In 1955, I had just gotten out of the military and was pitching for the Kearney, Nebraska Irishman. Our manager Chuck Eisenmann had trained his dog London to play pepper, fetch foul balls and deliver gloves and jackets to players. On one special and cold night, Life Magazine was there to capture this interesting story.
I was pitching and it was a cold night when I went up to bat. I hit a single and got to first base when London was assigned to deliver my jacket to me to keep my pitching arm warm. On the way out to first base, London got a little confused and went out to the pitchers mound where I usually was. The crowd reacted with some laughs and cheers and this confused London.
I called London and he came pretty quickly, but the coach of the other team protested to the umpire. To everyone’s dismay, the umpire ejected the dog and Chuck from the game!
We thought it was pretty ridiculous to make such a big deal out of a small delay, so Chuck went out to protest the ejection. With Chuck yelling at the umpire, London got into the kerfuffle and pushed the umpire. It was a pretty crazy scene, and Life captured it in these pictures.
