New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-12-06
TIMELY BITS Of SPORT
No Changes Likely in Baseball
Rules to Improve Batting.
BROWN MAY REVIVE ROWING
Good Bout Promised When
Packy Mcfarland and Abe
AttelI Meet in Ring.

Suggestions which have been made to
amend the baseball rules to provide Tor
more batting are not likely to be consid-
cred seriously at the annual meeting Oh
the two major leagues in this city next
week. There appears to be a more or less
general feeling that it would be advisable
to let well enough alone for the present
The suggestions offered include:
Calling only one foul ball a strike; limit
ing the number of called balls to three and
increasing the number of strikes to four
while retaining the present foul strike rule
Hank O'Day, the National League UNI
pire. who was responsible for the foul
strike rule. is outspoken against any
changes. He is quoted in Chicago say
ing:
Il do not believe in making changes
when they are not needed There was need
for a change before the foul strike rule
adopted, and 1 was the man that sug-
gested the rule to Mr.. Hart, who was at
the head of the rules committee of the
National League at that time. In fact. |
, suggested many of the rules that have
been adopted by the big leagues, but l do
not believe there is the least bit of neces-
sity for any increase in batting at the
present.
If some change was to be made so as to
increase batting. the club owner would go
out to get better pitchers The game has
gone along for several seasons in a pros
porous manner, and the only suggestion
that l have TO make is TO the club owners
building new plants which is to build them
as large they possibly can, for it is
going to be only a short time until it will
be necessary to have more room in our
parks than We have now
Charles Webb Murphy, president of the
Chicago club, says on the subject:
I am of the same opinion as Mr.. O'Day,
who is of the wisest men in the game.
that the batting as IL is at present is heavy
enough. and that if there was any change
made in the rules governing the game it
would only tend to confuse the public. and
that would injure the game. 1t takes the
public some time to get accustomed to a
new rule, and as long as the game is pros
porous now. why make any changer
Negotiations have been instituted for a
renewal of athletic relations between
Brown and Dartmouth, and indications
point to their reaching a satisfactory con-
clusion- A football game between the two
colleges would add spice to the season.
Some Brown men are cIamOring for a
crew and a revival of rowing. The Brown
Alumni Monthly says editorialIy in its
current issue:
Every time we read Of the regatta on
Carnegie Lake, at PRINCETON, we say to our our,
selves. why not Brown crew AGAIN.
Why not, indeed? The answer is that the
| expense is too great, that the college has
sports enough already, that rowing is too
enterprise
Even so, we wish Brown had crew.
Personally, we should be glad to see bas-
ketbail sacrificed to rowing, if that would
do any good. Brown had a crew genera
ton ago, and its fame endures among the
most grateful athletic memories of the col
| lege. There was no Brown football team TO
support at that time. but the college was
much smaller-less than half as large as it
| is now
Down at Princeton they had to make a
lake for their crew They dug it out of the
completed at a cost of many thousands of
dollars, il does not equal the course which
nature made. for us on the Seekonk, a
famous aquatic racing course of other days.
The old Brown boathoUse is a thing of the
past; we have ceased to be a boating col
lege. But some day we shall have our crew
again, and undergraduate life will be richer,
more picturesque, in consequence. There
is a certain attractive quality in this
lends itself to poetry and song, it is the
apOtheosiS of wholesome athletic activity
Around the varsity boat cluster the fondest
recollections of the ''old grad" of Oxford
and Cambridge, of Harvard. Cornell and
Yale.
Rowing costs "a lot of money! but WIN
might we not make a modest beginning at
il? Let nine interested undergraduates Dor
row rent a boat and launch it on the
Seekonk without ella borate ceremony or
training. The mere sight of Brown shell
on the water would stimulate memories and
enthusiaS Tn-memories of the freshman
crew that beat Yale and Harvard at
Worcester: enthusiasm for a pastime which
is an end in itself. regardless OF the posi-
BILE triumphs of the future.