Strange Times 152: Stabs, Shoots, Runs

April 19, 2022

In a few weeks, I’m launching the Kickstarter campaign for the second edition of Deadball: Baseball With Dice. Because I love you guys so darn much, I wanted to share a preview of the campaign that includes a (very rough, very ugly) draft of the revised rules. Take a look, follow the campaign, share with anybody you think might enjoy it, and let me know if you have any questions or comments! More news to come!

Today brings a charging moose and a wriggling eel! Try not to get shot on…

June 1, 1921

  • The trial of Mrs. Ethel Nott is once again interrupted as Mrs. Nott springs to her feet to scream “Liar!” at a witness testifying that she hired him for $200 to murder her husband with a hatchet.

  • Three weeks after a management-imposed wage cut led to a strike at the paper mills of Green Bay, Wisconsin, “a mob of 1,000 moonshine-crazed workers” attacks the plant and scuffles with strike breakers.

  • The Weather: Partly cloudy; Thursday fair and cooler; fresh west and northwest winds.

It is amazing the stuff that made it into the 1921 paper. You can imagine the editor screaming into his telephone: “Something happened?! In Maine?! Nobody was hurt?! Give it two inches on page 12!”

EASTON, Me., May 31.—An encounter with a moose which ditched their automobile was related today by Walter Chase and his wife of this town. They were driving at dusk when the moose sprang from the woods with his head down and struck the car with such force as to swing it into a roadside ditch.

It was not overturned, however, and the occupants were unhurt.The moose stood still, apparently dazed by the headlights. When Chase started up again his fender bumped the animal, which immediately disappeared into the woods.

This must be the worst-planned five-man heist in history. I bet they spent months on it, with montages and banter and elaborate models and everything, and this is the best they came up with. Give me the thieves who stole the towers of Notre Dame any day.

While standing at the corner of Seventy-fourth Street and First Avenue about 8:30 o'clock last night, William Varvara, a laborer of 418 East Seventy-sixth Street, was approached by five men. One of them stabbed Varvara in the right cheek and left arm with a long pocket knife. Then he drew a pistol and fired two shots which failed to take effect.

Alarmed by the crowd which rapidly gathered, Varvara's assailant fled northward on First Avenue with Policeman Nietzel of the East Sixty-seventh Street Station in pursuit. He darted into a house on the corner of Seventy-sixth Street and First Avenue, and as the policeman reached the foot of the stairs in the hall, the fugitive was making the turn on the first landing, and Policeman Nietzel, thinking he was about to shoot, drew his own revolver and fired. A second shot brought the fugitive to a stop.

It was found that the bullets had taken effect in the prisoner's right and left sides. He gave his name as James Dalton, alias James Leonard, and is also known to police as “the Eel.” He was identified by Varvara as the man who had stabbed and shot at him, but no pistol was found on him. Dalton was sent in an ambulance to Bellevue Hospital, where it was said his wounds were not fatal. He was charged with felonious assault.

Trailing the excited crowd that followed the chase, Beulah Vaughan, 6 years old, of 1425 First Avenue, ran in front of an automobile owned and driven by Joseph Ragenveil, 1027 Intervale Avenue, the Bronx. A physician in the crowd said that the child had not been seriously injured and she was sent home.