The travel day gives me an opportunity to post another fake tale of real Giants. This one dates back to 1910, the year the Cubs ran away with pennant.In those days growing up around the Giants I had a variety of odd jobs. It must have been the 1910 season when I became the chaw boy. This was a big step up from being the shoe boy and toilet boy the two years earlier. It meant an extra nickel a week but more importantly, I got to spend a lot more time with the ballplayers. As you might expect, as chaw boy it was my job to set up the chew tobacco for the ballplayers. Just for the home games mind you, I didn't travel with the team until later. Most of the boys chewed loose leaf right out of the pouch but some of the men were downright superstitious about what they put into their mouths. And the most particular of all was old Wee Willie Keeler. McGraw brought him in from the Highlanders that year. Keeler liked a chew that wasn't like any other ballplayer I'd been around before or since: two handfuls of Redskin which was nearly three of my handfuls because Keeler had big hands for a man of his size, a stick of Beeman's gum and a spoonful of benzene. The benzene was for flavor he said. I was just a lad so I didn't ask any questions. I just hopped the trolley bus down to the apothecary on 86th Street and brought Willie the benzene. I got a nice tip for my troubles. It's funny, I can't hardly remember where I put my glasses when I get out of the tub these days but I can still remember like yesterday the exact blend of tobacco that Keeler chewed. And all told, he wasn't with the club for very long as you'll see when I get around to my story.For a good long while, I didn’t have a glove of my own. Then I talked my pa into buying me a glove at a time when the family really couldn’t afford one. I was his favorite, if I must say so myself, because I was the oldest. Still am, the oldest I mean. I don't know about if I'm his favorite, God rest his soul. Those gloves was what we called Caledonias those days, a three-fingered glove with shoelaces made of cloth, not leather like the fancy ones are these days. Boy, did I love that glove! When I could, I took a couple of baseballs and wrapped them into the pocket of the glove. I tied the whole thing up into a neat package and greased it and so forth. If I didn't have a baseball, I used a rock or and end of bread or anything else round I could find. I carried that glove with me everywhere until three boyos took it from me down near the Five Points. So I was a chaw boy without a mitt if you can believe that.Well, you all know Keeler had been with McGraw in Baltimore so I suppose the skipper was loyal to him. He was funny like that, tough as a saddle but he could be sentimental when you got him talking about the old days, especially if he'd had a few to drink. But the Keeler that showed up at the Polo Grounds that spring was nothing like the Wee Willie of yore. The scribes always used to say Willie could hit 'em where they ain't but by then, Wee Willie was lucky to hit 'em where they was. He could still bunt and chop the ball of course because nobody could ever bunt like Keeler but he couldn't run fast enough on those stubby legs to beat the throw to first. Now Keeler was a proud man and McGraw knew it so he waited until Willie got a hit and a walk against the Superbas one Saturday afternoon so he could let Willie go out on top, or as much on top as a short little washed up ballplayer is capable of being. When Keeler left the ballpark, he gave me his glove. He says to me "I won't be needing this son", because he hadn't been with the club long enough to know my name. I kept Keeler's glove until I joined the service when I gave it to my brother Wilbur. He died of the influenza a few years later so I never know what became of Wee Willie Keeler's glove.