New Britain Herald Newspaper, August 20, 1915, Page 13

A Fhotos by American Press Assoclation. Daubert. 2—Heinie Zim- 3—~Sam Crawford. 4.— Beany Kauff. 5~—~Zach Wheat. 6.— Joe Jackson. 7.—Ty Cobb. 8.—Eddie Collins. . 9.—Hans Wagner. 10.—Tris Speaker. 1.—Jake merman. By TOMMY CLARK. AVE you ever studled the methods and manner in which the leading_batters-in 5 the different major leagues wield' the bludgeon? No? Well, the next time you go to a ball game watch and ‘yowll see that ‘no ‘two.'players wield the stick alike. - Generally" the weak hitters try to imitate Cobb, Speaker or Wagher, but the styles of “these men are just as hard to duplicate as it is to find the north pole. Take Jake Daubert of the Brooklyn | Nationals for instance. Jake is set- ting the league afire with his stick work and has led the league in hit- ting with a high average. Daubert is a cool batter and generally waits for a nice one on the outside, then with a aiser 'HOW SOME OF THE | light' swing sends the sphere out of the diamond. He uses a heavy bat. Zim- merman of the Chicago Cubs is a pow- erful hitter. He uses a heavy stick and takes a very heavy swing. ' When he connects with the ball on the nose |1t is a hard one to handle. Sam Craw- (ford of the Detroit Tigers is easily the {heaviest hitter in the American league. Sam stands at the plate as cool as ice and waits for nice one on the outside. He uses one of the heaviest bats made, and when he does connect, which is DAY, AUC 20, 1915. LEADING BIG LEAGUE HITTERS WIELD THEIR. quite often, his drives are the longest made in Ban John$on's organization. Zach Wheat, Brooklyn's star out- fielder, 1s also a powerful hitter. is as cool as Crawford. Zach has no certain favorite curve to belt. Any one that looks good to him he whales away at. Wheat takes a heavy healthy swing that whirls him around. Joe Jackson, Cleveland's great batter, has no like or dislike for certain kinds of curves. He selects whatever he thinks best and bangs away at it. Joe uses He | a blg bat and takes a light lunge at|wants and goes to it. He takes a light |a great run for the hitting honors of) the ball. die Collins, the Chicago White Sox r brilliant second ba man, is a hard man to figure out. ¥ die may take a heavy lunge or a light swing. He stands there at the plate like an iceberg and waits until he gets what he wants. Collins uses a medium weight bat. Tris Speaker, the leading swat artist | of the Boston Red Sox, is grace per- sonified at the plate. He has no choice of curves, but just picks out what he el swing, but there’s lots of force behind it. Tris uses a heavy bulgeon Benny Kauff, the Brooklyn Feds heavy tillery man, takes powerful swing at the pill. Then again there jare times when he can lay ‘em down as neatly as the next. Kauff uses a long heavy bat. | Fred Merkle of the New York Giants | takes a good healthy swing. Up until | this year Fred was highly nervous at the plate. He has been giving Daubert | Honus smoothly as the next. Wagner ]cholce in balls; they all look &I him. He stands there at the the National league.. Merkle has a lik-|a statue until he is ready to ing for a ball slightly to the outside.|sphere. He uses a stick of medium weight. Ty Cobb, Detroit's great batt Hans Wagner, the Pittsburgh vyet-/not any set style. He may eran, uses a heavier bat than any other| healthy swing; then, again, man in baseball. He is easily the most|chop the ball or just lean agi powerful batter in the game. When| At the plate he appears nervous, he swings and connects with the sphere/is not. It is just his method of the ball is the hardest thing in the|to rattle the pitcher. Ty uses world to handle. His hard infield raps| different kinds of bats—light, | have injured many a finger and a shin.|and medium—and uses them Wi can also lay ‘em down as| occasion demands. “ARE ARCHER’S DAYS AS A CUB NUMBERED? t#‘""«r Photo by American Press Association. JiMmy ARCHER. tice of picking runners off first and third bases,. for he thirows without making a preliminary move and has caught many a man flat footed. He was with Detroit once, but Hughey Jennings fired him because he did not straighten up to throw. Hughey re- gretted his action more than once aft- erward, for the very thing that he ob- jected to made Archer a wonderful catcher. Archer has caught great ball for the Chicago Cubs, supplanting the wonderful Johnny Kling as first string backstop, but he must be slipping now. Matty Not 'HOSE who figured that Christy Mathewson, the New York Giants’ veteran pitcher, was through because of his poor start at the outset of the season have another think coming. Matty appears to be back in his best All. In Yet form again and is winning with a reg- ularity which probably means that the Giants are going to cut more of a figure in the race than was expected. There is no denying the fact that McGraw is a wonderful leader. He has really never had a great ball club, but | | he gets out of his men everything | there is In them, aud at the pace he has been setting he is apt to make an interesting fight before the finish. The Braves, on the other hand, are not getting the pitching they need to win. There is much less chance for them to win this vear than there was last, notwithstanding the fact that| there are those who expect to see| | them make rapid forward strides dur- ing the closing weeks of the campaign, as they did last season. But a repeti- tion of this performance is not at all likely, for Stallings’ pitchers do not | seem to be getting into form. L zwm MARATHON RACING A STRAIN ON ATHLETES. 