Evening star., 1940-04-14
Another League Baseball Opens Tuesday With Usual Fanfare
President to Follow Old Custom in
Making First Pitch of the Year
Capital Fans Will Watch Performance of
Home Team With Anxiously Appraising
Eyes; Time Brings Many Changes

When President Roosevelt lobs q
glossy white baseball out of a flag
draped box Tuesday afternoon at
0rihath Stadium another of those
pulsating, highly publicized major
league diamond campaigns will be
launched amid all the pageantry
Washington citizens have learned
can be associated only with opening
day. Its fascination is recognized.
AS mellowing Emil (Dutch) Leon
ard, the Nationals portly right
handler with the patented butterfly
ball, nudges his nervous knuckles
into less coveted but more impor-
tant baseball tossed him by
chesty, blue-suited umpire prelimi-
nary to unleashing the seasons first
actual pitch, a magnificent hush
will descend upon some 10000 spec
tators.
That spine -tingling moment sig
nifies, in a sense, baseballs firm
grip on the public. More emotion is
concentrated in those towering ter
races of humanity than those fans,
individually, would care to admit.
But their silence, with subsequent
whooping and hollering when that
first pitch whisks across the white
rubber platter for called strike
as it seemingly always does-is
tribute no other sport can COM
mand.
Then, for nine innings or more,
those fans will examine with ex-
treme interest the 1910 edition of
the Washington baseball club and
when the last batter has been re-
tired they will have formulated
varying estimates of its caliber. One
game doesn't make or break a team
in q 154-game schedule, but local
followers like to place added en-
phasis on obtaining an encouraging
start.
1t might be discreet to take long,
lingering look at the Washington
club that trots on the neatly mani
cured diamond, for if recent history
Is q criterion the 1910 edition of the
Mats will be altered considerably.
Baseball in general and the Ma
tionals in particular dictate tre-
mendous turnover of talent which
is terrifying to your average player.
An Earlier Opening.
Flick back the pages of your
memory to an opening day only
three years ago. Starting for WASH
ington were Ben Chapman, Buddy
Lewis, Joe Kuhel, AL Simmons,
Johnny Stone, Ossie Bluege, Buddy
Myer, Shanty Hogan and Joe Cas-
carella. Only Lewis, Myer and
Bluege remain with the currently
constituted outfit and only Lewis is
identified as regular.
Bluege, rated by many as the
smoothest fielding third baseman OF
all time, now is a coach. Myer, the
American Leagues batting cham
pion in 1895, slowly is succumbing
to the termites of time and the more
youthful Jimmy Bloodworth has
been given precedence over him at
second base. Lewis, a third base
man In that 1887 engagement won
by Philadelphia, 4-3, has been trans
formed into an acceptable out
fielder.
Chapman is connected with
Cleveland and Kuhel is covering
first base for the Chicago White
Sox. Simmons, after serving time
with Cincinnati and Boston in the
National League, is back in the
American League with the Phila-
delphia Athletics, the team with
which he gained his greatest fame.
Stones creditable career was clipped
by lung ailment, while Catcher
Hogan and Pitcher Cascarella have
paid the price of incompetency,
passing from the major league
scene.
It was only two opening days ago
that boisterous, nd-clapping,
hard-hitting Zeke Bonura slammed
q tremendous home run and two
singles in his first league game
with the Mats, sparkling them to
q 1878 triumph over the Athletics
But by midseason the amiably DAFT
fy zeke was brooding on the bench,
his fielding branded inadequate. He
hit highly respectable .321 with
the Giants last year, but his OUT
look this season is drab. New
York's Manager Bill Terry doesn't t
relish Zeke's fielding antics, but
hasn't been able to trade him. No
body wants Zeke.
On that club, too, were Pitcher
Yves Ferrell and Outfielder Melo
Almada, both now somewhat light
ly regarded chattels of the Brook
lyn Dodgers. Ferrell, who won the
1898 opener despite yielding 16 hits,
finished the season with the Yam
KEGS, while Almada was shipped to
st. Louis in a trade which brought
Outfielder Sammy West to WASH
ington.
Many Lack Polish.
The more successful teams, of
course, diminish the turnover in
proportion. Still, a baseball ca
reer represents a tortuous, hazard
Gus trail, with seemingly small in
cidents sometimes sitting the less
ambitious. Thousands of players
never acquire the polish demanded
of q major Lacquer and thus perish
professionally among the blue plate
dinners and bumpy bus rides of
the minor leagues. It isn't bed
Of roses, though, even for the COM
paratively few who are graduated
into baseball's top flight.
The average life of major league
player has been figured conserva-
lively at less than five years. Fifty
per cent Of the players recruited
from minor leagues each year and
given tryouts in major league train
ing camps fail to stick. OF those,
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