The hatchet. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1883-19??, 1900-08-26


president National League Of Baseball clubs.l
honesty in professional baseball since.
A handful of ball players was black
listed, and they are blacklisted yet.
Heroic measures were needed. the club
owners had the nerve to apply the
remedy ana few sensible men have
ever questioned the honesty of base
bah since then.
Baseball is a game necessarily free
from gambling. 1t is too uncertain for
the professional gambler, and the sport
catches and retains its votaries on its
own merits. 1t does not need betting
side issue to make il attractive; local
pride does that. Then, the foundation
of the sport is of the sort to stimulate
honest endeavor. a players salary de-
ponds upon the work that he does and
a clubs income on the sort of ball its
team is playing. In such great army
there are, of course, some men who
would descend to tricky subterfuge If
they thought it would pay; but they
soon find that dishonesty does not pay
and they naturally walk in the ranks
of the righteous, just because it pays
the best i'm the end. Petty politics
should not be allowed to enter into the
game and the further the club owners
keep away from petty tactics the
better off they will be.
There is man at the head of the
affairs of the National league whose
sterling honesty and painstaking meth
DDS have endeared him to every honest
club owner in the land and to every
veteran enthusiast. There has never
been question of Uncle Nick
Young's thorough honesty and Impair
TALLY. Outside of Pop" Chadwick,
he is the dean Of the profession, There
has been some talk of "Uncle Nick re-
firing from the game and Charles ii.
Ebbets being elected to take his place.
A better man could not be selected,
but Ebbets himself would regret
Young's retirement from the presi-
dency, as would every other earnest
supporter of the game. Ebbets is in
terested in politics in Brooklyn and he
does not need Youngs shoes, and
don't believe that he has any such am
billions.
1t is study to watch little Willie
Keller handle n bat Keller Is not
much bigger than Terry McGoyern,
but how he can hit the ball ! never
saw Keller fight" the ball. as most
youngsters do when they get anxious
and chase after wide. high and low
ones He siIBDly stands at the plate
patiently and waits until the kind Of
ball comes over that he wants and then
he swats it on the trade mark"
''The eye plays the most important
part in a scientific hltter's makeup"
said Keller the other day. "The only
time that / ever get nervous on ball
field is when | see n young player walk
TO the plate, grasp the bat at the eX-
IRENE tip and then swish it through
the air as If he expected to whack the
ball into the next county. If | feel al
interest in that youngster | generally
make It a point TO see him after the
game and give him little advice.
tell him TO grasp the bat lightly, just
as a good bicycle rider takes hold of
his handle bars or an expert billiardist
grasps his cue. The best way TO hold
the bat is not unlike Nardon and Tay-
Tor, the English golf importations,
grasp their golf sticks, several inches
away from the extreme end. None Of
the great htters of today makes wild
lunges--you can't do it and keep your
eye on the ball Scientific hitting is
rqallv tanning You can get all the
force that you need that way and when
the ball strikes the elastic piece Of
hickory, and strikes ii plum and
squarely. 1t has got TO go. II the pitch
ers Of today lobbed up the ball il would
be different, but they don't. II gen
orally comes at the batsman as II II
We're shot out of a cannon. Stop
swinging at the ball, young men, IL