Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-04-08
BRONKIE'S TRAINING TRAP.
Invents Apparatus to Help Him in
 Fielding.

South Manchester, April Her man Manchester Bronkie will start active training Monday, although he has been getting into form all win ter and when the season opens he will be ill midsummer style. He is to report in Waterbury on April 15 and in order to be fit he will get
 down to special diet Monday, Last spring he used for the first time his inverted bath-tub, and has added another new contrivance this spring. His invention is for aiding him in fielding, both in the infield, while he is in the pitchers box and also while he is chasing high ones out in the gardens.
 Bronkie had just finished saving four sticks of four-foot wood when the reporter reached his home. He was busy chopping it into stove lengths and at the same time went on to tell all the advantage that was gained by such exercise. He said that he had been chopping and saw ing wood all winter and he found that in the saving the muscles of his, arms and back were developed and he expected that this summer when he puts the willow to the leather that it will travel. The chopping process makes his hands hard and he has no fear of ball stinging them. Having finished this work Bronkie led the way to the rear of his father-in-law' barn where he has set up his pitching machine. the inverted bath tub. He has made but little change in this from last year, only adding new tin lining as the old one was worn out last spring. Having looked this over the way to the lots located in the rear of the house, was shown by Bronkie and what he has invented for fielding is so simple that it is to be wondered at that it has not been thought of before.
 Bronkie was thinking about get ting it patented. but has changed his mind and gave consent to allow it to be explained so that other base ball players might get some benefit from it. It is composed of two wagon wheels, on which the axel has been shortened until the two wheels were both about two and a half feet apart. From the rim of each con meeting each other, he placed round pieces of wood, very hard, and these are placed at distances of two and a half inches apart. The whole bus mess when finished looked like a water wheel. Connected with the axel. which runs between the two wheels, there is placed a flve-inch bully and this in turn is connected by belt with gasolene engine, made by Bronkie himself. The belt is so arranged that the engine when started. He stands back a distance of sixty-fye feet and throws at the moving wheel. The pulley on the axel makes three hundred Fevolu- tions a minute, and the rims of the wheel being fifty times as large as the pulley makes the outside of the wheel go at the rate of 15,000 re- yolutions a minute or much faster than a batter swings al ball. The wheel being turned towards him makes the ball take downward motion when Bronkie throws at it and this knocks good fast grounders and 1t keeps him on the jump to get in front of them. He may throw a low ball and this drops right in front of the wheel just as a hunted ball will do. IL has given him good infield practice. Tn case he wants to practice catching fly balls all he has 10 do is to cross the belt that runs from the engine to the axel of the wheel and this makes the wheen turn away from him. He then secures the service of a small boy who throws at the nov ing wheel and the ball Is caught on one of the bat like arrangements that is connected with the wheel and results in a fiy ball being knock ed.
 It was little too dark to show the full operations of the rev inven- ton the other night. but the neigh bors all say that they have seen it work. It has been Of great help tO Bronkie, as living in Hillstown he does not have the number cf people l to play with that he would If he was living in the more thickly settled | part of the town.