Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-07-31
SI,AM-BANC GAME TODAY
LACKS OLD CLEVERNESS
Walter Says Base-stealing and Sacrificing of His
Early Years Have Declined Now That
Faster Ball Has Helped Batters.

seasons ago. This rabbit ball Travelled
with much more speed than the old
| one when hit by the same batters and
under the same conditions.
Developed Free Swingers.
"The distance the batters could put
| into the rabbit ball without really In.
creasing their driving power led the
| managers to make swingers Of hit
tiers that normally were not swingers.
OF course, the free swinging in most
instances reduced the timing ability
of those men who had been more or
less slap hltters, but with the ball
they were hitting against they did
not need much timing. 1t moved fast,
even IL not struck sharply.
Then. too, the rulings against
freak pitching increased the batting.
never had much faith in shine balls,
emery balls or spit balls, so far as
was concerned, but / do know that
some pitchers who did not have a
particularly good curve or fast ball
could work wonders with one or more
of these freak deliveries. When they
passed out these pitchers generally
did not measure up to major league
standard and the batters profited as
u result
HAS the defense been changed
much" Johnson was asked, ito CON-
bat this difference in attack"
Yes, I'd say it has been changed
considerably" Walter answered.
when the old ball was in use posi-.
ton play was better and more effort
was made to cut off runners than
now. The outfield did not play so far
hack and scoring from third or going
up base on an outfield fly was made
a hazardous matter. / believe hunts
were handled better, too. Infielders
were not so near the grass and had
greater chance to cover bases to head
off runners trying to progress after
hunts were tapped.
Change I'm Defense.
'Then the main idea was to get
runner off the base path as soon as
he got on, IL possible, or at least al
ways to throw ahead Of him when he
was under way. Now. it seems to
me, the play is mainly for the batter.
Where in my early days in the league
the defense always was aiming to head
off the runner, it now goes into an in.
ming bent upon getting three out more
than anything else. This probably
has brought about looseness in de.
harder hitting to bring about the big
scores so frequent today.
"Since came in" Walter went on,
Everything possible has been given
to the batter and everything possible
taken from the pitcher. Whether a
public demand for more hitting or the
home run craze brought this about. /
don't know. But l do know that
pitcher is sorely handicapped now. He
might go along for eight innings and
pitch good ball, then be unfortunate
enough in the ninth to send one over
q bit too true and have some free
swinger knock the ball out of the lot
to beat him. No matter how much
a pitcher may have on the ball now
he's always in danger of being smoth.
cred by hits from these swingers."
Could zip Old Ball.
"But, Walter, hasn't the ball been
slowed somewhat in the past two or
three years? It's nothing like the
rabbit ball that was in use shortly
after the World War, is it?" John.
son considered these questions care
fully. then replied:
mo, the ball today isn't quite as
speedy as the rabbit ball, but it still
is much faster than the ball used
during my first 10 years in the league.
It's still fine target for these swing
hitters. I'd like to see some of the
topnotch pitchers Of today throwing
the old ball to the present crop of
batters. There'd be plenty thrown
past many Of them, many, many more
than the pitchers using. the new ball
are able to get by