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Show Major League Training Work and Not Play The annual spring baseball 6eason Is now at hand. Within the next week or 10 days 1G major league clubs will have their players batting the ball, runDiog the bases, working to take ofll superfluous weight and other wise undoing tho crimes against good condition con-dition that have been brought on by a winter of Idleness. In fact, many ball tossers have been hard at work for tho past few weeks. Any one that thinks this early training of the baseball players Is child's play Bhould visit ibe camps of one of the hlg loa-gue loa-gue clubs. The players go to work In the morning, like the average business busi-ness man. and tbo way they are put through their paces sends them all home at night footsore, weary and ready for bed soon after supper. The men start for the ball park after breakfast, and besides the games played with picked teams they practice prac-tice running and throwing and batting. bat-ting. World's champion batsmen are unable to hit the curves of tho bush leaguers, star catchers have not arms enough to throw the ball to second base, fleet outfielders hobble and limp at the protest of suffering muscles, and wonderful pitchers fall so far short of having their midsummer effectiveness ef-fectiveness that they are pounded not only by their own comrades, but. by any minor league club that happens to be In the district of the tour. This early training Is coatly. Some money Is taken. In at the gale by the exhl-I exhl-I bltion games that are played en j route, but It is safe lo say that the big clubs spend every year about $150,000 on the spring training trips. |