The mirror., 1919-07-17
Baseball Chatter
By F. X.


soft in their long series with the Phes. who have
taken only one game in about thirty. But at that,
the Giants lead is great that they afford
to lose, for the Cincinnati Reds pressing them
: close and hanging on like bulldogs There is only
one thing, rather two things. that the Red fans
need worry about and that is the shortage of one
good outfelder. Manager Pat Moran is now using
Bressler. pitcher in the outfeld, and if anything
should happen to of his infelders he would be in
a tight place. Moran got permission from McGraw
to deal with Dave Robinson, who said sometime ago
that he wouldn't play with any team but Washing
ton, but after Moran had Dave satisfied and things
looked promising along comes McGraw and says,
nothing doing. The Giants chunky leader evident
ly thinks the Reds are close enough opponents now
without trying to brace them.
The Pirates, who were going so good, found
stumbling block in Chicago and Cincinnati the past
week. The weak spot of the Buccaneers is third
base, though many efforts have been made to plug
the hole Cincinnati has been casting longing eyes
at Max Carey, Pittsburg's out-felder, but all
Barney Dreyfus wants in exchange is Hlnne Groh,
third sacker. If the Red officials traded Hnnie they
know they might we'll shut up shop the fans
wouldn't stand for it, Hinnie is about as good as
they make en- when it comes to taking care of the
hot corner.
Pittsburg has released one of it's pitchers Ev-
ans to Kansas City. The first game he started in
the Association against the leaders. st. Paul He
is evidently to show the Pirate management that
they made mistake by sending him to the minors,
for he banked the Saints and allowed them only one
hit Evans got two hits himself of them being for
a complete circuit. Some start.
The ST. Louis Browns have been playing good
ball of ate but they have been known to make such
spurts before only to fall back again. This is
ger Jimmie Burk's first full pilot and being
a pretty smart man himself might fool the others
this tme The St. Louis Cardinals still playing
in and out ball and they'll have to get if
they want to be in the first division by Sept. 20.
After all the dickering the owners went through to
get Johnny Lavan from Washington, the Cardinal
fans insisted that he be taken out Johnny, who is
dentist, was in the service and had no spring work
out aud if the fans give him chance he sure to
make good in the short field.
Comics went and did it. couple of weeks
ago we said Mack was ready to peddle any name on
the team except Bobby Roth. to try to get rid of
the jinx but now he's swapped Roth and second
baseman Shannon to the Red Sox for Strunk and
Barry two of his old players that were sold to Bos-
got the best of that DEAL not because Roth isn't
good player. for he is and is hitting 1885, but he is
trouble maker and that's thing Mack won't stand
for. As for Shannon, he is youngster and may be-
come STAR With Barry at second to steady the
young ineld, the Athletics defense will be helped
With Burrus on first, Dugan at short and Thomas at
third, all youngsters Barry should be valuable
to the team by showing these young players how
to do the work. OF course Thomas has quite bit
of experience with the Boston team and played in
the big series last fall but he still has lot to learn
if he fills the shoes of Frank Baker. Strunk is a
good player but hasn't got going very good this year.
He was ticked about the trade and reported right
away but Mack could not locate Barry the phone.
Another point in the trade is this Think of the
board of strategy the Athletics will have, composed
of Mack, Barry Davis, and Livingston old catch
er who is coaching the pitchers. These four know
the game forward and backward and should be able
to map out good system of offense and defense.
The local game of last Saturday was tight and
we believe the M. S. p would have won but for the
glaring decision given by the jumps in the fifth when
he called Dixon's hit fair when it of the line
at least two feet when it passed first base. The rules
plainly say that ball going out of the line before
passing first is foul ht if it stays inside till it
passes first then it doesn't matter where it goes. We
have followed the games of the Interstate league
pretty close for time, especially Saltwater but
in looking over the box score in THE MIRROR
failed to see many names of players who play with
Saltwater Where was "Pawnee" Berger, Lawler,
Novotny, Nesbitt and Schroeder? We would have
liked to see these players in action whether lose
or not. 1 have known Bill Lawer since he .
little bit of kid and he always had felders glove
on his left hand, so much in fact he must have had
il on uhen horn We also know Ioa Zulusk1 of