Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1925-05-16
SPORT NEWS

Weekly Base Ball Guide. 1t is writ
ten by Jack Kofoed land will doubtless
prove interesting reading to base ball
lovers:
The honesty of baseball has been
SC strongly proven in its long career
that to intimate there is anything
but downright rectitude in the fabric
of the sport is to be fantastic.
A few men have been tempted, and
fell, but the proportion is so small
so much smaller than in any other
business or game-that it is almost
negligible. Though their names have
been placed on the blacklist, and they
are beyond the pale, they should not
be forgotten.
Their fall and their punishment
should remain as warning to the
weak, and as an added proof that base
ball is all that its adherents believe it
to be.
Of those branded men, three stand
out as stragic figures-as sad as any
in all the word. They had known
honor and fame and high renown.
They were respected by men and idol
lied by boys. Before them stretched
bright and prosperous years. Then
temptation came, and they tasted the
degradation of the damned.
Hal Chase!
Joe Jackson!
Phil Douglas!
Remember those names? They
are now living proof that baseball has
its own sharp justice; that none can
violate its code without punishment.
Yet, of the man who sat in judgment
on those three, not one but suffered at
the verdict he was forced to render.
Hal Chase was the greatest fielding
first baseman that ever lived, and
this is said with full realization of
what Sisler and others have done.
He was the pioneer of a new method.
He accomplished the impossible so
many times that his most heroic
feats became ordinary. He was a fine
hitter; possessed courage and brains
and the fiery temperament that must
burn in a man if success is to be his.
AS a fresh faced, ambitious boy he
came from California to New York.
They called him "Prince Hal-pay-
ing the tribute that he had earned so
bravely. In time he became mana
GER, and if his success in directing a
ball club was not equal to the CLAM
our he had won as player, it can be
blamed on his Impotence of men who
were less adept than he. Chase could
rot forgive mediocrity. He was no
diplomat, and if fellow failed, that
failure was not smoothed over. En-
mites formed, and cliques sprang up
when he was directing the destinies
Of the Yankees. Those can be forgot
ten. Prince Hal had won the golden
spurs-an imperishable place in the
annals of the game.
When he fell from grace land was
blacklisted, Chase became rover.
The big league and its high salary
were behind him. Even the smallest
of the minors was closed to him, who
had sullied the games fair name. The
semi-pro teams through the south
west sometimes gave him harbor,
but one by one they left him out
when making up their rosters.
He drifted to Mexico, where, in
the northern states, baseball is almost
as popular as it is in this country.
Even there the grim shadow of his
undoing reached out to spoil his eff
forts.
Hal Chase is a baseball pariah; a
man without a country; q hopeless
rowing fellow, who knows that the
work he is doing is temporary that it
had no solid foundation. The future
holds no promise. He may have
money. He may be making some, I
don't know, but nothing he makes can
wipe out the vain regret that must
eat him. Money is a small matter,
after all, compared with the respect
and friendship of your fellow man.
When Chase forfeited that he paid
a heavier price than many criminal
in the state prisons does. Wherever
he goes the canker is with him.
There was less excuse for the Cali
fornian than for either Joe Jackson
or Phil Douglas. He is keen man
of the world. He has brains and a
bility to see things as they are. The
others had not.
Joe Jackson was as wonderful q
natural hitter, almost, as Babe Ruth
From the days when he played in his
bare feet, and earned the sobriquet OF
"Shoeless Joe," he could bat like Z