New Britain herald., 1924-11-28
BASEBALL TOLD OF
 IN CRICKET TERMS
English Reporters Make Neither
 Head Nor Tail Of the Game

London, Nov. 2s. When the Giants and White Sox played their first exhibition baseball game in London this month, some of the newspapers sent their golf reporters out to do the story of the proceed inss. Most of the journals. how ever, conferred the assignment upon their cricket writers. It was in the nomenclature of cricket that all of them reported 10 the populace upon what they had seen.
 Each and every one of them pitied the poor batter because his bat was so small and the fielders' gloves so large. One writer com- pared tbe bat to & broomstick, and the gloves 10 suet-pudding able to absorb every ball that came within reach.
 But what most struck the British , reporters in this "unfairness of the allocation of the armor" was the catcher's "coat Of mail" and the umpire's triple wadding around the chest" Only the batsman was Subject to complete disarmament"
 Baseball "Monotonous"
 The Manchester Guardian re- porter found baseball "mopoton- ous," and the veteran golf chroni- cler of the Morning Post adjudged 1t slow game, bravely setting down that opinion in full expressed knowledge that there is no more certain way to make an American really angry" The game that one of them found monotonous and the other slow was won with a ninth inning rally, and among it's field ing performances had been triple play.
 Nearly all of the British report CTS expressed admiration for the fielding end of the baseball busi- ness, the speed and accuracy of the running, catching and throwing ap- pealed to them greatly. But the batting, and especially the laws governing foul balls, failed to inn press them as very interesting. One man seemed grieved to learn that the batter not only misses as many as he hits, but that when he con meets he is hampered by a rule which makes all strokes to the right of mid-off or the left of mid on technically foul" Mid-off and mid-on are cricket field markings comparable to the third and first base lines. The writer seemed to be further distressed by the fact that ''the area within which the batter can make a counting shot is in- conveniently. plastered with fields men, who are so fast and efficient, that they rarely missed anything reachable, and as rarely throw a yard wide of their mark"
 i Foul and Fair Balls
 This business of foul and fair , balls tempted more than one re- porter 10 steep his pen in a flood of words. "All of the hitting has to be done well In front of the wicket" wrote one. Anything that goes, in cricketers' language, to- . wards point or square-leg or be- ! hind the wicket does not count The result Is that the achievement ! of scoring Is excessively difficult be- cause the tielders. armed with suet- . pudding gloves. can be relied on to stop or catch everything that comes to them, and the round which the : batting side must cover is very i large one. The only hope is to slog the ball out of the grounds" Perhaps the most strikingly novel thing about baseball to the British i mind is the amount of talking and
 shouting and bowling that go with l the game How a pitcher can pitch , with Hughey Jennings raging him from the third-bas line, and the i crowd yelling remarks Of not particularly complimentary nature
 is a little more, seemingly. than the , quiet, peaceful Brlton can under'
 stand. Nor does he find 1t easy tc
 comprehend how a batsman can
 be so insensitive as to be able 10 dc
 his job with the catcher chatterins
 away on a line of intentionally trri- ! tating remarks.
 That the Giants and White soS
 will succeed in their aim of i'm 1 planting baseball in Great Britain
 no native believes. To the majority
 of the English it seems to be 6
 slow, monotonous game. IL does not
 last three days like cricket match
 with several hundred runs and tims
 out for tea and lunch. But never
 theless and notwithstanding, they
 do find 1t slow.
 1