The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-01-10
WILL BREATHE
 OF BASEBALL South Soon Scene of
 1 Activity. EARLIEST START ON RECORD Some Magnates Are Chasing Players
 Like in Spring. Big Cnl ChappeIle Is One of Athletes working Out Kinks on Ice--Eye on Southern Lineup This Season.

| With big army of athletes try
 ing to work the winter stiffness out | of dtns and less and heads though
 some ot them that latter IS a physi- | cal fmpossibility- baseball season | of 1909 will be on good and proper in
 a little over thirty days.
 Big Bill Chappel:e, the ex-freak
 Memphis hurler who drifted into the | ranks of the big leagues. has the | the early bird. He Is already in the I South and has commenced hard work over in Memphis. Most of the Amer ican League clubs will get busy and | ter part of next month or. the first oi March Everything in the baseball
 line seems to be out for business this
 season judging from the early start start | that they have made. and if the 1908
 season is not hummer then we miss Il our guess.
 Down here in Dixie there is just
 East. The difference though Is that things down here arc necessarily kept lpretty quiet about this time. The
 sseas9n Sf tns Is ihat the flu9s Fshrn in the | to get in the scramble for some of | the men that the big fellows turn 1 loose after waivers have been secured on them.
 In the meantime the eight clubs of | this league are watching each other | like hawks, ard when the time comes
 not use the rush to be first when the Tor the big leagues to cut the guy ropes on the players that they can government homestead lands are open
 ed will look like funeral procession when stacked tip against the mad
 scramble for the overflow of the big ! fellows.
 Coming right home Ed Greminger is
 probably as well heeled as any manager | will he have in regard to his slab department. The infield is cinched and third base will be taken care of
 son. No names have been given out as yet for the good reason that Grem-
 finger and President Chambers have
 some cards with their faces down that show-downs is called for and there is no earthly chance for any of the other seven clubs to get wise.
 pipe cinch as the middle ground.
 pretty sure of. This wi1 put five men men in the lots when the oEfit reports Greminger should be able to land a
 trio of gardeners that will look
 mighty good in this league.
 About Hopkins.
 Archie Persons, of course. will be on
 the job again ana 1t looks now as if
 SIS Hopkins will be the goods again. about Hopkins is that he is just a bit inclined to loaf at times. There will
 be three men making a try for the lots--one of them one of the best ieague--and 1niesh Hopkins gets little more steam on this spring he is
 liable to be nnshed off the local map. the only thing that looks nebuious now. The local club will have shan non and. Krebs to trade or sell. and
 its a safe bet to say that Hub Hart that Will be up to the standard of the ex-White Sox man.
 When the squad have all reported in March Greminger will have some- thing like twenty-two men to look
 over. He will have until the May IA to wleid his scythe, and while he will
 Be Smith ever army n R3ayeirf i baS aas
 its safe bet that he can get fifteen good ones out of his lot of twenty two, and then the difference between Gremingers and Smiths outfits this
 spring is that Big Eds will be quality
 and smiths quantity.
 Up in Nashville Bernhard Is making
 leader is doig the picture without
 words" act. Grantland Rice, however,
 is making the soft insinuation that vile outfield. He says that while the | outfield last year was the best in the | world.-and it's part of the game to
 not dent the ball quite as much as was | wanted.
 royer in Memphis Charlie Babb is
 giving out lots of names, but the
 somebody off with a big bluff. The Grecian patriarch over in Judge l Kavanaugh's town is about the most retiring of the bunch. He is preserv-
 ing In cold storage a most discreet
 silence, though occasionally he comes rto life and really has almost human intelligence. It seems that he thought his ball yard was all messed up by counterfeit ball tossers last season. and nobody is going to argue with
 him about that-and he has secured a
 gummed up thing out of his lot. His Mullaney scheme worked all right and | the ex-Montgomery first baseman Is at liberty to again head the Jackson vile team in the South Atlantic. Be- fore he had done that, though, Finn bought Bobby Tarelton from the New putting up. holler and says that be- ing as he Is twenty-one years of age,
 free agent and able to conduct his
 own affairs he will do as his own
 go hang.
 'Tarleton claims that as the P. and
 end of the season up there as his contract called for he is free to hit the train again any place he wishes. This may be grand old bluff-and then again it may be straight-but it's pretty likely that Tarelton will be on first for the Travellers when the gong taps.
 Up in Birmingham Molesworth is
 letting some big talk ooze from his
 system-or the newspapers up there
 are doing that same for hlm-but
 after that sacrilege that he had for a ball team last summer he will have
 to go pretty fast to get anything even near-classy this year.
 George Reed Is putting in some
 hard work for the Mobile people but
 team to make the showing that Tom
 Fisher did last summer. Reed is a
 first rate manager bat he is not the manager that Fisher is or was The
 red-headed pitcher went through the season with a second rate team and kept them keyed up and fighting near the top all the season.
 leans that he will have a crowd this year that can travel faster than the
 bunch he had in 1908. All we have to say to that is that if he can live up to that Frank will have a neat out fit that will cause a lot of tall hustling
 fin this Southern country of ours. After the whole thing is washed out and threshed out it assures one thing the fans in the Southern League the coming season that they have eyer | glued their lamps on. And stick a pin right here-the Climbers will stay well up in the running all the year
 and finish close to the top in Sep | tember.