Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-05-02
THE WESTERN TRIP
It Will Test the Strength Of the
Senators.
JOYCE DOING WE'LL As A MANAGER
What Another Week of Playing
Has Demonstrated.
CURRENTNOTES OFTHETEAMS

CURRENT NOTES OFTHETEAMS
Counting the last game in Baltimore and
three in Brooklyn, the Senators will play
twenty-five games before they return to
National Park. If the club wins one-half
the games, they will be doing very well,
better, in fact, than any Washington club
has ever done, and all games over eleven
Will count as SO much velvet. The start
has been glorious may it continue. Two
wins leaves the club with but nine more to
place them in the safety class, and under
the conditions now existing, this number
should be surely corralled. Manager Cap
tain Joyce has really tried but one first
class pitcher, Mercer, the one inning sea ace
OF Anderson in Baltimore not being a fair
test, his idea, evidently. being to place the
veterans in the box during the western
trip. Maui needs warm weather, and can
not pitch without it, and Anderson Is in
the same class. Mercer is good at all
times, even in the snow. McJames is sure
10 improve and should win one or two
games on the trip, while Boyd will do ex-
ceedlngly well to help the nine out of a
mole. When 1t is taken into consideration
that cartwright has been playing away be-
hlnd his usual speed; that Crooks has been
~ "a Inc tnat the lnflelu has been
shifted frequently, and that tie young
Ptchers have done the bulk of the work
the record of the Senators up to date has
oeeh remarkable. There Is only one way to
account Tor this, and that is through the
perfect harmony among the PLAYERS. Mr.
wagner has given Joyce full control of the
Men ana he is handling them with the
skiii OF Iebeau or an Arson. Every man
oh the team Will play for his life. if by so
dolnS he will help the team I'D the pennant
laurels.
At Pittsburg. Cleveland, Cincinnati and
Siiic&so tne senators will do well to get one
game or the series, which leaves five games
10 De captured from Louisville and ST.
Louis so that the winning of eleven games
NM ,,ot c,; suGh an easy thing as may appear
upon quick thought. OF course If the Sem
dtorS continue the gait they Travelled in
at Baltimore and Brooklyn there is no
ssuessihs where they will land, but the
foregoing is a conservative forecast An
followers of the game are familiar with the
.acticS or home crowds in the west They
Try IN every way to encourage their teams
an. anu thls encouragement is bound to affect
me urnpires, be it ever SO little With the
veterans unjust decisions have little effect
any more than to make them work the
hafier, but with club composed of young
payers an adverse decision will take away
ne nerve quicker than a persistent attack
OF the malaria. One thing is certain Jovce
Will exert all his well-known ability to get
via Is coming to him, and few impositions
as "Scrappy Bill'' can stay in the game
ADRIAN C. Arson is not out of the ma
tlonal game yet His health is too good and
Ms ability of the eighteen-carat order
4nS"h never hesitates when duty calls
Nhcn Catcher Donahue had his nail split
Syr1aI S'pnDo I'm ioul tip In the game last
SUNDAY at Cincinnati there was no one
else on the bench who knew ANYTHING about
catching but your uncle. 1t is said that Re
seemed Slad of the chance to get back to
place J,
twenty-five years ago he was star Arson
started in the game as a backstop but
aside from Milling it once in a while when
some of his own catchers We're hurt he h1s
not done much of that kind of worl, in
years He demonstrated throughout the
game that he still knows how He caught
tne y?mnsster Briggs in good style. and
When Buck" Ewing, who is running bases
IKE the wind this season. undertook to
show up the old mans bad arm. he got
even with the Cincinnati boy by throwing
MIN out with a neat assist to second ba So
Arson also demontrated the fact that he
is still giant at the bat. as several of
the balls he laced to the outfield were beau
ties of the brightest sort.
Last Saturdays base ball comments in
The Star referred to the bad injury to
JOYCE and eXpr, ssei the hope that it would
rot AFFECT his playing. Sobriquets are not
given people, as rule when they are not
entitled to them. and when Capt joyce
was nicknamed "Scr5 ppy Biz It was not
mlsnomer. A man to be a "scrapper''
must possess nerve, and all this tissue was
called into effect when Harper slammed a
swift ih-shoot into Joyce's face A two
weeks lay off would not have been too
much for an ordinary bali player but Joyce
is not in the ordinary" class and came
back In three days Then timidty was
looked for by those who are not acquainted
with Joyce, but again he was sized up
wrong. In the first game in Baltimore he
made the first hit for the Senator's The
Monday following he got another hit and
played second well. Then in last TUESDAYS
game he swiped the ball for keeps and
surprised even his friends, and really won
the game by opportune hitting. The next
day, at the opening game in BROOKLYN he
still kept up the good work, and it would
appear as II the injury brought nerve with
1t instead of taking it away. Joyce is thor
oughly white. the yellow streak is missing.
and President Won Ger Abe knew his man
When he made such strong efforts two
years ago to secure him for his St. Louis
team as captain end manager.
The season Is early yet, but it has been
demonstrated that but two "outside" clubs
have chances of breaking into the first di-
Observation-Disclosures and Cincinnati. Phila-
deIphfa, Boston, Baltimore andCleveland will
surely he in the first six, and Pittsburg
should be there at the end of the season,
but with the tactics that club has already
adopted nothing but breakers can be seen
ahead. Already they have knocked out
several men through rough play, and word
mas gone down the line to LAY" for the
smoky city boys. The Pittsburgs can stand
the loss of players less thar any other club
in the league and this will happen to the
club before the season is two months old
Take out either one of the infield PLAYERS
and the club is dead. Cincinnati has taken
decided brace in the pitchers box, and
where 1t was supposed 1t was weak the
contrary has proved the case. New York
Is doomed for the last division, and very
low at that. Brooklyn's pitchers are too
weak for first division honors. Chicago is
playing the same game as last year and
will hardly finish any higher; it has been
playing weak clubs to start off with ST.
Louis and Louisville lack good manage
ment and players and appear to be the
same odd things" AS to who will be the
''toppers'' is another thing. Philadelphia
looks good but SO does Boston and Cleve-
land. and Washington fans have Just
been jollied enough the past week to be-
Heve they will have a "look-in at the pen
nant next October, and perhaps a Temple
cup game or two.
The game won last Tuesday IN Baltimore
from the Orioles by the Sena tors was the
first game placed to their credit In Balti-
more for 1ver two years. Up until 1891
there was club in the league, American
,r Atlantic associations that Washington