New Britain herald., 1917-10-06
TEAM WORK FACTOR
in Coming SERIES
Giants Stronger in Attack; White
SoX on Defensive Play

While it Is necessary for any man.
ager Of a. baseball team to have indi-
viduals of more or less ability avail
able If he is to build up strong
team, it does not necessarily follow
that the team made up of the best
individual players is always the one
which captures chief honors in a
championship series. This is particu
larly true in the case of the world
series played by the champions of the
American and National leagues.
Probably no better illustrations of
this fact can be found than the case
of the Chicago Americans and Chi
cago Nationals in 1906 and the case
of the Boston Nationals and Phila-
delphia Athletics in 1914 So far as
individual players were concerned, the
Chicago Nationals were regarded as
superior to the Chicago White Sox in
1906, and yet the White Sox won four
of the six games played that year. In
1914 the Philadelphia Athletics ap-
peared to be far superior individually
to the Boston players, and yet the
latter won four straight games, the
only time in the history of the modern
world series that only four games had
to be played in order to determine the
winner.
In both of these cases team
strength was a big factor in settling
the championship honors, and there
are many who believe that it will be
big factor when the Chicago White
Sox and New York Giants come to-
gether this month for the 1917
honors. Burns and Jackson may be
evenly matched in left field. Zim-
norman of the Giants may be super
ior to McMullen at third base, and
Schalk may be superior to any catcher
New York can produce; but the ques-
ton of how each player will fit into
team defense and attack is going to
be big factor. A player having an
advantage over his rival from an
individual point of view may be be-
low him when 1t comes to team eff
f1ciency.
The New York club has more play
ers who have made individual repu-
tations for themselves than have the
White Sox. Zimmerman, Herzog,
Fletcher, Burns, Kauff and Robert
son have been regarded as brilliant
Individual players, and they have
done very we'll together in the Ma
tional league championship season just
closed. Collins, jackson, Felsch and
SCudlh dIc L1AC 1cdullS NIllCd6O
players so far as individual brilliancy
is concerned, and they have shown
during the championship season that
they can work we'll together. So ia
as temperament goes, the Chicago
men appear the better equipped for
world series, and this may prove to
be the deciding factor. The Chicago
outfield certainly covers as much
ground, If not more than the Giants
trio and they throw to bases as we'll.
OF the two inf1elds, the Chicago one
appears to be the smoothest working
and the quickest to- size up play.
Owing to Schalk's superiority as
catcher, the Chicago battery men
work better with the f1elders than do
the New York players, so barring I'M
forseen happenings the Chicago team
should show greater all-around de-
fensive strength than the Giants.
The offensive feature of the game
should find the Giants a little stronger.
Taking the showing made by the
two clubs in their respective league
championship seasons as a basis for
comparison, we find that the I'M