The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1914-09-02
STA[LlNCS USES
HOT LANGUAGE
Manager Of Boston Braves
Gets Runs by InVGCtiVe.
HE'S A HARD TASKMASTER.

In Selecting Players He Likes Men Re-
jected by Other Managers, and Cast
offs He Has Taken From Other Clubs
Have Made Good-RudoIph, Gowdy
and Red Smith Are Examples.
The efficacy of prayer is we'll known,
but it has remained for George Stall
ings to show that torrid talk is not
without its uses. The leader of the
Boston Braves has driven his men
from dead last to Il contending position
for the pennant by the sheer force of
his invectives.
John j. McGraw can use language
upon occasion, and Connie Mack. al
though very sparing in his criticism.
can say things which hit the mark and
cut in doing so, but both these men,
leaders as they are of two great schools
of baseball, make it an almost invari-
able rule not to criticise a player while
a game is in progress.
Stallings, on the other hand, is a per
feet demon while close battle is being
fought. He is known as one of the
hardest taskmasters in baseball, yet he
is not unpopular among his men, for
he plays no favorites and will call
down a planet Of the first magnitude
with just as much fervor as he will
use in addressing one of his minor
stars.
The Braves have a certain secret
pride in the linguistic prowess Of their
leader, and one player was heard to
boast that during a certain series in
which the Braves played very badly
StallingS Swore steadily for four days
and never repeated Il single phrase
This ability may be laid partly to the
fact that he is always in training, for
he spends the winters on his plantation
In Georgia and keeps in trim by talk
Ing to the mules.
Almost every manager has some Spe-
cial species of player rs his idea. Thus
the Giants are made up largely of the
McGraw type-a type distinguished by
superlative aggressiveness and coclli-
ness. The college type of player as
cXcmpliticd in Collins and Barry is
type much in favor with Connie Mack.
But it would he hard to analyze the
likes and diSlikcS of George Stallings
The only general rule which can be
laid down is that StaIlings likes play
ers who have been declared failures by
some one else
OF course no good manager pays
much attention to the estimate placed
upon players by newspapers. but Stall
ings IS particularly independent of
public criticism. He had at first base
for his team last year Hap Meyers.
Hap did not hit very hard, but he
felded his position We'll and ran bases
In wonderful fashion. Yet when this
season came around Stallings released
Meyers and signed in his place very
Percheron Of a man named Schmidt,
who played the bag most awkwardIy
Schmidt did not hit at the beginning
of the season. and everybody declared
Stallings had made bad blundcr, but
the batting of the big first baseman
has proved to be one of the chief fac
tors in putting the Braves into the
race. Josh Devore had been with al
most every team in the league before
Stallings took him, and Connolly, an
other outfelder, was cast aside by
Clark Griffith.
John J. McGraw tried Dick Rudolph
and decided that he was too small.
Other managers thought the same
when the pitcher was released, but
Stallings took him on and soon found
that he was amply large enough to be
one of the winning pitchers of the sea
son. Maranvillc did not attract other
managers because he could not hit,
but under Stallings he developed into
one Of the best shortstops in the game
Hess was has-been who had been
dropped from fast company but he
has pitched much good ball for Boston.
Hank Gowdy was much too awk-
ward for McGraw. but Stallings signed
him for three years. Wilbert Robin
son decided that Red Smith was such
trouble maker that he would be
hetriment to any team, so Stallings
quickly bought him.
Seemingly it makes little difference
what the component parts are which
Stallings takes at the beginning of the
season, for at the end of the year he
Invariably has not SO many individual
players, but a machine