The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-21
LIVE WINTER DOPE
By PERCY H. WHITING.

Atlanta, December 2o.-(Speeial.) .)-Times ought to be very quiet in the sporting world these days, with the six-day race and the baseball meetings out of the way and Christmas coming on, but somehow they aren't
 Baseball continues to be live issue, even in this dead season. Bill Smith con tinues to be about the busiest little mo- gull in the business these days and is signing first basemen right and left.
 The last of the would-be successors Of Jim Fox is Rohn. On the strength or what he did last year with Peoria he is real discovery. Of course the Three league isn't the Southern by several de- grees but a man who can bat better than .27O and field .990 with that class Of talent ought to be better than an utter failure with Atlanta. Smiths main trouble now is in getting rid of his surplus players. He has two of his young pitchers, Tommy Atkins and Roy Radabaugh, on the market and will sell both of them, along with a few others before the season opens. Smith Is also gradually disposing Of some of his old men, Jim Fox has been placed as manager of the Columbus, Ga., team of the South Atlantic league and will remain in Atlanta until his team re- ports here about the middle of March. , His men will play three games with the Crackers before they start for their southern home.
 Louis Castro is another of the veterans | Class B or Class c league. It is not unlikely that he will go to Macon in that capacity
 | As Dyer will not be back it looks like ! nearly a new infeld for Atlanta. Jor- dan will be the only regular back on the old job
 The outfeld also will look very diff | ferent from what it did at the end of last season.
 George Winters, who was then on the hospital list, will be in center field as | usual. Becker may be in right held put it is doubtful. He has asked for his re- | lease on account of bad health and Will probably be sold or traded to some north ern team. Moran will also probably be disposed of, though he may be brought back for trial in the spring.
 Since the official figures of the South ern league have been made public sev- eral dopesmiths have figured out 'all southerns.p taking the batting averages and fielding averages for a basis of cal culation.
 But through some grave oversight mo- body has figured the all-lemon team. So here they are. First the all-lemoA bat ters (pitchers who have worked in 20 games and other players who have worked in 50 or more only are counted):
 Pct. Stratton New Orleans, catcher.. 175 Shannon, Montgomery, catcher..... .2O5 Baxter, Mont New Orleans, 1b. 2l9 Redmond Memphis, 2b. ............ IFS Larsen, Birmingham, 3b. ........-.. .lS5 Huber, New Orleans, SIS. ..........- .lSi McIver Mobile, of. .....,.-.......... l3J Ryan, Montgomery, of. .............. 19l Donahue Memphis, of. ................ 2l2 Pitchers: Johns, Bartley, Hickman, Ford and Juul.
 At fielding the all-lemon honors go to;
 Pct. Connors Little Rock, h. .......... 973 Page Little Rock, 2b. ................ 9S3 Larsen, Birmingham, 3b. ............, 9lz D. Stark, Little Rock, ss ........... Sll c. Smith. Birmingham, of. ..........' 'S2i Thornton. Mobile, of. ........-....... 'sSi Becker, Little Roc6, of. .............. .S5S The batting average of the all-lemons would be about .1S0. The joke fielders did .942, when all their sins are averaged up.
 Larsen of Birmingham is the only man who figures at the bottom in both helo- ing and batting for his position.
 One man on the all-shine fielding team is also a member of the all-southern his marvellous batting pulling him up into that position.
 The pitchers who worked in 20 or more games with the worst batting and field ing averages were Garrity, Robertaille, Viebahn, Fritz and Hart.
 A notable feature of the poor heldine combination is that the Little Rock players figure so prominently. Mike Finn has figured it out that much of the poor work last year was due to the large number of antiques he had on his team and this new aggregation of. his will be made up largely of lively youngsters.
 Joe Sugden, the catcher for whom Bill Smith paid $500 Is worth $500. Bill has had an offer for that sum but has turned 1t down. In speaking of this man re- gently to Bill Smith Clark Griffith, the new mogul of Cincinnati, said of Sugden that he was the only man I never shook my head on." Coming from the "Old