'HAT Marathon racing is a strain on ‘even the carefully trained athletes who participate in these long runs is shown by the recent report filed in con- nection with the Patriots’ day twenty- five mile race at Boston. The phy- sicians who examined and weighed the Marathoners before and after the race reported an average loss of six and one- haif pounds during the road runm, al- though there were few cases of extreme |exhaustion and none with permanent injurious effects. The report is as fol- lows: “The weight of all the men starting was taken, and after the race the weight of the first thirty-five men, at the clubhouse. The average loss in weight of these thirty-five men was six and one-half pounds. The weight loss of the winner was 7 and one-half pounds, of the second prize winner six and one-half pounds , and of the third prize winner five pounds. The largest |loss in weight was nine and one-half pounds, the smallest loss three and one-half pounds. No contestant was prevented from starting in the race, and all that finished were in good con- djtion. The.condition of the three prize winners was notably good.” TOM GIBBONS' LIGHT UNDER A BIG BUSHEL. T'OM GIBBONS, brother of the St. Paul phantom, complains that he finds it difficult to obtain recognition because his more noted brother's per- formances overshadow his own ring lntereSting Gossip of the S fefeodestertefesdeoderdegeeodeofedededeesdeodedofededesdedole Gibbons with the elder brother, and Tom Gibbons suffers in consequence. Gibbons says that in the future he means to press his claims to attention from all the heavier middleweights such as Jack Dillon, Eddie McGoorty and George Chip in order to prove that he is worthy of something more than re- flected glory. PITCHERS' LOT IS HARDER NOW. ()CCASIONALLY the oldest inhabit- ant begins “harking back” to the days when pitchers worked every other day and played in the optfleld when not performing in the box. It is asked, “Why is the modern flinger able to work but once in four ‘or five days, | resting from all labor in the interim?"” The answer is easy. Pitching re- quirements are entirely different. Here are some of the conditions under which the hurler worked in 1876, the first year of the National league’s existence: Pitching distance, forty-five feet. Three strikes out, nine balls allowed. Pitcher’s box six feet square. porting World | scientifically developed attack at bat Pitcher could take more than one step in delivering the ball. Batter could not take first base when hit by a pitched ball. No balk rule existed for feints toward first base. Imagine Walter Johnson shooting his fireball at a batsman only forty-five | feet distant and with practically no restriction on the movements of his body in delivering the same. Imagine the efforts of a batsman to | “wait him out” until Walter wasted nine balls. And picture the chance a runner would have to get a lead if there were no penalty on the pitcher for a false motion to first. [ The miracle would be if any batsman ever got to first at all if such pitching conditions existed today. Handicapped in almost every way, pitching from a fifteen foot greater distance and labor- ing under increased strain, due to more and on the base lines, it is no wonder the modern hurler is not able to work more than once in four days. Runner May Race Trotter Over the Twenty Mile Distance JF vou want to “start something” in a company of horsemen just ask the question. “Which could win, a trotter or a runner, in a twenty mile race un- der saddle with 150 pounds up?’ Some one did this one evening during the New York spring horse show and im- mediately there was an argument which made the spectators turn away W. A. McGibbon, than whom there are few, if any, better horsemen, is positive that the trotter would have nc chance against a runner in such a con- test, it being understood that each horse must confine himself to his own National league. he would put up a steady, brilliant and consistently bat from start to finish best hitting catcher in the parent baseball organization. HUGGINS LAUDS CATCH SNYDER Photo by American Press Association. SNYDER, CARDINALS’ STAR BACKSTOP. MANAGER MILLER HUGGINS of the St. Louls Nationals is out with statement that Bill Snyder of the Cardinals is the best backstop Hug says that he can use Bill every day of the se good game beh In addition to this Miller adds that Snyder i gait and the walk. J. Garner West, or the other hand, was equally confiden that the galloping horse must wea tion this season on a measured course 4. or at. Hartford one week after, 8 both Oficials of the N | or track, with judges and timers chosen e a hand in the |himself out if he went wins and to | Fair R()GEB BRESNAHAN is trying to|catcher in the game and in addition ho !he is a younger man than Archer. trade Jimmy Archer, a catcher w! is regarded as one of the best in the It is known that Archer was of- land. There was @a report that Archer would | be traded to the Giants, but that was | denied. Archer is a wonderful thrower gnd exploits. It is a fact that the younger Gibbons has done remarkably well in all' his bouts. There are plenty of mid- dleweights of far less promise who are better known. Under some other name he probably from the judging to dispute. When this interesting ques- tion was first propdsed about a year ago there was the est difference of opinion imaginahle among some « the foremost horsemen of New York, along fast enough to stay with the trotter, ang Mr. West has had about as much and perience with trotting sad- nd galloping saddle bhon or anybody else. | horses as Mr. Mc( | to see that th measure over a di e | possibility t Best and Exposition associatiof been considering the matter ever it was first broached his capacity to carry weight of ground s the easi- There is more than a t such ace will be ar- | nged in connection with the grand t saddle . LEXINGTON PAYS $2,082,380. KINGTON has paid 32,082,358 fered to Phlh\delphia in exchange for Killifer, but there was nothing doing. would be in great demand, but ring fol- | whose reasons for their belief were AL AKASMNK GAAaciate Lhe DRIRS L LiRAR published 1 s 50 tadex. What the disputants and other horse- {mmwmwseausunflmm- L purse money in forty-twe, pretty fair hitter. He throws from horse racing has been conducted circuit trotting meeting at Empire City [ Ratle New York, frqm Aug. 80 to Sept.