New Britain Herald Newspaper, July 17, 1914, Page 13

Photos by American Press Assoclation. = By O. T. GURNEE. OW that baseball has grown to be a game of brains as | well as mechanical skill it affords an interesting study | to figure out the leaders in the two classes of players and their value to Ttheir respective clubs. The chief figr ure in a study of this sort is the pitch- er. In the respect of pure mechanical ability Walter Johnson and the late | « Rube Waddell lead, but in the com-| .bination where baseball brains count | Tmost Christy Mathewson and Southpaw | -~ f'Eddie Plank hold sway. i Matty is undoubtedly the greatest jrbaseball tactician that ever played the {me. He has been the mainstay of the Giant defense for -thirteen years i'and is still a terror to oppesing: bats- men. H As Eddie Collins _says of him: ¥ would call Matty the clairvoyant of all pitchers. He seems to possess an un- canny power of divining what you are 'axpecting and then serves/ up the di- | surplus energy, and he pitches as soon rectly opposite. There is something about Mathewson—his bearing and manner—that gives you the impression that you are going up against Gibral- tar. “In the box Matty wastes no time, no as a batter takes his place at the plate. By doing so he bothered me a lot be- cause I was not used to it. I go through habitual movements—fix. my cap, hitch my trousers, tap the plate and wait for the pitcher to wind up. Matty, however, didn't give me a chance. “Beforé I could hitch my trousers the ball was in the catcher’'s mitt, and I felt at a .loss.” Disturb the hibitual preliminaries of a batter and you. both- er him. The result was I was forced to do' all my motions before I got into the batter’'s box. * “All the advance notices ‘before the first world's series game led us to be- lieve that Matty was a curve pitcher. Imagine my state of mind the first ‘¥ x STR HEN It comes to supersti- tion, nothing in the world can touch the theatrical profession, but profes- sional baseball players run a close sec- . ond. And baseball might be an easy ifirst if it were not for its comparative {youth. The stage has been gathering traditions and fetishes for thousands of ears. Professional baseball is scarce- {iy half a century old. || There are scores of things ome can- not do on the stage without transgress- ing tradition, from raising an umbrel- la to speaking the “tag” of a new play #In rehearsals. Baseball’s traditions are not so hidebound nor so generally ob- _merved. Its superstitions chiefly are in- dividual or, at least, peculiar to differ- ent teams. Of course, there‘is the old belief that the umpire never can be _*ight except occasionally on fly balls, and that is as widespread as the game gtself. But, in the main, the supersti- ‘tions are sporadic. % One of the oddest cases is found in ‘the Buffalo Feds' camp. Did you ever “watch Hal Chase at bat? You may Jhave to watch a whole game before you “discover his pet superstition. But if you look closely you will see that he always wears on the little button on top of his cap a wad of chewing gum. 'very time he steps to the plate that perky ornament is there unless all the ‘gum shops in town happen to be closed and there is no way to get any “wax.” The gum sticks there unmolested un- ‘less Chase has two strikes called on “him. Then he reaches up, removes the gum and puts it in his mouth, where it undergoes vigorous mastication during the rest of that time at bat. While in fthe fleld Chase usually keeps the gum #n his face instead of on his cap, but ‘pever does he go to bat with it in his mouth, and never does he remove it from its perch on his lid unless there are two strikes on him. Photos by American Press Association. 1.—Bill Carrigan. 2.—Hal Chase. Miner Brown. 5.—Honus Wagner. Players are sometimes “touchy” about | _ _such things. Everybody in baseball ta. noticed Chase's little gum foible, ut nobody knows why. You see, no- body has asked him. Some of them have little Billiken stunts of their own ‘to play, which might make them look foolish in the eyes of their pals, and| they like to have their own supersti- tions respected. Consequently they re- ‘gpect Hal Chase’s and merely wonder ‘what effect a wad of gum can have on 2 third strike. There are a number of bellefs that among ball players than matches, and the great majority of players smoke something—some of them a great deal. Sometimes there | will be only one box of matches on a trainload of ball players en tour. Fre- Quently half a dozen of them will want to start smoking immediately on locat- ing the lone box of lucifers. But you never will See more than two players light up from the samc match. It is % against all tradition to take three lights from the same match. It won't even scarcity nearly. every other ball and he throw- ing nothing but fast balls right across | the middle. time I faced him, expecting a -curve 'say to myself, ‘Nothing but fast ones; ANGE SUPERSTITIONS OF SOME FAMOUS BALL PLAY Mafiy’s Fighting Face and the Way It Looks In Action About the time I would all right, here’s another, send up a curve and if I let it go by it |him a great pitcher, although his other would break over the plate. he seemed actually to smile at me. he would “Mathewson’s = brains really make big asset is his great control. By com- parison his stock .of balls is insignifi- At times 83— 4.