The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-02-09
HABITS OF THE
BASEBALL FAN
Loyalty to Game Helps Make it
Most Popular Sport in
America.
BY BILLY EVANS.

Baseball is recognized as the great
national game.
The baseball fan must be recognized
as the great national character
Every branch of sport has it's follow
ers, but the baseball fan for loyalty
and enthusiasm has them all played off
The boards. For six months baseball
holds the attention of the United
States, and during that time it makes a
crazy rooter out of the banker, the su-
perintendent, the business man and
the employe. Baseball is truly the
game of the masses
Much of the popularity of the game
IS due to the excellent MANAGEMENT of
the men prominent in baseball and the
wonderful playing ability of the men
engaged in il. Yet the men who have
made baseball what it is, the men who
nave made fancy salaries possible, the
men who support the enterprise in
every way, are the fans. The clean
business policy and the honesty of the
sport make it appeal to the public
more than any other branch of ath-
letics, and each year sees the game
growing in popularity.
X y *
mere are many, many types of base
ball fans, rOoters or whatever Won
choose to call them. One man will en-
JOY going TO the game and keeping
quiet, the man on his right will get lots
OF pleasure out of applauding every
good play, while the man on his left
puts in his time handing out a line of
talk to the players and umpire. some
times his free monologue is funny and
then sometimes it is not.
The ran who jars most on the pIav-
ers is the man who believes he is lust
a little bit wiser on how the game
should be played than the members
of the different teams who are drawing
fat salaries for their services. 1t is
surprising to note how many rooters
tnere are who think they know just a
little bit. more about catching than
Billy Sullivan or Johnny Killing; who
know trif1e more about the art Of
pitching than Bill Donovan, Mordicai
Brown or Addie joss; who can hand
Lajoie tips on how to play second base
and can tell Hal Chase how to field a
bunt or explain to Wagner how short
stop should be covered
Take any old city in any old league
during any time in the summer. Let
the home team lose a hard game and
all you have to do is walk down the
business known as baseball head
quarters and in a minute you will learn
how the game was lost and just how it
could have been Won The baseball
fan leads them all as critic. and it's
really surprising to learn how wise a
whole lot of them really are.
x X
No manager in years has made a
greater hit with the baseball public
tunate enough to win a pennant for
Detroit in his first year as an Ameri-
can League manager. Jennings was
popular because he was always hand
ing the crowd something new. His
style of coaching was distinctly his
own, and his tin whistle will be talked
about in baseball circles for years.
1t certainly was a caution the way
the fans took to the tin whistle stunt.
inside of a week after Jennings
brought the tooter into action, there
were at least 100 fans in Detroit who
took whistle with them to the game.
After Jennings and his whistle were
suppressed, the fans helped him out BY
doing the whistling stunt every time a
good play was made. The habit was
taken I'D by the fans in number Of
other cities, and il was very unusual
thing to have a game pulled off in the
American League without hearing the
footing of a shrill whistle.
In Philadelphia a fan went Hughey
Jennings one better during the initial
appearance of the Tigers in that city,
and presented him with an auto horn.
Some of his old-time Baltimore friends
came over to see the Tigers play, the
nrst time the club came TO Washing
ton. and they brought with them a
cornet for Hughey. It is needless to
say that the presentation OF these two
devices helped Danish the
whistle. AT the close of the season,
Jennings had enough instruments in
his possession to start brass band on
the road.
< * x
The success and popularity of base
ball is due to the great interest that
the followers of the sport take in
everything that pertains to the game =
There are fans who are far better
versed in lots of things that men con-
nected with the sport in high positions
Some are strong on averages and can
tell you all about any player you men,