Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-11-14
BASE BALL A VERY
FUNNY, FUNNY GAME
More Peculiar in the National
Than in the Ameri-
can League.

ST. LOUIS, Mo-. November 13.-Base
ball, considered from every angle, is a
funny, funny game. It's not quite as pc
culiar in the American League as 1t Is in
the National League as the line between
the good and the bad isn't as strongly
drawn in the Johnsonian organization as
IL is in the parent body. The strong
members, Pittsburg, Chicago and New
York. are always locped around the cop.
Cincinnati and Philadelphia are generally
punched in the middle. Brooklyn, as a
rule. is efficient enough to land sixth,
while 1t is st. Louis and Boston at the
bottom.
That bit Of good management and a
| little luck will bring your team scooting
up the line in the American League has
been proven time and time again. In
1906 the Browns ran fifth and the Wolver-
ines sixth. Jennings came to Detroit.
McAleer stayed i'm St Louis. The result
was that Detroit bounded to the fore. 1t
hoped past five of its rivals In one sea
son and has captured three champion
ships in a row. The White Sox lost bril-
liant F. Jones and tumbled. The Maps
played bogus ball: were poorly handled
and dropped out OF IT. Mack and Lake
got their charges in the running. New
York used to have contender. But not
for several years. st. Louis was in the
1908 race to the finish. 1t was a tail
ender this year. Washington alone has
been a regular at the bottom
The big gag in base ball nowadays is
recruiting young timber. And talk about
your lotteries, Buying a yearling or
drilling for oil or parting with your ma
yuma for mining stock isn't marker to
this thing OF investing in young talent.
draft has got TO the point where II Ia
a joke. All sixteen big. league clubs en-
NIL hot thAt an ord
purchased outright by their bosses Is
hardly worth buying. At that, good one
gets by the wise guys once In while,
hence the club owners do the last-stro NJ
grasping act and put in a claim for juve-
niles whom they hear about or who dope
to develop.
The appended gives a good line on the
luck of base ball. Early I'm the summer
in fact. several times during the summer
seventy or SO. whose peppers don't peep
very well, spoke to NJ. Stanley Robson,
owner Of the Cardinals. dozen or more
times about a young outfelder he saw
play in Mobile. Stan. old fellow" the
knight OF the grip said more than once
that boy is a corker. Say. he takes me
back to the days of Curt WEIGH. He's a
wonder in the field and terror at the
bat You ought to get him.
Robson thanked his informant, made
a men,. and. after adieus were in order.
forgot what he heard II get fifty play
ers day of the speed of that Mobile
wonder" remarked Robson after Mr..
Travelling Man ducked away 1T
would keep me broke if / bought all
those wonderful unknowns." The Mo-
bile kid was none other than Wheat.
who Joined Brooklyn in the wind-up, and
who put up an all-round article of ball
that Cobb and Speaker, the best two
Young outfielders In the game, would
have a hard time eXcellng.
Robson and the Cardinals haven't a
warmer admirer in town than John
Celia, the West End wettery keeper In
the days before 1.-THE Id went on Celia
got a call from a tall, athletic-looking
young man either late Saturday night
or bright and early Sunday morning
He would come I'm for bottle of beer
and hike out Late Sunday night, or
sometimes early Morning morning, he
would return and partake of another
bottle. His calls were regular He al
ways carried a suitcase with him, and
after Celia got to know him he asked
him where he went every week. 'Out
10 some town to PITCH" replied the we'll
built youth On his return trip each
week Gazzolo would ask him how his
game came out. "Oh, I won il; the other
fellows weren't much"
This chap always won. and when Celia
queried for particulars he would learn
that his unknown friend shut out the
country boys on an average of four out