The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-29
THE UMPIRE
By H. G. .sALsINGER

WASHHINNGT1e2N 1e,S.. bought 9ram sssttie ssttan"
 w month ago. The club an nounced that it paid $35, 5,000 for Gregg, who is 40 years old and who pitched for sthe Cleveland Americans lO years | ago.
 "You will wonder why any major league team will pay $35,OOO for 2 4O-year-old pitcher who has been %, ou' of the big leagues for 10 years. The reason is that Gregg is left handed curve ball pitcher. Griffith believes that l left-handed pitcher has big ad- vantage in the American league and when that left-hander can pitch a curve ball he has almost absolute as surance of success. That was proved during the season of 1924. It was a remarkable year for left-hended curve ball pitchers.
 Back in 1886 a man named Chris Graham undertook to establish foot ball at the University of Minnesota. He organized a team, managed to schedule two games and failed to win either. The team had two substi- tutes.
 Last year Dr. Christopher Graham sat on the sidelines at Minnesota and watched Malcolm Graham make hls major varsity debut as quarter back of the Minnesota team. Malcolm is the son of "Old Chris" Graham and what is more. Malcolm has already estab- lished himself as one of the outstand- ing quarterbacks of football.
 Beals C. Wright, an authority on .ennis, has several times pointed out that a tennis player should get a suffi- cient amount of competition carefully mixed with relaxation. Without much rest the player will find himself with nerves on edge and his condition stale when the test arrives.
 William T. Tilden was forced to seek the seclusion of sanitarium dur ing the midst of the tournament season last year. Tilden had played too much tennis and had not secured enough rest. His nerves broke and he became stale as the big test approached,
 William Johnston had to stay out of several tournaments this year, in cluding the Olympic competition, be- cause consecutive matches smashed his nervous system.
 Gerald Patterson, the giant Aus tralian star, made a poor impression this year. He looked like man who was fed up on the game, a man bored with the entire proceedings. He did not relish play apparently and in this country he never struck the top of his form. The reason was that Pat terson did not mix rest with play. He went stale. His body bolted.
 This matter of rest is not confined to tennis by any means. Georges Car pentier observed:
 There is far too great a tendency among most boxers to believe that the more work they do the peter their chance of victory will be. The exact opposite is true The boxer who does not take periods of thorough rest between fights cannot possibly contin- ue winning"
 In boxing, clever managers always manage to book rest periods as we'll as lights. They regard absolute rest as important as strenuous training.
 Most of the leading golfers put their clubs away and forget golf for few months each year.
 Foot ball teams are always given one or two days of rest after each hard game and coaches try to follow the difficult battles with easy ones to relieve the strain. There are few teams in history that played five or six hard games in succession without defeat.
 Even ball teams need rest and play IS strenuous for but few of them. The rest period between seasons extends through five months, and managers and owners want their players to limit themselves to light exersise during this period. This is why so much fuss is made about winter base ball.
 The reason Napoleon Lajoie, Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb had such long careers is that they knew how to rest They saw to it that they got back all they lost in competition before they resumed play.
 Without regulated rest no individual or team can continue winning.