Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-08-18 | Page 40 | Excess Weight Proves a Help to Hitting Ability

EXCESS WEIGHT PROVES A HELP TO HITTING ABILITY j Every Slugger at Top of Percentage Column ! Carries Extra Poundage in Relation to Height. EXTRA, poundage usu?y handica ps a boxr, but it seenie to be a dis-tlnct dis-tlnct adantuge for those who have battling championship ambitions, j Skim over the list of great bats- j men which the game ha? produced, and, I with only a few exceptions, you will find I that the satellites have been heavy men; I bafebal warriors who beamed from live j to twentv pounds bevond the normal weight for their build. I Delehanty, "Ch p'" Anson. "Bunk" I Freeman. Bill Lange, 1-an Broughers, Roger Con Tier. Ed William son, Jesse 1 Burke tt and the othen clouting marvels of the byeone days all were heavy men. Each packed more weight on his frame L than the standard calls for, yet that very fact never interfered with their wizardry . with tho mace. Wagner 15 Pounds Over. 1 Hans Wagner, undoubtedly the mightiest might-iest 'swat smith t he National league has j produced in the past twenty years, tipped I the scales around 1 00 during the heyday I of Ihb career, although the norma weight I for a man of his height was somewhere ! in the neighborhood of 175. And his great rival in the American league Napoleon Lajoie also was a heavy man. The Frenchman carried about 195 pounds in the das of his greatest glory, yet the excess bulk never interfered with his clouting skill nor did it affect his marvelous mar-velous fielding ability. Tris Speaker is a portly athlete, yet he ranks as one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, all-around center fielders that ever lived. A terrific hitter, a whirlwind whirl-wind on the bases and able to cover acres of territory in the outfield. Speaker, although overweight, ever will be classed aS a wonder of baseball wonders. "Cactus" Cravat li, the "Home Run King" of tile majors, wasn't much of a swatter when he got a big league tryout in 1911. And in those days "Cactus" was a rather slender person. He went to the miners, fattended no fortv pounds, and ok; back to maul the pitchers ior the tifLi.ust ULlntbcr of circuit swats an plat'er eer has annexed. Cobb Grows Heavier. Frank Baker. Jake Paubert. Fred Msr-kle, Msr-kle, Biibe Faith, t'icor.se Slsler nil are heavy men. Bul look at where they lire in the slandiim of swatsmiths ! Benny KaulY's heitiht called for about 1 to pounds, vet Bennv "toted" around 1.0 without dimming his baseball brilliance. Geor:--e Blums of the Giants, regarded as the greatest on! fielder in tho Toner circuit." cir-cuit." siiould weiyh about 140. He actu-allv actu-allv weighs about ITS. But for several tears he has been one of the fleetest outfielders, out-fielders, one of the greaieat base runners run-ners and one of the most consistent hitters hit-ters in baseball. Ty Cobb was a skinny kid when lie ambled into maior league view in l!hi,. As Tv began to add weight to his frame he began to add to his swatting averase and to his compilation or. stolen bases. The bulkier Tv became, tho greater he seemed to be. In 1915 Ty was overweight, over-weight, as far as the standard is concerned, con-cerned, vet in that year he scored 144 runs, hit for ,:;;o and stole 3S bases the greatest, record established by any player in more than twenty years. Advice Is "Fatten Up." Eddie Collins and Willie Keeler are about the only two who starred consistently consist-ently with the mace who remained about normal in their weight, or, at times, actually were underweight. But Keeler wasn't actually a terrific hitter. He depended de-pended on his great speed and his un-cannv un-cannv ability to place drives to overcome the handicap of lack of weight. And it b the speed of Collins which enables him to beat out infield drives and thus keep apace the great batters of the day. So it seems that the advice for the youngster who aspires to bocome a great batsmen is: "Fatten up!"