The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1906-10-04
QUICK THINKING
IN BASEBALL
SOME NOTABLE INSTANCES OF
SKILLFUL WORK BY MEMBERS
OF LEAGUE TEAMS.
BY HUGH S. FULLERTON.


A ball player has approximately two
fifths of a second ;etween the time the
ball hits the bat and he sees it coming
toward him in which he must decide
how to make a play. Often he must
think quicker than that, fer an accident
an unexpected turn of a play, may
force him to abandon his plan and
adopt a new one. A fifth of a second
is long time at the finish of a steal
1t represents the difference between
safe and out, and the man who thinks
quick, who gets the JUMP on the BALI
is the good ball player, while the fell
low whose brain work just a flash slow
er goes back to the minors.
OF course, base ball nowadays has
been reduced to such a science that
the individual thinker does not stand
out as he did in the old days, Every
one is supposed to krNw exactly what
to do. The base runner is supposed
to know, without signals, just when the
batter intends to hit just which ball he
will strike at, and the batter knows just
which pitch the base runner will run
on. Every one knows that with two
out and a runner on first the third
baseman and second baseman will
make the throw to first base, and that
if the ball is hit to the shortstOp he
will throw to second Every throw
and every move is figured out to ma
thematical precision, and the dullest
player can learn the system, yet there
still is so much room for thinking that
the man whose brain is as agile as his
body shines as a star, while the other
fellow throws away ball games.
COMISKEY'S VIEW OF PADDEN.
Never was this fact so impressed up
on me as a few years ago when l was
sitting with Comiskey. Commy was
talking, half to himself, about Dick
Padden, who was about as quick a
thinker as ever played the game. 4
can't understand it," soliloquized the
Old Roman. He can't hit He can't
run. He isn't good on ground balls.
He's not any too sure of thrown balls,
and his arm is bad" He stopped
moment and then added but he's a
hi of a good ball player"
There are lot of Others now as in
the times past, whose brains carried
them through season after season after
their arms wore out and their legs
crooked, or that terror of all ball
players muscle binding" put them to
the bad. They went right along and,
by quick thinking pulled off stunts and
got away with them before their OPP
ponents walked up to what was going
on.
Haven't you seen slow runners, men
who couldn't do 100 yards in Is seconds
make monkeys of the best throwing
catchers, and steal base after base,
while 10 seconds men are thrown out
ten feet? The difference is in the brain
and not in the legs. They are not
beating the catcher. They are outwit-
ting the pitcher, and are safe, prac-
tically, before the catcher gets the ball,
because they are half way down before
the pitcher lets go of it.
BID McPHEE'S CLEVERNESS.
The cleverest bit of quick thinking
ever witnessed was years ago in Gin
cinnati, and Bid McPhee, the "King"
pulled it off, How fast he thought
only can be guessed. 1t must have
been instantaneous. Bid was on first
base, with nobody out, when some one
drove a bounder straight at Wild Bill
Everett who was playing first for Chi
cago Bill dug up the ball, touched
first and made one Of his copyrighted