Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-02-26
A QUEER freak of nature II is ho-
y habit or memory hangs on.

| A QUEER freak of nature IL is how
! ~ habit or memory hangs on.
! You have read in lyrical verse how
| some John, obtaining Whit of roses or
! mignonette, suddenly recalled with amaz-
| ing tenderness some Jane of other years.
or it may have been that some Jasper
heard an old-fashioned melody and
straightway before his vision some Bessie
or Ethel drlfted by. To borrow an illus
tration from the late Orth Stein
"Last night as leaned from my ,oindo,o,
High over the darkiing street,
A song came floating uptUdrd
Broken aud Incomplete
"Whut delicate iUrdith Of passion,
what ghost Of the vester gears
'TtCas something as street as kisses,
Something as sad as tears"
You get the idea. So with us. For
some reason or other each breath of
waning February brings back again the
fragrant odor of baseball. 1t may have
been from the fact that when we were
a bit of a lad, but no part of bonny
one, each passing February brought the
instructive desire to get out and throw
the baseball.
That desire has never passed, and If
we were uD around Baffin's Bay in Feb
ruary It would be the same. For the last
DAYS of February are the outposts of
spring And when the ball club starts
South and you are one of the party, you
and spring have met halfway.
A big league training trip Is quite en-
institution To the casual inspector it Is
mostly routine. But beyond that 1t is
good deal more
1t Is a very human section of life.
There is nothing else just like it,. Here
are 40 young and middle-aged men work.
ing and living together in peace and hap
piness Yet 20 of these are out hustlng
81. fTNIu Ind nn1U n
stick Either the Busher goes back to
the Bush-for one more year or for his en-
| tire career-or the Busher sticks and the
| Veteran fades out. 1t is not the matter
i of the honor of making college team.
| 1t is a matter of meat and bread, of the
! Missus and the Kids, of a profession that
is to take up the last hour of ones
| prime.
In a training trip there is the humor
and the tragedy of many lifetimes
! We will take the case of an average
| Veteran He has a family, and, never
| having been n great star, he has earned
! Just about enough to break even on the
| living game. with n thousand or so left
over He knows that he has but season
| or two left. And when he quits, at the
| age many start in other professions, he
will be without a profession or a trade.
| If you are looking for a light gray
/ shade of pathos you can find 1t in
| that Veteran eyes he sits on the
| bench nursing a sore arm. watching some
| Kid of % pegging them on n line from
! third to first the second day out His
| job is threatened. but for the time being
he can't defend it with sore arm and II
charley-horsed thigh. Yet we have seen
| this type of Veteran on many an occasion
| go out and by experienced coaching
! try and show the Kid every trick of the
| game. 1t takes just bit of a MAN to
| go out and try to help some one who is
after your job.
Any one who figures that training camp
| life for the athlete is a playful romp has
another guess due. Up before a m,
! at the gymn by and then a two-milc
walk to the orchard, as Larry Doyle calls
| II. And then hustle-and work. BY late
| afternoon the athelete is ready to eat the
cover off the dining room table. and by
| 10 o'clock he is poised for running
start toward the grand old hay. The
| FIRST week in camp life is a week of agony
of sore muscles, of aching arms, of
| throbbing legs.
Smoking is cut down to almost nothing