OCR Text |
Show IJ AD TIMERS DROP OUT Only Corporal's Guard Left of Veteran Ball Players ht (By Monty.) jlf New York- Marrh 3 One by one bo 4? grand old figures of the game (iro Jtylrflpplpg cut of the apotllgru Bobb? lrarrfij. Hans Wagner, Napoleon l-n ffi ole, Eddie Plank. Christy Mathowaon. j jif'-leorge Mullin. San) Crawford, Ed W fValah. Jimn;j 8heckard and Mordent I j bown comprise about tiio entire i 1 1 t abl these who ranked 23 real siarta In ; Jurae days that can bo called ancient wi nwe figure from th present. The last few years have fwn the 0 departure from the major league plav-I plav-I Ing field of many noted members of t' 'the oid guard, araonrt tuem C Young, t Fred Tenney. Elil Dineen. Fred Clarke . and Rube Waddell. The start of the f Llia coatu-m tvtll find mill othera mis- I; big. Old Jack Pov.el! naf been turn-"I turn-"I d loose by the Browns. Mik? Donlir, .Will be in the minora if reports c.ti believed and Billy Sullivan fcease to catch the offerings of E tWalsh. Still on Duty. I p Of the mn still doing duty. Wal I Que. Warner. Iajoie are the real old I (guard, their relative length of servl- I on the major diamonds being, in Hie 'S( named. Roderick J. Wallace is an of them all. Ho is begln-1 begln-1 I lis eighteenth year of service. V. I r is setting out upon his Beven-fw Beven-fw and I'Joi1 on his sixteenth, rding lo all the laws of elimln-m elimln-m Wallace should be the flr.-t of ill d to pass out. and conditions at Yji I In the St Louis Drown? make par a if that unhappy esent 1 ot be f i r away. For three rears now the Browns have been try-ins? try-ins? out youngster after youngster In an effort to till his shoes with one more spry, the underpinning; of the veteran bavins: begun to wear out according ac-cording to accounts. None of the jotitbs has been able yet, however, I to deliver the graiie of ball that the grizzled one still can offer, but the day is drawing near and it may come I during the present season for all that I nny prophet can tell. Wagner and Lijole also undoubtedly are getting near the end of their strings. I.asf . 1; and In 1011 I-aJoie had trouble with his legs, though the old hattlnc ye remained unimpaired. So far no I pi roeptlble change has been noted in the capability or Wagner, the great-: great-: est Roman of them all. but when the end does come to him t may be a fi.den breakdown that will take him in few months from supremacy 10 retirement. re-tirement. Inflelders Long Service. It i6 a remarkable fact to note that tho three men of longest service In baseball all arc Infielders, each playing play-ing a position where ecry faculty, mental and physical, is taxed to the utmost One would expect an outfielder out-fielder or a pitcher. who performs only twice or less a week, to continue able longer than man who plays ever, game and who is forced to ex- tr me activity In defending the bul-;irks bul-;irks Not only have all these men J been shining lights at infielding. but a h baa been a prominent integer in he attacking strength of his team. Wagner and Lajole ratiuir among the greatest of all time In this Wallace, t Lough his generally low hatting average av-erage was compile largely on delivering deliv-ering when hits were needed. Is considerably con-siderably below the others as an aggressive ag-gressive factor, but as an infielder pure and 6imple he had something on both of the men when at hi? verv best. Should a piekej team ever be gathered gath-ered together with Lajoie at second, Wagner nt short and Wallace at third, there would he represented the greatest great-est total value of infielding talent ever known, multiplying each year's aggregate output by the number of ears. L 1 . , |