Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-07-12

mond artist is fraught with the most
hard work and trouble. Men in bust
ress who receive large salaries, and go
about at their leisure, with seemingly
nothing to do, work, we are told, with
their brains. But, to use the popular
phraseOlogy, the ball tosser gets out
every day and enjoys himself for
cOple of hours playing good healthy
game, and then has the rest Of his time
to himself. 1t all sounds very fine, but
it comes long way from hitting the
target.
Baseball is a good healthy game all
right, and there's much enjoyment to
be had playing it, but when you have
to get out, day in and day out, for
six or seven months, and play. think
you not it is likely to grow rather mo-
rotonous and Wearisome? No matter
whether you feel lively or listless, so
long as you can stand up, you have to
keep at it, and turn out mighty per-
feet wor, or you'll find yourself looking
for a new occupation. It's no joke
when you're feeling in the dumps, to
trot out on field, with the sun beat
at 80 or whereabouts, and jump around
and act as though the greatest pleas
ure in the world for you consisted in
running your legs off, and getting in
front of balls that are coming your
way at the rate of mile a minute.
A persons brain, you all know. is
quite likely to become weary when
worked too much. In most cases, the
brain worker, when obsessed by this
tired feeling, takes himself off to the
country and enjoys himself for a
couple of weeks. until his mental mech
anism has recovered its equilibrium
But the baseball man. who is essential
ly a brain worker. has to stick right to
his job. no matter how worked out he
feels. Many hold the opinion that the
great qualification for the baseballist
is physical strength. But they are
wrong. To be successful in the national
game one must be plentifully endow-
ed with grey matter. It's a case of
think. think, all the time, and the fell
low who trusts to luck and does not
see to it that he has his brains under
under full steam every minute will not
last long.
You have to study, both from per-
sonal observation and from books and
newspapers. the peculiarities of every
man who plays on any of the teams in
the league with you. You have to know
just where this player is likely to hit
an inshoot, and where he is likely to
send a straight ball or an outshoot
You have to know how much lead
certain player can give off a base be-
fore you can catch him mapping. You
have to discover what player is likely
to lay down bunt, and what one will
always hit it out
Then you will have to make a long eX-
haCstive study of the pitchers, so that
you will be able once in while to out
guess them. If q player can be reason
ably sure of what a pitcher is going to
serve up to him it will improve his bat
ting ability hundred per cent. Then
you have to get into your head a long
and complicated series of signals, which
cover almost every imaginable twist and
turn Of a baseball game You have to
have pretty good set of brains to get
a whole lot of signs down to such perfec-
ton that you can recognize them on the
instant and act Immediately, though you
may be almost crazy with excitement,
and have a mad mob of 10000 or 10000
people shrieking at you
Ball players. like all other human be-
ngs, have nerves and again, as in the
Ease of these other humans, these nerves
are apt to go bad when too much strain
IS placed on them. And what greater
strain i'm apipp tho
than to know that upon you alone de-
bends the winning of a game which may
perhaps mean the capturing of a pennant
and the addition of thousands of dollars
% your employers profits. and the sala-
les of your fellow players and yourself.
The great uncertainty of baseball makes
very player have the feeling that to him
alone is likely to come the chance to
make or mar the work of an entire sea-
son. A little error at a crucial moment,
and everything will be lost Don't you
thing that it is quite liable to worry a
person. who has to stand there on the
diamond couple oil hours a day, for
perhaps a week at a time, to know that
1t any moment the ball is perhaps coming
lis way and that he must make good?
They talk about the great strain that
he engineer on a fast train works under.
he does, but the great strain on him is
lot any greater than that on the ball
player. The engineer knows that il ev-
,rything holds together, as he is almost
certain It will. he is running
10 very great risk. The ball player, on
he other hand, knows that there is no
elling what is about to occur. For the
engineer there are but two courses of