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Show BASEBALL on mw;th HIE til BILLY EVANS INSIDE fccinc His Opinions on Interttr.f I'eatures of the National G&Ti , I AM of leu tiakoc what is tlie cause of most uf 1 lie conipiiirnU-il situations that come ip In tlio bnseliail aftasou. There has nt-vcr been a douht in my mi ml, most of the disputes :ind 1 1 io Hi'Kiimpnts Hmt cum; up can 1 trni'od lo t he fa ill ire of snine player to t'utli a base. It si'ems like a .slight tt'clmkalily. yet most of the bi thin','3 in llio panif p b:K-U to the mipsinp of n base. Often, not hi op was pained, the re was no desire to cheat, yet t tint bit of careless n"ss caused all t he t rnuble. The above statement is prompted by a dispute dis-pute tbat came up in one of the prominent miliar leap nee last su miner. It all happened in the last half of the uinih.-and created a condition much like tlm I which came up between be-tween New York and ( hicapo several years ntro, in which Kvers and Merkle fipured. There were Two men out and runners on first nud third, one run needed t tie (he pcorc and two to win. The but ter hit In up sin pie to left field on which the runner on ihird apparently scored with ease, while the runner fr-un first went to, third. The crowd was naturally excited, fipur-Inp fipur-Inp the prime had at least been tied up, with ctmmvs fur winninp niosst excellent. FAITXKE to touch a base has been the bippest trouble maker in baseball. In the pome I am eitinp, the runner on first, went to third, but failed to touch second by a t least n foot- The omission was noted by the second baseman of the team in the field, also the umpire. Tlie ball was thrown lo the second srtcker, who touched second base with the hull in his possession, which caused the umpire to wave out the runner, si and lug on t bird base, retlrinp tlie side. While the crowd was a bit. peeved" it wni si ill hopeful, since it believed be-lieved the score had been at least tied up. I mi a f:iue 1 he surprise of nia ny peoplp i that crowd when it dawned on them that the pame was over. Most of the people left the park be-lievinp be-lievinp the umpires had ended play f.ir some reason not made known to them. Undoubtedly many didn't know the In mi ft team had been defeated de-feated unlit tlie next day. Tlie run which I hoy believed had been scored by (he runner on third at 1 he time of t he hit had been rendered void, because of the failure of the runner oripinally on first lo touch second on his way to third. T,UR failure of that runner to touch second base made a force piay of the situation. When the ball was thrown to that base and an out declared the Bide was retired on a third out in which a force was the contributing contribut-ing factor. The rules state that no run can ' be scored on a play in which the third out la a force out, and that is what the situation uarrowed itself into. Negligence on the part of the base runner had killed the run which would have tied the score aud probably meant victory. To me there never has seamed to be a plausible reason that n pluyer could offer for a failure to touch a base. The baps are big enough. 1 think the size of the bag in j some cases has been the reason for the failure j to come Into contact with a certain base. The present base is so bulky that many speedy runners hate to touch a bag squarely. I They are afraid they may sprain an ankle, j To touch the bap as lightly as ossible, they I try io caculate their turns in such a way that they will just touch some portion of the base. Often they slip up in their figuring and miss by a wide margin, usually at n critical lime. Yet I have seen few" players after cutting n base ndmit they had so erred. As a rule, they will insist they stepped in the center of the bap. If players would only make it a point, to touch every base, a lot of woe and many nn argument would be eliminated. n oil probability runners will continue to miss them as long ns the game is played. |