The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1910-07-07

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that more than three clubs have any
real hope Of winning. w
Usually ten years. frequently moro.
are required 10 create a pepnant-win.
ming team and Il 10 Of penhantwinnins
caliber not more than three years be-
fore II begins to retrogade Occasion.
ally after reaching its highest form q
team collapses entirely In one sea.
son and the work must be begun all
over again. The New York High
landers, after coming within game
Of the championship, collapsed the
following season to nothingness The
st. Louis Browns, with strong pen
nant possibilities, fell two games short
of the 1908 American league cham
pionship and the following year was
the most wretched team In either
major league.
No team of young players ever has
won a major league pennant, although
Boston and Philadelphia In 1909 came
near upsetting baseball tradition In
that respect.
Teams are built on various theories
Comiskey, who has led more pennaut-
winning teams than any other man,
works on the theory that pitchers and
condition will win. His teams al
ways are kept In top condition
throughout the season and he will go
to any lengths to get "air-tight" pitch
ers. Detroit and Pittsburg both are
teams built with the idea of hitting
power first. The Chicago Cubs are
built on the theory of team work, in
side play and base running The Bos-
ton American team Is an aggregation
accumulated with the idea that speed
of foot will capture pennants.
The first problem of the owner Of a
franchise is to get leader, for with.
out leaders who can get the best work
out of every man, teams cannot win.
The next Is to get the team, then
team work, and having all these there
remains nothing to do but to pray for
luck and good umpiring.
Chicago, which monopolized base
ball In the early eighties. was 20
years getting together another pen
nant-winning team. Perhaps the best
way TO show how hard II Is to get to-
gether another pennant-winning team
is to take one club and relate It's strug-
giles before final triumph.
The sale of Clarkson and Kelley to
Boston destroyed Anson's champion
ship club. The cause of that sale
never was made public, but the real rea-
son was a woman, and the club was
compelled to sell the men, although
the act brought down the wrath OF the
city upon them. The remnant Of the
team fell into rut. When James A.
Heart became president he saw that
the first step necessary was to get
rid of all the old stars--even Anson-
and begin making a new team. He
could not get rid Of Anson until 1898.
when he brought back Tom Burns.
who proved a failure in two years.
Tom LOTUS was tried for two years
and failed. Frank Selee, adopting
Hart's ideas, began at the bottom to
create an entirely new club. It is ex-
tremely doubtful whether Selee ever
would have made the team pennant-
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against certain players. Selee's health
failed and Charles Murphy, who had
Just purchased the club, discovered q
leader.
The real beginning of the Chicago
Cubs was in March, 1898, when big,
bow-legged awkward young player
came from the Pacific coast to be tried
as a catcher. Quiet, good-natured,
rather retiring of the field. serious,
and in deadly earnest when playing
honest and sincere in everything
Frank Leroy Chance reported at train
ing quarters at West Baden, Ind,
carrying a bunch Of gnarled and
wrecked fingers at the end of each
hand. Anyone who at that time had
predicted that Chance was to become
the leader Of the greatest club ever
organized would have earned laugh.
He had no experience except the lit
tie gained in amateur games In Call
fornia. He played with the Fresno
High School team In 1893, for two
years with Washington university at
Irvington. Cal, and he participated
In the great amateur tournament
played between all the school teams
Of California. catching for Fresno.
which team finished close to Oakland
and Stockton. Bill Lange, then with
the Chicago club. saw Chance and
recommended him for trial.
While awkward and unfinished,
pitchers who worked with him de-
clare that Chance from the first
showed his genius for leadership and
great skill in handling pitchers and
watching batters. His fearless reck-
lessness brought him many injuries
as a catcher and twice he was nearly
killed. .,1.sftis. 70 49, nee.
There was not much sign of promise
of a championship team in Chicago
then, for Hart, in spite Of his theories,
still had his old stars; and II was not
until 1900 that the club, with all its
scouts, its purchases and trades. made
another rich stroke. This lucky find
was John King, who was born know
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