The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-02
GOSSIP OF THE
 MAJOR CIRCLES
BY MANHATTAN,

BY MAMMA AN.
 New York, August 1.-William Murray. the deposed manager of the Philadelphia Nationals, may not be idle long. It Is reported that the Brooklyn club is ready to open negotiations with him. Murray is regarded by baseball men generally as first-class manager. He has beenso se- riously hampered by the new owners of
 the Philadelphia club, it is said, that his removal was predicted several weeks ago. Mike Donlin lacks managerial ex- perience, which means that he has a , hard road to travel. To man up tree
 1t looks as if McGraw had pulled off another heady deal.
 Pfttsburg's temporary slump at Phila- delphia last week is reflected in this weeks batting averages. Honus Wag- ner, who a short time ago was batting at over 400 clip. is rapidly coming hack to the realms of baseball decency. The four games that Wagner played in at Philadelphia without making a hit has been the talk of the baseball world, and nobody, not even the great German him. self, has an explanation for 1t. Still, in spite of his great slump, Wagner still leads the list of batters in the National
 heague with .353, with Hyatt of the same team at .346.
 Eddie Collins, Lajoie, Cobb and Browne are having a merry tussle for the Amer ican league honors. The Quaker midget still shows the way. though he and Larry have dropped off a few points Ty Cobb climbed to a close third by gaining two points, while Browne tumbled to fair fourth by dropping ten notches
 By the way, it might be mentioned that Frank Chance of the Cubs has apolo- gized to the National Baseball comms- sion for saying rude things about that august body some time ago. Frank says he left of lot of loose talk because of a misapprehension. or words to that effect Are not those Chicago lads the greatest press agents ever? You cant tie let alone beat them at the publicity promoting game.
 Manager Lake of the Boston Ameri- cans made a good move by grabbing George Mcconnell. the pitcher released by the Tanks. The Red Socks refused to waive on the elongated fielder-pitcher and got him for s15oO He may come i, in handy later on.
 Russell Ford, the ex-Atlanta Southern league pitcher who was brought north by the Tanks. and afterwards farmed out to Jersey City. has been recalled by Manager Stallings and rejoined the Tanks. Ford has recently been pitching great ball for the Jerseyites.
 When Ban Johnson was in New York recently he said there would be four teams fighting it out for the pennant In the American league. Ban must have been drinking some of Harry Stevens near-whisky to make him see four teams in Detroit.
 Not since the beginning of the season have the Giants put in worse week than they did last. Between St. Louis and Chicago they lost all they had gained at the expense of Cincinnati. The team Tipped away the St. Louis games, but were outlucked and outplayed at Chi cago.
 On good authority 1t is reported that Frank Bowerman has signed a contract with the Detroit club.
 When Boston released Bowerman 1t was internationally and Frank may sign up
 with whom he pleases.
 If there is one position more than an- other in the Detroit club that is turning Jennings hair gray it is behind the bat and 1t is not improbable that Bowerman
 would steady his pitchers quite httie AI yIdins Frank can keep on good terms with his fellow players
 Some of the Philadelphia critics think that the New York club is getting the better of the deal in the proposed change of Donlin for Masee. Others are or the away playing strength with bare chance of getting a good manager. One or two