| Show HABITS Of THE BASEBALL fAN Loyalty to Game Helps Make it i t Most Popular Sport in inI 1 t America BY BILLY EVANS Baseball is recognized as the great grea t national game The baseball fan must be recognized recognize 1 a aas as the great national character Every branch of sport has its follow followers ers era but the baseball fan for loyalty y yand and enthusiasm has them all played pla ed oft off ol rt the boards For six months baseball ii holds the attention of the United Unite 1 States and during that time it makes a crazy rooter out of the banker the th su superintendent superintendent t the business man arid and an d the e Baseball Is truly the tIm game of oC the masses Much of the popularity of oC the game gain e is due to the excellent management of If the men prominent in baseball and the th e wonderful playing ability of the men me U engaged in it Yet the men who ho have ha C made baseball what it Is the men who ko have h ve made fancy salaries possible the th to tomen men who support the enterprise in I ii every way are the fans The clean clea ii business policy and the honesty of time the th sport make it appeal to the public more than any an other branch of oC ath and each year sees the game growing in popularity There are many man many types of oC base ball fans rooters or whatever you choose to call them One man will en joy going to the game and keeping quiet the man on his right will get set lots lotsof lotsof lotsof of pleasure pl asure out of applauding every good play while the man on his left puts in his time handing out a line of talk to the players and umpire Some times his free monologue is funny and then sometimes it is not The fan who Jars most On n the play ers era is the man who believes he is just justa a little bit wiser on how the game should be played than the members of the different teams who are drawing fat salaries for their services It is surprising to note how many rooters there are who think they know just a little biU bit more about catching than Billy Sullivan or Johnny Kling who know a trifle more about the art of pitching than thail Bill Donovan Mordical Brown or Addle Addie Joss who can hand Lajoie tips on or how to play second base and can tell teU Hal Chase how to field a bunt or explain to Wagner how short shortstop shortstop shortstop stop should be covered Take any old city cit in any old league during any an time in the summer r Let the home team lose a hard game and andall andall andall all you have to do is walk down the main street or drop into some som place of business known as baseball head headquarters headquarters headquarters quarters and in a minute you will learn how the game was lost and just how it could have been won The baseball fan leads them all as a critic and its really surprising to learn how wise a whole lot Jot of them really are areNo areNo No manager in years yeal has made a greater hit with the baseball public than Hughey Jennings who was for enough to win a pennant for Detroit in his first year as an Ameri Amen American American can League manager Jennings was popular because he was always hand ing the crowd something new His style of oC coaching was distinctly his own and his tin whistle will Wm be talked about in baseball circles for years It certainly was a caution the way the fans took to the tin whistle stunt Inside of or a week after Jennings brought the tooter into action there were at least fans in Detroit who took a whistle with them to the game After Jennings and his whistle were suppressed the fans helped him out by doing the whistling stunt ev y time a good play was made The habit was taken up by the fans In a number of other cities and it was a very unusual thing to have a game pulled off of in the American League without hearing the tooting of oC a n shrill whistle In Philadelphia a fan went Hughey Hughe Jennings one better during the initial appearance of o the Tigers in that city and presented him with an auto horn Some of his Baltimore friends came overto over to see the Tigers play he the first time the club came to Washing ton and they brought with them a cornet ornet for Cor Hughey Hughe It is needless to say that the presentation of these two noisemaking devices helped banish the whistle At the close of the season Jennings had enough instruments in his possession posse lon to start a brass band on the road t ic C The success and popularity of base baseball baseball ball is due to the great Interest that the followers of oC the sport take in ti everything that pertains to the game s There are are fans who ho are far better versed In lots of things that men con connected CO connected with the sport in high positions Some are strong on averages and can cantell cantell tell you all aU about any player you men tion while others confine their atten attention attention attention tion to the work of the pitchers No one is more fickle than the root rooter er or yet when all Is said about him hint both bad and good he sums up a as ar a pretty good sort While prone to crit erit criticize and often otten too quickly he forgives and forgets easily and all a player h lii to do is to pull off of some good f 0 j I 1 his past p st misdeeds will be forgotten ir lr A hurry hum May the baseball fan thrive forever |
