Today in 1908 - Evil Heinie, a hungry umpire, and Mrs. Cat Lady (Cubs off day)

The Cubs had the day off today to prep for tomorrow's doubleheader. Meanwhile, the New York papers railed on "Evil" Heinie Zimmerman, a hungry umpire ends a game, and Mrs. Cat Lady battles her husband.

No game today. Even though the Cubs were rained out yesterday, it was actually against the rules in New York to play a game on Sunday, so the Cubs get another day off instead. Good thing too because they have six games in the next eight days, so I'm sure any extra rest was much appreciated.

The good news for the Cubs (in theory) is that the next eight games are against Brooklyn and Boston ... two of the worst teams in the league in 1908. [Side note: Only Saint Louis was worse, which I thought I'd share because I know most Cubs fans would get a kick out of that.]

In other good news for the Cubs, the team is healthier than it's been in about a month. Solly Hofman and Frank Schulte are still out, but the rest of the team is relatively healthy. Also, Mordecai Brown is expected back from his sister's funeral in the next couple days.

In the meantime, the New York papers are doing their best to stir the pot with the visiting Cubs. Apparently they spent the day slandering Cubs player Heinie Zimmerman ... claiming that he's the reason for just about every bad thing that's happened to the Cubs in the last month. They accused him of spiking Pat Moran, spraining Johnny Evers' ankle, and twisting the back of Frank Chance when the manager tried to calm him down from a fit of rage.

Heinie gonna get ya!

The reason is pretty simple ... Heinie is originally from Manhattan. So they're targeting him the most and trying to get a rise out of the entire Cubs squad through him. The Tribune noted that the Cubs were planning to retaliate in a way by staging a fake fight between a few teammates in the middle of one of the upcoming games, thus giving the NY papers something to go nuts about. However, the Tribune notes that the Cubs would need the umpires to be in on the hoax, and that wasn't likely to happen.

Guys ... we were supposed to be pretending!

In other baseball news, there was an awesome story in the Tribune about a local semi-pro game in Chicago getting called in the 12th inning by the umpire. There was still plenty of daylight left, and both teams wanted to continue, but umpire Mort Pollard was hungry and wanted to get home to his dinner. (I can't make this stuff up.)

The crowd was livid, but Hungry Ol' Mort stuck to his guns and lumbered home for dinner. I couldn't find a picture of Mort, but he may or may not have resembled this dude ...

Can't miss meatloaf night!

And finally ... Cat Ladies. That's one I don't understand at all. I am definitely a dog person. Cats ... not so much.

Now, if you are a cat person, that's perfectly fine ... to each his own. That said, it's the cat collectors that always blow my mind. Why in the world would you want to surround yourself with so ... many ... cats?

And this is exactly what poor Mr. William Edward Hale had to deal with on this day in 1908. You see, William's wife of 40 years (identified in the Tribune solely as "Mrs. Hale") had become a cat collector. TWENTY-FIVE cats to be exact. AHHHHH!!!!!

Not only that, but they were pretty much all scraggily old strays that Mrs. Hale would pick up in the streets and bring home. Needless to say, this was not the sweetest-smelling house on the block, and definitely not a place you wanted to get invited over for dinner.

And poor William ... he got no respect from anybody. Even the Tribune described him as "small, meek, and spectacled at all times." But on this day, William finally got fed up and put an ad in the paper offering $2 a cat for anyone that would come take them away.

Here's the problem ... the plan totally backfired. Instead of people coming to take away cats, people just brought MORE cats to his house, figuring "well you already have 25, what's one more cat gonna matter?" And since William clearly didn't wear the pants in the family, Mrs. Hale happily adopted all the new ragamuffins that were brought by.

Whipped ... thy name is William. Meow!

In summary ... the Cubs finally kick off their series with Brooklyn tomorrow with a doubleheader. Finally back to baseball!

#hungryumpire #catlady #cubsoff