The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-05-13
THE FIELD OF SPORT.
We Lost Our Grip Consequently Our
Game.

Fall River Again Demonstrated Their Su
periority as Game Winners--We've Got
Good Subtitle Thing To Do Is To
Use lit Is True, thank Heaven That
That We Are Improving-The Game
Today.
The game Saturday showed that while we
are steadily improving, we still have ele-
ments of weakness when the critical time
of the game occurs. We ought not TO have
lost that game. Such a slump at the last
moment and downfall and destruction,
after building up such splendid lead-a
veritable monument of victory, does Iot
often occur. when a team is ''all there" SO
to speak.
With a lead ct six to ole up to the first OF
the eighth inning. in favor of the Fall
Rivers, it is exceedingly doubtful if Lincoln
or klohedanz or Person would bave
allowed the Portlands to bat in enough runs
to overtake and pass that long lead. Ashs,
undoubtedly, has good stuff in him, and OF
course it wasn't wholly his fault, but if we
are going TO win games and reach the
position that Pol tland used to have and
ought to have, we must steady down TO bet
ter business in batting and playing. and
grit our teeth and play better and bat bet
ter, the greater the need. That is what the
Fall Rivers do, and that is how they won
that game on Sa turday that was our right
full property. For them to win that game
was like throwing man out at first on a
base hit to centre field.
The only way to lin baseball games is
never to lose your grip-play better and
better, or at least just as we'll In the last
inning as in the first. To Illustrate. the
heats between Directum and Nelson at
Rigby last year were always easily won by
pirectum because he could maintain the
pace. For the fiji st half Nelson could trot
just as fast as Directum, but he couldn t
keep ii up.
We want men on ouE baseball team that
can keep Up the pace, and if we laynft got
them. let US get thsm There is good deal
of luck in baseball. to be sure, but that
experienced skill and that courageous grip
that makes man play better, the greater
the need. has mole to do with winning
games than luck does. This playing in
hard luck" is a phrase that has no intrinsic
meaning. 1t is simply an expression that
is a letting down easy method of excusing
inferiority.
There was good attendance Saturday,
over eight hundred people Witnessing our
fine beginning. N the first inning Kobe
danx gave Webster and Slater four balls and
then Spill made one of his old time hits and
the ball sailed over the right field fence,
and we had three scores in less time than ii
takes to tell il. We got two more runs, on
errors, in the first three innings, and Ashe
kept them down to nothing during that
time. They got run in the fourth on
Slater's error and Manning's two-bagger.
We earned another in the sixth by ASHES
single and Webster three Dagger. Thus it
was six to one in our favor at the beginning
of the eighth.
Then the Fall Rivers exhibited that fight
ing ability that wins games. aud We ex-
hibited that lack of it that loses games.
An error for US and two hits for them in
the eighth and then another for us and
four hits, with total of five, for them in
the ninth, was just what lost us the game
that belonged to us. 1t was not nald luck.
It was just what the statement indicates
better ability to win games, the same ability
that wins anything from war TO cat
fight.
The game was not SO much an exhibition
of uncertainty in baseball as it was of GER
tainty--the certainty that the best players
are going to win.
The score: