The Land Of The Nonbreaking Curve Ball

"I lak it heah," announced Courtney one day, picking his teeth with a cactus needle. "A man orter be able to keep his mind on baseball." Courtney killed a rattlesnake one afternoon in the parking lot at Geronimo Park, bludgeoning it with a fungo bat.

Most baseball teams in spring training are distracted by what the managers refer to as camp followers, and they are almost always girls. But not the Colt .45s. What follows them is a character named Superstition Joe, a grizzled old prospector of unknown age and origin, who rode down out of the hills one morning last March to see what he could see.

Joe is so much a caricature of a gold prospector that he has to be genuine. His ten-gallon hat is faded and frayed, worn stovepipe style. His silver-gray beard is the texture of Brillo, and there are tobacco stains at the corners of his mouth. He is short and bow-legged. He is, truth to tell, a poor man's Gabby Hayes.

No one knows much about Superstition Joe, or how long he has been seeking his poke in the mountains. But he took a liking to the Colt .45s and visited them regularly, watching and seldom saying a word. Once he let Bill Giles, the Colt publicity man, borrow one of his mules so Manager Harry Craft could pose astride it, waving a pair of six-shooters in the sky.

By the time the Colts left Apache Junction, with a record of 14-7 against big league foes, the writers were calling Craft "the Desert Fox." The Colts even won the honorary Cactus League title and went on to finish eighth in their first season—which was two notches higher than anyone said they would. Craft decided that Apache was a handsome training site, free of distractions and ideal for purposes of turning soft muscles hard.

Houston's second spring period is not, of course, proving as severe as the first. At this time a year ago the .45s still viewed Apache Junction with suspicion, as if expecting at any moment to have an arrow go twanging through their batting helmets.

Even Willie Mays of the Giants dropped a fly ball last spring in an exhibition game at Geronimo Park. Al Spangler, Houston's left fielder, dropped so many that Paul Richards, utterly exasperated, brought in a specialist to hit high fungoes to him for two hours every afternoon for one week, by Spangler's count 148 fly balls a day.

When writers covering the team harped on the failures of his outfield—supposedly the team's strong point—Manager Craft challenged them: "I'll bet you that none of you could get out there and catch four out of 10." One of the writers offered to make Craft the same wager about one of his outfielders. "No bet," growled Harry.

There are no taxi or bus services in Apache, and because of the transportation problems the players spend long hours at such frivolous pursuits as ping-pong, shuffleboard and cards. Players without personal autos hitchhike or walk the two miles over a dirt road to the ball park. They save time by cutting through the prairie, which is vacant except for snakes and wild rabbits.

Lizards in the brush