The San Francisco call., 1898-09-29

the bat, and the opposing infield. know ing him to be bunter and batter, are in a quandary as to what he will do. The first ball pitched he will try to bunt and fail. The infield draws closer to him. es pecially the third baseman, who must come in very close, as keeier moves fast toward first base. and every fraction of a second counts. Now that he has the in field playing him for a bunt, his chances for hit are better. He may swing at the next ball and miss It. This change or tactics is surprising to the infield, and they naturally conjecture as to what he will do next.
 Now that he has them guessing he does whatever he deems expedient. Should the third baseman be still playing close, he will hit the ball hard in that direction. There is no time for this man to consider how he will play that ball. He simply grabs, and nine times out of ten the ball will hit him on the shins or chest, and either bound out of reach or go by him entirely, and in either case Keeler is credited with hit by reason of the rule that "the ball was too hard to handle.'
 There is, therefore, a great advantage in being able to bInt and hit with equal precision, and no batter should ever con- slider himself half perfect until he is able tc bunt.
 Again bunting Is most necessary where a team is playing the sacrifice game. Not many days past I saw a batter at Recrea- to advance runners from first and second to the next cushions. He made an in glorious failure, after two attempts, and then hit the ball out. It went in the singled and one run crossed the plate. Now, if the first individual had been able to bunt and advance those runners, two runs would have crossed the plate on that prove dangerous, as the score was very one-sided, yet time and again a situation will present itself in game Where the only play is to bunt, and If a player is lacking in this qualification a game might easily be thrown away.
 This same bunting game has other ad- vantages Of equal importance. Some pitchers cannot field a bunted ball, and Rusie, the great star of the National League, Is of this class.
 He was well nigh invinciple aga4ne, the Baltimore team until one day McGraw bunted his mighty shoots and beat the ball to first with ease. It was noticed by the manner Rusie handled the bunt that he did not like 1t, and from then on the him principally by bunting, and every man In this team Is taught to bunt, the pitcher included. l could not do much in thls regard, but I could bunt well enough to advance runners when necessary, and very little more is expected of a pitcher, whereas every other player In the Balti- more team must know how to bunt and bunt well. This they accomplished by practicing every day for an hour, and numerous are the games they have won through its application.
 Eaters should, therefore, endeavor to perfect themselves in this art There are many pitchers and third-base men who are too nervous to field a bunt success fully. Then, again. pitchers. as a general rule, do not like their shoots to be bunt- ed. It keeps them on the move, and they are very often at a loss as to the proper ball to pitch.
 My advice to players wishing to be- come ideal batsmen is to continually practice bunting. It takes plenty of time to perfect ones self in the art, yet when accomplished big batting percentare is positively assured. I must also insist that every player should be able to bunt well