The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1907-02-12
DOPE FOR THE FANS
THAT'S Of MIGHTY
INTEREST
Scrappy Players and Hard
Losers Are Winners of
remnants These Days.

Baseball fans are the most blindly
prejudiced class OF persons in the
woodland because every man on
their team is the best in the world,
until he is released when he instantly
becmes a dub, they seldom know the
merits or the denerits of the team.
1t is strange that men who watch base
ball as if through microscope sell
dom know the real value of player.
They can tell all about his batting,
his fielding, his throwing, the condition
of his arms, his morals, his habits
and all that-but when it comes to
analyzing man as factor in the
team they are as ignorant as the be-
ginners who never saw a game.
Just for the fun of the thing I
have circulated among cranks, within
the last few weeks, asking them to
tell me who, in their opinion, is the
best player in each major league"
writes Hugh Fullerton. in the Chicago
Tribune. "Not one in fifty knew or
picked the essential man, unless that
man happened to be great hitter or
a great fielder. Now. hitting and
fielding are essential, but the fact is
that the man who makes ball club
winner, who pulls off championships
seldom is recognized either as mana
ger, captain, star or anything except
high private. l have had persons
ask me in all seriousness why a GER
tain club kept that dub'-and then
they would name the man who made
the team win-the heart, lungs and
digestive apparatus of the entire club.
''The fact is that every ball club
that wins pennants must have natur-
al born leader, man of strong, DOM
ineering personality. Usually that
man is unfit to be manager because
he is too viciously prejudiced and be-
cause he lacks that tact which a man
ager must have to control players.
Nine times out of ten the man who
wins the pennant for the club is the
trouble MAKER the 'knocker,' the
kicker Did you ever notice how,
when the pinch comes, when the team
must win certain games to gain the
lead or hold it, the trouble maker
and the 'knocker' rise to the situation
and by sheer desperate nerve and will
power fight the way to victory? When
you see a man making his hits when
they are most needed, cheering up his
team, and still fighting when the ninth
inning comes, and, with two out, the
club needs four runs to win, you have
located the winning factor in the club.
He is the man who never quits and
never ceases to hope, and who, when
defeat is forced upon him, goes off the
field fighting his fellow players and
himself In the same situation, nine
times out of ten, the recognized star
will begin packing the bats when the
ninth inning commences.
Knockers and kickers, trouble
breeders and scrappers win games. A
peaceful 'gentlemanly' team seldom
wins a pennant Sometimes l smile
when some critic roasts a ballplayer
for fighting his own fellows, quarrel
ing with his pitcher, or abusing the
other players. Those fellows cannot
seem to realize that it is only such
abuse, administered by some one mad
enough to fight them, that keeps a
team keyed up to the necessary ten
sion. In every pennant winning team
you will find one such desperate, who
by sheer abuse, nagging, and kicking
keeps the other fellows moving.
MANY wonder why the White Sox
won the worlds championship ana
the American league pennant with an
inferior team and in the face of dis
heartening luck. l have asked scores
and not three fans who know the
team intimately have picked the man,
who won the pennant. More than
half give the creditor the major part
of ito game little Billy Sullivan.
Many claim Roth's nerve did it. AL
most as many credit Jones, and many
pick Davis. 1t was Jiggers Donahue
who won the pennant in the Ameri-
can league, fighting, quarreling and
unbeatable Irishman who won the
worlds championship.
'Off the field Jiggs is as quiet and
gentlemanly fellow as there is In
the business. On the field all the
fighting Irish in his Galway make up