The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-01-30
MADE UP OF VARIED
 SET OF MEN, SAYS HANS WAGNER
of d in SheaksA
 hnn Are

Baseball is made up of a cosmopolitan set Of men with moods and temperament widely varied. More humor and human emotions are observed in the seven months of the annual campaign than could be told about in several volumes of appreciable thickness.
 Some of the players are grim and some are merry, but on the field or in the train it is always wild chatter and rep partee among them that would make a set of vaudevillians appear like selling platers. The humor of Steve Evans, Huh Perdue, Cozy Dolan, Fitzpatrick of the Braves, Charley Faust of the Giants pen nsnt years, Mike Donlin, Larry Mclean, Nick Altrock, Germany Shafer, Kid Gleason, Arlie Latham and many others have many a time eased the grouches of hard losers on a club during a string of defeats.
 Rube Robinson of the Cardinals kept the Pirates in an uproar with his droll humor for three years. and he once tried it on knocker with telling effect. Rube met few Pittsburg and Ai>1ansas friends one night on Broadway, and I was intro- duced. They were a jolly set, but one big, thin chap appeared very grabbed and critical. He seemed soured on his own six feet of height and weight of 125 pounds.
 The Pirates were in a lcs.ng streak, and the thin critic did not mind constantly referring to it. Turning to Robby. he said:
 Do you know that every time that clut wins a game I gain two pounds, and when they lose l drop three?'
 At any rate" replied Robby, looking the thin fellow over from head to foot, how many games could the Pirates af- ford to lose in succession"
 LOSING STREAKS COMMON
 A hard loser in baseball could not af- ford to give much weight, for losing streaks are common. But a hard loser usually has his heart with him in his work, and I have known the wild de sire to win to be the making of some o1 the great stars, past and present, in the history of the game.
 All the world loves winner and 2 winner hates to lose The hard loser 1T a ball game is generally a hustler ,ano when a man is a hard loser you can al least say to him that he is not a stall CT" or a "quitter."
 Two of the most famous players that ever wore spikes I class among the hard losers l have known. They are Johnny Evers and Mike Donlin, and the spirit put into the game by those men had much to do with the success of theil clubs.
 During 1913, when EverS was making a grand race with his patched-up Cubs, he had a little run of i'll luck, and I un- dertoolk to tease him one afternoon fol being a hard loser. He looked up at me and exclaimed:
 "Honus, I wish I had a team of 24 of the hardest losers in the business" That sentiment typifies Evers. Nc 1 better fellow ever lived off the field | but during a ball game the Trojan has but one object before him and that is to come out of the game 2 1 winner. Evers would fight his owr 1 brother on the ball field, but old Chi Cago players have said that he often | would grieve after a game if he had | experienced any trouble in it. I am told that he never carries grudge off 1 the field against player, spectator or ! umpire. Though he often broods all night over run-in, he comes back on the field the next day the same old stormy petrel-an enemy to all man kind that stands between him and a victory that day, Johnny one year wrote me a letter congratulating me on l a birthday anniversary, and in it he | said he had copied and learned a lot from me during his career and that his only regret was that he hadn't i copied my personal habits on the ball field
 q am sorry I didn't pattern after you in that respect" wrote Johnny. l But he need not let that worry him | It is all noise, hustle and buster with l him.
 DONLON HARD LOSER
 Mike Donlon was another hart loser. Mike wanted to win in every 1 thing all the time and it mattered not
 what the stakes were. At pool, bil 1 lizards, baseball, cards or anything
 else, even down to an argument, Mike
 was a hard loser. To win was glory
 for him. He would sit in a friendly card game where the stakes were nex
 to nothing and he would fight tht | cards and his friends and then take l them out to dinner.
 One night in Boston in the year Mike was with us, the boys played fan-tar ' for 10 cents corner. A man could no
 win or lose a dollar on that basis il
 24 hours Mike could not stand fol
 a bonehead play on the diamond ol
 in the cardroom and when one char passed a seven spot and forestallet
 Mikes play so that he lost a 40cen
 pot he was furious. It wasn't the 4 cents that riled him so much as th'
 loss of the game and the way he los 1 it. After berating everybody he cooled 1 down and asked the boys out for ; lunch that cost more than Mike could have won or lost playing fan-tan for month.
 Mike had four hits for us one da, at the Polo grounds in 1912. 1t wa his misfortune to get nipped trying t | take an extra base on each hit. bu
 there were runs sent in every time h. connected and Pittsburg won to His first two singles scored runs ant both times Snodgrass threw Mike ou going to second. The next time Mfk
 doubled and was caught again by
 throw from Snodgrass as he slid int 1 third This was the third perform
 ance where Snodgrass had figured play on Mike instead of on the maj ahead Mike was wild, but his rag
 knew no bounds when on his last tim up. with 10000 Manhattanites Yelllni
 for him, he slammed out a triple an'
 was caught at the plate by the arn
 of his Nemesis. The drive had sen over the winning run, but Mike looke
 THE HAVANA CIGAR