Show SPEAKING OF SPORTS by ROBERT mcshane by western newspaper union TA I 1 IE indianapolis club of 0 the american rican association annexed a grand guy recently when charles leo gabby hartnett was wag 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 our dean pennant ant winning teams and managed one of them the jovial red faced catcher came to chicago in 1922 from rom the worcester mass club ot of the eastern league for almost a score of years gabby was the outstanding catcher in the circuit and 1 the be idol of Chi cagos great north side in july 1938 he succeeded charley grimm as manager of the cubs and was the greatest single factor in fri bringing a pennant to wrigley field his twilight home run against the pirates that year will be remembered as long as baseball is played when gabby was r released by the he cubs cubi at the end of the 1939 season to be succeeded by jim wilson he had earned a lifetime butting batting average of and a fielding belding percentage of during his 19 years with the cubs hartnett played in 1926 games at bat times he accounted tor for 1867 hits during this time he made 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 he caught or more games a season for 12 years eight ell IS of them consecutive for a league record gabby accepted chances without an error from an august gust 19 1933 1 to 0 june 20 1934 also a record and caught 1759 games m more ore than any a my other backstop cold statistics arent enough to furnish an adequate indication of gabrys worth to any ball club the big ig irishman is a baseball player through and through like any real ball player he be hates to lose he never quits fighting and hs he expects his team to battle it out every inch of the way indianapolis fans will like the beefy hartnett ills popularity in chicago never was questioned its true that hat he lost some of his bluff geniality when he became manager of the cubs but conditions at wrig ley icy held field were not too promising at any time during the hartnett reign gabby had bad too many problems on his mind and many ot of those problems rob still remain tobe to be solved |