From: utzoo!dciem!mmt Newsgroups: net.jokes Title: Shaggy horse story Article-I.D.: dciem.146 Posted: Wed Jan 19 17:10:19 1983 Received: Wed Jan 19 20:58:24 1983 There once was a very poor major-league baseball team, which usually came out bottom in its league, and thus had not much money to spend on players or training facilities. Nevertheless, it had one or two older players who had been good, and a few promising youngsters. The training park was a bit ramshackle, in the fields among some horses. One of the horses came over to look at what was going on. After a little while, it came round to the manager and said "I think I could do as well as these guys". The manager was taken aback, but asked "Did you ever play baseball?" "No, but I still think I could do better than them." So the manager got one of his practice pitchers to throw some pitches at the horse, who held the bat somehow or other. The horse hit most of them for home runs. Then the manager got his star pitcher, the only one with a better than .500 record the previous year, to throw some, and the horse hit them, too. "Well, you can bat, but can you field?" "I don't know, but I can try" So they gave the horse a glove, and sent him into the outfield, where he ran like the wind, caught everything over the whole outfield, and threw straight and true back to the catcher. The manager looked at his rule book, and found nothing against it, so he signed the horse onto the team. In order to keep the other teams off the track, he didn't play the horse in spring training, but the knowledge that this horse was there to back them up inspired the rookies and old-timers to perform better than they ever had played, so that they were a contending team from the first day of the season. In the last game, they needed just a win to clinch the pennant. Going into the bottom of the ninth, they were behind by one run, bases loaded, two out. The manager decided "Now's the time for the horse", and sent him in to pinch-hit. After a long argument with the umpires and the other manager, it was decided that the horse could play, because there was no rule against it, and the first pitch the horse hit into the outfield and off the wall. The first runner scored, and the second, and the third, but the horse just stood there. Eventually the ball was thrown to first base, and the horse was tagged out. Game and pennant lost. The manager and team were furious, and crowded round the horse: "Why didn't you run? We had the game won if you had only got to first base!" The horse looked back at them and said "Don't be silly: Whoever heard of a horse running bases?" (Not original with) Martin Taylor