The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-31
Barons and Tigers Will Try Again Today
From the Angle of the Bug
Fly ASA RouNTREEs JR.

Covington are sure of regular po- sitions. so if tfAs quartet can con tinue at a 300 gait this year then the Barons must be reckoned with as one of the most formidable hit ting aggregations in the circuit
 
 With the hearty backing of Secre- tary Colsson of Mobile, President Baugh of Birmingham, Manager Johnny Dobbs of New Orleans, ana President Coleman and Manager Mike Finn of Memphis. Scott E. Chestnut of Birmingham, who was Sunday appointed by President kavanaugh of the Southern league IS successor of the veteran Bill Hart. will make his debut as a regular Southern league umpire on April IA with glowing prospects and will then have a real chance to display the umpiring ability of which he is capable.
 Not only do a majority of South ern league moguls and managers repose implicit confidence in him but also President Kavanaugh as well. The Southern league executive has on number of occasions openly stated that he considered the Bir- mingham man one of the most cap a able umpires in minor league com pany and pledged himself to ap- point him as a regular as soon as an opening appeared.
 In a letter to Chesnut early last fall Kavanaugh wrote: And based upon the reports which I have of your work, if l am president of the Southern association next year will give you position as regular And President Kavanaugh has now made good his promise.
 
 Chestnut has had to wait a long time before a chance to display hls ability in the Southern and now that it has come he is determined to make the most of it. He is thor oughly capable of performing the duties in a satisfactory manner and always calls them as he sees them. Down in Mobile Chesnut is quite popular and officials of the Gull club have been persistently backing him. Secretary Colsson states that he is a fine drawing card there and has all along urged President Kavanaugh to give him a position.
 Chesnut was selected as success sor to Hart, who goes to the Ma tional, out of a list of 100 appli cants and this alone shows that Kavanaugh has a high estimation of his work and is confident that he can deliver the goods as a class A umpire.
 From appearances it seems as if the Detroit second team can not shake the rain from their heels. Following the departure of the regulars from the training camp at Gulfport, old J. P. put in Ahis ap- pearance and for two days Kept the second team confined indoors. Ar irving at Montgomery on Saturday, Crawford and his aggregation ran into bad weather again and were forced to play the Billikens under adverse weather conditions. And now here in the Magic City they are also experiencing bad luck.
 Essentially. a warm weather moundsman and unable to hold base runners close to their bases, es- pecialy the ones at first, Bill Trough proved failure in his sec ond big league tryout, and is now
  years ago the elongated finger re- ceived a tryout from the Cincinnati Reds, but he failed to measure up to major league caliber and was shunted back to the Barons. Trough can only perform at his best when the weather is swelter- ing, and under the blue skies of California with the weather con tions ideal, he could not strike his true stride and so brought down the displeasure of Callahan on his head
 Despite the stringent house cleaning instituted during the past winter by Mike Finn, the Turtles still appear far from formidable, and in the exhibition games played have failed to display the form ex- pected of a Southern league pen nant contender While Finn was ridding the Memphis team of all hindrances the spirit of the fans rose high and predictions were freely made that the astute Finn was building up pennant win ming aggregation. Since then. how ever, things have not been banning out so we'll and the situation has taken on an entirely different as- pect. The outfield appears weak, while the infield could be greatly improved on. Finn is hard at work welding his material together and it is possible that he may yet turn out a good team without reinforce ments
 Forced to remain idle through in-