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Show I SPORT LIGHT : , Baseball Born 166 Years Ago By GRANTLAND RICE I TT SEEMS RATHER peculiar, with baseball rated as the national pastime, with the game sweeping the country today, that no set record re-cord of basebaU's beginning is at hand. Abner Doubleday has been credited with taking a commission from the dying Lincoln, which of course never happened. Baseball came in before Lincoln or Doubleday were ever known. I have had records j j showing that baseball base-ball was a game around 1840. A well-known game. Will Irwin, one of our greatest writers writ-ers and reporters, once wrote several articles proving that Gen. Abner Two Ways to Hit There are two ways on tap when it comes to the matter of hitting a baseball well. One is the system Nap Lajoie used some 40 years ago. The other has a standard bearer bear-er in Ted Williams, one of the best of the moderns. "I believe in making a pitcher put one over the plate," the Red Sox star tells you. "If a ball is two inches wide, I'll let it go. That's why I wait so late to swing on many occasions. You can tell in advance whether a pitch is going to be good, wild or near the corners." cor-ners." Nap Lajoie never liked this system. "I make up my mind in advance," he said one day before a game. "I make up my mind to sock the next one if it Is anywhere close. I'd just as soon swing at a ball eight inchet off the plate. The main point is that my mind is all set to hit this next one. Naturally if it's a bad pitch or too wide, I'l' let it go. But you certainly get more timing in, your swing when you are mentally set to hit the next one." "I never worked much on either theory," Ty Cobb said. "I always wanted to hit the ball as solidly as possible. It might be over and too low. It might not be over and just the right height. There is one thing you have to watch in batting. That's your balance, keeping your weight back of the swing. "One of the chief faults In hitting is overeagerness or over anxiety. This makes you throw your weight forward too soon. As you step into the ball, your hands and body must be working work-ing together. "Young ballplayers, especially, fall into this habit of lurching forward for-ward ahead of schedule. Their weight is out of place. I used to keep an old-timer on the bench to watch me when I get into a slump." He'd tell me what fault I was committing swinging too fast swinging too fast waiting too long waiting too long bad foot action. "It would be a smart thing for managers to have a veteran observer ob-server on the bench today to check on mistakes or faults. In both golf and baseball the player can rarely tell what he is doing when something some-thing goes wrong. Your pro can help you in golf. You should also have a good pro '. to help in baseball" Doubleday had Grantland Rice nothing tQ dQ with the discovery or invention of baseball. base-ball. As Will Irwin is the most responsible person I've ever known to go fully into the subject, I'll go along with him. Now a worthy reader in Pelham, N.Y., sends me a copy of a letter that has been in his family since 1833. The letter was sent to "Mr. William H. Butler, Nathaniel Hall, Nathaniel County, Pa., March, 1833." The sender was Charles C. Cain. Here is a portion of the 1833 letter: "I suppose nowadays you play ball considerably. If I can judge by our conditions up here, it is the time of the year to play ball. I think it was a great pity that we couldn't teach these lazy rascals to play that beautiful beauti-ful game Base Ball." I have seen correspondence before be-fore that proved to me baseball was played around 1840 and there were fairly good teams before 1850. It is only natural that different types of games were played in those early days. It may be that General Doubleday was the one who measured out the modern diamond, dia-mond, but there were many changes year after year such as underhand under-hand pitching and out on the first bounce. No game springs full blown into existence over night. This letter to William H. Butler, But-ler, written March 22, 1833, referring re-ferring to baseball by its right name is the first recorded instance in-stance ' I know with full proof attached. This makes baseball 116 years old which brings it more dignity and tradition. |