The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-01-23
c. A. L. Makes Important Changes
HANS WAGNER TELLS ABOUT THE GREAT PITCHERS HE HAS FACEDp
 Pitchers Considered the All t the Baseball Fans

| Copyrighted 1916, by the Wheeler Syn dicate, Incl
 | Ball players of modern times owe a lot ] to the pioneer who blazed the trail to basehalls present greatness. I can't | class myself with the old-timers, but | happened to be in on the transition of the old game into the new. In my nine | teenth year in the game I can look back and see vast difference in sa:a1:es and 1 business methods, but I would hesitate a long time before agreeing that the | standard of play is superior to what was shown a generation ago. | 1 was asked to name the six greatest
 pitchers in history, but baked at the idea. I had never seen Tom Ramsey "Old ! Hoss" Radbourne, Bobby Carothers, or
 any of the old crew in action, and I can | only take the word of old historians l that these and others were the equal of
 the greatest twirlers of the present gen
 eration. No doubt there were glittering
 pitching stars in the baseball Armament l of old, so I am not going to allow the 1 historians to carp at any comparisons
 by me between ancient and modern twirl- 1 CTS In picking six pitchers I prefer to l confne myself to the six hardest I ever faced, and during my IS years in the :, majors I guess I have faced a few train- | loads of them. I generally enjoyed a 5O- I 50 proposition with the majority, but ] here and there as the years went by l
 always would strike some obscure galoot I who proved more of a puzzle to me than some star who averaged about 1000 two column portraits in the newspapers dur 1 ing a season. The best batsman in the business may hammer the best of pitching, but novice with the right kind of stuff may make him look bad.
 "Gavvy' Cravath and Sherwood Magee are both great hitters of the slugging type, and who do you suppose they con- slider the hardest pitcher in the world to hit? They aren't afraid of any of the 1 limelighted marvels and all pitchers look alike to them excepting one long, lean chap who wasn't good enough for the Chicago Cubs on two trials. He is Char 1 ley Smith, who put up good article of 1 pitching on the Pacific coast last sea- 1 son.
 | COulQ not average d lOul Oll lildt l big guy remarked Cravath to me one | day last summer.
 There is no dope to batsman and 1 pitcher, and their relative greatness l Looking back over my experiences with pitchers I would pick the following as l the six hardest I have ever faced; SIX BEST PITCHERS I Rube Waddell, Pittsburg, Louisville and | Philadelphia; great speed and curve and | a head as good as any pitchers while in l the box. ~
 I ''Kid' Nichols of Boston In the late 1 eighties and nineties; curves, control and 1 general effectiveness.
 1 Clark Griffith, great Chicago standby. | Not smoke king but without doubt one of the greatest masters of the pitch | ing art in history
 | Grover Alexander star Philadelphian. I Has more stuff tha many pitcher in the | National league and the knowledge with it He is a wonder.
 Christy Mathewson. I hadn't begun to overlook Matty. It was give and take | between Big Six" and me for IA years, 1 but he was probably the greatest of them all.
 l Jack Taylor, a Chicago standby of the i bygone years, who was my real jinx every time I faced him.
 l 1 was asked for six selections. I could
 
 | obscure ones who caused me trouble. This fellow Rudolph of the Braves has a pe- cul1ar habit of never giving you a good one, but somehow he can always make them look fairly good to Klem, Eason, Rigler, Byron and the rest of them l My worst Nemesis, however, was old Jack Taylor. He certainly had my number. I cannot spring the common alibi, He didn't have a. thing" still he | had no more than the law allowed, yet could not connect. One day at Exposi- | tion park years ago We had him beaten l by a big lead. With the bases full I bat ted left-handed against him for the fun of the thing. The bat-handle two bagger l that I sent out was the only hit off old COULDN'T HIT MOORE l Jack that l ever remember getting. l Another tough master for me, now in retirement and seldom heard from, was
 pig Earl Moore. For two years my hits | off him were few and far between but I ! finally managed to judge him and at least hit him normally well. In this con- nection, l want to state that 1 believe | the Philadelphia club owes the success of Alexander to Moore. l heard some
 ball players discussing Pittsburgs hard | luck in not landing Grover in 1911 and | Fred Clarke remarked:
 "Yes, I wish we had him. but he might not have proved such a success any where else This big chap Moore had | that side-arm stufL and he knew how l to impart it to the youngster. I figure 1 that Moore, as much as anybody, de- veloped the possibilities in Alex" 1 The Braves once had pitcher named Walter Dickson who was nuisance to l the Pirates for two seasons. He suffered i bom bardments at the hands of many 1 clubs but against us his dink and nerve were too much.
 1 Three hits per game off him were our average One day he famed Ham Hyatt | in the pinch. Ham flung himself dis l gustedly on the bench and exclaimed: Prom here that stiff looks like mush
 but up there he is like pig iron.'' | The Federal league made one grand hit with Ham and the rest of us when they l took Dickson away from the National 1 Tn summing up great pitchers it would be a cruel oversight to pass up Denton Tecumseh Young for whom a hundred Youngs have been named "Cy.'' resnem- THE HAVANA CIGAR ABOVE COMPETITION l AQ ,z==,,