Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1913-07-05
Sports and Such
ITO SETTLE AN ARGUMENT"

ITO SETTLE AN ARGUMENT"
an earnest party wants to know if
the educated or college ball player
- more useful on the diamond
than the boy who picked up his
baseball around the sand lots.
This query may be deity side
stepped by taking the position
that it doesn't make any difference
where a ball player learns to play
baseball so long as he learns.
But such lodges are unworthy.
What the correspondent wants to
know IS whether education is
likely to give a man the bulge on
the uneducated player, and the
answer is: Not so that you can
notice it.
Education in any direction is
useful only in the exact ratio of its
application. Thus, it is easy to
see that a profound knowledge of
the effect Of the political clubs on
the life Of the Athenian republic
is not going to help a man decide
in tenth of a second where to
throw the ball when he has nailed
a line drive and three men are
running in three different direc-
tons
GIVEN A CERTAIN FAIR PRO-
portion Of intelligence and adept
ness in baseball is a matter of
practice Men who think quickly
on the ball field have been used
to thinking quickly from infancy as
a rule, and in sudden crises their
minds from long habit work auto
matically and correctly. The time
is usually too short for conscious
thought.
IN THE MECHANICAL science
OF the game the same is true.
The college professors began eX-
planning the spit-ball a long time
after Chesbro and his followers had
stood the American League on its
head. Chesbro didn't know any
more about the physics Of the spit
ball than he knew about the infiu-
ence of the Medici on the Renais-
sanCe, but no college professor
could tell him anything about
throwing one. Radbourne was curv-
ing a baseball at time when some
scientists were holding that the
feat was impossible.
John Ward a real college man
and a great ball player, invented
the trick of left-handed batting to
shorten the run to first base. and
his trained mind probably had
something to do with that, for II
was constructive thought. on the
other hand, Buck Ewing, ignorant
as dirt, was even a greater base
ball man than Ward and infinitely
his superior as an executive.
Much of the inside" baseball of
to-day was fathered by Ten Thou
sand Dollar" Kelly, who is consid-
cred one of the swiftest thinkers
that ever played the game, vet
Kelly had to have help with the
menu card when he broke into the
league
Harry Dunlap, the king of sec
ond basemen," was almost entirely
without education. but his skill in
working out the trapped ball trick
is the chief reason that we now
have the infield fly rule
Dunlap was so ignorant that he
had to make a mark to his con-
tract in lieu of a signature. but so
shrewd was his business mind that
he got $4,000 figure into the same
contract, more than % per cent
of the ball players to-day are draw
ing. And we know a man of rare
mental attachments who once stole
second with the bases full.
So there you are.
BUT COLLEGE MEN ARE made
more welcome in the big leagues
to-day than formerly. Not because
Of their thinking ability-go and
watch two college teams play some
time and you will be purged of that
superstition--bu simply because
they are turning out good ball play
ers in scattered instances And
the college man has lost his pro-
pensitv TO play to the grandstand
and sits humbly at the feet of a
man who has no alma mater and
takes his post graduate course in
the great game
McGraw once had a college first
baseman on trial A foul was hit
a mile over the grandstand. but the
collegian tore after, cap gone and
hair flying.
All, We'll" said McGraw YEARLY.
as the youth came back TO his bag.
he gave It the old college try"
FORTUNE is A OCULAR
dame. Loose handed Garry Herr
mann's team in Cincinnati PLAYED
a whole game with one ball the