Evening star., 1934-07-01

COuuITy. Every autumn, Lnt
citizens 60 thumbing their way
through miles of pulp to find out who
has been picked for this all-America
foot ball team or that by this expert
or that, though the experts will admit
freely that they have seen only two
or three of the selections with their
own eyes.
You have all-Eastern teams. all
Western, all-conferences. all-Snake
River Valleys and all-Bronxes. Mr.
Walter Camps original notion has got
rather out of hand. Mr.. Camp was
satisfied with commencing to the at
tention Of the country a handful of
Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Penn
sylvania boys whose work he had
watched several times in the course
of a season.
Now and then a courier from the
West would ride in with the news that
rough fellow named Heston or some:
thing was playing good ball in a
quaint backwoods settlement called
Michigan. and Mr.. Camp, being a man
of liberal views, would include this
Heston on his first team
In Mr.. Camps early days the whole
idea was good one. He knew pretty
we'll what he was talking about,
though the chances are that he over
looked several Southern and Western
desperadoes who could have chewed
the local boys into small bits
Notion Spreads to Base Ball.
= L.
veloped a little later than Mr.. Camps
experiment with foot ball. but today
it is far more practicable. The people
who pick the all-star ball teams know
exactly what they are doing. They
have watched the candidates in action
time and again. They have a dozen
different ways of measuring their
relative abilities. Unlike an all
America foot ball team, an all-star
ball club is just what its name signifies
People were selecting all-star clubs
long before the idea developed in mix
ing the cream of the two major
leagues in actual combat. There are
records of such clubs in the first
decade of the century. The most
colorful of these, for my money, were
Christy Mathewson's first and second
all-America base ball teams, listed
in book called Won in the Ninth"
Matty and his collaboration, Bill
Aulick, added a dash of spice to the
thing by concealing the names of the
all-stars under aliases. In the book
the two teams. first and second, rep
resented a pair of colleges called
Lowell and jefferson. This was
Matty's first lineup, and you can de-
cipher the monickers for yourself:
Harold Case, first base.
Johnny Everson, second base.
Arthur Devlin, third base.
Honus Hagner, shortstop.
Fred Larke, right field.
Iris Talkington, center field.
Tyrus Robb, left field.
George Gibbs, catcher.
Mordecia Black, pitcher.
Babe Radams, pitcher.
Of the second-string ! can re-
member only few members. They
wore similar aliases. There was
Frank Church at first, Larry La Joy at
second, Eddie Hollins at shortstop
(for the time being). Sam Warcford
and Tommy Beach in the outfeld,
and some other good boys here and
there. Matty brought in a number
of managers, coaches, and old grads
under the names of Joe Hinker. john
ny King, Hughie jenkins. John Nc
Grew, and such. The preface to the
book pointed out that Matty's name
had been omitted from both teams
for obvious reasons.
Public Snatched the Instalments.
TINE all-star spirit already was
strong in 1910. Mr.. Joel Sayre
the author and motion picture
scenarist, recalls that Matty's book