Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-17
CANNED" rs A PATHETIC
TERM TO BALL PLAYERS

- x x X 4 K
| Rubes who wouldn't understand a really
swell game of base ball IL they saw one.
The canned" player finds himself installed
with his team In hotels that look mean
and cheap and common after the luxurious
hostelrles to which he has been accustomed
on the main circuit. The ways of getting
amusement in the hours Of leisure are linz
tied In the smaller towns in which he fnt.s
himself-the theaters seem onnery to him
after the big ones of the major cities. Ev-
erything seems slow and tame. and. unless
he Is by nature mighty bright and trou-
ble-shedding sort of an individual. the
canned" player Is, In such circumstances
and amid such despised surroundings. more
than liable to fall into a settled melancholy
calculated to make him of no playing value
even to the minor team to which he has at
tached himself.
Players who are canned for mediocrity.
after having been tried out and found
wanting In the fastest company, OCCASION
ally get back to the major leagues after
having been canned" Maybe they don't
set their teeth. when this happens. and
square their jaws. and swear to themselves
that they'll never allow themselves to be
canned again if playing the game of their
lives will help them to ward of a repeti-
| ton OF that experience!
1t has happened that some players have
been In and out Of fast company several
times The player to whom this happens
can always be relied upon to play the very
finest article of ball that is in him when he
does get back to fast company after sever
al canning experiences. He bankers to
stick so badly that he would be willing to
play ball at night by electric light rather
than to be sent adrift to the minors again.
There are several cases on record of ball
players who have been reformed by being
canned" They were men who would vo-
late club rules-men. to be plain. who could
not be kept from dissipating. Several act
ually swell players have been turned loose
fnr hfc md in, linn n
case the experience has cured them. When.
after their tours with the minors. they
were taken back into fast company, they
behaved all right. They knew that the
havfor would mean another shoot back to
the hanky-pank circuit, and their dread of
this, after whirl at it. kept them straight
between the shafts.
The very young player who. upon being
carried along for while with a major
league team, gets his trial and is found
wanting is liable to become sadly down in
the mouth when the "can" is hung to him.
There was actual pathos in the case of a
young pitcher whose case watched during
the past summer, while travelling as a war
correspondent" with the Detroit club.
Manager Bill Armour of the Detroit club
| had heard good reports as to the ability Of
this young pitcher, and, when the team
reached Philadelphia on one Of the clubs
early summer eastern tours, he wired to
the young man to report to the team in
Philadelphia. The youth lived in McKees-
port, Pa. Armour had to wire him his
transportation, and he showed up at the
Bingham House on the following forenoon
| it was plain that he stood in deadly awe
of the fast company players. He called
them sir" and all but trembled when they
addressed him. He was just a country boy,
| in truth, to whom even such a deadly dull
municipality McKeesport was the city
| of teeming life and gayety.
he had never been in Philadelphia. nor,
indeed, in any other town larger than Nc
| keesport in his life. The Detroit players
| took him in hard in kindly sort of way,
although. of course, they could not refrain
| from playing jokes on him when travelling,
such old ones. for example. putting him
| on guard over the players shoes while in
| the sleeping car to prevent the porter from
| stealing them and so on. The new pitch
| er was actually the rawest lad l had ever
seen for good many years. He came to
me- TOR instance, while in Boston, and told
| me that he wanted to send So of the adj
vance money that Armour had given him
| to his mother in McKeesport
He did not know how TO send the money.
he had never heard of such a thing as a
money order l explained the money order
| thing to him in great detail, until finally he
seemed to understand it, He left the hotel
| and went to branch post office and when he
came back he told me with considerable tri-
umph in his bearing that he'd got that
money order all right Four or five DAYS
later. when he pulled some papers from his
breast pocket. l noticed a money order
nutterlng to the ground from his hand.
l asked him what it was. He replied that
that was the money order he had got for
his mother l asked him why he didnt
send 1t to her then. He looked confused,
"a hn I,,pk
had to send 1.-THE thought the post office
people would fix that part of it.
The big cities visited by the club all but
| took his breath away. He took in their
| sights and sounds breathlessly The lux
ury Of the hotels all but stupefed him. AT
big hotel in Boston he ordered a pIanked
steak at dinner one day. AS he was seat
| ed at table by himself-most of the
other players having eaten dinner-the
waiter stared at him bit. But after
about twenty minutes the waiter brought
| In that planked steak garnished around
| the edges with artistica1ly nodded mashed
potatoes. The steak was big enough for
| seven construction hands But the bow
| was game. He felt as If, having ordered
| that planked steak, he was expected by
| the waiter to eat 1T. He ate 1t all right,
| down to the last morsel but he appeared
| to feel something like a boa constructor
| that has swallowed a live burro for a
| couple Of days after having gnawed UP
| that huge steak SOS not to let the waiter
| have anything on him."
The boy just ached and hungered to
| make good with the Detroit club and he
| felt confident that he could make good. He
was watching Plank of the Athletics burn
| the air with speed one day a couple of
| days after he Joined the Detroits and he
turned to me and said: That's the way
am when I'm feeling good l just knock
the backstop over. There wasn't any con-
ceit in the boys way of saying it, laughable
as the remark was. He simply felt that he
had the goods.
BY the time the tour of Philadelphia Bos-
ton and New York was finished. and the
team returned to Detroit. the new young
pitcher who had not yet been given a trial,
was sort of picking up on being hep to
the gay life of cities He was beginning
to eat with his fork, and he was picking up
some mighty lively neckties. The grand
big circuit looked good to him, and he haI-
kered to stay with it.
Bill Armour put him in for Sunday
game at st. Louis, and the boy wasn't
Iithjn n thOuSand miles of beino fhara