Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-01-30
HOW THE BASE BALL
STARS MAKE HITS
Some of Them Slug Long and
Hard, While Others Rap
With Light Dexterity.
By w. A. Phelon.

By w. A. Phelon.
Batters are born. not made-that is a
good old saying and is generally true. As
a rule you cannot make good hitter
out of naturally poor material and the
man who bats 100 his first year in the
big league will seldom climb much high
er. Now and then. however, a man i'm
proves a weak average until he develops
into regular demon. and in such cases
the pitchers suffer and the slugger's sal
airy goes kiting upward.
| Every batsman has his own idea, his
| OWL pet theory as to how he should
place his feet. bend his body, hold his bat
and swing at the curves. Once man
gets rooted in any special style. an at
tempt to teach him new ideas will only
crab his work for keepsake must be al
lowed freedom to follow his own plan OF
| attack OF he will f1zzle. And the differ
ent styles of the different players-the
way they smite, the record of successes
they make-compose some most interest
| Ing chapters Of base ball history.
II a man will watch the leading swat
tiers he will soon discover that there is
no set style of method that can be called
better than any other system. Every
possible way Of holding the bat and
swinging at the ball can be found among
the various players. and all these styles
make good. Nothing in the action or
| pose. therefore-it's all in the material Of
the man who does the hitting.
Baker and Stone. for instance, are
much criticised because they bunch them
selves in such fashion that they get
the clear sweep OF the bat on only one
| side of their horizon.
! These men: as rule. drive the ball in
| just one direction, and the wiseacres
have long declared that the f1elders will
| soon tend to batsmen who hit in such
Stones average is plenty fat each sea-
| son. and that Baker. butting right into
| fast company. hit like raging flend last
| summer What's the answer? Simple
In one limited swath. they paste that ball
| so devilishly hard along that particular
| trail that the fielders cannot stand up
| against it. What difference does 1t make
how narrow a path man hits in, if he
soaks them so savagely you cannot stop
| them?
| Keeler's Way.
Willie Keller. when in his heyday,
| showed a method the exact opposite of
that adopted by Baker and Stone, grab
bling the bat way up beyond the handle,
simply cut at the ball with the bit Of
| stick left over. He didn't send 1t far, but
| ne sent it often, and he varied his attack
| by sending the ball in every possible di-
rection Keller, as he used to be, and
| Baker. as he is today, would be terrible
pair for any team to face. Baker would
| ri1eshot them through the fielders, and
Keller would upset all calculations by
peppering them right, left or center-any
place where the guardians didn't happen
| to be standing.
| Lajoie hits with free-armed sweep,
graceful. accurate and terribly effective.
Many of his hitssare long flies that drop
far past the fielders. Wagner bangs at
| the ball with a terrifying swoop like that
| of man chopping trees He doesn't foul
| or clip them often. Hans either misses
completely or drives them an awful way.
This was shown one day last summer on
the Polo Grounds, New York. when in a
double-header Wagner famed four times
| and made about four long hits.
Herman Long used to swoop at them
with even a wilder. looser swat than that
| OF the great Wagner. In fact, most of
the powerfully muscled German players
1 have that free swing. with the arms arch
ing farther from the body than is the case
with Irish or American batsmen. Any
| time you see batsman huddled over the
| plate, making short. cutting plays for the
ball, never letting his arms go full length.
that man, nine times out of ten, is an
| Irish player. An odd bit In this direction
look over the list Of sacrifice hits-bunts
| mostly-made in each league the past sea-
| son. and see IL the average Irishman
average German.
Gumbert's Power.
| Possibly no man ever lived that hit q
| ball harder than Ad Gumbert. now
sheriff of Pittsburg. Gumbert didn't hit
1t as often as some OF them, though he
raped from .25S up to way over 300
| right along, but how he did maui 1t
when he connected. Any time Ad landed
the ball whirred like a bullet. and woe
be to the man who tried to drag it down!
Most of Ads hits went low, Declining
along the sod near third. and those hits
are awful things to put your fin against.
! Roy Thomas held his bat more extend
ed than Keller, yet his hits were mostly
short ones on the Keeler pattern. Dele
| hanty simply walked into the ball and
| put his shoulders into the blow. His
| swing was not as open or swooping as
that of Wagner. but he seemed to get
more shoulder force upon the drive
! McGraw and Keister twho was fine
| hitter once used to run up at the ball
and break the rules most hagrantly by
| springfng forward to whack before the
curve broke. Bob Glenalvin, fine hitter
| twenty years ago, had a trick no man
| since him has acquired, and it looked
| easy. too. He waited for a ball some
where near his shoulder-tust the kind
| of round their neckS'' shoots the bats
men dread--and then, holding the bat
| high with rigid wrists, pushed steadily at
| the ball. The result was a short fly,
passing just over the infield and falling
back of the diamond. Bob hit 1858 the
last season he played the big league
game.
Uncle Arson had two things in his
| favor-he was strong as a bull and he
| had accustomed himself to WELD the
heaviest bat any man ever swung The
! combination was q bad one for the OBJ
position. Uncle hit them on q dead line
| either overhead or past your knee and
In the days when the. gloves were few
or thin 1t was case of defying death
| to stop them.
Other Sluggers.
Big Bill Lange. like the other Ger
mans. swung freely and wildly. but put
lots of beef into the punch when it
landed. Fred Pfeffer was deathly afraid
of getting hit. Armed with a long, thin
bat, like fshpole. he stationed himself
as far from the plate as the box lines
would allow. and plinked at the ball from
afar-quite successfully, be it noted
Dan Brouthers and Roger Common hit
with freer motion than most of the
Irish players, and drove the ball with
such terrific force that it was not well
to get In front of it. In fact, Willie
Hutchinson, when asked how he pitched
to Big Dan. sized him up In this fashion:
Il throw straight one, right over.
Then l pray
Mike Mitchell and Larry Mclean, the
elongated Reds. have a trick Of raising
long flies, SO vast in their arc that they