New-York tribune., 1916-02-28
LAJoIE ExCELS
HONUS WAGNER
WITH DLUDGEON
Nap Has Beaten the 400
Mark Twice and Hit 300
Fifteen Times.
Rs LEE ARMS.

Al Munro Elias. the well known
juggler Of baseball figures, who can
keep some seventeen sets OF batting
averages IN the air without letting
one nit the floor, pointed out with the
authority Of an Archimedes the other
day that John Honus Wagner was the
only man in baseball who has ever hit
300 or better seventeen times in row.
Mr. Elias is precisely right. Pitts
burgh's first citizen, who is built from
the belt down on the architectural p an
Of triumphal arch. is, as we under
stand the matter. the greatest hitter
OF concatenated 300 averages IN the
world.
Yet let not Nr. Elias nor any other
ytati.tician say that the Flying DGtcn
man - the only man who has hit .3o'
seventeen times in the major league.
There are others, or az least there y
another.
lie is Napoleon Lsioie, and II Hans
Wagner gets any super-normsl amount
Of advertising out OF the fact that no
is sorty-two years o, age and hns bic
800 on seventeen different occasions,
the good citizens OF Woonsoeke'. r. J.,
are going to begin writing letters to
the editor.
The Grand Old Man OF the American
League was born in Woonsocket.in
fact. he NAV have inherited thai swful
swattirg tendency from the nenult and
antepenult OF that fair hamlet, which
is beyond the mark, and neither mere
nor there, Rs IL were.
Iaioie. too. has hit 900 during sew
enteen different seasons. To be moro
accurate. he hit 300 on fifteen different
,swf-
that. while breaking the glass oalls. or
the glass arms, in the American League
there were a couple OF blank car.ridges
inadverter sly secreted IN the cylinders
of Mr.. Laic.e's lethsl weapon. for dur
ing the seasons &C 1907 and 1905 he fell
all the way down TO .299 and .2,5, re-
spectively. Otherwise Larruping Larry
would hold the record which is a. pres
ent in the archives of the Carnegie
Museum In PITTSBURGH and credited 10
the said Mr.. Wagner.
The Frenchmen was so embarrassed
over that l907-'0s debacle that he
promptly came back and hit 1924 in
1909. and then boosted Il to a mere .3sS
in 1910. Everywhere, that year, they
were dragging the rivers for the bodies
Of those experts who predicted thai
after .2s9 IN 1908 Mr.. Lajoe was indeed
going back, never again TO be the slug
ger Of the good old days.
That there were few good old days
left in the old boy who came out or
the tertiary period o. baseball was in
dicated by the TACT that from 1910 or
he hit .3cj, 1888 and 1886 IN succession
The following year, or IN 1914, Lar
~. legs oecan going back on him
The old eye and the swing we're there.
but the venerable gentleman coulc
have been carried 20 first base IN
iinrikisha faster than he got there
afoot. That season he hit only .20s,
but ne couldn't make the pitchers be
lieve he was going 20 hit that. espe-
cially in pinch, and they continued 70
mass him Intentionally IN crisis.
There always existed the d. nger that
r.arrupn- Larry would take notion
TO hit the ball over the state boundary
line.
Then he was traded 10 the Philstel-
phis Athletics last year, and he hit $50
on those lits which he ran out. The
same batting would have given .S2o
average TO "A faster runner.
In his twenty-one years OF sluggirg
Lsioie has q grand batting average Of
.343. as against .332 for Wagner lie
twice hit over 400, and the Flying
Dutchman never did that.
Inasmuch as the souare-sh ouldered
Frenchman is only forty years Of age
and will not be for'y-one until next
Sentember, he probably has great
future ahead Of him, and by the time
he is as old as the esteemed Mr. Way-
ner his record may be even more brill
liant.