Omaha daily bee., 1917-02-04
FEW MINOR CHAMPS
GO TO Big LEAGUES
Only Five Of Champion Bats
men In Bush Circuits Are
Grabbed by Big Show.
FOUR ARE NFIELDERs, TOO

The small number of minor league
batting champions who are given
trial in fast company this spring indl-
Gates that the majors aren't very
strong for last seasons bush league
smuggling talent.
OF the FIVE minor league swat
champions purchased for the big
show, the ST. Louis Americans
grabbed two-Kenworthy. the Pacific
Coast league batting leader, and ia
cobson, champion slugger OF the
Southern league. Both of these pas
timers have been up" before, Ken
worthy having been tried out by the
Pittsburgh Pirates and Jacobson by
the Detroit Tigers. Their failure to
show consistent stick work sent both
back to the minors.
Last season Jacobson played cen
ter field for the Little Rock team
and hit for .346 in l39 games. Ken
worthy performed at second base for
the Oakland team and stung the pei
let for .3l4 in 200 games. If they
can continue their brilliant work of
1916 cake" and "Ken" are certain to
become fixtures with the Browns.
The other batting wizards from the
short ship circuits who are to show
their wares to big time managers are
Ellison, champion OF the Central as
ISOLATION, who goes to the Detroit
Tigers; Mathes, the Central league
leader, who has been COPIED by the
Boston Braves, and Hoelke, king OF
the international league batsmen.
who IS already a member OF the New
York Giants, having performed bril-
liantiy for McGraw the latter part of
last season.
Central association averages show
that Ellison, the Muscatine infelder.
took part in LIZ games and hit for
SOL. Mathes, who played second base
for Terre Haute, had batting mark
of .3A IN "a games, and Hoelke's
International league batting figures
show that he hit for .144 in LIZ games.
while holding down first base tor
Rochester.
Rather ont Of the ordinary is the
fact that four OF these FIVE champions
batsmen are infelders, jacobson be
ing the only out6elder. Heretofore
a big majority of the star clouters
gathered annually by the major
leagues from the smaller circuits have
been outfeideTs- Now It would seem
that the inhelders are fast developing
the art of hitting and are to give the
gardeners a good run for the bingle
honors. The same improvement in
hitting by the infielders is noticeable
in the major leagues, especially in the
National, in which organization eight
of the dozen leading batsmen played
in6cld positions.
The fact that so many of the minor
league batting champions are veteran
FASTENERS and former big leaguers
may account of the small number of
minor league leaders coming up this
year. Nowadays major league man
ayers prefer taking chance in de-
veloping a youngster.
Among the veteran players who led
their respective leagues in batting last
season were Beals Becker of the Kan
sas City American association team,
Hank Butcher of the Denver Western
league team, Dill Kay of the Bing-
hamton New York State league team
and Howard Wakefield of the Rock
Island Fhree-I league team.
Butcher heads the list OF veteran
sluggers with batting average of
ST. for las games. Kay took part
in ia games and hit for 800, Wake
field hit for .352 in 1874 games, and
Becker had an average of .343 for ls3
games.
Gther minor league batting leaders
include Kippert of Butte, the North
western league champion; Maloney OF
Worcester champion Of the Eastern
league; Bittle of Waco, who led the
Texas league, and Flynn of Newman,
the Georgia-Alabama leader. Bittle
is to be tried out by the Mobile South
ern league club next season and
Flynn is to go to the San Antonio
team of the Texas league,