Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-17
SLUMPITIS time
WORRIES CHIEFS
WANING BASEBALL SEASON
BRINGS TROUBLE
"Heads Up, No sagging," Is Cry Of
Leaders of Teams as End of Long
Summers Grind Begins
to Approach

NEW YORK, Aug. 16.-In another
period of the waning season when the
managers of ball clubs worry by day
and dream by night of that thing
called slumpitis.
You savYy slumpitis, OF course. II
that tobog number
The managers are getting hoarse and
some of them are losing their VOICES
saying to their teams, individually and
collectively, Heads up"
They seek to ward off slumpitis, you
see, by jollying the players along with
stuff that sounds as II IL is coming
from the coaching boxes.
Heads up-no sagglng!" hoarsely
growls the club manager to MS punch
when they're all together; and then ne
gets individuals of the uutfit off INTO
shadowy corners, pins 'em to stanch-
ions, looks 'em right smack-dab IN the
eve with his worried, impallng look,
and sezze again. still more hoarsely,
Heads up, l say, doggone it all! Heads
up-d'ye get that|'
1t gets to be a sort of bug at this sea-
son for the managers to say that. Ihey
saw IL even to 'emselves. They jabber
It like ancient mariners chipper-chap-
pering their shibboleths. Their nerves
are tangled, y'see, with horrld, hlde-
Gus fear of the looming slumpltls' the
disease that particularly comes along
and taxes 1IS MdiiOD dL DcIll PloJ SA5 NAiA
ball clubs at this season of the year;
and SO they go about seeking to diffuse
announcement and spirit and ginj and
pep and things by means Of the heads-
up slogan.
Well, they need to.
A ball club that tobogs ct. this season
of the year is in German, you might
say. This is the least tidy period OF all
the ball-playing season for any clup
that has any chance at all to groove
into the slumpitis chute. The answer is
that always when one club gets at
tackled by slumpitis the other non
slumping clubs are so Internally tickled
over the situation that they everyday
themselves and ride rough-shod over
the slumping ones and come down on
'em like the wolf on the fold ana d
thousand o. brick Every team in the
big leagues has its wicks out for the
club that shows signs of slumpitls' ana
when the first symptom appears all Oh
the watchful teams, studying the
slumping outfit with cold, cruelty cal
culatine glances. say to each other
"Hol The tobog for those fellers, hey?
Well. let's Jump in and murder emf
It's the old and same case as that OF
the disabled shark When a shark gets
a nicked fin or a clipped tail or sufters
some other little disablement like that,
a. disablement not in itself sufficient to
put II out of business but merely to
cause 1t to lay up for while for re
pairs il it gets a chance, the other all
! there and not disabled sharks gather in
a close, sardonic group around the
damaged one and begin to pick out
| with their eyes parts of It's carcass
that they figure might taste good.
Strong Against Weak
| Toolr at the moor old bum thai
| thinks it's a shark and still alive tht
! husky sharks say to each other in the
| shark patois and then they all MAKE
a little simultaneous dive for it anC
come up in a compact bunch under
meath the temporarily y-out-of-busines'
member of their species, and just about
| four seconds later there isn't enough
| left of the disabled one to grease Il
griddle. He's been involuntarily dis
| tributed around as it were, to fatter
! up the eating batting averages of his
pals, and that settles his hash, liter
| ally.
And that's just about how the ball
clubs of league feel toward the clun
that they perceive, with their cunnin
| little shrewd way of perceiving, has the
initial symptoms of slumpitis.
"Well, there they go-we won't do
one single, solitary thing but slaughter
those sons o. sea cooks, hey, mateys?'
humble the players of the rival CLUBS
to each other: and then the manager
of the team that's suffering from
slumpitis begins to gnaw his finger
nails down to the quick and to grow
nice little darkish circles under his
lamps and to mooch around mumbling
to himself and to develop a crab-grouch
that makes the bellboys of the hotels
fear that he may be night doctor in
disguise; and he's never the same man
again, except as to his name and the
clothes he wears, until he manages to
dig his club out of it's case of slumpitls;
that is to say, If he does so manage TO
dig it: and his chance of accomplish
ing that, when his team develops
sInmpitis at this season of the year, is
about one In ten or maybe little lesss