Evening star., 1907-08-18
ELEPHANTIASIS AMONG DIAMOND STARS
How the Loubows Expansion Skpece the Dubs
Think Of Their Own Sweet Selves.
How About Common Sense.

like this If you'll take the trouble to ask
| him.
How About Common Sense.
| Have all ball players got real good sensef
Here is yet another one of those things
| the answer to which must be read in the
stars. The sense Of gratitude and the
sense Of the fitness Of things are pair of
! them, coupled in the betting, that some bali
players never get around to learning. Take,
for example, the case of some Of the young
| fellows who are yanked out of the minors
and given a chance, and consider how they
| behave
It's pretty tidy thing. isn't 1t, for a
| ball player attached to the Oskaloosa or
Keokuk or Kokomo or Kankakee club to
| be brought to one of the major cities to
| play ball? Do men In ordinary life get
| many chances like that? And when the
| chap following an ordinary avocation does
get chance likefthat, doesn't he appre!
| ciate 1t, as a rule. right up to the handle,
and more than hop in with attempt to
deliver the merchandise and to make some-
| thing Of himself in the line he has chosen
for himself?
| Well, we'll take the case OF a certain
young ball player-naming no uames for
we're not for that-who was yanked by the
| hair Of his head into fast company this last
| spring-brought into the American League
| from one Of the Uncle Tom. ten-twent-
thirt. circuits. He's only one example of
! what we're talking about. There are plenty
more like him.
This fellow was a natural ball player.
He'd made pretty good in the minors. He
was young. and. while he needed lot. he
had the makings OF a fellow ft to stick
around with the fast people for, say, fifteen
years or So getting the nice money-if he'd
had the head of a potato bug; balance.
that is
He was astonishingly conceited for a kid
In fast company but the oldtimers were
indulgent toward him and let him chatter
on about his bigness as much as he liked.
At first, he looked pretty good to every-
body. Maybe, for Just a brief little while,
he did have some smolIierng sense OF
gratitude toward the people who had pulled
HIM away from the one-horse outfit he was
playing with and given him the chance to
groove along the road to advancement
in the career he'd picked for himself.
Back to the Minors.
The youngster, with the world his oyster.
II he'd behaved, before him. let the training
rules run for the end book after he'd been
with the team for very short time. He
began to get On a nightly souse and in the
morning he'd hit up the things that are
usually supposed to take the craggy edges
off the previous nights souse. He fell down
Iamentably in his work. He couldn't hit at
all, as a matter of course after he began
drinking and carousing and fzgigging
around all night. He made bluff at field
ing his position. but he wasn't there with
the good work at all. His club manager, a
kindly man, tried to talk some sense into
the cubs head. No use on earth. The
youngster knew all about it. He had it all
discounted in advance.
law, say" l heard him observe one night,
gimme one o. them clubs in the west, like
what | was playn' with before i come here,
that feller can git drunk on every night.
and nobody say thing to him."
That was his idea ahead of getting on in
the world and making hit for himself. He
had no sense of gratitude whatever for the
people who'd brought him from the obscur-
ity of the minors and pulled him into fast
company. He had no appreciation of what
all this meant to and for him.
In other words, when 1t came to common
sense. he was twenty-five and quarter
pounds lighter than sheet of kite paper.
He had to be canned. Of course, and now
he's shooting around with one OF the west
ern minor league clubs, one of the kind
that, according to lhis end OF 1t. will stand
for his ''gittn' drunk every night"
This may sound like a cranky little dis
course, but 1t isn't meant that way. There
are, 1t should be remembered. some several
thousands of ball players in this country.
and the greater number of them are bright
fellows, possessed OF strong sense and more
than willing to do all that ts required OF
them without bucking.