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Show PORTLAND SIGNS UP ' IIALF-CASTECHISE Akana Expected to Prove" Sensational Find for Astute McCredie. If Akana the half caste Chinese p tchcr e gned by McCredie in Hono lulu t rns out to be a star it will be another instance of the local baseball managers being asleep at the switch, eays Donald O Bricn in the hot Angeles f ines Ak.it a played in Los Angeles lait ' 'i w nt ana was recognized as having s tb i rum be of being a great pitcher Vou needn t get ready to eee a t ese omo out in a pigtail and I J C 1 dcbo shoes when he play jiere or to hear him talking about ou at hum ba 1 He is a young uni ers ty stu lent and talks much better bet-ter English than about nine tenths of the Amen an baseball players When he came here last winter it was as one of a Chinese baseball team from the TJnivers ty of Hawaii The Chinese boys played Occidental college and won tha game Akana played first base as the Occ dentals were not ' onsidered good enough to require the serv es of a p tcher of his top-side talent They took advantage of this game to try out a young pitcher named Extensive Vocabulary I sat on the bench with the Chinese i boys. I expected to hear them talking the scrambled English of a Chinese egetable peddler Just as I eat down w th them one of the Chinese boys ried to slide home and the umpire ailed h m out , For the love of Mike he said taking a seat beside me can you beat that guyt He ought to get a job cracking safes He is wasted just am ptring college baseball games.' After the game the Chinese boys had a hig banquet down in China town given by the Chinese merchants and asked me to be their guest Akana constituted himself my especial guide philosopher and fnehd from helping me to eat shark s fin to explaining to me the shortcomings of American col lege baseball. He did the latter most delicately , . ... I asked him what he thought of the various college teams they had flayed against since their arrival in the United States they had by that t me met and beaten seveI college collections collec-tions of stars Have yon any connection with thef institution that we met this after noonf asked Akana I replied that I had none. College Clubs Lacking 1 Then, he said, you will pardon me if I say that the college baseball players that we have seen so far seem rather erude. They are fine athletes and good fellows and charming gentle s men but we are just a little disap pointed in the kind of ball they play We came all the way over from Hawaii expecting to learn a lot about inside baseball from the American college men, but we were surprised to see them pulling stuff that we had given up a long time as being bush league tricks. Tirana told me that he had been al ready to eee one world series While on a previous tour to the TJn ted States he had met both Chrvty Mathewsoa and Ed Walsh Both of these world famous pitchers had been very kind to f him having taken the trouble to Bhow i him all kmd3 of stuff In otker words Akana can pitch the fade-away as ' shown to him by B g Six himself and the ep tball stra ght from the lessons of the spitball king The Chines? boy, being a half-caste is rather large and strong He talks both Hawaiian and Chinese as well as Lnglish. Much of the eoaching of this team was done in Chinese He is said to have plenty of speed and is a fair hitter I found however that none of the Ch nese depended much on their A h tting They seemed to have no special spe-cial desire to make extra base hits Their idea of baseball is to get on first base then get around the rest of the way by speed and skill. |