Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1904-08-07
THE PITCHING STAFF.

To the men who occupy the center
of the diamond and deliver .Ep tho
twisters and shoots. largely belongs
| he credit OF the real speed Of the
league this year. 1t takes speedy hat
ters to win games from first clasa
pitchers, and the pitchers have mado
| the managers get the batters. Each
| club has at least one star in the limo
of box artists, but to Monroe prob
| ably belongs the honor of having tho
best quartette of twirlers. It Is truo
the Vicksburg pitchers have good
averages in the matter of games won.
bur. the batting of Vicksburg az the
first of the season Is mote respOn-
sible for this than the consistent work
Of the pitchers. In Hickman, FtIgu-
son and Wagner. Manager Leidy OF
! Monroe has quartette which is hard
to beat whenever the team behind
them hit. Hickman has proven him.
self to be easily the star of the League
and while he has been Overworleo,
has won games with regularity that
reminds the other teams of clock
work Helm is the next best and Fer
g,lson and Wagner follow in the or
der named. Feye, he of the "no-hlt.
no-run' fame, helped Monroe to win
some games early in the season, but
| Hickman and Helm have done tho
steady work through the season.
Pine Bluff was considered weak in
the box at first and has had to try
! more pitchers than any other team in
| the league to find the right kind OF
winners. Lucid. Nernutlli. DeaVrr and
White comprise the regular working
! staff for the Iumbermen al present
and will probably finish the season in
| their present places under the man.
agemcnt of George Reed. The Pine
Bluff team has tried out fifteen pitch
ers this season to find this quartette.
Moxie Manuel and Jack Ashton nave
done the steady box work for Nicks-
burg this year and have lasted while
the others dropped by the wayside.
their share Of the work for the lead
ers.
While the men selected by Bob Pen.
der Of Baton Rouge ought to be good
they have not done so we'll and have
lost more games than they have won.
Doyle was considered the best and
had good record, but Doyle quit the
team because they lost so many games
behind him. Old Jack Baker has be-
gun to feel his years, and Bracken
and Zehner have pitched fine ball, but
played in the same kind of luck that
followed Doyle. Hanlon, the latest re-
cruit, has done well. With good
team behind them the Baton Rouge
pitchers would have shown up a great
deal better than the averages have it.
w hCll ASaoISHlc uIdiLcu OF Tt1CdlIGu
Nickens they took away many games
from the Greenville won column in
the percentages, for Nickens was as
hard for one club as he was for an
other and would have been away up
at the top in the pitchers in the Cot
ton States league. Adams and Do
hot e,;,,
while Blackburn, who recently joined.
the team. is to the good in games won
with the club. Faucette. the other
pitcher, has hardly received a fair
trial, but lost the first game he pitch
ed against Pine Bluff.
The Natchez pitchers are like the
whole Natchez team, pitching and
playing simply to earn their salaries
and keep the team intact. Breiten-
stein and Boyd are hard workers and
deserve to win. but both get theie
bumps" with increasing regularity.
kelb is a ieft-hander, and ought to
make good, but has dropped into the
run and follows along with the others.
Breitang is no better than the rest of
them and has been sent behind the bat
to help out while Keefe is out of tha
game.
All of the pitchers in the league
have used more judgment this year
than was displayed by the box artists
last year and the result has been hard
fought games and small scores in the
majority of cases.
- l.,
.