The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-08-26
LITTLE men Are
OFTEN SLUGGERS
Player Don't Have to be a Giant to
be a Swat Artist in Big Leagues
in Present Day Base
Ball.
COBB IS NOT A BIG MAN
Willie Keller Was a Midget But Had
Great Batting Averase-And
There are Score of
Others.

me average layman--the fan who /
IS unacquatnted with the inner and |
outer conditions of the game. but |
yves 10 see It played is of the natur- I
al opinion that champion batsman,
d siusger of vast and virile vigor,
must be Hercules, the personifica- /
tlon OF muscled humanity. a heavy
hitter, the man who drives out the I
triples and the home runs. so it would
logically SEEM should be of gigantic !
sineW, able to perform feats of weight
lnSlhg and hammer throwing and
thin Or weakly player should not even
De considered as a batting possibility. |
and yet. strange as it may seem, !
some of the burliest, huskiest. most
muscular ball tossers in the land are
purile marks at bat, utterly unable to
get their names in the elite circle of
the 800 hitters; while others slim
and almost girlish in their lack of
corded sinews, are tremendous slug
gers, men who stand near the top
OF the batting records year after year
Wherefore such freakish defiance of
the laws governing natural strength
and the survival of the fittest. How on
earth can such things be?
A keen sighted eye and a quick
command of movement are superior
to all the elephantine muscles that
were ever assembled on burly
frame. OF course, when a Hercules,
such, for example, as Hans Wagner,
is also blessed with an accurate eye
and lightning sweep Of arm, that
man becomes a batting king; but
there is nothing more ridiculous in
baseball than to see player with the
| strength of Sandow making huge
| swipes athwart the breeze while the
ball goes whizzing by, and finally
walking ponderously back to the
bench, without even rolling out
4 grounder.
wagner is big man and passively
| strong. So were Arson, Conner,
\ Brouthers and many others of the no.
/ BILE smuggling tribe In these cases,
however, the sheer strength of these
| giants was guided and controlled by
keen eyes and natural Judgment as
/ to the location of the ball.
In contrast to these bulky men was
15Pete Browning. very tall, but with a
7! skinny, bony frame, not specially
strong in muscle. Pete Browning could
not have held his own against Arson
in a wrestling match for forty sec
onds, but he was uncle's worthy bat
4 ting rival year after year. The old
gladiator could not only pick out the
ball to swing on and smash against
it with unerring judgment, but could
SO neatly concentrate what power he
had that the longest sort of drives
went whirring off his bat just as An
son and the other giant whales could
bring them.
4 Willie Keller was a little bit of q
man and not a specially strong one,
either. But this midget could chop
them out time after time, and when
he swung instead of bunting, could
belt two baggers as neatly as men
4 fifty pounds his weight superior.
4 The only Cobb, idol of the Tiger
fans is not big man. He is of good
stature, but rather slender, with soft
long muIcles, not hard or corded
ones Cobb is far inferior physically
to Wagner or Lajoie, but how Ty
Cobb can drive that ball! The per
lection of the eve. the accuracy of the
swing. the concentration of the effort
these qualities, united and harmon
iously brought into play make Cobb
the champion batsman of the Ameri
can league, and make him the master
of the men who could mop him al
over the floor in man.to-man en-
counter.
Great are muscles, and most pleas
ing things to have, but the frail mar
who wants to play baseball need no
worry nor fear that his fragile frame
will bar him from renown. For the
eye is keener than the hand and quick
ness of motion far surpasses bulk.
sinew. A queer game is baseball ant
this perhaps is one of the oddes
features of the game.