Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1914-09-20
last games of big league baseball.

laSl games or pig league DaSeDa1f.
 Bobby Wallace, oldest in point oI
 league service, came into the National
 league in 1894. Jim McAleer had pick
 ed him off a semi-pro team in Penn
 sylvania village. He was slight
 callow youth, but he made good from
 the start.
 He could always be depended upon
 to beat Brooklyn and had "Husk" La EChance. a strong hitter. in such ex-
 tremities that the latter would strike
 out every time he faced Bobby. In
 ls9o, Wallace was mere boy. not really strong enough to pitch. Wal
 lace pitched through 1895. 1896 and lS9l, with varying success In 1898 Jim McGarr. a great fielder and lighter, went wrong in the arm. Tebeau tried Jimmie Dcehanty, one of the famous ..'Dels," at third and Jim 'sell'' down. McGarr filled out the season of 1S97 and in 1898 Wal lace began 10 play third base. He had a rare reputation inside of a month. Yet he was five years in the National league before he played a game out side of the pitchers box.
 Wallace was burning up the league. as third baseman when Jack O'Con- nor picked him for great shortstop. He is great third baseman," said ONonnor but he will make greater shortstop." That was four years be- fore Wallace became the greatest shortstop that ever played ball.
 He played third base through 1898 in Cleveland, and came to St. Louis in 1899. About June of that year Ed Mckean, the famous old shortstop of the Spiders, went wrong, to fat and slow, failed to hit and Tebeau got Lave Cross to play third and moved Wallace to short.
 No shortstOp ever equaled Wallace in two respects, covering ground on a fly ball back of him and going to his right and making a long throw. He had even the great Wagner beaten there.
 HOnus Wagner.
 wagner came into the league about July, 1897. He was three years be- hind Wallace, but probably an older man. The great German was twenty seven or twenty-eight. maybe thirty when he came in, and that is now three or four years older than Wal lace, about forty-six or forty-seven.
 An extraordinary chap, with canti- lever shoulders, immense joints, tre- mendous hands, prodigious feet, he looked like German country boy fresh from the blow when he. joined 
 A truly great ball player was Wag- p1ov Thor. grand baserunner. Even in the past few years when his limbs have been giving away under his i'm mense trunk, when every step has been accompanied by intense pain, he has always run out his grounders, flies and hits to the last step, and turned first, real ball player. Not so fast or showy as Cobb, he was al- most as good a baserunner. He lack ed Cobb's brilliant, animating spirit. Cobbs Grecian beauty of line, Cobb's gallus daring. Otherwise he was as good ball player.
 Wagners arm did not endure like that of Wallace. There never was another arm like Wallaces-always good and as good today as ever.
 Larry Hackman, Too.
 Like Wagner, Larry Lajoie came to the league off hack in 1897 and joined the Philadelphia club. He was as good player the first day as he ever was afterward. He could hit terrific line drives.
 No ball player except Fred Dunlap was so easy and graceful in his move- ments as Lajoie. He was the person. ification of suppleness and ease. He walked like big cat, as Speaker walks today.
 In one respect Lajoie had all other players beaten. His wonderful eye1 enabled him to combine the motion of the pitcher, the speed of the ball and the swing of the. batter in one picture, and he was off to where the ball would hit long before it was hit.
 No one ever hit so easily, SO care- lessly, yet so sweetly, as Lajoie When he was batting next to that king of stylists, Ed Delehanty, ball players went wont to hold that "Del" was the better hitter, because, they said, he hit at fewer bad ball than the Frenchman. Delehanty took a fuller and harder swing than Lajoie and hit them farther, but not so truly on a line.
 Lajoie would hit nine of ten balls on dead line, sometimes to outfield- CTS playing against the fence.
 Wagner was the greatest all around player of the three who have ended their big league careers. He could run bases much better than Lajoie and hit much heavier than Wallace.
 Lajoie could run bases, but never tried to do so. Larry always hated to slide. Hence. though as great hitter and fielder as Wagner, he nev- CT classed with Honus as great ball. player.