The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-12-30
By HANS WAGNER


 Since the first chapter of baseball "reminiscences began to appear I have received hundreds of letters asking if ] think the game has improved since l started in some 30 years ago: A lot of these questions, especially those from old timers, are asked in an argu- mentative way.
 Certainly baseball has improved. To one who has any powers of obser- vation al all the development of base ball has been remarkable. Those old timers who have failed to see i'm provement are either prejudiced or have not kept their eyes open.
 For example, when I first broke in, the bunt, the sacrifice and the swing ing bunt were looked upon as novelty and given the razz by most of the fans and spectators.
 In 1897 the catcher stood far back. e allowing the ball to hit the grand stand until there were runners on base. foul ball was out on the first bounce then. It seems funny now. when I remember how the catcher used to stand waiting for the ball to bounce.
 In those days the game was much rougher. The umpires could not and did not enforce discipline as they do now. It was not uncommon then for the spectators to get out on the field and mix up in the arguments. In most of the cities there was no such thing as fairness. Ball players took every advantage they could and the worse they got the more the fans urged them on.
 The gloves we wore were not much protection. often padded mine with duck feathers. The catchers had no protection at all for their legs. In those days the basemen should have had their legs protected. Runners thought nothing of stepping on the ,,,{p AfP h.. base. Everything went that fellow could get away with. Several of the first basemen had trick of sticking pins into a runner so IS to make his, turn the wrong way or run out of line.
 Discipline Is Frightened.
 The biggest and most important development in baseball to my mind, was moving the grandstands back further so that the spectators would not be right on top of the players. Then players were taught not to talk back to spectators. As things went along the necessity of discipline be- came more apparent even to the play CTS and the umpires were given more power. They demanded and got more respect. The improvement was grad ual. but certain, in every direction.
 Back in 1897 there was no rule calling foul strike. player could stand up and foul them off as long as he wanted to- Occasionally an umpire with unusual nerve would call a strike on a batter for delying the game, but they would never call a third one.
 McGraw was an artist at fouling balls off. So was Roy Thomas. Those fellows could foul the ball all day if they wanted to-. This wore down the pitchers and got on the crowds nerves. The games were much longer and more tiresome.
 The adoption of the foul strike rule and the shortening of the games was a big step forward. A foul tip. though. was always a strike. That gave the chance for another trick, that of the catcher's tipping the bat. Often they wore a rubber band around the palm of their hands and would snap it so as to make the umpire think the ball had tipped the bat. He would call a strike.
 Now all that has been done away with It is foolish to say that base ball has not improved. It developed right along with the development of the players brains As soon as they began to realize that it was busi- ness and that they would not last long they started to think. That thinking competition built up the game more than any other one factor.
 The introduction of the bunt, the
 
 result Of the old rule allowing the catcher to stand back. The old Balti- more Orioles developed those plays first At any rate they were the first l ever saw pull them. Something You Don't See Now.
 They discovered that with the catcher back a ball dropped in front of the plate would be safe because nobody could field 1t. When they first .I .l..f l, really funny. You modern days fans probably never saw big catcher running fully 20 feet to the plate try ing to field bunt and the pitcher running in from the other direction. That play naturally brought on the sacrifice hit. Then the swinging bunt. | When this idea began to take hold the catchers saw that the only way to offset it was to come up when they saw foxy batter coming to the plate In turn that brought about change in the rule where the catcher must stay up all the time. | That, naturally, shortened the game. There 1 have given you an illus tration of how the game has de- veloped. When the players gradually found 1t to their advantage to think out new offensive and defensive plays the de- yelopment of their thinking capacity made them see how foolish it was to  spectators. They could much better spend their time in improving their game After all, it was the baseball | playing that counted. The newspapers joined in the de- vel0pment by printing fairer stories | of the games. Instead of being rabid they looked on it IS scientific con- test. They told of the new plays and praised the smart work of the play CTS. That made the players want to ho The SnectatOrS. in this | way were gradually educated into | appreciating the game for it's science rather than as a battle where every body could take hand.
 In other words, baseball devolped by educating itself. It developed just like young countries do-by instruc- tion and matching of brains.
 As baseball got to be more of a | serious profession to the players than a scrap they were not so excited in took it more calmly and were more critical even of their own team. More Appreciation Today.
 l can well remember the time wlren | such a thing as home crowd ap- paudng a visiting player for great play was unheard of. In some cities a | man who did that would have been | considered disloyal to his home town | The sportsmanship of it never oc- | cured to anybody. They didn't want | 70 see a good ball game. No, they | wanted to see the home club win, and at any cost.
 The first two cities where the crowds were inclined to show fair ness toward the visiting players were New York. and Boston. To this day | there arc some cities where the crowd | will not give visiting player. credit Tor fine work
 In New York they seem to look on
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