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Show SOUTHPAWS ENJOY LENGTHY CAREERS Pitch Many Games After Being Tagged as Through. Remarks by club owners and managers mana-gers In the American association that any left-handed pitcher can be ft winner win-ner in Tom HIckey's league if he is smart and has control, leads one to ponder over the fact that southpaws last a mighty long time in the diamond dia-mond pastime. Baseball history is dotted with instances in-stances where left-handed pitchers were figured to be all through in the majors and Class AA leagues only to make startling comebacks. The pioneers pio-neers of the league this year are Rube Benton of Minneapolis and Nick Cul-lop Cul-lop and Ernie Koob of Louisville. Benton Ben-ton is thirty-eight years old, while Cullop is close to that mark. Koob is about thirty-four. The great and only Rube AVaddell was well up in his thirties when he helped pitch Minneapolis to three championships in 1010, 1911 and 1912. Waddell was one of the greatest of all left-handers. When one considers how long Waddell retained his effectiveness effec-tiveness despite the fact that he never took care of himself, one must marvel at his feats on the mound. Chances are that if Waddell had possessed the morals of Christy Math-ewson Math-ewson or Walter Johnson he would have established records for winning games, strikeouts and low-hit games that would have stood for all time. In some of the games Waddell pitched for the Millers he showed some speed the like of which few ever saw before or since. Whenever old-timers tell you about the great pitching feats of Rube Waddell don't give them the wise-guy look and turn away, for Waddell was everything that has been said about him. Nick Altrock, Lefty George, Howard Merritt, Cy 'Young (not Denton, but the younger pitcher of that name) and Bill Burns are several other southpaws who were effective at an age when most pitchers are through. Many left-handers go to excesses and do tricks that would kill a righthander, right-hander, but these things only seem to make these southpaws heave a more baffling brand of speed and curves than ever. They seem to regard the thirty-year mark as a sort of tonic and go better after that age than ever before. Remember Dusty Malls? He was a great pitcher for Brooklyn years ago, but he began cutting up such capers that he was shunted to the minors in 1919. Mails then got down to business busi-ness and pitched such sensational ball that he w-as purchased by the Cleveland Cleve-land American league late in the season sea-son of 1920 and helped pitch the Indians In-dians to the pennant and the world's championship that season. Eventually, Eventual-ly, his peculiar way got him into trouble trou-ble again and he was shipped back to the Pacific Coast league, but you will note that a guy named Dusty Mails was pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals Cardi-nals as recently as 1925. |