The morning journal-courier., 1908-08-15

Bridgeport at Springfield.
 Close and doubtful decisions have been rendered numerous times, poor fjudgment of plays by the umpire has caused protested games, umpires with the fog eye disease have been hooted at and indicator manipulators who gave poor and rank decisions have been regarded as owners of deransed craniums and have been attacked by the crowds at baseball games. Con- sidering this the local fans as well as the visiting ball tossers are still won dering how it happened that the in- dividual who officiated at yesterdays games at the prairie, was fortunate enough to migrate with whole scalp. Lucky for that ''ump," the empty soda bottles had been safely slowed away for the way in which Lawton called balls and strikes was enough to cre- ate e blush upon the bat boy, who easily could have made much better guesses. The crowd was kept in an incessant turmoil by Lawton's de- cisions, which changed from bad to worse. In fact. Absconder Lawton was the whole cheese, full of holes. When he gave the game to the visi- tors in the second inning 1t was bad enough, but when he frustrated every attempt of the locals to catch up, by outrageous robberies, on balls and strikes, the local players began to >t1xo 1Aoa td congregated about the umpire. who knew little, if anything at all about the national game, and worked hard to have him see his foolish mistakes. But of little good.
 The visitors were given their chance flor raising dispute when Abs. Law ton began to croak out his decisions against them. Their best swatters were famed with the help of the umpire, and wretched decisions were given them as well as the locals. That took them by storm and they began to exhibit fistic scraps on the diamond. The umpire then began to remember that he had the right to fine players and was about to impose few when he realized that he should not be too nasty. If Lawton should have fined anybody he should have fined him. self and make his umpiring career a Short lived one.
 < It was little wonder that President Tracy was of the opinion that Lawton was not good enough for the recent Hartford-Springf1eld forfeited game Lawton would be unable to umpire Ian amateur game of ball, leaving talone a professional contest. This same ump. offlclated his first game the learly part of the season and his per- yformance was wretched one.
 It was too pad to think that such an incident should have occurred and marred the brilliant playing of the participants, who jumped right into {, the contest from the start and made 1t a thrilling and exciting contest, both the locals and Dan O'Neil's players each getting game.
 First Game.
 The Springfield contingent started the scoring in the second session. Waite, center, fielder, singling to left field. Yale, first sacker, sacrificed but managed to purloin first on an at- tempt to catch Waite. McAndrews of the dizzy corner, then sacrificed, ad- vancing both men a peg. Burns who played beautiful game throughout the day, fielding perfectly at short stop, then won the contest for his hv laainp n gip ol6 over third bag. Waite scored all right, but when Yale came pufflng in general mixup occurred. As he neared the plate, Waters, the local backstop, was about to tag him when Powell, who was at bat, deliberately got in his way. As result of this interference Yale scored. AS mat ter of fact the runner should have been declared out for Waters would have easily tagged him had he not been interfered with. The ump. was beWildered and let the run stand, practically giving the game to the visitors.
 The locals had their say in thelr chance at bat in this inning, getting tner only tally. simmons, the only local 300 sticker, smashed out a pretty three-bagger and Havel work ing the squeeze play to perfection scored Simmons amidst tremendous applause, for the crowd certainly en- joyed heady playing. After this in- ming neither side scored. Big Andy Herbst of our team, pitched great ball, only allowing four hits Powell, who pitched the siXteen-inning game against the locals at Springfield also twirled yesterday and again won out.
 George Bones men had many chances to score, but failed to make good on account of the ump. who put up the worst exhibition of um- piring ever seen here. Kid Sher- wood was a victim to his punkness especially in the final session, when with q man on third and two down he had the third strike called on him, which was far distant from the plate. This smashed the lid on the locals chance of winning as this de- clsion lost the game for them,
 Jerry Connell, right garden for the