The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1908-02-01

Inside of a few weeks the players OF six
teen big league clubs will be preparing to
leave for the spring training camp down In
Dixie. Four hundred players, the cream Of
the entire country, will then leave home
for six months and work to get into shape
to earn the fancy salaries that they will
receive for the summer's campaign. -Four
hundred p-layers-enough for thirty or forty
teams In a bush league, will leave the
wintry hreezes of the North behind them
and hit the trail for the sunny South, there
to divorce themselves from the kinks In
their joints, the glass in their muscles and
from sundry pounds Of avoirdupois which
they have taken on since the last season
came to an end.
OF the 400 or more players that will be
taken to the various training camps scat
tered below Mason and Dixon's line, prob
ably so or 100 will be practically disposed
of by the time the bell rings on April IA.
Some Will go to pay ground rent for the
use of the training camps, while many viii!
either be turned back to the teams they
played with last season or be released to
some club which has a manager capable Of
developing the players in question so that
they will be ripe for the big leagues in an
other year.
All but one of the minor league clubs
will train In the Southland. The one ex-
ception Is the Chicago American League
club, which will get in its preliminary
stunts in California, and which will later
hit the South for numerous exhibition
games.
The New York Giants will be really The
first team to start work, Manager Nc
Graw having issued orders for his minor
league recruits to report TO him at Marlin
Springs, Tex, on February 20. TIL bulk
of the team. however, will not pitch its
tents until ten days or two weeks later.
The last day of February has been fixed
for the getaway Of the Athletics, Connie
Mack taking them to New Orleans for q
stay of three weeks, after which they will
contest the usual spring series with the
PhiIlies.
The Cleveland batteries will leave for
Macon on the same day that Connie Mack
will send his gang to the Crescent City
They will start work on Monday,
March 2.
Leave First Week in March.
The first three days in March will wit
ness the departure of several clubs for
Dixie, The two st. Louis teams will leave
on March 3, the Browns for Shreveport and
the Cardinals for Houston, Tex, the
Brown pitchers having already secured
preliminary training at French Lick
Springs. Joe Cantillon Will lave his Wash
ington club assemble at Chicago on March
IiblRIe eeP 3he White 20 s tS&' VIII i gave se one SaS
later on their long trip to San Francisco
and Los Angeles.
The Chicago Cubs go down to West
Baden on March I, and after staying there
for ten days loosening up, depart for
Nicksburg for a weeks stay, after which
they will go transforming the southland,
eventually splitting up the team into two
squads.
About this time Clarke Griffith will take
his men to Hot Springs for a boiling out
of a week. Hugh Jennings will also take
his Detroit Tigers TO the same place for
a week or two of gradual loosening up.
The Tigers real training stunt, however,
will be at Little Rock, The Boston Red
Sox will also be at Little Rock. but the
two clubs have arranged their schedules
so that they VIII not conflict. The Bostons
will start in while the Tigers are at the
S , ,ps ;aa md get ct aEag In time to give
Manager LnJole will take his regulars
to Macon on March z. Within the next
day or so after the last Nap has hit the
pike, the Phillies will leave for Savannah,
the Reds for st. Augustine and the Boston
Nationals for Augusta, Ga. The Brooklyns
and Pirates viii be the last two clubs to
Hot Springs DIS usual, while the Superbas
will train at Jacksonville.
OF course many OF the veteran Members
OF the sixteen clubs will not wait until
the training camp is officially declared
opened. Several Of them like Cy Young,
Jimmy Williams, Lou Criger and others
will go to Hot Springs or West Baden
about the middle OF February to get into
shape. Cy Young. was the original early
trainer In baseball. Several years .ago he
established the rlnn OF going 60 Hot
Springs a month before the regular train
ing season. and since then many other
well known players have followed suit.
Cleveland was the first league club to
adopt the system of sending their veteran
pitchers to Hot Springs. and for two sea-
sons the scheme worked so famouslv that
many other clubs have since followed
suit. Las spring. however. the Hot
Springs trained twirlers Of the Maps did
not show the form that those who trained
at Macon did. 80 Cleveland has abandoned
the arrangement. but Clarke Grifdth, Hugh
jennings and Jim Mcclure will try II
once more at any rate.