This was the first word from Jensen on his sudden walkout.

Jensen got only six hits in 46 at-bats for a.130 batting average in the first 12 games.

He took a midnight train out of Cleveland Saturday, without an official word to anybody, and has stayed away from newsmen on his train trip across the nation to Reno, Nev., where his wife, former Olympic Diving Champion Zoe Ann Olsen, awaited.

She said, when she learned Jackie was heading home: ``I'm just speculating, but I have to think Jack feels he's hurting Boston's chances.''

The Union Pacific Railroad streamliner, City of San Francisco, stopped in Ogden, Utah, for a few minutes. Sports Writer Ensign Ritchie of the Ogden Standard Examiner went to his compartment to talk with him.

The conductor said to Ritchie: ``I don't think you want to talk to him. You'll probably get a ball bat on the head. He's mad at the world.''

But Jackie had gone into the station. Ritchie walked up to him at the magazine stand.

``I told him who I was and he was quite cold. But he warmed up after a while. I told him what Liston had said and he said Liston was a double-crosser and said anything he (Liston) got was through a keyhole. He said he had never talked to Liston.''

Liston is Bill Liston, baseball writer for the Boston Traveler, who quoted Jensen as saying:

``I can't hit anymore. I can't run. I can't throw. Suddenly my reflexes are gone.

Just when it seems baseball might be losing its grip on the masses up pops heroics to start millions of tongues to wagging.