The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-10-27
TOO MUCH MUSCLE
INJURIES ATHLETE
Modern Stars Prove That
Bunch of Beef Does
Not Win Contest.

An oldfashioned idea that huge,
bullying muscles are essential to ath-
letic prowess is being steadily discard
ed by the developers of athletic skill
today
1t used to be that the man who
would succeed in baseball, football.
track and field athletics, rowing,
swimming and tennis felt it a first
requisite to build up on his shoulders.
back, arms thighs and calves great
piles of knOtted muscles.
This was called development, and
the possessors were prouder of such
an equipment than a woman of a good
figure. But the modern tendency is
getting entirely away from this idea.
Men like. Delaney Mike Murphy,
Muldoon and COakley, who know how
to turn out winners, have discovered
that a quantity of muscle can only
be gained at the cost of speed, and
that excepting in wrestling, where a
man has need of absolute brute
strength, the big muscles are more
a detriment than an aid.
The ideal athlete of the future will
undoubtedly be the man built on the
lines Jim Corbett had when he fought
John L. Sullivan fifteen years ago.
Never was a greater disparity than
between these two men of the old and
new school. Sullivan had a wonderful
neck, shoulders and arm. Corbett was
slender and 1.-THE. No muscle showed
on his body when he got into action.
His were the long, slender fibers that
could not be detected under the white
skin, but which did their work so
swiftly and well that the giant who
in a wrestling bout or rough and
tumble fight could have crushed Pom
padOur Jim to death, was child in
his hands in a bout governed by the
recognized rules of boxing.
Kid Mccoy offers a still better Illus
tration of the fighter without muscle
development. yet who could hit hard
enough to knock out men twice his
size
Mccoy was f1at-chested, his arms
were thin as pipestems, his legs were
nothing in point of muscle, and i'm the
ring. stripped for the fray, he would
have made a laugh but for the knowl-
edge held by the public of the terrific
hitting force that those puny little
arms held.
Tommy Ryan, a wonderful fighter,
whose sway has extended over fifteen
years, and who is still probably good
enough to take care of any man any
where near his size, is another case
of the boxer who boasts no heavy
muscles. Joe Cans, the lightweight
champion of the world 4, for many
years, shows no more development
than the ordinary man out of train
ing, yet a blow from his ebony fist
carries a knockout message with it.
In baseball the transition is the
same.
More little men are playing now
than ever before.
The famous teams of the past were
made up almost entirely of big fellows
Arson, Pfeffer, Williamson, Gore,
Flint, Kelly. Brouthers, Conner, White,
Thompson, Browning, all famed hitters,
were men who lowered up to the six
foot mark, or close to it, and who were
built in proportion.
Then it was thought that only big
and powerful muscled man could hit
the ball hard. but nobody pays any
attention to ideas like that now.
Willie Keller is one of those who
blazed the way for the ball player
without prominent muscular develop
ment.
While the giants with the kind of
bodies that the ancient sculptorS de-
picted are warming benches or are cut
of Jobs. Keller goes along year sitter
year ranking among the leading bat
tiers, and incidentally drawing one of