Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-09-26
FIRST GAME EXPECTED
TO DECIDE BIG SERIES
Expert Sanburn, in Comparing
Teams, Attaches Great Importance
to First Victory.
CITES PRECEDENT TO
PROVE ARGUMENT
Experience Should Make Chances
Men Favorites Over Athletics.
0veralps Recovery Is Most
Timely.
Special Dispa tch to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
CHICAGO, September 26.-The team
that wins the opening game of the worlds
series between the Cubs and Athletics al
most certainly will fly the worlds cham
pionship pennant over its grounds next
year. It always has been in recent years,
since the seven-game test was put in
force, that the players who got the
jump proved worlds champions. and
there is no reason to suppose it will not
be always so in SO short a series.
The only exception occurred back in
1903, when the Boston Americans gave
Pittsburg the handicap of winning the
opening game. and then annexed the
worlds pennant. But that was in the
nine-game series, and 1t is a practical
certainty Pittsburg would have won out
in a seven-game combat that year.
Detroit came nearest to upsetting this
dope last season. when it compelled the
Pirates to play the full seven games to
win the worlds bunting. Before that the
Cubs made the White Sox work hard in
six games to cinch the honors which vir-
tually were won by the south side team
on the opening day Of the series. There's
Q reason and 1t is found in the tremen-
dous advantage which goes with the pos
session of the first game in a series or
the first lap In race The team or indi-
the start must make greater effort to at
tain the lead than the team or individual
who gets ii at the outset First there
must be the EFFORT of drawing even then
the squirt necessary to draw away in
front. 1t is the same as in any game of
base ball. The team which scores the
first run has an undoubted advantage Its
opponents must make two runs to win
Realizing that advantage, as only
veteran campaigners can realize it,
Managers Chance and Mack and their
tanned warriors will exert every effort
and WOO every turn of the cards to
win the first game of their struggle
Some small consideration attaches to
the toss of the coin. which decides
where the opening game is to be played,
because some advantage goes with fight
This advantage is only comparative,
however, because the Cubs went into
the enemy's country and won the open
ing game of the 1908 campaign, and
before that the White Sox opened on
the foes grounds and captured the lead
and eventually the flag.
Luck Factor.
Because in a short series the pitching
is, next to luck, the chief factor both
managers will expend lot of thought
on the choice Of the slabmen for the
first game between their teams. Man
ager Macks choice, undoubtedly, will
be Jack Coombs. Manager Chances
selection would as undoubtedly have
been Mordecai Brown under ordinary
circumstances, but Manager Chance and
his cohorts are superstitious as if
they had been born in the darker ages
when Greek or Roman took no i'm
porant step without first consulting
oracle or auspices.
The Cubs never have won a worlds
series in which Brown pitched the first
game. They lost the only one in which
he started the firing. On the other
hand, Overall has been their mascot.
Up to a few days ago it was thought
unlikely the big Californian would be
able to pitch at all in the big cam
paign, but in the last two games he
has pitched his return to form has been
little less than remarkable, and unless
efforts show that his recovery is only
temporary. which no one expects will
be the case, he will be the natural
selection for the first clash with the
Besides Overall and Brown, Manager
Chance will have for his reliance on the
slab Reulbach. Pfeister and Cole On the
seasons performance Tin the matter OF
games won and losD precedence belongs,
of course, to King Cole, who has made
Bay City famous. But no one knows
better than Frank Chance what the
strain of a worlds series game means
to a ball player
II is almost certain that Chance will
not put q first year youngster to the
supreme test. Far better to have his
great ability in reserve for the second or
third game. equally necessary to be won
but not as crucial. 1t is one thing to
pitch gamely through championship
season which consists Of 154 games and
an entirely different matter to be cool
and collected in seven game series
when every ball pitched is worth approx
mately 800 and the difference between
the winners and losers percentage may
hang upon a single curve delivered in
the crisis Of game or series.
Besides Coombs, Manager Mack will de-
pend upon Bender, Morgan, and either
PLANK or Krause. The younger of the
two left handlers would have been picked
last year, but this season his work has
not been As PROMISING and he NAV he
called upon orl:- as last resort. In az: