The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-02-14
Corbett's Daily Letter
 On Great Sport Topics
By JAMES J. CoRBETT

Hal Chase is the mental Doctor Jekyil and Mir. Hyde of baseball On the dia- mond one of the brainiest quickest think ing and most brilliant players of all time; off the field boy in thought and action, reckless, devil -may-care and hap lpy-go-lucky.
 Chase is s6 years old now-but he has never grown up except in knowledge of how to play the national game. He has never learned the value of cautiousness ir speech but in~a boysh way blurts out what the thinks and feels. And because of this Hal Chase has made errors that have brought him an amending success | sion of trouble.
 Chase is a splendid fellow, well mean ling, good-natured, generous to the faults ! ot his friends-and, withal. loyable. 1 Chase has been called the stormy Petrel of Baseball" And so he has been. | His whole career has baen a checkered one with many ups and as many downs. But Chase has triumphed over every ob- stace and his greaetst vindication has just come in being cleared of the charges of dishonesty in baseball.
 Those who have seen the charges filed against him-and of which he was | cleared-claim that the majority were isilly to an extreme In one game which fChase was supposed to have tried to throw" he walked to the plate with the lscore ? to against his team and then Iwith two men on bases, hammered out a nome run that put the Reds to the front lon another occasion when he was sup iposed to have played crooked baseball it was shown that he had made three hits land felded in faultless style.
 Chase joined the Yankees in 1905 ant
 at once became a star of the first az tnitude. All the years since then have
 failed to dim his radiance as q player
 A hundred first basemen-and more-havs icome and gone since he first ambled oi
 the fields of major league play but none
 has come who could be considered 7
 greater all-round first base guardian thal | Peerless Hal''
 But Chase through all that time ha had trouble with managers and time without number those squabbles have pu
 him "in bad with the fans,
 Hal got along rather harmoniously witt Clarke Griffith, who was his first boss
 When Kid Elberfeld succeeded Griff
 trouble began. The rows finally resulted in Chase deserting the team in mid-sea son When George Stallings supplantet
 Elberfed, Chase was reinstated and re
 joined the Yankees.
 Chase reached the height of his popu
 larity in 1910 when. after StallnGs wa
 deposed as the Yankee manager. the frs
 baseman was named in his stead. But a a leader Chase was a failure. His wori
 as a pilot became so poor that be wa succeeded by Harry Wolverton. Chase
 instead of resenting his demotion, playe
 splendid ball under Wolverton and go
 along tremendously with him. But Vol
 verton was not a success manage and Frank Chance took his place i
 1913.
 Chance, always a martinet who brooke . absolutely no questioning of his authorit i, or of his commands, went into severa rages because of the conduct of Chase He failed to realize that Hal was noth
 ing but an overgrown boy even thoug he was long past maturity in actua ,, years. Had he looked upon Hal different
 ly and treated him in a different fashior
 lit is likely that Chase and Chance woul have worked together wonderfully. Bu z they didn't. The result vas that Chas : was traded to the Waite Sox for tw . mediocre ballplayefs.
 n Chase starred with the White Sox dui ing 1914 but in 1915 he deserted the teai and accepted a big offer from the Bu1 , falo Feds In that circuit he was on , of the greatest drawing cards of them al : He remained sensation in that o , ganization, both at bat and afield unt the Feds disbanded in Decennber. 1915. r Organized baseball, although cognizai