Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-03
PREDICTS GREAT
BASE. BALL SEASON
Ted Sullivan Condemns Proph-
cts, but Picks Both Chicago
Clubs to Win Again.
How CIiques of Players in a
Team Make 1t Unpleasant
for the Manager.
by Ted Sullivan.

The two major leagues-American and
National-are massing their forces for the
season of 1907. Each organization is
strengthening within its own lines, and the
race in both of them should be closer than
last season. Base ball a pastime and
business furnishes nothing but surprises,
and the unexpected looms up when matters
seem to be settled in one clubs favor or
the other. The result of the world series
last October in Chicago has driven the
theorists. sophists and phrase-makers of the
game to cover. and a base ball prophet of
today is looked upon a bore
The American Leagues race next season
should be the closest and most exciting in
its history. as two clubs of that league that
finished in the second division last year will
be stronger the coming season-namely, the
st. Louis Browns and the Washingtons
Connie Mack never tires and the Athletics
are liable to be punched with the leaders
down to the last call of the umpire I once
told Andrew Freedman, who was president
of the New York club. that 1.-The longer
man was in base ball the less he knew
about it o. p. Caylor the great base ball
writer and critic, who was in the Office at
the time, grasped the logic of the assertion
and remarked, "A very wise saying. 1t
was. of course. expressed in the sense that
Dttll itltil WHO are on Ill lllt UuSLIcSS dI
used to disappointment in the improbable
skill of the player who is great one year
and poor another. y. ell. on the other hand,
the new man in the game thinks that a
player should do one day what he did an
other. and this magnate is like the scholar
who after his first year at school imagines
he knows it all and there is nothing more
for him to learn.
Likes the White Sox.
For me to say who will win the Ameri-
can League championship in 1907 would be
presumptuoUs and SAVIOR of egotsm The
New York Americans i'll their last three
games in Chicago last year put up brand
of speedy ball that two straight weeks or
even eight days of such work might have
landed them first but the base ball think
ers must know that it is the long stretch of
the schedule that counts. and not the squirt
or slump of team. | hope l shall not be
accused of craftsmanship toward the White
SoX when | state that that band of base
ball warriors, who broke through all the
base ball barriers and leaped the highest
hurdles in their own league last year to
attain supremacy, and who after d slight
breathing spell tackled and trimmed the
champions of the National League does
any one think that the Sox. with this I'M
paralleled record behind them, which gives
them prestige and courage. will be any
where at the end of next sea son but in the
front rank and neck and neck with the best
of them? And. furthermore let the Whites
be where they may during the months of
the playing schedule, ii will not be the cold,
individual. mechanical playing skill of the
CleVelandS the other clubs will fear, but
IL will be the combined indomitable pluck,
grit and team work that brought the SoX
from seventh place last season to first in
their own league and made them conquerors
of two base ball worlds. Those are the at
tributes of greatness the other seven clubs
will fear and nothing more.
National League Better Balanced.
The National League teams next season
look as if they would be a little better
balanced, that is, the second division at
least. The unexpected strength in all teams
comes from the second or third years
service of the young bloods. Those young
men develop every year until they reach
their top speed in the game. This has been
the experience of every bali club in the
last fifteen years. The Baltimores of 1891
is example of this assertion. No one
expected that young team would win out
that season against the well-seasoned clubs
of that twelve-ciub organization, but they
did. But where is the base ball market
today in the minors where you can pick
up such skillful kindred and magnetic spir-
its as Jennings. McGraw. Joe Kelly and
Keller. That brand of base ball players
of those days is as scarce at the present
time in the ball market as white crows
or red-headed Italians. The inevitable base
ball route of all young and ambitious play
ers of high-grade skill when they join the
ranks of the majors is this-they go on
year after year developing until they get
to their top speed. and in that time they
have passed through all the glamour of
being base ball idols-they may be a COM
bnation of them in champion club for
four or five years, when their speed is
at a standstill: then II commences to dete-
riorate, TO use base ball phrase. they
commence to go back" and the owner of
such organization must detect this fall
away before IL is too late
Bane of Base Ball.
The great bane of professional base ball.
which has existed since the first profes-