Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-12-22 | Page 19 | Former Giant Catcher doing Splendid Work with Marines

FORMER GIANT CATCHES DOING ' SPLENDID WORK WITH -MARINES l ' - - y rM x- A)v,p : , - . - x. - 5 'chief" . y ' - 'X X" MEYERS. . T-Z": " ' " , . '"i ' ' V' I " I "Chief" Meyers Enthusiastic Enthusi-astic About Military Training. Kt EW YORK, Dee. 21. Every sport lover in America today is pay- in tribute to the grit and determination de-termination of John T. ("Chief") Meyers, veteran New York Giant catcher, one of the brightest stars in the baseball firmament, and one who glittered longer than most of the men whose names were ever on young America Amer-ica 's tongue during the heyday of the -national pastime; for "Chief', Meyers is now '( Private- John, T. "Meyers, United States marine corps." At Paris Island, 8. C, where he is receiving the thorough and rigid training given to every " leatherneck, ' ' tho assertion is general) made that there is no recruit on the island trying harder to be a 100 ner rout marine than "Chief." "Chief" Meycifs'tf enlistment into the marine corps and tho splendid manner man-ner in which he is persevering to uphold up-hold the traditions of that famous body of ' ' land and sea soldiers" in itself is an accomplishment that entitles him to the admiration of sport lovers. Over and above this, however, stands the fact that 1 ' Chief ' ' Meyers could have made his entry into the military life as a commissioned officer. He declined de-clined an offer of a commission in a technical branch for service in this country, explaining that he desired a larger field of activity and was anxious to start in at tho bottom and work his way up. Enlists Without "Fuss." " "Without previous announcement and without making a play for the press dgenting that would have surely attended attend-ed such an announcement, the' .Indian talked things over with his wife, turned over the management of his, cozy little 1 arm iin in Xow Canaan, Conn., to a hired man, packed his grip and made m judication for enlistment in the mnrine corps at the New York recruiting station. sta-tion. i Ho was accepted quickly, having had ffo difficulty in meeting the strict phy-1 phy-1 requirements of the marine corps, and, on October was sworn nto the snrviro and transferred to Paris Island to take up his "boot" (recruit) train-His train-His arrival at the training camp was hailed with great glee by his follow fol-low marint'S, who made a rush for the (pi ar tors in which he was orated to have a "look-s-'e" at the famous vet-ernn vet-ernn Giant catcher. The smiling Indian appeared to appreciate appre-ciate the ovation and modestly answered an-swered the countless questions, explain-i explain-i i i l how the Giants won so many pennants pen-nants and the thousand and one in-' quiric as to personal characteristics of i Join McGraw. Heine Zim merman, Chris-jlv Chris-jlv Mathewson ;ind other brilliant tenin-i tenin-i mn fr-s vi; h whom he had played' for ! years. Somi a fter receiving his uniform I -Thinf ' M ryrrs was prised tn take fart in a friendly gamn of ball between i i wo companies. Jt was a sorrv dav for (the outfielders of the opposing team, for the new recruit knocked the hall all over the drill ground. Thereafter opposing op-posing pitchers either strained their arms to fool the old-timer or wisely let him walk. t; , Eager to Get Ahead. Private Meyers, from the very beginning be-ginning of his recruit training, displayed dis-played the same eagerness to get ahead that marked his rise in the basehall game from the II arr is bit rg, Pa., 1 earn of the old Tri-State league awny brp-k in 190G. Hard work nJo hrouuht him success whiie playing with the Now York Giants from ii)()9 to liU-l, in which year he went to the Hrooklyn Xa tionals and remained until the latter half of the 19.17 season, when he f i n-ished n-ished with the Boston Nationals. ".Chief" did not enter bn-eball lnsl spring on account of the war, hut tie-voted tie-voted his energies to making his farm produce double measure crops. In litis, too, he was successful. WMm lie departed de-parted for Paris Isbnd he had the f riding rid-ing that he was ."just as good a fnrmer as he had been a b:isrba 11 player, hut that he would be an even bigger succe; as a marine. .Recognition for hard work lias already al-ready come to Private Meyers, who, when he isn't working, is studying his Private 's Manual. Jlc has been advanced ad-vanced to pquad leader, which placed him in line for further promoiion. And it is generally known that promotion in the marines means that the man has worked lnrd and deserved it. Praises Military Work. "Chief Meyers 6 cni bu-daM ic n s well as antlutioiis, and expresses Ihe belief be-lief that military lite is jnt aliont th'-finest th'-finest thing that ovpf fa mo down the pike. Mere's what he says: "Military life can b'1 compared with baseball in several different wa v- one of which is that in baseball a' fHlo-.v must think and aft quickly, and n ':-the ':-the same in mililrtry life. J f a fellow can 't do these tilings lie 'II very ?,u learn hnw down here. V-'e worl; hard, vet everything is so in'ere-t infjrind jp. j struct ivo that a fellow forget s mi abnnt. ! getting tire, I oat. ''And then we have p!etfy of f.,n, too. Wlien the fellows L'' t i t'jt-i r !then tl:e for flies. Th-"1 snint of (ienifn--1 racv prevails, and vli'-n-v-r vm an i ! this spirit are von wiil find a bntudj t hail and hearty fellow. That ' the kind we have down lo.-re, and I'm t-'iad to ie among them. '