The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1907-09-08
Do NOT LIKE GAME
Many Baseball Players Pre-
fer Other Sports.
NOT POPULAR WITH ]. McGRAw
Leader of a Worlds Champion Club
Always Gets Excited when He Is
on the Diamond-Cy Young Prefers
ChOPDing Asphalt, but, Like Jim
Mcclure, All stick to the Game,


buzz Of talk at ball games is this:
I wonder if those fellows playing the
game get any fun out of ii, or if they
look upon 1t as wOrkg'
Plenty of cocksure chaps in stand and
bleacbers don't even put this proposition
in the form Of a question. They take it
for granted, being crazy over the game
themselves that all players Of the ma
tional game in the professional ranks
must be wild over ball playing and that
they'd little bit rather play than eat
Il s'pose it isn't the snapsky or any
thing like that" these cocksure ones
frame it up. this thing of coping the
coin, and big coin, at that, Just for hav-
ing fun. Work hard. don't they? Just
dance around on the nice. understanding
grass for an hour and a half OF so of
r afternoons. and the guy with the pay en-
velope does the rest. Horrible hard on
EN-, hey?7
In an expansive moment. not long ago.
Muggsy McGraw told a group of cronies
that he'd never really cared a great deal
for the game of bail even when he was
enc Of the most successful players in the
country. The reason he gave for this
was a curious one.
Always Got Excited.
The game Of ball always took too
much out of me. even back in the kid
days when I PLAYED hockey 10 bat EN-
around on the lots" was his way Of put
ting it. The game always hashed MY
nerves and unstrung me so that wasn't
NJ 10 be seen or heard for some time even
after a scrub skinned lot game.
The trouble with me is that I never
could play any old kind of a game with
out getting all het up over it, When as
a tyke I played marbles or Skinny I
was just as anxious TO win, and probably
just as Mulliganish and scraggy, as they
call it. as I've ever been since in pro-
fessional game of ball.
NO game, in fact was ever any good
TO me that I couldn't win Now, that
may not be a hit-making thing for a
ball player or manager of a ball club to
say in these polite milk and watery days.
when the knockers seem TO take 1t as
a crime when d man wants to win but
I'm not conversing for the purpose Of
making a hit, but merely TO state a truth
In managing or playing. the game Of
bail IS only endUrable TO me when I'm
out in front and winning I don't care
bag of peanuts for the rest Of the
game. Results for mine, and results
don't mean anything else 10 me than
winning from the other crowd.
That's fun, If anything in connection
with the game of ball can be called fun
Getting licked isn't any fun-not for me-
As a manager or member OF a tail-end
club I'd become nutty inside of two
months, I honestly believe"
~ Young DfSIiIkes II.
Other weIl-known players in the big
leagues express themselves in very much
the same way when the fun question is
put 70 them outright Cy Young. the
veteran Boston American pitcher. is or
dinarily one Of the most taciturn OF men,
but he recently expressed himself in pref
~ round terms about the fun element Of
baseball, so far as the players are con-
cerned.
I'd sooner take pick and trot out in
the sun for a couple Of hours every af-
ternoon and chop away al asphalt" was
the way he expressed it, 7 think most
Of the old-time pitchers have got the
same way of feeling about It. even if
they don't bulge TO the front and say so.
"A pitcher is liable to have the dis
taste of the game grow upon him even
more than the other players The best
pitcher on earth never knows how he's
going to perform when his day to go in
and work comes around.
He may feel all right and work out
al right before the game and vet 80 in
and get slaughtered In the very first in
ming, and then get dragged out and
chased 10 the bench with the whole mob
bowling at him. The dread Of this keeps
lot Of pitchers awake nights as their
days to go in and work draws along.
I'D heap rather work at some corner
OF the game when I'd be used every day
than 90 through the strain OF figuring
on whether ] would be in shape 10 make
good when my working days swing along.
But I can't see where the fans get that
notion about the fun OF Il for the player
OF any corner Of the game Ball playing
is toll and it's more often thankless
toll than not. You can put me on record
as 10 that part OF IT.
Enjoys the sport.
The veteran of them all, old Jim Nc
CURE, whose success as manager Of the
Boston Americans is so agreeable to the
fans, expresses very different views as to
the game
1 sure do enjoy playing ball" he said
out Of hand. 1T may be that I'm child
ish or supplemented or something, but
I'm bound to say that I've never got
over my early enjoyment in going out on
the lot and INDUCING in a game Of ball.
Lack Of variety? Why, I've never seen
two ball games just alike in all of the
time I've been playing, and I'm not nudg-
ing out to the firing line and saying how
many games Of ball I've PLAYED in. either.
but they've been a few There's always
the chance for a new situation in the
game of ball as there is in the game of
billiards; and even II there weren't there's
plenty Of fun and exhilaration and sport.
CT whatever YOU choose 10 call il. in the
old game 10 entertain and amuse me from
the beginning Of the season to the end
Of IT,
y enjoy the whole seance. from the
warm-up stuff before the game to the
trek back to the hotel-bound bus I like
20 win, but I never could see the sense Of
the crouch thing when it's not a win
I am only speaking of and for myself
remember that. There are. I know.
plenty Of players-good players and good
fellows. tOo-whO are sick and tired Of
the game. But I can't enter into their
feeling of WEAKNESS for the reason that.
as I say, I probably can't understand II.
for I'd just as lief so on playing the game
for twelve months In the year, II that
were asked Of me.
But this is just the difference between
liking your work and not liking it. and it
just happens that I'm one Of the fellows
who do like theirs
p-oso.@ A. s.E.,ss ~