By McAvoy Layne Don’t you love October baseball? Me too! It might not be America’s pastime anymore, but this time of year it feels good to hear the crack of the bat and the slap of the glove. I learned to love the game while playing shortstop in Little League. My nickname was, “Tennis Shoe Ernie,” because my feet were so gal-darn big, ground balls always clipped my tennis shoe, then hit me in the chin. I never got anybody out, and parents in the stands took to laughing at me when I started taking to the field wearing a chinstrap. So I feel for today’s hapless White Sox. In setting an all-time losing record for a season, this year’s Chicago White Sox even managed to hit their catcher in the groin with the ball three times in one inning. My chin doesn’t feel so bad anymore, and I imagine that particular White Sux catcher is looking for work as a Door-to-Door Fuller Brush salesman in Hawaii. Mark Twain would remember the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. They hold the overall record for losses in the National League with a dreadful 20-134 record. The Spiders won just one of their final 41 games, and their faithful fans in the stands for that one win, were so full of Hazy Wife IPA, that they forgot to applaud…One steadfast fan was heard to say as he was leaving the Spiders’ stadium, “We could volunteer at a funeral home, it would be just as fun!” I suppose I might someday end up in the Guinness Book of Worst Records myself for being the only clown diver to miss the pool from the three-meter diving board, and walk away smiling. As of this writing I have been disqualified for using the one-meter board along the way. Yes, while still in high school I leaped from the high diving board to the low diving board, intending to dive into the water from there. But that low diving board was so springy, it flung me up higher than I started out, and I ended up missing the pool altogether, but landed on my feet directly in front of the audience, which could not believe what they were seeing, nor could I. However, as I do not have a video, I guess I will have to settle for the few voices who were there to corroborate my World Record leap. “You done it, and I saw it!” In spite of that singular misfire, I did have a rather successful though short career as a clown diver in a water circus. Did I ever tell you about my favorite trick? Well, that will have to wait for a future column. I shall leave you here with a trivia question. Which professional baseball team was Mark Twain’s favorite? Right! The Chicago White Stockings. “Wait’ll next year!” — For more than 35 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American." Want to hear McAvoy Layne tell it? Go here for an audio version of this column.