The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-08-04


The following deduction, which is
worthy of consideration is from the
pen of Harlan T. Mcdaniel of the Mem
phis News-scimitar:
Turtles showed at Nashville very con-
clusively that the difference between a
flag winner and a tail-ende is Just one
run in most cases. The winning team
cops the close games where one run de-
cides, where one bad play costs a run;
where one bold move gains a run. At
Nashville, Memphis dropped four games.
Each and every defeat was by margin
OF one run. bad breaks is the tale of
losing team after a string of one
run defeats. Winning teams make the
breaks break right.
Percy H. Whiting, of the Atlanta
Georgian. hands Sleepyvine a stiff
punch in the following excerpt:
The Montgomery franchise is on the
market.
Despite the fact that the team is
playing baseball the like of which has
seldom been seen before in Sleepy
vile, the attendance is off a block and
the franchise owners are ready to Quit
In fact. the owners are dickering with
Chattanooga right now
Well. probably the South ern league
will continue to exist, with or without
Montgomery. That town has never been
money-maker anyhow.
There have never been but five con-
sistent moneymakers in the Southern
league, anyway-Atlanta, New Orleans
Memphis, Nashville and Birmingham
Sometimes not all of tn csc clubs have
paid, but in the main they have all
been profitable.
Wouldn't it be a pippin league made
up of Atlanta. Nashville, Birmingham,
New Orleans, Memphis and Mobile
Some league, that However, it will
probably never come. There will al
ways be demand for the football
franchise"-the ones that have been or
will be kicked around the south, from
town to town.
Grantland Rice of the Nashville Ten
nessean, in the following, illustrates how
hammering can and does destroy ball
clubs:
Year in and year out Charley Frank
builds up his ball club from veterans
who have seen their big show day. Tn
like other managers, he has no place on
his club for youngsters. The answer is
easy. The best-lookine youngster in the
business could never stand up under the
gaff he'd be sure to receive from the
denizens of Franks bleaehers and grand
there from April to September. and be-
fore the campaign is a month under way
any young recruit who happens to be
within spiking distance is hunting ND
the railroad schedule for the next train
The Dutchman Is wise enough to figure
that the old boys, used to the verbal wal
lop, slide from under the deluge like a
duck taking water. The wild howl from
rooters' row whistles through one listener
and out the other. They take it with
yawn, the only harmful effect being that
all enthusiasm In the chase soon oozes
out and the game from then on becomes
mechanical. This accounts largely for
the reason that more Pelican ball clubs,
picked every spring on form to lead the
procession, rarely come over with the
September goods. Not that the club is
ratified or broken up by the hammering,
but the zest of extra effort fades out
and the sprint passes into an easy-going,
take-it-easy stride. A batch of young
sters, working with more enthusiasm I'M
der better conditions, would last about
q minutes before the avalanche of abuse
and invective showered upon the battle
field after bad break or few home
disasters. All that Charley can do is to
lay in a supply of hides that are i'm
pervious to the cutting shafts of the Pei
lean Bugs Otherwise, the hide would be
off his club before June was off the cal
endar. You can figure out about how
good it must make a ball club feel to
have the home crowd arise in a body
and cheer for the visiting club. That's
the average New Orleans deal, according
to the testimony of managers and ball
players who have fought there this sea-
son. Under such conditions the home ath-
lete is so keyed up over winning and so
chucked up with enthusiasm that he