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Watermelon Young-Star Umpire

Fred Russell, of Nashville, tells the following baseball story in his fine book of sport stories,-"Funny Thing About Sports":

Red Jones, American League umpire, tells about a colored arbiter in Georgia by the name of Watermelon Young. In the afternoons anil on Sundays he umpired Negro baseball games, but in the mawnin'he drove a produce wagon and his principal procluce was watermelons.

One afternoon Red went over to. watch the colored game. Watermelon was umpiring. The score was close and excitement ran high in the. late innings. Suddenly one player singled to centerfield and tried to stretch it into a double. There was a throw to second base and he either was or was not out. It was a close, dusty play, and a terrific argument developed. Both teams stormed toward Watermelon and soon were joined by delegations pouring out of the stands. There was loud talking and pushing and waving of hands. This went on for about ten minutes. Fin- ally Watermelon seemed to get order and appeared to be making a speech. Then he waved the runner back to first base, the players returned to their positions, and the fans slowly retreated to the stands. Everybody seemed satisfied.

As soon as he could, Jones slipped down into the first row of seats behind the catcher, and summoned Watermelon. He had so admired the handling of the situation that he wanted to know how he reached such a decision.

"There wasn't much to it," explained Watermelon, "f just said 'There seems to be considerable argument here.' 'They is,' the crowd said to me. 'A lot of people think this man was out,' f said, 'and a lot think he was safe.' 'That's right' said the crowd. 'But we is all agreed,' I said, 'that the man was safe at first base.' 'That's right,' said the crowd. 'Then the most sensible thing is to put the man back on first where we is all agreed,' f said, 'and let the ball game go on.' That's all there was to it."

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