Show Double Play Break-Up Perilous By GRANTLAND RICE COME TIME BACK George O the noted medical and surgical expert from was talking about the play break at Is the play m used to break up double he the most dangerous j play in baseball Wk m jy should be it should be abolished Hk unfair cowardly and also Grantland lt hurts more ballplayers than you I've had any number come to me for treatment of back or leg Injuries due to collisions at second I can't understand why baseball tolerates such a It will end or shorten the careers of many ballplayers in the course of Bennett Is per cent In the first place the play Is unfair and The player handling the shortstop or second has no chance to protect His Job Is to take the throw and make the relay to first The coming to the has a clear shot at his unprotected The opponent Is often completely at the base-runner's The player handling the ball can have back muscles torn loose or his legs or knees badly A recent example was the Eddie Joost Joost is one of the star veterans of He was Connie Mack's most useful or one of his more useful at He was taken out by Cliff Mapes of the Yankees In a recent But the main trouble was he wasn't merely taken out of that particular He was taken out for the rest of the or the better part of He may have been taken out for the rest of his Certainly Mapes didn't intend to wreck a fellow player's baseball But in the speed and heat of action such as this play calls it is impossible to tell what the result might There Is no one who knows more about the handling of ballplayers In trouble than When he rates this play the most dangerous and useless in the game he happens to know what he Is talking One of the first moves at the next fall or winter league meetings should be to abolish this Baseball Isn't supposed to be The two games are entirely Baseball is more a game of skill than football can ever The chances are nothing will be done about the play until two or three stars are possibly for and then some change will be made later when It Is too late for the already Most Graceful Player us settle an writes L. F. In your Is or was the most graceful ballplayer you ever Among those mentioned by the group were Tris Nap Joe Joe George Burns and George Nap Lajoie Is the most graceful ballplayer we ever saw In One proof of greatness Is that we can't recall any spectacular play Larry ever He made every typo of play seem There was no waste For In covering second on a steal Lajoie used only his gloved He had the knack of sweeping the ball to the base-runner with one This grace extended to the Vou never saw Lajoie crouched and tense as most hitters are He would stand st the plate with the bat in his left hand and taice it up just In time to swing at the In spring pitchers would test out They would get to him the first day or two in camp before his batting eye was adjusted to the They would throw in front of back of in the ground at his over his But Larry kept knocking the ball On a hit and run I've seen him throw his bat at a wide pitch and single over first Lajoie was no small lie was over six feet and he weighed around Ketchel and Greb The meeting of this pair would have been a ring The west still goes with The east rides with Of the two Ketchel was the better Greb was much the better Philadelphia Jack O'Brien Ketchel for nine rounds by a wide margin and then finished the dreaming of the the manner of Byron's Ketchel practically beheaded Kid McCoy might have been a tough opponent for either Ketchel or Greb at his The Kid was a brilliant boxer and a punishing Greo at his best almost annihilated Tom Gibbons and Gene Tun-ney In one This was the worst beating that Tunney ever I also saw Greb take Jack Dillon |