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Show Story of Old Baseball Days 3 Senator Bulkeley's Discovery of Little William Barlow, Who First Demonstrated Dem-onstrated for the Hartfords the Value of Bunt. One day, in the early spring of 1874, when Morgan G. Bulkeley, now senator sen-ator from Connecticut, was backing almost single-handed the Hartford (Conn.) baseball nine, which two years later" just missed winning the championship, being only two games behind the Chicagos, he took me to see a game between the Hartfords and a semi-professional club. We sat in the scorers' box. "I have brought you here," said Bulkeley, the most enthusiastic fan I have ever known, "that you might see at work the new youngster I found playing with the old Atlantics of Brooklyn. He's out there at shortstop short-stop now; and I want you to keep your eye on him. I don't mean that you should keep your eyes glued on him while he is playing shortstop, although al-though he is very good In that position. posi-tion. But when he comes to bat don't take your eyes off of him." Pretty soon the youngster in question, ques-tion, slight of build and only a few Inches over five feet, came to bat. "Now," cautioned Mr. Bulkeley, "you will see something that you have never seen before. I don't know whether it's right or not. according to baseball rules, but he does it and there you are." The boy stod at the plate, with the bat oustretched directly in front of him, like a musket at present arms. Thus holding the bat, he let the ball hit it squarely after one or two balls had been pitched. Immediately the ball dropped, jumped in front of the home plate, and Barlow was within safe striking distance of first base before the pitcher could recover the ball. Mr. Bulkeley beamed all over. "Now," he shouted above the uproar, "you will see the captain of the other nine making vigorous objection." Sure 1 enough vigorous protests were made, but without avail. Again, in his proper order, the youngster stood at the home plate. But this time, instead of holding the club rigidly in front of him. he tossed it at the ball just before it was over the plate. That swerved the ball so that it rolled rather slowly towards to-wards third base. 'He will get to first base1' before the third baseman can pick it up," announced Mr. Bulkeley Bulke-ley confidently. And the youngster did. I looked at Mr. Bulkeley in wonder; In all my baseball days I had never seen anything like the batting of this lad. Mr. Bulkeley smiled enthusiastically. enthusias-tically. "They call that a bunt," he said. "Some baseball players think that it is all right. Some insist that it isn't fair. It is an entirely new freak in baseball and this boy has invented in-vented it. His name is Barlow." In these days when the scientific bunt is one of the important features of the national game. It is probable that Morgan G. Bulkeley, senior senator sen-ator from Connecticut, when things grow a little dull in the senate chamber, cham-ber, recalls with a considerable degree de-gree of satisfaction that it was with bis first Hartford baseball nine that little William Barlow demonstrated fully the value of the bunt in baseball to the player who knows how to employ. em-ploy. It skillfully. This Barlow did in less th-n one season, for a serious Illness Ill-ness did not permit him to play long with the Hartfords. Yet in the short while that he was with the team he taught the secret of the bunt to his 'eammates, and it was one af the tricks that speedily made the Hartford Hart-ford club one of the country's best for a few years. (Copyright, 1910, by E. J. Edwards.) |