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[UTUSN]

63. Help tracking down? - about 1919 World Series, has stayed with me for 60 yrs!

We read it in elementary school. After their disgrace at least one of the players was reduced to playing in the bush leagues - traveling from town to town, playing against the local amateurs. Context of how popular baseball was, how players were "heroes" and imbued with moral authority. So the boy protagonist was over the moon to be playing against a (professional?) team, composed of those heroes. But just before going to bat, he was told that the second base player was one of the disgraced 1919 players, and he was overcome with disappointment and righteousness. So the kid must have been good because he calculatedly hit for a double and *SLID* into second base, *spiking* the player.

The disgraced player was seriously spiked but didn't yell or emote. He just sat down and pulled up his uniform leg. And the kid saw the leg, bleeding yes, but moreover covered in *SCARS*. Because every town the dude went, some local kid *spiked* him.

******I've done lackadaisical internet searches for baseball anthologies, sources for movies about the 1919 thing, seen the name Ring LARDNER Jr. Nothing.