Los Angeles herald., 1906-08-24
DO BALL PLAYERS
LIKE THE CAME?
TWO GREAT DIAMOND ARTISTS
TALK
Clark Griffith Holds That He Would as
Soon Pile Bricks as Play Ball,
While Lave Cross Is Base
ball Fiend

Spectators who attend baseball
games day in and day out often won
der whether the men on the diamond
are gaining the same amount of pleas
IRE from the sport as those who sit on
the bleachers. reveling in the thrilling
situations which occur.
The question as to what the player
himself thinks of the game has been
thrust at several leading lights OF the
field during the past season, with the
result that while some players contend
that they enthuse. over the sport others
enter merely as a means of earning
their livelihood.
Two versions from men at the top
of their profession follow. Clark Grif-
fifth, manager of the New York Amsri-
cans. says;
"Fun?" he said to group down in
Atlantic City one Sunday recently
when his team was playing a series
with the Athletics of Philadelphia.
IT'S about the same kind of fun for
me that carrying the hod or moving
pianos would be. l don't see where
the fans get that idea that it's fun for
ball players to go out on a hot, sticky,
sun-soaked lot every afternoon, and
sweat and grunt around for couple
of hours at the same old game that
most Of them have been playing for
years.
llllllh IL lAle average llldi llctu n
date to play five or six games of casino
or blind mans buff or puss-in-t the
corner every summer afternoon out in
some open space, with thousands of
bowling critics looking on who think
they know more about whatever
games being played than the players
themselves, he'd mighty soon forget all
about the funny part of 1t.
Baseball Is the hardest work know
anything about, and I've done a heap
of hard work in my life besides playing
ball. I'm not speaking now, either,
about managing a team-just playing
the game is hard enough OF course,
the young chaps. just buttng into the
big company pick a little enjoyment
out of the thing for the first few years,
but know plenty of young ones in the
game nowadays who hate the sight Of
the bus that takes them to the
grounds.
1.-THE sameness of the game is bound
TO get on a players nerves. Added to
the sameness is the chance every
player has of making a mistake at
every stage of the game. and the hui
initiation following the mistake, and
the boots of the crowd, and all that
sort of thing. You've got to show
me where there's any greater strain to
be found anywhere.
when it comes to managing a team
ana playing, 1OO--Well, tnere We D9efl
times when | felt like walking off the
lot to the dressing room, taking off my
uniform and never getting into it again.
Playing the game every day month in
and month out is drudgery and strain
enough, but managing bunch is
'.''
Cross Finds Fun in 1t
Much more satisfactory from a fans
viewpoint is the situation as Lave
w Ill. A
sees it:
do I enjoy playing the gamer" he
said in reply to the question "I GER
tainly do. 1t may be that I'm child
sh or simple minded or something,
but I'm bound to say I've never got
over my early enjoyment in going out
on the lot and playing a game of ball.
little bit-by the way, I can remember
the time when a ball player wasn't
supposed to have such fine-ladyish
attachments as nerves, but I guess we
won't talk about that part of it. But
/ want to say this:
when the time comes that I don't
get any enjoyment out of the game
any more I'm going to quit playing.
myself don't see how ball player can
deliver the best brand of goods he's
got in stock when he feels that his
work is drudgery, toll, task to be
dreaded. If the game was a hardship
to me l know that I'd have hard time
working myself UP to the pitch where
I'd be able to do my best
Lack of variety? Why I've never
seen two ball games just alike in all
of the games I've played, and I'm
ashamed to edge out to the firing line
and state just how many ball games
I've played-'scuse me, I wouldn't
think of naming the number within a
thousand. There's always the chance
for the new situation in game of ball
as there is in billiards. and even If
there weren't there's plenty of exhila-
ration and fun and sport, or whatever
you want to call it, in the old game to
entertain and amuse me from one end
of the season to the other.
II enjoy the whole seance from a
warm-up to the trek of the bus. like
to win, but never could see the sense
of the crouch thing when it's not in a
win. am only speaking of and for
myself, of course-remember that.
There are, know, plenty of players,
good players and good fellows too,
who are sick and tired of the game.
"But 1 can't enter into their feeling
of tiredness for the reason. as 1 say,
that probably can't understand it, for
I'd just as lief go on playing the game
twelve months in the year If that were
asked of me. But this is just the diff
ference between liking your work and
not liking it, and 1t just happens that
I'm one of the fellows who does
lka hia -