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Show GIANTS BELONG IN SlXffl PLACE American League Superior in Batting and Pitching Nationals Na-tionals Pitiful Showing. (By Monty) New York, Oct 18 Where would the Giants finish If they were In the American league?' Answer They would be lucky to f'nlsh In the first division. Perhaps the correct guess would be sluth place The thletlcs showed such overwhelming superiority superior-ity over them lhat it is a certainty McGraw's National league champions are not even in the class wlfff Washington Wash-ington and Cleveland of the American Amer-ican . and the Red Sox and White Sox are so little behind those two thai It Is difficult to see how the Giants could defeat them, either in a yhort series or In a full season s schedule. 1 his looks rather rough on the National league, but a little unbiased careful thought on the subject will convince any close followers of the pmnant races of its truth The main percentage In favor of the American league just now Is the superiority of the younger circuit In the two principal fundamentals batting and pitching. Joe Tinker remarked back in August, Au-gust, after he had found opportunities opportuni-ties on a few days off to take a peek at games of the American leaguers that the pitchers In the Johnsonian cficuit, taken as a body, are fully 25 per cent stronger than those of the National leHguc and he is a National leaguer. He made this observation after sitting in the stands behind the catcher and basing his Judgment not on the amount of batting done but on the stuff the tv.irlers put on the ball. Matheweon Only Strong Man. Frank ("hauce said the same thing In September. He opined that even the tall end Browns, with Hamilton. Lnvsreni Wellman, Baumgardner and other youngsters, had a hurling staff stronger than any in tho National Na-tional with the popslble exception ot the Giants' corps, and the Athletics found the Giant pitchers easier than thev did those of the Browns, with the single exception of Christ Math-evvson. Math-evvson. Against the better pitching of their circuit, the American league batters hit twenty points harder than did the batters of tho National league u'ainst their weaker pitching Connie Mark enresspd the nnininn hi August that hh pitchinc staff was excelled by those of at least three other teams in the American league It that is so and Connie Is a pretty Ood judge In such things where would the Giants have been if they had been up against Walter Johnson. Giants' Pitiful Showing The way the Ath'etlcs showed up the Giants was pitiful Just as expected, ex-pected, the pitching order of Connie Mack was Bender, Plank a young-1 young-1 f't-.r (It was Bush), then Bender and Piank again. We had expected that Bender and Plank both would win two games and that the youngster would lose making it four out of five for the Athletics It did turn out to be four out of five for the Athletics, Ath-letics, but Plank lost his first game and the sensational young Bush won his But the main Idea was that the Athletics had five well-pitched games, whereas the Giants had only two the ones Mathewson pitched It was only remarkable work by Matty, cou-I'ied cou-I'ied with the breaks of luck which he earned however, and more power to him that caused the downfall of I'lauk. who pitched nine scoreless In. nlngs In that second battle of the series, only to fall in the tenth. While the Giants were being made monkeys of, so was their manager, John McGraw, hailed loudly as the Little Napoleon of the Diamond. It seemed that every time McGraw was called on to do something, he did the wrong thing . The Giants would have I been overwhelmed anyway, of course, even with perfect tactics on the part of their commander, hut as It was his poor judgment made the rout all ihe worse. It Is about time for McGraw Mc-Graw to go away and take for him- I 8-lf a back seat. For years he has been proclaimed by most baseball 1 tans to be the equal of any manager i In tho game, some even rating him St the top. above Mack, Clarke, Chanoe. Jennings, Griffith He uaed J such woeful tactics In the world's series of 1911 and 1912 that many bpan to lose faith In him But tnls ye;ir s exhibition has been the last Straw that has broken all the high opinion held of hiitr by some of his formerly staunch admirers. |