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Show ' - "' A. f ' -; ' . , , I'" k FRANK K. BAKER ' TELEGRAM .PORTS IDIT0P. lUsi. Aei Let8 not be too impatient with the new Pioneer baseball base-ball league and start condemning the organization generally gen-erally and some of the players in particular because it has been a league of many runs. Let us just remember that this is an entirely new organization, organi-zation, that it is starting from scratch, that its physical equipment equip-ment is not yet completed and that the teams are still in the dark about the strong and weak points about each other. In other words, the battery staffs in particular are working work-ing more or less blindly so far as their pitching strategy i concerned. con-cerned. Give them a little more time to discover the batting traits of the different men in the league and you'll probably see a lot better pitching. There1 is lot ef Inside stuff la baseball which never appears on the surface. Items like knowing where a player's play-er's batting power is and keeping the pitches away front that spot Matter like knowing where a batter is most apt to hit the ball and concentrating tha fielding strength in that locality. Little secrets like the on about John Doe not being able to hit aa Inside pitch er that Jo Doakss murders an inside ball. Sound baseball judgment supplies a number of ortho- (Centlnue4 oa Pare Twenty-five . Backseat Driving (OalMM M hit Twwtr-kn dox rules which seasoned players follow when they have no first-hand information on an opponent. Veterans watch the way a batter stands in the box, how he holds the bat and how he steps into the ball, and get some pretty good ideas about that player's possibilities, but these pointers go only so far. Things like knowing that Charley Kellar of the Yankees is a dead left field hitter, that George Selkirk likes an inside ball and that he stands in a position that enables en-ables him to get a lot of power on that kind of a pitch have to be learned from experience. When rookies go up to the big leagues they find coaches, managers and other players already there to tip them off with these salient pointers about their opposition. In another season, sea-son, such advance information will be available on the players continuing in the Pioneer league, but this year it has been out of the question because the circuit has just been organized. We might do well to remember, also, that many of these players are still a bit jittery because they are fighting for a job. Before we start condemning a player for getting nervous and hobbling a play in a crucial spot, let's recall how jittery we were in our first few days in our present vocation. Very few reporters wrote a front page scoop in their first day at work. I haven't heard of many rookie salesmen completing the company's com-pany's most important deal before they had drawn their first pay check. And I Imagine a lot of brides were pretty heartbroken heart-broken over their first attempt to make biscuits. Well, friends, these young ball players are in much the im yilwk-U tact, theirs ia vo more tv wrack. Ing because they have to work out their salvation right in the publie gaxe. Is it any wonder that some of them try toe hard and tighten up? Games like the 4-3 and 7-f battles between Twin Falls and Salt Lake City prove that these youngsters have the ability to play good baseball. They were stirring contests, stocked with a flock of fine plays and thoroughly exciting right down to the final out I imagine lot of such games will follow before the season has pre ' gressed far, and I'll venture a guess, too, that some ef the folks who have chided the league for Its wild openers and offered a lot of free advice to some of the players weren't child prodigies, either. |