Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-05-10
BALL PLAYERS STALL
IN REGARD TO AGES
OLD TIMER TRIED TO PASS
AS KID
Ed DeIehanty Always Had Rotor
Ready for Fresh Colts Who
Joshed Him About Long
Service

PITTSBURG, May 9.-The boys were
talking about age in baseball
There's more four-fiushing on age in
the game than there is In any other
business" vowed Bill Donovan. 1.-The
theatrical profession is not barred. It's
impossible almost to find a ball player
still in active service who has passed
the age of 80, II you believe what he
says. The most wonderful part of Cy
Young Is not his pitching record; it's
the fact that he is willing to admit he's
Al. I'm willing to wager some coin that
Cy isn't the only man in the major
league who has reached that age. Ten
to one they are being written up as
colts, just breaking in"
The ball player Is peculiar on the age
question. No matter how great a game
many of them play, they fear the signs
of age. They dread the time when their
arms will get stiff and they will have
to give up the sport In which they have
spent a lifetime of pleasure. They dis
like the suggestion that they are get
ting gray or bald because It suggests
the time when they shall have to make
way for stronger and younger men.
"It makes a hit with me the way
some colts pass on their age" con-
tinued Donovan. "They are like school
girls. You couldn't get some ball play
ers past the age of % with a derrick"
Detroit last year had colt pitcher
who passed as a young fellow. He said
he was 25 Nobody had the heart to
wake him up to the fact that he was
not getting away with 1t, and so he con-
tinued with the bluff. Such and such
an event of few years ago was be
fore his time" He had a lot of fun
posing as a coy. green young thing.
After he had left the club to seek new
fields of endeavor 1t was found that he
hod Of 10 q q
a matter of fact. was 81 years DID, and
he was just breaking into the majors.
Cy Young has a wonderful record of
having worked for eighteen or nineteen
years as a major league pitcher with
percentage of games won well over the
500 mark. but his age is really nothing
wonderful, or would not be considered
so If the ages of some Of the diamond
stars still doing business could be
truthfully tabulated.
There isn't at the present time one
mustache in baseball. 1t is just an evil
dence of the general tendency of the
ball player to dodge signs of age. The
hirsute decorations have habit Of be-
coming tinged with gray ofttimes and
when the ball player gets slow on his
feet and does the "stalling" stunt
starting late for ball and pretending
he made a desperate effort to get 1.-THE
doesn't want the manager reminded of
his age by any such plain evidence as
a mustache.
big Ed Delehanty always used to be
grouchy about his age" says Bill
Coughlin. Whenever any of the boys
would pull off the gag about paying so
cents to see him play when they were
children he would always come back at
them with:
well, straighten up, or you'll soon
be paying so cents to see me again.
Speaking of the age question, Sam
Crawford gives a new reason for the
success of Cy Young.
Young has lasted as long as he has,
think" says Sam, because he seldom
uses a curve ball, and when he does
pitch one it is just little twister. The
curve wears a mans arm out more
quickly than does speed. Young de-
ponds almost solely on his speed and
control. If he had used curve ball the
way the average pitcher does I don't
think he would be up there today the
way he is