the residence district. The natives never go on it and the tourist and the grafters never leave it. There is a procession of street cars along it and everybody there thinks they are wonderful. If a man has to stand up, and I never got to sit down, he pats himself on the head and says he is in a big, hustling city. If he has to stand up at home he growls and says the street car system must be on the bum.
"I go out to the ball park in the 'bus. I always watch the street cars. When I see everybody has a seat and nobody is riding on the footrail or the fender, I know we will be playing to the benches that afternoon. When I see them scrapping with the conductor to get on the roof, 'it's a full house for us, I say Jake, my boy,' and sure enough there is good business. I size up a town from the depot and the hotel lobby first, and then from the street cars."
