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Show I Seeing Big League BASEBALL By BILLY EVANS Sportawriwr, Big League Umpin and General Manager of the Cleveland Indians An umpire's Job at best Is a colorless color-less one, though sometimes made more spectacular and less drab by the "color" of the Individual. "Silk" O'Loughlin with his Immortal "Strike Tun"! had lots of "color." There bi'va been and still are others, but he Is perhaps our best example. We have had an abundance of colorful color-ful players In recent years Ty Cobb, Babe Kuth, Trls Speaker, Frank Frlsch, Hack Wilson, Stanley Harris-dozens Harris-dozens of others. But few umpires are what can be called spectacular. There Is little enough of the dramatic In calling balls and strikes and waving wav-ing them out or calling them safe. The ball players can shine In the field, at the bat and on the base paths. They have their batthag averages, their fielding averages, pitching averages and stolen base records. They may win pennants and world series, hit home runs with the bases loaded and pitch no-hit games. They often become be-come heroes and national idols overnight over-night as In the case of Stanley Harris, Har-ris, the "boy manager," who won a e- world's championship his first year as - " manager. But the umpire. Who gives a hang about the umpire? All he does Is see that the game is played and played according to the rules. Isn't that right? Did you ever hear anybody cheer for an umpire? So Walsh, famous fa-mous pitcher who tried umpiring after he was through as a pitcher, objected to the Job, because as he said, "it was all Jeers and no cheers." He had been vised to cheers, y No, alongside the player, the umpire Is quite a humdrum Individual. And yet I liked the Job. I'm proud to feel that I am still a part of our great national na-tional game. And, I, too I say it not boastfully can feel a little pride In my own record, my own "averages," in other words. Besides, as Jack Sheridan Sheri-dan told me, and Tim Hurst has more than once Jokingly remarked, "You can't beat the hours." No, you can't beat the hours three to five although my own hours off the field were not leisure hours but were spent In pounding the old typewriter taming out sport copy for newspapers. And back of it all I get a feeling of Immense satisfaction that I am a part of this great institution of baseball, and have seen It grow from comparatively compara-tively feeble proportions to Its giant present-day status. And I have learned quite a lot In my twenty-five years in the big leagues. I have learned a lot about human nature and mob psychology psy-chology and that sort of thing. And I have learned a lot about baseball. Perlmps an experience as lengthy as mine entitles a man to some opinion. Perhaps you will agree that, although I don' play baseball, my constant contact con-tact with It and with the players gives me an opportunity, even greater than the active players, to Judge baseball ability. Does It sound illogical when I say that perhaps I am in a better position to judge the merits of a psir-4 psir-4 ticular star than one of his teammates or one of his opponents Is? For this reason if for no other: As an umpire, my work was pretty evenly divided among the eight teams in the American league. An active player can judge an opponent only on that opponent's performance against him. As umpire, I have had the opportunity of seeing how John Smith performs against seven clubs. Each team plays each of the other teams about twenty-two twenty-two games In the course of an ordinary ordi-nary season. So that the Washington club, let us say, has twenty-two opportunities oppor-tunities during the year of watching Babe Kuth play. I may have more or less games than that to umpire with New York as one of the teams, but I have the opportunity of seeing how Bube Ituth hits In every ball park In the league. I want to make this clear, because later on I am going to name my all-time, all-time, all-star baseball team. And then I am going to give my own conception of the Ideal baseball player. It may be argued that my Job In the American league prevented my seeing many National Na-tional leaguers lu action. But at various va-rious times I have seen them all, both In and out of world series. And this, combined with the figures In the old record books, ought to qualify me In some respect as a competent Judge. ((c). 1930. Bell Syndicate.) |