The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-04-07

around ready to give his wonderful pitching arm rub. And he went on h1Il winning his games. too. rwenty-ons tive games. What would these mod ern pitching wonders think Of doing all that work, and with nobody to min- ister unto them between innings7
 well suppose this training busi- ness Is in line with the march of pro- gress fin baseball. but at that, I don't believe we have any better pitchers to- day than Radbourne. Sweeney. Clark was the golden era of pitchers. What might those great fellows have done had they been given the grooming that the present-day twirlers receiver"
 The advent of the trainer among the ball teams Is of quite recent date That Ills servEes are needed must be taken Tor granted. since every ball team in the major leagues has one at least part minor league clubs employ a trainer during the early part of the year, while the pitchers are rounding into form.
 1T a star player has corn on his watched by the trainer with all the care given the prima donna's vocal ' If things keep going on this way" have to provide a valet for each player to carry his glove out to him.
 :. speaking of gloves" continued Sul- livan. who. by the way. formed the dnctfon no of those ne ss eidlns rse sioyes 5ye that caused the first big decrease in batting. Base hits, are knocked down and smothered nowadays which the sSl ef ss imsnsy s sa ase sssge sSsdn ss gloves are a good thing. They may take little away from the ruggedness of the game. but I guess there Is no danger of the national pastime becom- -
 "spectators like to see the wonder ful catches and running scoops of sround hits. Without the use of the per cent of the difacult chances they do now.
 Some of the patrons of baseball may argue to do away with the gloves If # want to say that those same fans would be the first to protest when the batting was increased.
 We hear~a good deal about Give of fact, it is not more hitting that the public wants. The fans want the home clubs to hit more in every case. That's all They don't want the opposing the feid. I watch bali games gam i in every every big league city and almost ever minor league city every season, and it Is in- variably the case that when the visit ing ing club IS on 2 hitting rampage the their own.boys hit, but when the shoe IS on the other foot. my. how they hoi-
 "No. there Is batting enough right now: It is the i to 0 game that peo- pie like to talk about. A mess of runs In one Inning often sends a part of the crowd home. Of course like to see a batsmen ,, get on the bases fairly often every fan. But when they begin com pieting the circuit in droves it is too much. The game gets one-sided in a minnte' m and the interest Is sapped out or the contest for it seldom happens that both sides are killing the bail at the same time.'
 Perhaps no man has had his finger on the baseball fans pulse more in- Hart who e or atea tsm the It fon1 %as strike MF: rule, compellea it's adoption after a long light, and soon saw 1t universally
 Mir. Hart advocated it's passage to shorten games. It also decreased the batting to quite an extent. He was slad os that. too. for he claimed that Tore closer. the public had manifested greater interest in the games.
 The public pays the bills," said MT. people what they want?" ~ 'ne
 Getting back to the comparatively easy time that the modern pitcher has. Scout Sullivan has called attention to ,, tne ott rev demands demands put upon pitcher from pitching. He reminds us that nothing IS expected of pitcher when he goes to bat. and he never fs asked to go out and steal a base
 ''Oh, we'll, what do you expect? IIe IS only the pitcher" the fans say when the twirler goes to bat. steps back s.n,y, nearly int. into the water bucket and
 "only the pitcher. indeedr' says sul- livan. Well. Bobby Carruthers and Dave Foutz were only the pitchers, too. but nothing could keep them from like a deer. This may be an age of specialists, but I think it is carrying matters too far when a pitcher is ex- smpt from everything but hurling the
 Some people have even gone SO far as to advocate that a pitcher be ex. eused entirely from going to the bat. nnas nnsson IS , Sli .owrs wrong Sac according to my son why pitchers should not be ex- pected to hit quite as well as men who are in the game every day. They. don't make a-mistake to take their poor showing with the stick as a joke. Their base Its are usually the most effect- i've. because they are least expected, and they bring up the head of the list. which Is apt to start a rally.
 V T don't wish to take too much credit away from the pitchers of today. for there are some wonderful men among them, but their work cut out for them is not a ,marker to what was expected of the. old-timers. When Ed Walsh pitched sixty five games for the White Sox last season 1t was the talk of the baseball world. Walsh would have qualified to work alongside of Clark son and Keefe and those fellows Tn the eighties some of the best clubs had only two pitchers to select from. or course that number will be whittled down fully 50 per cent. but not enw nine, or ten pitchers So I claim inc c. '''t~~ ~r tNha~ should consider himS self pretty fortunate, with his light
 assIsIance from masseurs and specialists