The Timekeeper

If time hangs heavy on your hands,

    And you don’t need the same,

Just take it to your uncle kind

    Who plays the three-ball game.

He’ll keep it for you, snug and safe,

    Will share your bitter cup;

But he’ll expect a call from you

    Whene’er your time is up.

Aug. 17, 1910

(There was consideration being given around this time to reducing the number of balls for a walk in baseball from four to three, in order to speed up the game (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/gdc/spalding/00156/00156.pdf), and that may be what this is referring to (in the sense that some amateur league – the ‘uncle’s’ –may have used it. That would make explicable puns out of ‘safe’, ‘call’ and ‘up’.)

The printed version, in his Jocosities column, was titled: ‘The Tie Keeper’.