The Newark star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1909, 1909-08-28
GINGER A BIG
HELP IN BASEBALL
BY OLD SPORT.
THERE is a difference in the ac-
tions of a major and minor
league nlaYer. One cannot tell

NAoAA9 u
league player. One cannot tel
exactly what 1t really is, but the play
ers in the big show act differently than
those who are identified with the So
called rural teams. However, n often
witnesses the work of a player on an
amateur team who has all of the pc
cuIiarities and real actions of the staid
old major Lacquer.
Take Dots" Miller, for instance.
He acted like a big league player from
the time he first commenced to at
tract attention in playing on the anna
teur teams of this vicinity. There are
others around Newark who have all
of the earmarks of major leaguers,
and a majority of them are sure to
succeed if given the proper amount OF
encouragement. OF course, few play
ers can expect to jump into the front
rank of diamond stars as quickly as
Miller did. His case is rather eXcep-
tional. but there is absolutely no rea-
son why the boys who look as good
as the Kearny %"phenom" should not
make good. Anent actions of the play
ers, 1t is recalled that when Jack O'Con-
nor was a member of the New York
American League team he sat in the
press box one day watching the play.
One team tried out in practise a
catcher who had been in the minor
leagues for five years or more.
O'Connor gave one fleeing glance
at the backstop as he gathered in a
throw from the outfield n whipped
the bali to secondA
Hell never do,'Asaid Jack.
"Oh. come now, don't be j'alous,'
remarked one of the boys in the press
box, facetiously. Everybody in this
business has to have a start. You
were not always a major league
catcher"
There's where you're wrong re-
marked "Rowdy' Jack. Il didn't al
ways have a major league job, but
L had major league ideas"
"How do you figure this new catcher
will not do?"
"He hasn't the major league style"
said O'Connor bluntly. III bet he's
been in the minors a half-dozen years,
but he hasn't caught on to the major
league way of handling the ball.
O'Connor was correct. After two
weeks of patient but futile effort to
show him the major league way
the management sent the recruit back
to the minors, where he was q bright
star for several seasons.
There is. peculiarly enough, a major
league and a minor league style or
way There are many minor league
players who never learn the major
league idea. 1t isn't a question of size
or of quickness or of anything except
of method, ability to understand and
to grasp the method of playing ball
in fast company, where a certain
form prevails that distinguishes it
from the form" in small cities.
Del Howard is of the opinion that
it is no cinch to be a utility player,
and he is about right.
Since Arthur Holman, n time being
the utility man of the country, has
come into the position of a regular on
the Chicago National team, George
Howard, or Del" as he is known to
his friends, has succeeded him in the
office of filler-in, and has proved a
most acceptable substitute.
Speaking of the wcrk of the utility
man. Howard says: 1t is very much
harder to sit or the bench ready at all
times to jump in to take the place of
some other player than it is to be in
the game every day. Sitting and wait
ing, probably for a week at a time,
without a chance to get out and show
what you Ear do, is, to say the least,
very irksome. You see your fellow
players out on the field running around
enjoying themselves and winning the
| plaudits of the spectators, and vol
have to stay there and cool your heels
and smother your impotence as best
you may.
y of a sudden, some day when you
least expect it, the manager calls on
you to go in and play. Your fellow
players are rather ehary of you, and
the people in the stand look upon o
with eye askance. 1t is up to you to
get out and fill the other fellows shoes;
yes, even do better, otherwise the
wrath Of the enraged multitude will de-
scend on your undeserving head. Get
into the game without any chance of
warming up, and, nine times out of
ten at a critical moment, when to make
good means to win and to slip up
means to lose. Small wonder that you
are nervous.
THE slightest error draws down on
you a pile of criticism. Should the reg
ular player nave made the same mis-
take it would not nave been noticed,
but with the utility man it is set down
in big black letters on the page of the
managers blacklist.
"A very short time, eve five min
utes, may settle the life ofaa man as a
ball player. In the highly nervous state
of mind and body that you are in When
o get your try-out you canno do
yourself justice. There is nothing more
CALLING than to be taken out of the
game for some little %offense, when you
know deep down in your heart that
you have the makings of a good first
class ball tosser."