The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-04-16
SnOOLd, FrankLin May Dra1U $4O 1000 "Gate '
-TFIEY PLAYED TIE GAME .. . NO. = LajOie Had Gallic Grace Plus NOnchalance Of Gehringer, HOrnSby Duplicate At Bat
Eighth of a series Ny HARRY GRArSON NEA Sports Editor

Napoleon Laiole had jet black hair and brown eyes sparkling out Ot an olive complexion. The greatest os al second baSemcn stood six feet one and weighed l9S pounds, He was & handsome man,
 Larry Layoie-pron00nced Lazgo- way-had 0allic grace plus the nonchalance oS Charley Gehringcr, Every move was a picture oS eITort~ less rhythm, The Big Fsenchnlan made everything looS so riCsicOlOltSly simple that you got the impression he wasn't trying,
 Rogers HornSby reminded yoN ot Lajoie at bat, LajoieHS Sh;laalah was almost as thick along the handle as it was on the traditional fat end He stood well away from the plate and back in the batter,S box, but not aS far as HoTnSSy,
 AS recently as l99A, when he was 50, the American League lWred La loie out of retirement to record the perfection of his batting style ln its ofiic!al motion picture,
 Like " Ccbh, HonuS Wagner and HovnSby, Lajcie gSipped the bat with his hands . few inches apart and ready to be switched with the pitch No pitcher ever passed the man ahead to get at the French Devil, as Clark Grilfith called him,
 HornSby, who broke iN as L0j0se faded, easily could have lifted a lot os his ideas from the FscSlchMan-- all but the strange one that he co0l6 beat the horses, Lajoie thoNRht only of his batting, Like HorlaSAY, he would not read on trains or in bed or attend movies for fear that he would iEjure his microscopic eyes, THIRD RASENEN WERH WISE
 LaJoie hit the bah savagely and on Q lire, 1t was impossible for pitchers to pull the string on him, He'd pickle a slow ball, Third haSc- men refused to play in on the grass when he was ae the rubber, If he wanted to bIlnt, all right, but they weren't running the risk of having him pull one at them with all his power,
 A batter could step across the plate and hit a waste ball when La loie uertormed-from 1896 to l9l6- and he was better than . green hand on the hit-and-rUn, He could always be depended on to go through with the play, and made many a hit swinging the bat with one hand or throwing the club at a bah he couldn't reach.
 If Q pitcher stopped ISajoie a time or two on a good day, he would shorten his grip Q little, If that didn't work he'd shorten it Still mose, Anything to meet the ball,
 Cleveland thought so much of La joie that the club was named after him-the Maps,
 Although pleasant enough, Laloie was not . good mixer, preferred to do what little talking he did in a small circle of friends, Poker once a week, but rarely in season, was his only vice until he took up golf Sev- ezal years following his retirement from baseball. Wearing glasses onw and smoking Q pipe, he shoots be- tween 7S and S2 with the same easy swing that made him famous,
 Hair SprinEled with gray now, he winters at Lake Worth. Fla, sum- mcrs at Mentor n-the-LaSe. hard by Cleveland, He made a part time job of selling truck tires,
 Lajoie was q hack 6river-livery and oll-at WocnSoc&et, R, T., in his youth, Charley MarSton, owner os the Fall River club Of the New Eng land League, used worn envelop as contract when he paid Lasoie Sl00 Q month as a catcher in 1896.
 Scout Billy Nash of the Philiies wasn't interested in Iaioie. al- ihoueh he was batting .429. He of- fer q $500 for Outfielder Phil Geier. gnd MarSton was so well pleased that he threw in Lajoie,
 When Lajoie jumped to the Amer. lean League. the owners of the Plll- lies obtained an injunction against his playing in Philadelphia, and the Athletics sent him to Cleveland. As long aS the war between the Ma tionai and American Leagues last cd. Lajoie was prevented from ap- bearing in Philadelphia. BTTTEREST DISAPPOINTMENT
 Lajoie gave Up as a major league manager in 1908. when the Maps lost iO Bill Dinneen in St. Louis and ss,gsSaga zKJiFataiV,sy Rna yAanNavas t,,. lao n