Show r S SPEAKING P E z K I 1 OF I 1 r SPORTS t by ROBERT mcshane t ceased by we l m kopor union indianapolis club of the THE american association annexed a grand guy recently when charles leo gabby hartnett was named playing manager gabby went back to the minors after 20 years in the majors 19 of them with the chicago cubs during those 19 years gabby played on four pennant winning teams and managed one of them the jovial red faced catcher came to chicago in 1922 from the worcester mass club of the eastern league for almost a score of years gabby was the outstanding catcher in the circuit a and rid the idol of Chi cagos great north side in july 1938 he succeeded charley charle y grimm as manager of the cubs and was the greatest single factor in bringing a pennant to wrigley field feld his twilight home run against the pirates that year will be remembered as long as baseball is played when gabby was released by the cubs at the end of the 1939 season to be succeeded by jim wilson he had earned a lifetime batting average of and a fielding percentage of during his 19 years with the cubs hartnett played in 1926 games at bat times he accounted for 1867 hits during this time he made ade only errors averaging slightly more than seven a season he led national league catchers in fielding percentage for seven years 1925 28 and 30 and 34 through 37 aie he caught or more games a season for 12 years eight of them consecutive tor for a league record gabby accepted chances without an error from august 19 1933 to june 20 1934 also a record and caught 1759 games more than any other backstop cold statistics arent enough to furnish an adequate indication of gabbis worth to any ball club the big irishman is a baseball player through and through like any real ball player he hates to lose he never quits fighting and he expects his team to battle it out every inch of the way indianapolis fans fang will like the beefy hartnett his popularity in chicago neve rAvas questioned its true that he lost some of his bluff geniality when he became manager of the cubs but conditions at wrigley field were not too promising at any time during the hartnett reign gabby had too many problems on his mind and many of those problems still remain to be solved |