Evening star., 1898-10-17
The Little Baltimore Fielder Leads
the League Batsmen.
HAMILTON OF BOSTON is SECOND
Buck Freeman is Right Up at the
Front.
CURRENT BASE BALL NEWS

The unofficial averages of the players of
the National League covering the season
just closed will prove interesting to the
enthusiasts of the game, at least until the
official figures come from President Young
AS was expected, Willie Keeier again leads
the league. although it was thought for a
time that either Freeman or DAILY Of
Brooklyn would head him off on account of
the few games they participated in COM
pared with the Baltimore boy. But DAILY 8
batting sire ak lasted only week, and ne
6rifted back until he just managed to land
within the 300 class while Freeman held
on very tenacously for new man in the
fast major league company.
Keeler leads off with .391. Hamilton is
second. with -374, Freeman third, with 1858;
Burkett fourth. with .349: Tenney. .34o;
McGraw, .3i2; Smith. Cincinnati .339; Dele
hanty, 1886; Derontrevllle, .335. and La
joie. .3a3. These are the first ten batters.
The other heavy batters who lead their
clubs and are not in the first ten are Green,
Chicago, .}3l; Cross. st. Louls, .32l; Van
Haltran, New York, .a19; Dexter. Louis
Vile. 81: Jones. Brooklyn, $40, and Clark,
PIttsburg, .3O5.
The fun list of the Washington players in
the batting list is as follows: Freeman.
.3t,S; Mercer $50; Farrell, 3l2; Smith, .3Ol ;
Selbach, 800; Reitz, 800; Getman, 30
Casey, .272; Mcclure, .27O; Wrigiey, $50;
killen, .2+S; Carr. 2OO: Weyhing. .lS5; Dom
ovan, .1SD and Dneen. .1O7. The latter Is
the tail-end of the batting list of the en-
tire league.
Jack OConnor leads the league catchers
with al average of .975. odd Relia bic"
Jim Mcclure stands fifth, with an average
of 1861, and just tops Marty Bergen, who
is touted the best in the business. The
averages for the pitchers are not given no
doubt on account of the time required to
weed out the figures and the complicated
tables. Nichols undoubtedly Is the leader.
but in this position the Washington twiri-
ers make poor showing doubtless owing
to the poor support accorded them through
out the season. AT first base Oliver Te-
beau of Cleveland leads, with an average
of .9S7; Carr of Washington is down next
tC last on the list, with figures showing at
.952. Tommy Tucker who was slated as
a back number and was released because
he could not field. stands sixth in the list
of first basemen, with an average of .9Sf,
and is tied with the much-advertised Ten
ney. Tucker has had l, 40 put outs. 81 as
sits and 70 errors on the season. while
Tenney has had only ,1O2 put outs, ~ as
sists and - errors. If figures show any
thing in the case of these two players they
demonstrate that Tucker is ahead of Ten
ney when fielding is considered.
At second base Daily of Brooklyn is given
as the leader with an average of .976. But
he has played in only u games, While
Lowe and ReitZ, VINO participated IN lio
and 1872 games respectively. are tied in
fourth place with 959. Wagner of Louis
Vile leads the third basemen. his figures
being .943. Smith of Washington stands
ninth with an average of .9O5. ''Jud' leads
Mccormick. Grey and Lauder in the list OF
third base averages. New York has the
best shortstop in the league in George
Davis. whose figures are 1886. Wrlgley is
fourteenth in this list with $50. Deiehanty
leads the left fielders with .9I2 to his credit
while Selbach is fifth with an average of
.944 In the center garden, Joe Kelley has
the honor of being best man. His figures
are .979. while Mercer is next to last with
an average of .S15. In right field 'Buck
Freeman carries off he palm with an aver
age of .916, this young man making only
one error in the ~ games he played. Gett-
man is away down this list, his figures
showing only .92S.
Delehanty of Philadelphia leads in base
running. with Hamilton of Boston second.
punching the players of each team into
a batting whole. it will be found that Balti-
more is the hardest-hittjng aggregation
having an average of .309. Washington Is
well up in this line. being fifth. with figures
showing ri In fielding Washington abso-
lutely carries the target. being last. with
an average of .92T. while Cleveland, band
of cid-timers, heads the list with .93i.