The Daily Alaska empire., 1940-07-27
Martin
 Marion
 Goes Up
Two Jumps and Young Player Finds Himself
 In Big Leagues
By OCAR KARAN AP Feature Service

ST. LOUIS-You notice his hands first. even before his shy, boyish ! face.
 1 They're large capable hands, with long, bony fingers, and his wrists are strong and flexible.
 A look at those hands helps you realize why Martin Marion of the St. Louis Cardinals is such an adept. sure fielder at shortstop. A baseball disappears in the rockies grasp
 Marion, only g years old, had played regularly from the time he attended a tryout camp at Rome, Ga. and signed contract with the Cardinal organization until an in jury laid him up for a week or so this spring.
 It's wonder he's playing baseball at all.
 When he was 10 years old, he fell and broke his right thigh bone. The fracture knitted improperly. For a year, Martin was in a hospital bed and for another year he used crutch- eS.
 His mother was against baseball after that because she was afraid he'd get hurt again, but the boy wanted to play and he did. At Tech High in Atlanta, Ma rion had his biggest baseball thrill, hitting home run with two men on base to defeat Boys High, 3 to O. The Boys High pitcher was Jim Bagby, now with the Boston Red Sox.
 Marion has three brothers, and two of them are also professional baseball players-Roy with San ford, Fla, and John with Green vile, s. c.
 Crack Craftsman
 Marion says, with shy pride, that when he left High School he was the best draftsman Tech had turned out in years and he was determin- ed to go on to college. A nigh school teammate, Johnny Echols, was re- sponsible for the change in Mar ions plans.
 Echols wanted to go to the try out camp at Rome in 1885 and he asked Marion to go with him. The boys reached camp during the last two days and Marion played only an inning or two. Scouts saw pos abilities in the gangling young Ster and offered him a contract.
 Marion first turned it down be- cause of his college plans and it was several months before he sign ed
 The lanky. underweight youth he's 6 feet inches tall now and weighs l68 pounds-was assigned to the Huntington, w. Va, club of the Middle Atlantic League for the 1886 season Only Is vars old. he was homesick. He rememberd with a grin that he started off so poorly a sports writer referred to him as a "truckhorse." But before the sea son was over, he was fielding with a graceful prowess.
 From the Class c Huntington club, the Cardinals jumped Marion all the way to the Glass A Rochester team of the International League in 1887, quite a jump.
 'As matter of fact" Marion ad- mitted with candor unusual in a ballplayer, 'it was too big a jump. But Ray Blades, Rochester man. ager then, liked me and kept me around"
 Marion played shortstop regularly at Rochester for three seasons and this year made the big step to the major leagues.
 He's fine defensive shortstop," says Blades, who became manager of the Cardinals last year. "If he hits 250 against National League pitching he will help us"
 Marion prefers fielding to bat ting. In questionnaire sent out by the Cardinals in 1886, and again in 1897, he said hitting was the toughest" thing for him to do in baseball.
 Patient coaching at Rochester, though, helped raise his batting average from 246 in 1887 to -272 last year. Now, under the tutelage of Mike Gonzales, the Cardinals shrewd Cuban coach, Marion is showing power at bat He needs about 10 or 20 pounds more on his spare frame. Gonzales believes, "to hit them oyer anybody's head,