Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-04-28

Finally the secret was discovered and rap
idly passed round. Naturally the stunt was
soon overdone One manager went so far
rs to make an elevation Of at least three
inches. 1t was almost impossible for a slow
w batted ball to roll foul. This practice
created so much comment and was so de-
Gidedly unpopular with the fans when they
learned of it, that it has been dropped en-
tirely 1t was overdone so strongly that it
removed entirely the uncertainty that sur
rounds every effort to bunt the ball safely.
ELEVATING the pitching box, while not
- recent innovation, has been made use
of great deal of late. The rules permit of
a certain elevation; but it has been gener-
ally customary to have the box on level
with the rest of the field. "A ball delivered
to the batter by a pitcher six feet or more
in height must naturally come down at an
angle to conform with the strike rules Place
the tall pitcher on an elevated pitching
mound, and the ball comes in at an even
greater angle, which naturally makes it
harder to hit. THUS it was manager with
a staff of tall pitchers who first resorted to
the elevated mound as a means Of making
his staff still more effective.
Last year the Washington club completed
its new park. On the Washington pitching
staff were Johnson, Groome, Walker,
Hughes, and Cashion, all of them six feet
or more tall. Visiting teams yelled "Mur-
DER" when they first saw the pitchers box.
A number Of managers insisted that it did
not conform with the rules; but the engineer
who laid out the park claimed that it did.
The raised mound tended to make the Ma
tional pitchers all the more effective; while
visiting twirlers, until they became accus-
toned to the elevation and allowed for it,
had all kinds of trouble getting the ball over
the plate.
THE practice Of wctting the infeld to slow
up fast team is an old stunt but it
is still popular with some managers. Several
years ago / worked an interleague series
between two teams Of the same city. One
Of the teams was admittedly fast aggrega-
ton, and to large extent depended on
speed for success The other club was not
nearly 50 fast, had just an ordinary catching
staff, and its hope Of victory centered on the
marvellous ability of one of its pitchers.
Although it had not rained for couple of
weeks when the two teams met for the open
ing game, the infeld of the park selected for
the first game was very heavy. Despite the
fact that the sun had been shining bright
all day, the base lines were SO slow and wet
that a number of players fell because of the
failure of their spikes to take hold.
During the game the speedy team, de-
pending on base running for results, had
four or five players thrown out when they
attempted to steal. All the decisions were
hairs breadth affairs. Had not the grounds
been slowed up by the altogether too liberal
use of water, perhaps every base runner
would have been safe. In several instances
clean hits followed the failure to STEAL and
a number of runs were cut off. There is no
question that the slowing up of the grounds
by the man in charge of the field was the de-
Gliding factor in that game, as well as the
series.
MYTH one umpire in charge of a game,
W scarcely contest would pass without
some player getting away with a bit of dirty
work. 1t was impossible for one umpire to
watch half dozen places at the same time,
and as a result someone was constantly
working some trick at his expense. Cutting
base lines, holding the runner, interfering
with a man rounding a base, and number
Of other petty little tricks that often seri-
ously affected the game, were practised
With two men in charge of game, the
chances of such things being done are greatly
diminished; but every now and then some
player gets away with raw piece of work
without its being observed by either official
Most Of the practices referred to are pulled