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Show ICE CREAM A POPULAR DIET FOR BALL PLAYERS "How do they diet?" Is the most common com-mon question In regard to the training train-ing of a league team, a simple question because it calls for a simple answer, says Allen Sangreo In tho Illustrated Sporting Ncwy. There la no diet. Baseball Base-ball men cat whatever they like. The majority have a weakness for Ice cream and pastry, cakes and coffee. Some lean toward pork. There are practlcallj- no restrictions. AVhen the football season begins you will see columns In the importing page as to what the Yale captain allows his men for breakfast, dinner and supper. Harvard's captain decides that a bottle bot-tle of ale per day Is Just what his eleven ele-ven needs; Princeton boys are gorged on mutton chops; Cornell must have plenty of vegetables. But ypend two weeks or a month with a league team down South and not once will you hear the manager prescribe diet. Most captains, cap-tains, like McGraw, hold that an ambitious am-bitious athlete, whether professional or amateur, is wlj.e enough to look after his physical welfare without coaching. The gamut of breakfast is wide and diverse, including plenty of hot bread and even pork. The same is true of luncheon and dinner bills of fare. Luncheon, however, is but scantily partaken par-taken of. If a new man does not appreciate ap-preciate that unwritten rule, he quickly llnds out for himself. The second day on the diamond at Savannah this year of the New York National League play- I I ere, one of the novices lurched about like an overfed elephant. He was ge- H nlal, but heavy. McGraw observed hit' H condition and had Frank Bowerman sting him a couple of dozen times, then H made him run bases until he nearly H dropped. After that he understood. Equally liberal are the league cap- tains in the matter of smoking und H drinking. That is, one hears no cau- H tlonlng, but the "boss" Is watching night and day and acts according to re- H suits. Last season John T. Brush .pro- H vlded his team with a box of good ul- H gars alter every winning game; upon H beating Pittsburg In fourteen Innings H the bonus was half a dozen boxes. He found that It made the hoys work all the harder. Training begins tho very H day after the men report, and the man- H ngor is always lenient with two or H three detained on account of "sickness In the family." The initial business, H however. Is to quarter them snugly In iH some American-plan hotel, and this is H not so ea3y as one might expect. If Jim gets a bathroom adjoining and Bill does not, you will hear from It. Also H Dick wants Tom for his chum and not H Jack. A ball team always goes by H "pals." and It Is an object to the man- H ager to arrange associations immedi- H ately. In a few hours a veteran, whose H mato of last year was released to an- , H other club, selects perhaps one of the , new men. or two of the novices get to- H gether. A ball player must have pome I iH one when away from home with whom ' to share his Intimate Joys and eor- '1 rowy. IH -r----- , mm |