Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-07-08

That's the thing that makes the base ball
captain feel like goin fshin'-when his
team Is "booting it,
Some club shippers take 1t to heart good
deal more than others. But all of them
curl up one way or another. when their
flock begins to boot EN- around"
The booting business Is well known to be
both infectious and contagious. and there
are times when an entire teani-and the
best OF the teams-wiI fall before the cpl
demic. It's one of the quick-actins MI
crobes- From husky competency q whole
ball-playing outfit can be fattened out by
1t In an unthinkably brief space OF time.
1t Is especially virulent when a veteran
member of a team makes a couple OF err
rors in a row-'Fooots EN-" as the ball
players express 1t. When this happens the
entire troupe Is just as likely to fall down
as not. and right away. The nerve OF the
others is tapped. Their confidence willis.
Their aggrassiveness melts. They are
seized by fear OF ridicule-and all ball
players are extremely sensitive-that takes
the snap and ginger out OF them. This
feeling often lasts long enough to lose q
game for team in which the booIlng bust
ness has started, but then, again, there are
some teams than can shake off that pam
icky and stampeded feeling, particularly II
things break right for them q little later
a BEIilauI play lIhGuldtGls Lp4OHi4it an
exhibition of booting viii often pull a de-
moralized team together.
individually and collectively team suf-
fers the keenest kind of misery while one
of their booting Seances is In progress. NOT
only that, but In a certain sense the mem
bers of a team will feel sorry for the other
fellows of an opposing team when the OPP
posing team falls to booting 1t. Ihey want
the game, OF course. and the bootlng OF
the other fellows is generally more than
likely to give 1t to them. but, down beneath
the hide, they have generous feellng OF
sympathy for their opponents who are do
ing the booting. for they all know the on
merry misery of 1t themselves.
Players Sore Over Errors.
How does ball player feel when he
makes a bad error7"
This Is question often heard in the
stand at ball yard
It is q question akin to that other one
SO frequently propounded by spectators at
ball games. viz: Does the average ball
player really care whether his team wins
or loses game?
The answer to this last question is the
biggest and most emphatic KIND OF yes
They certainly do care. They care way
down to the midriff of them. Ball players
will suk in a shadowy corner or their no
tel like thrashed schoolboys for an entire
evening over the loss of game. especially
when they've chucked the game through an
exhibition OF booting. They gloom afouiu
and stake each other to choppy and peevish
answers when addressed. They nave hteie
or nothing to say, and the wise ian, no
ma tier how high his degree. knows better
than to mention the days game TO the
members of such a doWncast outllt VIZ,
he meets them socially after the tosseu
game Some pitchers suffer so keeniy from
modification after dropping a game that
they'll hardly endure even to be spoken 10
by their mates for twenty-tour hours.
know half a dozen fingers who, when they
la-S-
Draw from all human society and brood
over the thing till they almost make theln-
selves H. r. ,..o
different ways OF taking their misfortuhes,
Some of them collapse so absolutely from
pure nervousness that they are ~put use
less for the remainder of the game. o'neI
bring their teeth together with cIck
after committing some peculiarly savage
error and getting the laugh from the
crowd for It. and muster all or ther lhhale
aggressiyeness. Others have way Oh q ~
ming after an error in way that throws
the crowd off as to the players real feeilns
underlying the grin, but the fact must De
recorded that the grin is rarely on Ihe
level.
Why Schaefer Grins.
Dutch Comedian Schaefer. the plodding
and accomplished second baseman OF the
Detroits, has q great way of grnning right
r,erriIy st tina crowd when he is getting the
long boot after making an error-he doesn
make many of them, at that-and few spec
tators Imagine that Germany" one of the
diamonds clowns, takes 1t much 20 neai
came He says so himself. He frankly &C
knowledge that his grin after an error IS
phony mask that he puts on deliberately
II hate to let EN- see that l m worrying
over one Of my own punkerinos, ne lou
me one day when asked him how he con-
trived to put that natural seeming grin on
his face after some horrible mischance.
People attending a ball game observe
every little thing, and when they see that
a player az the opposing team Is 'holering
murder inside of him over mlspiay they re
bound to hand him the goad SO hard that
they're liable to break X on or leave II an
inside of him. The booting player who
makes a wry or peevish face over one OF
his misplays lays himself wide open to
kidding. The boys who yen OUT Hard
luck, old man. in their best tone OF derision
are sure to get after him, and the sadder
he looks over his break the rougher they re
going to be on him. Nobody in the business
has got a shade on me when 1t comes 10
feeling like a nickers worth OF moist GIN
ger snaps after booting one or two of them
around the yard. but away back IN the days
when l played on the skinned lots school
ed myself not to let the bunch see now pau
1 was actually taking my own mispiays.
Everybody has got putty-piower reaoS
for the peevish ball player, and once
PLAYER lets the gang around the circuit see
that he's one of that kind, they'll do the
best they know to make his life miserable
This isn't saying that it isn't hard to stick
on one OF those bogus grins upon making
an error. But I'd rather do 1t than to have
the kidders start in to sympathize with me
with their Hard luck. old man., gag"
What Keeler Says
II isn't often that Willie Keller. the $500
a-year right gardener of the Griffith troupe,
boots anything, but" as he puts the mat
ter himself, ''all of fellows in the out
works have got just SO many of them
season to drop, and there's no use trying
to buck against fate The great-hitting
little Keller man uses that word fate
pretty often. It would never be thought Of
him that he is a subscriber to the fataiistIc
doctrine, considering the steadiness OF his
play and his perennial observation-disclosures, but
Keeler is as superstitious as a crap shooter.
He swears by the teeth of the mask-carved
horse chestnut that he always carries with
him as a talisman that he Invariably
dreams of it the night before when he is
going to boot one-muf easy fly. that is
to say-in hts meadow on the morrow.