Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-07-31
PITCHERS LIKE TO HIT BALI
Expert Says Popular Idea of TwirlerI
Loafing is Wrong.
THEY HAVE NO JUDGMENT
SIabman is Used to Seeing Ball Coins
Instead of Coming, and There
fore Cannot Hit Well as
Others,

NEW YORK, July SO.-"Many people
have the idea that pitcher has a low bat
ting average because he doesn't try for
high one" said Bob Groom, himself
pitcher the other day. They imagine
that a pitcher doesn't want to hit because
If be does he viii have to rum and thus
diminish his effectiveness in his subsequent
work in the box.
But while it is true that hard run
about the bases does nothing to improve
pitchers accuracy, it is both untrue and
unkind to accuse a pitcher of loafing be-
cause he does not hit. A pitcher is proud
when he makes a hit. No one realizes
better than he that he is not generally con-
sidered so much a player OF ball as he is
mechanism for delivering balls to the
opposing batsmen.
"'Oh, we'll, we didn't expect you to hit;
that's not your job yelled at pitcher
who has struck out with three men on
bases is more maddening than consoling to
the unfortunate man whose only value to
his team lies in his ability to put them over
in such way that the other fellow flies
or strikes out.
Have you never noticed the desperate
eagerness with which pitcher fields? He
loves to get in the game, loves to figure in
d put Oul. nidhJ PlNShNiS "ONAN ANN''SA
help pull off a successful double than get
strike-out to their credit
1.-THE reason lies deeper than unwilling
ness or lack of desire to hit Moreover,
to my mind, it is variation of the same
reason which affects catchers, and surely
no one would accuse a catcher of loafing
for fear a run around the bases would
injure his effectiveness.
IT believe that pitchers and catchers can
not hit because the vast majority Of their
time in the game is spent watching balls
go from them or come toward them with a
fun knowledge OF what is going or coming
end watching these balls from an entirely
different angle to that which they get
on the ball when standing at the plate.
THE pitcher, for instance, sees all the
fast and curve balls from behind. He can
tell as soon as he lets a ball go whether
1t is going over or not, although, of course,
he hasn't any sure idea what the umpire
is &c ing to say about it. When the pitcher
comes to the bat he begins to see balls
coming at him instead of away from him;
he has to Judge their trueness-whether a
ball or a strike-by the looks and not by
the feel of it, and, because his experience
is all in the other direction he fails at the
plate to judge accurately.
Take my own case. AS far as can see,
l do anything anyone else does att the
plate. have as good a swing. am as willing
to stand closely as any one. yet my batting
average is a joke. 1 think it is because 1
am so accustomed to seeing the ball travel
from me, and. knowing what 1t is going
to be. that when 1 find It coming at me,
and don't know what 1t is, l am unable to
judge 1t.
LAS for the catcher, he is always looking
for the balls coming toward him, to be
sure, but he is looking almost along their
line of flight, instead Of down upon that
line, as the batsman must look, and he,
too, knows so much what is coming toward
him that when you change his point OF
view and make him hit at ball, the nature
of which he doesn't understand beforehand,
he is more or less helpless.
''And. of course you want to know how
reconcile with this theory the pitchers
and cafchers who do hit-ths Benders and
the Killings. l just don't attempt TO recon
cile them. any more than try to explain
why two brothers, one bats 800 and the
other 200. One has a better natural eye
for the ball than the other and so It is
with Bender and King and other pitchers
and catchers who can hit; they have SC
good a natural eye for the ball that they
overcome the handicap which their position
gives them. and bat well in spite of II.
1T is probable that there are other
theories to account for light hitting By
batteries But l have never heard any
which seemed more plausible than these OF
mine. which l express not at all as facts
but as beliefs, and with an entire open.
ness to conviction to the contrary by any
, one who has better reasons to offer"