Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-04-13
FEW BASES sreIaEN.
Decline of the Most Exciting Depart
ment of Base MIL.

Decline OF the MOST Exciting Dep0ft-
ment of base mil.
Big John Anderson fastest paserunner of
last seasons American League. stole 6S
bases last summer; Dick Harley stole 43.
and Walter wilmot, the veteran. stole AZ.
Such were the best baseruRnng records,
and they were enough to The ashamed of.
One steal in every three games. and most
of the fast men not doingshsf SO well as
that feeble figure!
The utter fall of baserunning can only be
realized when a base ball guide of 1888 is
picked up, and it Is seen that Harry Stovey,
who was the past expert IN those days,
stole 1876 pillows in that eventful year. One
hundred and fifty-six, compared with six
ty-three, is total that would make COW
giggle. Wherefore the falldown? Are there
no men left as fast as Stovey? Is the pres
ent generation of ballplayers composed of
slowpokes? Are there no successors to Curt
WEIGH, Arlie Latham, Mike Kelly and jim
my Fogarty? Billy Hamilton and Billy
Lange were the last of the great baserun-
ners. Lange, three years ago, stole 81 bases
on the season. and that was his finish, for
the work broke down his legs.
Reasons for Decline.
Reasons given by the thoughtful scribes
are, usually, the sacrifice hit, the hit-and-
run game and the baking of the pitchers.
while it is also contended that the catchers
s.
are, to use new term. ratesque Analyze
them, and it will be realized that not one
of them has any large connection with the
let-down in baserunning. The pitchers used
to balk, and get away with 1t, but last sea-
son they had to do all sorts of solemn
stunts in the way of steps in and out of
the box before they could throw, and any
body who was caught off first by 1900
pitcher ought to have been hanged. More
over, even if the modern pitchers did balk
u-nc hnr In hun yrhn
could balk and get away with 1t as Calvin
and Kilroy used to do? The sacrifice hit
gag is always laughable. The largest num-
Der of sacrifices made in the American
League by any player last year was 81, by
Nance of Minneapolis and there was not
team which made as many as 40 sacrifices
for the whole season. About one steal a
game might have been delayed by the sac
rifice or hope of a sacrifice, and that was
all. The hit-and-run game Is as old as
base ball, only it has been more extensively
advertised in recent years None of these
reasons will cover the point, and as for the
throwing, is there a catcher today who can
pin the runners Ewing, Kelly Bennett
and Bushong used to do?
Big Mltt Helps Catchers.
The throwing has been improved in just
one respect, and that one angle, not due to
any superiority Of the men themselves. has
killed about half the baserunning The big,
fat glove is responsible for this slaughter,
and nothing else. In the old days, when
| the catchers wore a thin glove, with clum-
sy leather tips, they took the ball with a
switch motion it struck, drawing back
the hand as far possible and thus break
ing the shock of the ball. When a man
like Rusie sent one in, it took a fraction of
a second for the catcher to recover from
the blow, get the ball into hi4business fin
and start it on the way to second With
the coming of the big glove this was all
changed. The catcher took the throws from
the fastest pitcher without shock or jar,
and was able to get them out of his clutch
and under way without any appreciable
loss Of time. There, and there alone, did
the catchers gain a fraction of time, and
that small fraction made all the difference
between the close-cut steal and the certain
putout.
Even this. however, does not fully ac-
count for the decay of baserunning The
player of today is too timid, too fond of
ease and too unalterably opposed to extra
exertion. There's the story in nutshell
and this laziness, added to the big mitten
has murdered the most exciting department
of base ball.