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Show PFtMgM ... By GRANTLAND RICE TAMPA, FLA. A session with Clark Griffith, the Gray Fox of Washington, carries you back many a day and many a year. Outside of Connie Mack, Griff can take you deeper into the thrills of the past than anyone else in baseball. My own first training camp thrill came in 1S98 in Nashville. A tall, broad-shouldered, awkward-looking party came into the locker- cut. Not a bad aftornoon for an lS-yoar-old kid. His name was Tyrus Raymond Cobb of lioyston, Gtxria. Later on he only made over 4,000 base hits and stole close to 1,000 bases before he took off the spikes after 2 4 years. There were training camp days in the old Southern league, also. I recall two outfielders who caught and held the eye. They were great ball players the first time you saw them. Looking back a long, long way, this was around 1907 as I recall the time, now shrouded in mists. One played for Little Rock the other for NewOrleans. The first was the best looking outfielder I'd ever seen in action. And one of the best hitters. His name was Tris Speaker. The other was the best looking actor with a bat around the plate anyone had ever seen. His name was Shoeless Joe Jackson. And there was the spring training train-ing season 21 years ago, back in 1919, when the Boston Red Sox decided to make a regular outfielder out-fielder out of their crack left-handed left-handed pitcher. They had an idea he might turn out to be a first-class first-class slugger. In one of the March games here in Florida he mauled one that carried over 500 feet into a pine thicket beyond the field the longest blow the oldest inhabitant had ever seen, not even barring the top hurricane. I was on that trip and I was looking at a fellow by the name of Babe Ruth. room, wearing a pale-blue suit with brass buttons. A short while 'ater against Vanderbilt he showed show-ed us a buzzing medley of speed and curves that no one had ever seen before. And not so many have seen it since. He was over six feet two, weighed 200 pounds, and he was lanky in looks. In addition addi-tion to blazing speed he had the fastest - breajking curve ball I've ever seen. His name was George Edward (Rube) Waddell. Even when he was fading out with tuberculosis he still had enough left to strike out 16 of Connie Mack's Athletics. Griff s Top Thrill . . . Griff's top training camp thrill arrived in Atlanta around 1904. Griff was waiting that morning to meet a young first baseman, just heading in from California. He had no other first baseman on his Yankee roster, so the rookie had to be good. "Suppose he's a flop, what'll you do?" I asked the Old Fox. "A flop?" said Griff. "He's going go-ing to be the greatest first baseman base-man that ever lived. You wait and see." The kid arrived around noon or a trifle later. He was well built, on the lean side, with a quick, friendly smile. The personality part was all there. "How many days before you'll be ready to start?" Griffith asked him. "I thought you played a game today," the rookie said. "We do," Griff told him. "That's when I'd like to start," his young first baseman countered. counter-ed. "I'm always in shape." That afternoon he made at least three plays around first that made your scalp sizzling. They were plays no one but a great artist could make. With a runner on second, someone laid a bunt along the first-base foul-line. The kid was on it like a bounding kangaroo in time to nail the runner on third. It took less than his first ball game to know that another star was on his way to the headlines. The rookie's name was Hal Chase. Another Fair Entry . . . There was Hie day back in Augusta Au-gusta around the same period when an 18-year-old stripling came along. First time up he laid down a bunt, beat it out, stole second and then third. He finished out Hie day with a double, triple and a home run. The Hon. Oliver Babe Ha I'd y was among those pres- |