Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-10-15

pair Of hands. Furthermore. he is a
bear" on that bane Of the frst-sack-
er's existence. the pickup or "half
hop" A man who can get these in
his glove instead of on his shins. is
first-basing genius and anyone who
ever has played the initial sack will
join in a fervent Amen"
OF course. ii was hard for the
Freedmen to learn batting. Ii IS
hard for Americans, unless they are
born WI b an instinct for meeting the
bali and pasting il on a line. But most
Americans begin TO practice batting
a ssoon as they are big enough to
hold the stick while these "poilus"
were grown men before tlley ever
picked up the ash bludgeon big
league manager Won has torn out
great handsful of his sparse hair try
ing 10 make a .lS7 batter improve
enough 10 break IN win a blow once
a week instead of once a fortnight.
would have considered The progress
made by Nelsno's pupils marvellous.
AT Least they would soon get SO busy
they could hit foul balls. which is
more than some of the major circuit
FASTENERS can do agains good pitch
ing.
1t wasn't long before the Nelson
squad had progressed to point
where ii was possible TO organize
two teams. First there were two from
the Foreign Legion. probably the
with all citations to its credit and
most famous regimen. in the world,
with all citations to its credit and
only about 1000 men left of the $4,000
that it had when the war started. At
ter the Foreign Legion went back 20
regiments of Colonials. They had
regular league" and played game
whenever they could find time, which
was almost every night II was real
baseball. too. with regulation equip
ment, masks. chest protectors and all
The one thing lacking was the spiked
shoe. Hob nails or stocking fee were
standard stuff for the pedal extrem-
tiles. Naturally this cut down the
speed and ground covering ability OF
the men somewhat but it didn't ham
per the games so far as keen compe-
tition and interest were concerned.
These French soldiers learned to
steal bases, bunt, make double-plays
and all that kind of thing Nelson had
considerable trouble teaching them tc
get a lead off the sacks because their
first impulse was to plant both feet
firmly on any base that they hap
pened to reach and remain there un-
til somebody hit the ball. They be-
longed at this time to what might be
termed the Cy Falkenberg school OF
base-navigation. But after a time
they found out that it was safe tC
venture few feet away without
cour mig determination and now some
of them get lead that would make
Ty Cobb jealous
Another thing that the ''poilus" had
to learn was that it is no. always a
good plan to throw the ball TO first
base. When they first started o play,
they never looked at any other place
when they got the pill" but shot 1t
to the premier sack regardless of the
fine chance for plays that might pre-
sent themselves elsewhere. But Mel
son finally convinced them to 'use
thei: heads and govern their plays
by The exis ing situation.
Il must be assumed that these
French soldier teams could give a
serious argument to an American ma
jor league club or even to a high
school nine. Nelson doesn't claim to
be able 10 perform miracles and II
would require something of that sort
to bring a team of absolutely green
men to anything like the Yankee
standard in a few months. He does
maintain, however, that it will not
be many years before the French will
be playing ball of a type comparable
to good American amateurs.
The rapid spread of the sport in the
French army is assuerd for every man
VIII ohas played it in Nelson's big
camp will make converts weherever
he goes. The Frenchman who had
qualified for the regular teams hardly
could wait % get up to the front with
American troops in order that they
might demonstrate their skill to theii
allies. In fact, all the hardships and