The evening world. Newspaper, July 14, 1922, Page 15

George Gore, ‘Babe Ruth’ of | His Day, When He ‘Led the League’ at Bat, Gets Out “On Jersey Sand Lots and Shows the Youngsters How He Used to ‘Line ’Em Out.’ wy Dae By J. B. Calvo. Gopyright, 1922 (New York Hvening World) by Press Publishing Compan HE applause uv! thou sands that ouce thun dered across the base ball fields the National Lea still quiet man « <ty- three who goes so unobtrusively abou his simple duties in caring for a fur- nfibe Ait the plant of the New Yok Continental Jewel Filter Company at Nulley, N, J., that few know he was once one of the greatest figures In HH padeball—that greatest of Americ Pastimes. There ure no th { applause . him now, no su nwds anx 8 to ste him and to ake his hand a in those old days when be led the National League in battir en . the mighty “Pop Anson, greatest ot @ib baseball Agures. Once he wa 4 gazed upon in awe becau ; distance his sturdy weists . could, send the gleaming ball sper fom his bat thro sparkling 4 light over the green diamonds: but to-day those same wrists and arms attract no attention aa he goes ; about his prosnic, if more useful, > task of keeping up the temperature in the factory furnace d This quiet man of gentle demeanor helped to make baseball history in the days when Billy Sunday and ‘Pop’ Angon and ‘Mike’ Kelly and other mighty sluggers were in their prime, yet to-day his achtevements are all but forgotten and few of the fans that t crowd the turnstiles to see ‘'Babe'’ uuth and Cobb and Sialer and Hornsby be and the other heroes of 1922 recall his 3 spectacular career in tho National Léague. Fame, that touched him with a halo a yesteryears, has passed on and wheers have died away -and have been forgotten by all but himself, and fs only when he stops, on his wa t with the small boys that sport upon ck from work, to join in a game the sandlots of Nutley that a shadow of his former greatness returns him, For ect body of the athlete has remained through his sixty-three years, and the, powerfn! arms and wrists still possess the ability to send @ sphere crashing into deep centre 4 when, a the days of old, he clears the bags with « mighty swat, the piping cries of his youthful pla mates are like the echoes of those 's that once ndered from the roats of the followers of Big League man George Franklin on the Old Cubs team in with Anson and Sunda whp made that am fame Lat e came to New York wh with our own Giants, he continued the terrif tting that his twelve ars in baseball. glance at the dusty records of baseball reveals that Gore led the National League in 1880, sandwiched in between two of ‘Pop’ Anson best years. Gore hammered out an average of for the season and indeed, seldom batted leas than 300 in all his Major League Rorn in 1859, he played baseball as a matter of course in his New Eng land school days, and even at that time he attr his ability to swat the pill. He hit with regularity but, what was more, attention because of for tremendous distances, and was much sought after by his school- mates for the teams that vied f. neighborhood championship. Gore had no thought of baseball as a ca reer, however, and he learned the paper trade. There was a baseball team at the mill, and it was while Playing with this team that his slugging attracted the eye of Jim a Mutrie, still on the Giant roster afte more than forty years of service to at club Mutrie was manager of the Prov dence team then was in 1 and nduced Gore to take a barnstorm ing trip with the Providence players » New York and into ough up-Sta Canada that fall lerrifie hitting, and when the Pre » continued his dence team broke up and Mutrie be came manager and shortstop of the New Redford team in 1878 he signe Gore for the munificent salary of ¢ mont At outset of his professiona baseball career Gore was a catch and his gnarled and twisted fing to-day } wi Miting was the 1878 s ear mute testimony to thi er his ability as a catcher, 1 uch that at the end « on seven bs in t National League were bidding for h servi “I used to show the telegrams and A.S. SPALDING. Manager of. Chicago White Stockings in 1879 — THE EVENING ng in some ind one day T it occasioned |ittle $80 when Gore topped all the had told me Spalding threw a fit fe year with a although the stood ngreed to my was a consi in In that brilliant ¢ and Kelly, Gore pluyed centre laying down a He was a slugger feared by, all pitch- 1380 ~ Still Plays the to have perfect control from right to left fleld at will uined the distance G Gore for home runs had been kept 1900 they would reveal b the greatest home run kings ‘ played with Ch years, from '19 to ‘86, inc 1 lary was $4,800, Bal many thousands as G us dreds, yet Gore was equa a bitter and, ia addition drive, over which he seemed fast upon the bases, W sand early 90's, and if t Brotherhood rooters of to- Geo.F. GORE ira 1879 whenhe play with Chiag White Stockings in ‘93, but In "94 decided to re-enter the game, joining the Troy team, but he snapped a tendon in his leg before the season got under way and his professional baseball career came to an end, “There hasn't been much change in baseball since,"? he said to-day. “The ball is livelier, but I don't think the game fs, In fact, I don't think there Is us much science in baseball lay as there was in the days when Anson and Spalding and others were pitting their wits against some of the brightest minds baseball has ever known “As for ‘Babe’ Ruth, I think he ts a wonderful hitter, with a style all his own, I never have seen anything like it. There is a snap to his wrists when he hits the ball that accounts for the tremendous distance he knocks the pill, It isn't his welght or strength, it {8 just his knack of hitting the ball." One of Gore's greatest delights to- day is in teaching the young boys on the sand lots how to stand up at the plate, how to swing their bodies from the waist, and how to get that all- important snap in thelr wrists as bats crash against balls, He is extremely active and has never lost his love for the game and, as he says, he tastes a little of the glory of yesterday when he plays with the youngsters and hears thetr cries of delight when he pounds out a home run, Forgotten? Ah, well, {t's a busy world, he says modestly enough, and the Cobbs and Ruths of to-morrow will just as surely shove ‘Babe' and jeorgia Peach into oblivion as the ¢ they, in their turn, have helped a thoughtless public to forget the dia- mond heroes of nearly half a century .4so. He has his little farm in Monti- cello, N. Y., and his job in Nut- and when, on days that he can get away from his furnace, he slips unnoticed into the stands at the Polo Grounds, the roaring applause of the mob blots out the picture of 1922 and brings back in sweetened memory those plaudi@y of the ‘805 (hat were for him alone: ae Perce teriinti co {