The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-02-21
Foster Describes Some of Ex-
periences OF Players on
Trip Around Circuit.

n - ANY q fan, upon seeing the
I'VE players Of the Newark East
ern League team board a train
for the west, has watched with long
ing eyes as the string of stately Pull
mans pulled out of the Market street
station, and remarked to himself, Gee,
it's great to be a ball player"
To the players, however, those trips
are not pleasure excursions. They be-
come monotonous in a short time and
are tolerated only because they are
necessities.
The Eastern League has a long cir
cult. and a player gets his fill of rail-
reading with one swing around the
Western half, taking in Buffalo, Roch-
ester, Toronto and Montreal. In the
Southern League the jumps arc even
longer. There's many Il mile post be-
tween Atlanta and New Orleans.
With all that, a ball players life is
not a hard one, especially if the man
ager is easy on his men. In that re-
spect Walter Burnham was voted a
prince of good fellows, though a policy
of such leniency does not always pro-
,duce the best of results.
l took a jaunt round the Eastern
League circuit last season on Newark's
first trip away from honT%. The team
rushed through nine innings on a Sun
day afternoon and after the game
dotted their baseball toys, jumped into
their store clothes n made a Decline
for the Pennsylvania Railroad depot.
We steamed out of Newark on a Lee
high Valley express. leaving at 6:12 p.
m. and rolled into Toronto at 10:45 the
following morning, a run of more than
sixteen hours.
The first act of the players upon
boarding the train was TO rush for the
dining car. All hands ordered every
thing that looked good on the bill of
fare. Why wouldn't they? The man
ager does the paying on the road AT
home, where the players have to she'll
out their own cash, a twenty-five cent
meal might do.
And sayi When o get eighteen or
twenty ball players together, n tell
ing how he remembered breaking up a
certain game with a ive-base hit or
so; another telling how he got all the
umpires in the league afraid of him,
and still another, probably a pitcher,
informing his pals the certain kind of
balls that Thoney. Murray and certain
other ~sluggers can't hit, the mar in
the upper berth next door must think
the gabfest worse than a "kaffee-
klatch.'
Along about midnight, just as the
lights of the burning waste heaps of
the coal mines at Wilkesbarre hove
into sight, the players turned into their
little trundle beds.
where's my BERTH asked Pitcher
! Mccarthy. who at that time was a
green recruit.
up on the third floor came the
reply from one of the invisible beds.
You're supposed to sit up and watch
the jewelry. Mac" another veteran was
heard to say.
shortly before : o'clock the train
rolled into Buffalo, continuing on its
way to Suspension Bridge, where a good
view of the Niagara rapids Is gained.
At Niagara Falls, Canadian side, the
team boarded a train of the Grand
Trunk Railway. which landed the play
ers in Toronto. going via Hamilton. ont
The players put up at the Grand
Union Hotel ard had just enough time
TO dine and wash up before the clarion
tones of a bugle sounded the signal for
tho start to the ball grounds.
The trip to the grounds was made
on a natty looking tally-ho, which
passed through the principal streets OF
the city. En- route. Jimmie Jones. who
Is quite a bugler. caused the natives Of
Canada and British subjects to gapt
with surprise by reeling of a string Of
Yankee Doodle tunes.
Wiedenmayer's Park. in this city
isn't noted for its beautiful layout ane
surroundings. but it has a shade OF
'those Toronto grounds This year tbs