Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1922-06-18 | Page 20 | Curve Ball Undoing of Famous Athlete

CURVE BAIL UNDOING OF FAMOUS ATHLETE JIM THORPE JUST COULDN'T HIT ONES WITH STUFF ON 'EM Jim Thorpe. Ten years ago Jim Thorpe, the famous Indian, was hailed as the greatest all-round athlete in the country. coun-try. The other day the wires carried the news item that Jim Thorpe had been released by the Portland club of the Pacific Coast league to make room for younger blood. It was in 1512 at Stockholm that Jim Thorpe In the Olympic games, won the decathlon cha mplonshlp. the! hardest test In all-round ability thai track and field sports offer. Later Thorpe was stripped of all the honors won at Stockholm as an amateur, when It was discover that ' he had accepted a very small salary for playing professional ball In a tank-town circuit In the south The release of Thorpe by Portland; probably marks the passing of tho great athleete from the world of' sport. At least it will take him 1 very much out of the limelight. Thorpe was unquestionably one ofj the greatest athletes In the history o? sport He could do everything well. On the track and field he was a star, on the gridiron his groat feats aid still the talk of the sporting world. JIM'S POOREST SPORT. Raseball was Thorpe's poorest) sport, yet as a ball player Thorpe.' had much natural ability. On thp gridiron Thorpe was a won-: dr at carrying the ball and w is eouallv good on defense. He w aa fleet of foot. B very hard man to tackle, and as an open-field runner had few equals. In the kicking line Thorpe was just as proficient The records of football' greatest kicking feats fairly bristle with tho name of Thorpe. Wnen Thorpe was sec ured from the Carlisle Indian school by John Mc-(Jiav. Mc-(Jiav. for the .New York Giants th- new a was heralded from one end of the I'nited States to th" other Xo other player who ever came to tho majors was press-agentcd quite as widely as Thorpe. Thorpe was a graceful player He developed into a fine fielder and had an excellent arm He was fast on the bases. WEAK AT BAT, Jim's one glaring weakness as a ball player was at the bat. He could murder a fast ball. When he hit one in his groove, and got those muscular muscu-lar shoulders of his behind the drive, the pill would certainly travel At one time he achieved conshlerab'o reputation hh a home-run hitter. The ohl curve ball was the troublesome trou-blesome one for Jim He Just couldn't, r esl 1 1 slicing away at the curve. As! a result pitchers began to feed Jim on a curve ball diet which drove him from the majors and slowed him down in tho minors. Thorpe wis a. colorful athlete One of his type bobs up in the athletic world once in about every hundred years.