New Britain herald., 1919-04-28
EATERS POUND ALL KINDS OF HURLING
Pitchers Show Results ol Short
 Training Season in South

New York April 2S-The outStano-
 ing feature of the first week or ths
 major league season was the sturoy 1 clubbing in both leagues. It Is ob-
 vious that the short training trlps ! have not enabled the pitchers to get into proper condition. In former
 years the pitchers often had seven weeks of work before the opening of 1 the championship season, this year they had only four.
 Formerly the pitchers had all the better. of it in the spring time'> Low hit games and shuto its were quite regular.
 The batsmen are getting off with a rush this year. In both sectlonS or the big league trail the batters so
 far have f1attened all kinds of pitch ing. Of twenty-two games piayeI up
 to Saturday night, onlH two pitchers
 have achieved shutonts, Carl Mays,
 when he beat tho Yankees. 10 to 0,
 in the New York oren:rg on the Polo
 Grounds last Wednesday, and Waiter
 Johnson, when he won tb'rleen lh- ming game from Scott Perry of tn Athletics, in the opening contest at
 Washington. ..
 As a sample of how the batsmen are tearing the hide off the ball, up to last Saturday Joe Jackson of the White Sox had collected ten hits in eighteen times at bat for an aver age of .556, while Joe Gedeon of the Browns did even better n the sanc series. He got nine hits in fifteen times up, for an average of 500 Bill | Rariden of the Reds and Pete Xiii 1 duff of the Cubs, each hIt safely iivc ! times in nine times up, lor an ave- 1 age of 1856. Then Wally Schang 1 banged out four hits in five times up ! at the Polo Grounds opening last ! Wednesday and Cy Williams of the i Phillies made seven hits in nine times 1 up against the Giants i
 Something Wrong With Pitchers.
 Jackson is, of course. one of the l batting stars of the game, but when ! players like Gedeon, Rariden and l Kilduff amass such averages some thing is wrong with the pitchers. While Gedeon is a great spring start CT, he never hit better than 225 in l four seasons in the league. His aver age last year was .213. Rarjden hit 1 .224 last year and Kilduff .204.
 Batting should be very strong this
 
 league. The veteran league is get ting woeful1y weak in pitchers. While the Giants have a poor pitching staff, most of the other clubs are in the same boat Look at the aggregra- ton of talent with which Coombs is trying to win in Philadelphia-Ja- cobs, Oeschger, Packard, Prender- gast, Watson, Woodward and some 
 St. Louis has terrible looking lot of pitchers. Neither Doak nor Mead ows, veterans have shown anything this spring, and Sherdell, May, Horst man, Goodwin and others of the same calibre are losing daily for Hickey.
 Cincinnati has a good pitcher in Ray Fisher, discarded by the Yank- ees. The rest of the staff, Began, Reuther, Luque and Filler, are not de- pendable. Some of these lads. par ticularly Filler, have the makings of splendid pitchers, and perhaps Moran may bring out their latent possibil- ities.
 Cubs Staff Is Best.
 Only Chicago and Brooklyn have | formidable pitching staffs, though Bezdek has several good pitchers in = ing staff of Alexander, Vaughn, Tyler, Douglas and Hendrix looks the best but after Sherrod Smith joins the Brooklyns, Ebbets will have a staff in Brooklyn equal to that. Pfeffer, Grimes, Galore, Cheney and Ma maux, right handlers, and Smith and MarQuard, left handlers, is quite a pitching collection.
 The acquisition of Jean Dubuc, the former Detroiter, by the Giants may help the New York team. Jean went South with the Red Sox and Boston 1 players say he is as good now as he 1 ever was.
 Jean is expected to fill an Otey i Crandall role with the Giants. He is i pitcher who can hit, can play the outfield in an emergency, is a good pitcher to send in for a few innings, i and is a capable pinch hitter. He | made 3 favorable impression when he | relieved George Smith in last Fridays 1 game in Philadelphia.