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Show Grab a Mask IF YOU'RE an ambitious young ball player bent on breaking into the major leagues, grab a mask and mitt, pull on a chest-protector and tet behind the plate. There! a shortage of first-class catchers and an abundance of opportunities for youngsters who have promise. That's the opinion of Charley Barrett, Bar-rett, senior scout of the St. Louis Cardinals who has spent the last quarter of a century combing the countryside In search of talented young ball players. ) all Is of Woe, 1 (jj Coaches I ioBGE A. BARCLAY ' L me is here. If . ; Qim mourning period Scoacbes pine over the V C're ping to drop aud.,a: fcL ,U they've lost I C. Qud- from the I jy e d back "ea,n u ' Irftse. L. Pacific coast Stub Alli-; Alli-; trf the University of Cal-faen Cal-faen Bears, will tell you t Crable Justification that " Pant, of last year's great !T "i face stronger opposition 'least three schools Stan's Stan-'s 'jiington and Southern Call- t .robbed the team of six amen who were picked on i Ail-American teams. v Jem were the mighty Sam t gov outflclding for Con's Con-'s ji Philadelphia Athletics, :; ,Barterbark. John Meek ? 0tt Bob Herwig, Vard d Claude Evans. But Al-i Al-i ,kii Vic Bottarl at left half , Anderson at full, as well iler f new luminaries who ' it shine. ' 1 ' - ' ' ' t ' i - A 7i . 01d Story , ;, move east il's mucn e "7. At Nebraska Coach Biff ' ri remind you that the M their entire first-string :lhe exception of mighty . 3rock. center, as well as ;1ck Johnny Howell and i Harris Andrews. But ob-' ob-' ipee that the squad this ; be better balanced than t. ettm Big Six circle the inlets the team to beat, si, hard bit by graduations, vol i heavy, fighting team, i expected to be better and ;K i threat in any game. BijTen of the Middle West, ierman, coach of the Uni- BILL DICKEY "Twenty-five years ago every major ma-jor league club held it an absolute necessity to have at least two star catchers on the squad," Barrett pointed out. "But today you can count the number of first-class receivers re-ceivers on the fingers of one hand. "As a matter of fact there are only two or three outstanding catchers catch-ers in active service at present Bill Dickey of the New York Yankees, Gabby Hartnett of the Chicago Cubs and Ernie Lombardi of the Cincinnati Cincin-nati Reds." Reason for the dearth of catching material, according to Barrett, is the fence-busting craze ushered In by Babe Ruth and subsequent high-priced high-priced home run sluggers. "About six years ago I made a survey of this condition among youngsters starting out in the class D minor leagues," he said. "I advised ad-vised them" to try their hand at catching, but they scoffed at the idea. They wanted to become home run sluggers. They practiced batting bat-ting to the exclusion of practically everything else and they refused to put on a mask and mitt "The result is that today the average av-erage big league scout covering the minor leagues finds any number of big-time prospects for all positions except that of catcher. Yet major league managers are crying for good catchers." . Here and There TISCOVERING hitherto unchart-ed unchart-ed lakes filled to the brim with black bass and speckled trout is the summer hobby of Bob Becker, hunter, hunt-er, explorer, fisherman, and authority author-ity on dogs. Among the half dozen lakes he turned up this year is one in the Kenora region of Ontario, Canada, to be called Lake Becker in his honor. In the fall and winter Becker varies his program in Chicago Chi-cago of writing about fishing and hunting by conducting a radio series se-ries entitled "Chats About Dogs." On his fishing and exploring trips he usually takes along his champion cham-pion terrier, Redlands Defiance, as a companion. Hack Wilson, who blasted out 58 home runs for the Cubs back In 1930, is still "box office" in Chicago. He proved it recently by drawing 8,000 customers into a semi-pro park to watch him play with a team from McKeesport, Pa. . . . Winter fishing fish-ing is not harmful to summer fishing, fish-ing, as is generally supposed, according ac-cording to a survey of the Institute of Fisheries Research of the University Uni-versity of Michigan. Castoff Stars CASTOFFS from the St. Louis Cardinals' Car-dinals' far-flung minor league farm chain are popping up all over the major leagues in the role of stars and in numerous instances they're proving a plague to their former employers. Four key players with the Pittsburgh Pitts-burgh Pirates were at one time in B0 McMILLIN i Minnesota, shakes his the prospects and pre-:1 pre-:1 Hie Gophers' reign will be 'UpelL His pessimism is ; ? accepted, for most'foot-agree most'foot-agree that Ohio State has e best material in the if all the talent Francis now has lives up to expec- 9 around the conference rj of the team Bo McMil-Wshead McMil-Wshead coach of the col-: col-: ln the All-star game, 'or Indiana university. It l that McMillin hasn't a D the talent and he'll w many men he has lost ,e he has coming on. or no material, the Harvard almost sin-when sin-when he was down in e in Kentucky la s web and he'll show his op-PWy op-PWy of skill In the con-Nule. con-Nule. Purdue and North-We North-We to be fairly tough. stry of losses by gradu-! gradu-! ated at Notre Dame I Layden is asked about Prospects. "Wt have a great team," ; " will probably kick -es away through lack of 0f one thing I'm sure, , won't be because they the East are a bit confiding their pros- tou Little, coach at Co 'ell you that he has i 8 't of serious time the possibilities of the k ,aU rues. He concludes Ranges will produce live-' live-' nni and higher scores. ,'! wo in number, are as Ceiv.mcves ball to 15 , e sideline, instead of Part. The other permits ncted forward passej sth! e instead of one as cusln hitherto. Little t moving the ballinfur-anh ballinfur-anh "y help short side at- 14, Slde line- The other SA . t0 prove important attack, he contends. Past " i. th Says' "As 800n "few one incomplete H,'1" line the defense a group. The men on 'brow 0(Tense wasn't tleti anotl,er Pass at risk tllon and l,,ss of ttw ball." Mace Brown B'u Lee the Cardinal organization Cy Blan-ton. Blan-ton. Bob Klinger and Mace Brown, pitchers and Johnny Rizzo, hardhitting hard-hitting outfielder. Other stars once with the Cards are Bill Lee, pitching ace of the Chicago Cubs and Paul Derringer of the Cincinnati Reds. One of the home run leaders of the year in the National league Is Ival Goodman, right fielder of Cincinnati. Goodman once played with a Cardinal minor league "farm." Western Newspaper Onion. |