—Grover Alexander. ordinary citizens. Some diamond ex-[ perts dread the 'number, but not as aj rule. Bill' Carrigan would never occupy | berth 13 on a sleeper after the day he! was badly spiked at the opening of a season. He had slept.in lower 13 the! night before and had had the same un- | game and hustled in from the outfield cant, for he has neither the fast one of Johnson nor the spitter of WalsH, but Matty can come nearer to putting a |ball where he wants it than any one |else pitching today. Possessor of un- |limited nerve and composure, brainy |and a rare guesser, Mathewson is one of the most remarkable figures in baseball.” Praise of this sort from the brainiest and most scientific batter and fielder in the game shows how high Matty is held by his opponents. His record for the fourteen seasons he has been in major league baseball follows: . nearly fired his groundkeeper once for doing that when a storm was threaten- ing in the ninth inning of a close game. | Only when there is danger of losing the flagstaffs or having the banners blown to tatters is it permissible to lower a flag during a ball game on the { i ? #l sunssassensz. [etdearstonsste ¥ Quite some record for an “dld man"— what! ERS x ¥ quently the game had to be stopped until some Boston player put back the broom. That was before the present system of whisk brooms, carried in the umpire’s clothing, was introduced. Joe Tinker, a Chicago idol, always took pains to approach the plate in ex- actly the same manner next time he came to bat after making a safe hit, If he passed behind the umpire when he went up and made a hit he would go out of his way to go around the arbitrator next time, and vice versa. There are dozens of foibles like that, and there's one nobody in the game dares violate. That is to change the makeup of a team after winning a game unless it is absolutely necessary. The Mighty Honus Canno‘ Be Scared FOR thirteen years Christopher Math- ewson of the New York Giants and . Honus Wagner, the great swatsman of the Pittsburgh Nationals, have - faced each other In baseball contests and for that many seasons have tried to out- wit each other. To all real lovers of the game the meeting of these king- pins is a treat and is always watched with the keenest interest. “Matty ver- sus Honus” is the part of the program which causes every one but the oppos: ing players to settle back with the feel- ing that the best part of the show Iis about to be staged. In the 283 times the big pitcher has faced the great batter he has fanned him less than a dozen times, and cer- tainly he bears no grudge against the hero of Carnegie, for he has never hit him with the ball, although at times no one would have blamed him if he had. In issuing passes to his friend the en- emy Christy has been very stingy. In all the years he has labored to decelve the Dutchman he has presented him with fourteen passes to first—about one a year. Here is what Wagner did tc Mathewson in the seventy-seven games in which he faced the greatest hurler (‘h'l the National. The records show where Honus made just one lonesome home run, and it took thirteen seasons to make that: ® b. 3b. Hr. Av. h, siY H ELEEH lucky berth a couple of years before,|be. Chicago fans may recail a game when he broke his leg. On the other |a lot of years ago when Jones was hand, Hans Wagner and Miner Brown manager. The White Sox had a long always demard lower 13. head and two men out in the visitors’ | proper position, just as if it were the There is hardly a team in the coun- (last inning. Moreover, they had to make | first instead of the last inning, try which will start packing up, the|a frantic getaway to catch an earlyj Lowering the flags at a park before do to light two cigars from a match and then permit a third to get a light from one of those cigars. The rule is south side. The old Boston National league team used to have a certain spot to place the broom which was used to sweep off the plate. Opponents got wise to it and would try to keep the broom on asher side of ihe MM 834 Lre- to the bench, then made the miscreant gre general in baseball. There is the dump out every bat and place it in old one about the load of empty bar- ‘rels. No ball player sees such a load igoing along the street on his way to a|ironclad, and a new match must be ig- ball park without—mentally, at least— | nited if there are more than two 3 off his hat to it. That spectacle | “ropes” to be burned. i 5 's?igvom to mean a lot of hua‘)ms." ‘There is much less aversion to the __Shere are fow commodities of greater unlucky 13 among pll.nrr ulu: among Bght Bl onnnmmmmnnnany lhowsonmmuosmn leseroomruomomnn lusssscsssscss bats before the last man is out in a|train. Somebody started stowing the |the last out is another dangerous thing to dq, according 1o s 1Bl emmonnenanSanal game, no matter what the score may |bats in the big bag. Jones stopped the,