Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1906-01-24
"JIMmY" wADswoRTH AT YALE

JIMMY WADSWORTH AT YALE.
The college career of Jimmy"
Wadsworth, the young man who has
Won the speakership of the New York
| assembly, is being paraded before the
public with all the ceremony due a
dignified legislator who seven years
ago was playing first base on the
Yale nine. The baseball chapter is
thus revealed by a writer in the New
York Evening POST Young James
w, in due course was sent to ST
Marks school at Southboro Mass,
whence he departed for Yale univer-
sity in 1894. At New Haven he i'm
mediately became identified with the
set of students composed of the sons
of rich men, mostly New Workers.
With this clique, and among his class
mates in general, he was popular from
the start, and, though the pace set by
his crowd was far from a slow one,
he never followed it closely enough
TO acquire the reputation of high
tiyer." Not that he was cOnspicOusly
soberminded or over-studiOus; but
he was, TO quote one of his college
mates, the sort of fellow who knew
when to stop" He had his fun with
the rest, but he studied enough to OBJ
tain good standing in class and be-
haved himself so as to win a place
in Skull and Bones, the senior society
to which the Is supposedly best all
round" men are elected each year. In
his junior year, meanwhile, he had
joined the D. X E. fraternity
Having achieved personal popular
ity, as well as a membership in all the
clubs he cared to join, the only phase
of student life in which he did not
succeed at once was athletics, and
that was the very thing he most de-
sired to shine in. The way he finally
made the nine" involves a story that
shows him to have been young man
of much perseverance in the pursuit
of what he wanted. AS the story is
told at Yale, Jimmy" came to the
conclusion that he would take no
chances of failing to win place on
the team. Besides working as hard
as anybody in the usual practices and
| training, he suggested to his father
! the organization of what afterward
became famous as the Geneseo base
| ball nine. : 5 the name implies, this
organization had its headquarters IN
the family stronghold. He enlisted to
| its banner a group of the best college
players in the United States, and in
! . n
| WadswOrth's senior year it beat every
other team in that part of the coun-
| try.
The elder Wadsworth-who. by the
way, has just joined John R. MacLean
in buying the management of the
Washington professional baseball
| team-was always an enthusiast over
the game. He took as much interest
in the Geneseo nine as did his son.
That the organization victories had
much to do with the latter's finally
achieving his coveted position on the
Yale team is not to be doubted, for his
hard practice in the summers, togeth-
en- with the reputation he won as a
member of so invincible a collection
of players, made him an unbeatable
candidate for the first basemanship in
his last term at the university.
And when finally he played first,
he played it so well that no critic
could accuse him of working pull
What he had done was simply to
make himself the man for the job.
Being in position 10 spend all the
money he needed for his purpose. he
was able to give himself preparation
better than was possible for an aspi-
rant endowed with fewer worldly pos
! sessions. Since he left college he has
been prominent as a follower Of the
hounds in the Genesee valley. To
some extent he has had to abandon
! this diversion since he began to take
politics seriously, but a glance at his
ruddy face and his erect six-foot
frame shows that he is not letting
himself go to grass, for lack of exer-
else Even when he is busy at Albany
he devotes many of the afternoons to
squash.