The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-07-09
GULLS POOR EXCUSE .0F GOOD TEAM, SAYS ROCK SCRIBE Blames Management for Not Providing Funds - for Pilot Charley
 Schmidt

The poor showing of the Mobile Gulls of late after squirt that rather thrilled the league is drawing criticism from all angles of the league and Manager Charley Schmidt's tail end CTS are receiving warm reception at every visit. Fans in Birmingham have not had the opportunity to witness the Gulls in action since the earlier part of the season and they were truly pitiful then. Consequently little dope, on them will be good reading matter.
 The Gulls' last appearance was. in Little Rock and thus scribes in that burg are in a better position to com ment on their showing than in any other place. The scribe, for the Dem ocrat who is growing prominent for his spells of criticisms of late, lets the following hot stuff lose on the Schmidt clan:
 ..The exhibitions of baseball by the Mobile club during the four games played here make one wonder that the club can be playing in class com- pany. It is a class D club and no bet ter. if one is to judge by what was shown in the Little Rock series. There is no question about the team being right where it belongs-at the bottom of the Southern league pile.
 one can feel sorry for Charley Schmidt having to put up with what he does in the outfit his owners have furnished him. Schmidt is good ball player and the. hardest worker in tC1,, +, 1o,,r L To ie-n lny who doesn't hesitate z to get in the game every day though he might take a few days of and let some of his other athletes work. He is genial, likeable sort O cuss and is deserving , of better things than he can ever hope to get from the Mobile men who have swung to the Southern league fran chise. se
 Schmidt has one or two good play CTS, on his club. Pug Cavet unques- tionably is a good pitcher and Led better is not bad one. Holly at short can play ball and would look lots bet. ter if backed by better help-and if he didn't have to play third as well as short. McDoweli is fair ball player and Mike Burke is doing pretty good. Swacina can hit the ball, but he is a loafer and has no more real interest in the game than some of the fans. It must be admitted that his absence, due to a wrenched knee hurt Schmidt's offense, but it Is doubtful if the defense was crippled very much.
 What J. Burke. the semi-pro third Sacker, can do is hard to tell He may turn into pretty valuable man. Mas sey looks like a ball player, is a fair hitter and can get to first in hurry, but he looked miserably punk at sec ond. in the series just ended. Wilcox and Dempsey are makeshift fielders and little could be expected from them.
 Schmidt has been forced to use just anybody he could get. He even had Whitney Harb in a uniform Wednes- day. Harb has played pretty fair base ball in his time in the Little Rock city league, but he Is far short of Southern league first sacker. More over. it would take months to trim off the superfluous adipose tissue Harb has collected since giving up athletics some years back There is the ; chance. of course, that he would come through for he is big and strong and has a good whip. But it goes to show what Schmidt is driven to. He picked up broke down Ralph Works, who saw his best days several years ago; he signed Burke. the semi-pro. and he has picked up others the same way where he had no purchase price to pay out.''