The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-08-02
) | ALKING
1T OVER
WITH JOE WILLIA.1s

TOE SEWELL is on his way 70 a
j nev endurance in baseball. The
Cleveland veteran is the iron man
of modern infelders. The Ear he
played in against the Red Sox
Thursday brought his total Of con-
secutive games up TO l,037. M other
player in either league is close to
this figure for day in and day. out
punching of the time clock. Sewell
is steady as rain in the tropics and
punctual as the tides.
II
:. Even 80. be Is stiil more than full
season away from the ali-time endurance
record OF baseball. Everett Scott who
used 60 shortstop for the Red Sox and
the Yankees PLAYED 1907 ball games in
a row. He started on June 20, 1916 and
didn't stop until May s, 1925.
% till then he thought he had picked
out a reliable. dependable occupation. He
uas a very surprised young man when
KILLER Huggins came to him one day and
told him to watch the ball game from
the bench. Higgins vas catering to one
The Yankees weren't winning. Some
thing had to be done. Higgins got the
notion that a stranger at shortstop might
help matters.
CCOTT had been playing the posi-
~ ton so long he threatesed to be-
come a permanent part Of the land
scape, like the flag pole in center,
the score board and the foul lines.
Scott once rode fifty miles in taxi
cab to keep his string Of conSeCu-
tive games unbroken. Visiting his
home on an off-day, his train, COM
ing back, leaped the track and left
him stranded quite a distance from
Chicago. It was about three hours
before game time. He climbed into
p cab and set out for Comiskey
park. BY the time he arrived there
even the meter had cracked under
the strain. The bill was $50.
The Incident was PLAYED up in the news
papers as unique, extraordinary and re-
rnarksble. II was on all three counts.
Very few professional ball players will pay
rs much as a dime TO get into a ball
game
sEwELL HAS 27O GAMES TO GO Be
FORE EoUALING SCOTS RECORD,
WITH AN EVEN BREAK IN THE LUCK,
PEACE IN THE BALKANS AND A MINI
MUM OF sun SPOTS He FIGURES TO
GET THERE EARLY IN JUNE, 1881.
STICK AROUND GUS. 1T WILL BE FUN.
A a matte of fact SeWell should
IA have pas. ed SCOTS record last
month, and would have done so if
Iris Speaker. then manager of the
Clevelands. hadn't SUccumbed to
superstition, similar to that which
caused Higgins to remove Scott
from the lineup. Back in Septem-
Der, 1920, Sewell came up from New
Orleans to take the place Of Ray
Chapman, the brilliant shortstop
who was killed by a pitched ball by
Carl Mays Sewell played twenty
one games in a row that fall. He
PLAYED all the 154 games the fol-
lowing season. In September of
1922, when Sewell had not missed
game. Cleveland got into a lugu-
brious slump.
Z
Speaker resorted to the conventional
managerial device in such circumstances;
he benched the regulars and sDTinkled the
lawn with bench warmers. Seweli was
out for two days. When he returned he
PLAYED regularly. not missing a game since
but the two days that he was out kept
him from passing SCOTS record in July
record incidentally which the boys
said never would be broken.
q 2
A BALLPLAYER HAS TO HAVE UNUSU-
AL LUCK TO HOLD HIS PLACE IN THE
LINEUP CONTINUOUSLY OVER h
STRETCH OF YEARS HE HAS TO
HAVE LUCK IN ESCAPING INJURIES
AND ILLNESS.