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Show BEST PINCH HITTER IS MATTER OF DOUBT Sammy Strang Loses Something He Never Had. Samuel Strang Nlcklln, owner of the Chattanooga baseball dab, has lost something he never had. Nlcklln, perhaps. per-haps. Is not particularly known to baseball fans throughout the country, but Sammy Strang, former member of the Giants, la known from oae end of the country to the other. They an one and the same. Sammy for years has been credited with a record as the premier plnch-hltter plnch-hltter of baseball It is alleged that he made 14 pinch hits In as many consecutive con-secutive games. This record was questioned, and an Investigation was made. It resulted In determining that Sammy did not perform any such feat. That discovery really has not detracted de-tracted from Strang's fame as a pinch-hitter, pinch-hitter, however. The fact remains he was a deerhound for speed and he could either bit It out or bunt That's the kind of a pinch-bitter' he was. He undoubtedly made his full share of pinch and timely hits, and whoever started the record evidently confused the two, figuring that a timely hit when Strong was playing regularly la the game was the same ns a pinch hit That Is not accurate. A plnch-hltter plnch-hltter Is one who bats the bail as a substitute for another batter. When a player la playing regularly he may make a hit In an emergency, but that fact does not make him a pinch-hitter as the term Is known In ba.sebaIL The old yarn that has lived for more than 15 years about Strang and the 14 pinch hits In succession is simply a story of basebull fiction like so many other stories of Individual performance perform-ance In the game which will not stand Investigation when the scores are given a good ruklng over. Strang went to but us a pinch-hitter 15 times In less than one month and possibly the story that he had made 14 pinch hits In succession grew out of that fact. In those 15 times at bat he missed making a pinch bit about as often as he made one. The claim for the plnch-hlttlng -championship can now he put forth by some one else. Strang had been considered con-sidered to be the leader for so long that the title never had been allotted to any other player. If there Is one who has the reputation' of having made ten pinch hits In succession he seems as likely to be entitled to the crown as anyone else. |
