The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-05-17
KAUFF BECAME PRO
 PLAYER JUST SIX YEARS AGO TODAY

Bennie Kauff, the best advertised ball player in the business will cele- brate today the sixth anniversary of his rescue from the coal mines and his debut as a professional ball play CT. The renowned Benjamin is a na- tive of Middletown, a little city in southwestern Ohio, but he got his first league job in Parkersburg, W. Va He played his first game for that city on May IT, 1910, and did so well that he was retained for the entire season.
 Benny's dad was a coal miner, and Benny seemed destined to follow the same occupation. The future famous swatter had barely entered his teens when he joined his father in the mines, and for years he toiled under ground for ten or twelve hours a day, at the i1l-paid and hazardous job of digging coal. In his few hours of leisure he played ball with the other kids and Benny made quite a repu- tation. For years he entertained ain ambition to become a regular ball player, for even a minor league berth looked mighty soft to Benny, com pared with the mining job.
 Benny's chance came in the spring of 1910, when Frank Locke, the Par kersburg pilot, consented to give the coal digger a chance. As previously remarked, Kauff got away with it. He
  and finished the season with the snug little average of AIT to his credit.
 Such a performance naturally at tracted attention, and Benny was drafted by the New Y ork Americans, then managed by Hal Chase. On the southern trip Benny was a star with the bat, and Arthur Irwin the scout who had dug him up, was e1ated with his find. Benny not only fielded bril- lfantly and batted like a house afire, but he caught part of game in Rich mond, Va, and in Petersburg, Va, several innings with great effective ness. For some reason, however, Hal Chase decided that Benny wouldn't do, and sent him to Bridgeport, where he batted 1901 in 1911.
 The next year Kauff was recalled to the Tanks, and he was used in a dozen games, batting .378. Harry Wolverton, who had succeeded Chase at the Yankee helm, also passed up Benny, and shipped him to Rochester. He wasn't given a fair trial at Roches- ter, but was sent back to the Connec- ticut League, landing with Hartford. He batted .321 in 1912, and in 1913 his average was .345. He led the Eastern Association in batting that year and his big stick was largely in for the Nutmeg State capital.
 Pittsburgh and other big league clubs dickered for Kauff at the close of the 1913 season, but the price was too high, and Benny was sent to the Indianapolis club of the American As- sociation. Benny went to Indianapo- lis, all right, but it was to join the Federal League club then in that city He led the Feds with. the stick, bat ting .366, and was dubbed ''the Ty Cobb of the Independents.'' Last sea- son with the Brookfeds Benny bat ted .344, again leading the league
 Benny's future in O. B. is still un- certain. but it is pretty safe to pre- dict that he will be right up among 'em at the close of the season. Kauff's own valuation of himself may be con siderably inflated, but there isn't any likelihood that he will have to go back to the mines very soon. He is only about twenty-five, and should improve in the next few years.