288
YALE ALUMNI WHEEKLY
Score by innings:
123456789
Yale 19003 ........ 1-3 0020101—-8
Park City A. A... 000023000—-5
Summary: Earned runs—Yale 3, Park
City A. A. 1. Stolen bases—Oglesby
(2), Tobin (2), Littlefield, McKnight,
Blount, Smith, Lockwood, McFarline,
O’Rourke. Passed ball—White, Burnes.
Wild pitch—Alsop. Bases on balls—Oft
Alsop 1; off Lindenberg 3; off Flint 5.
Struck out—By Flint 4; by Alsop 4; by
Lindenberg I. Time — Two hours.
Umpire—Rogers.
<i, Li.
ee re ie 5 28
Saturday’s Games.
The more important college baseball
games on Saturday, April 21, resulted
as follows: Princeton 11, Columbia 2;
University of Pennsylvania 6, Lafayette
2; Cornell 13, Carlisle Indians 4; Brown
34, Amherst 4; West Point 11, Union
7: Lehigh 4, New York University 3;
Fordham 9, Wesleyan 0.
Harvard was. scheduled to play
Georgetown at Washington, but the
game was called off on account of rain.
<n,
o— -—
The Yale Baseball Situation.
[Walter Camp in Collier’s Weekly.]
Yale will close up her Princeton games
(even in case a third game is necessary )
before beginning her Harvard series.
The schedule is considered a good one,
and confidence has grown amazingly in
Captain Camp and his ability to turn
out a winning Nine. While it is true
that the unexpected and the generally
believed avoidable final defeats of last
season led the University to be sceptical
about the, qualifications of a promising
Nine, it is generally felt that the errors
of last season are now fully realized
and that they will be corrected this year.
The deterioration noted toward the end
of the season was so extraordinary as
to produce most decided comment, and
another season like it would bring down
the wrath of the entire University.
The management is very strong upon
one point, and, it is said, has reached
a satisfactory understanding with Har-
vard upon it, and that is the exclusion
of mucker ball-playing, and the scenes
of the Polo Grounds and the discredit
therein reflected upon college baseball
will not be repeated.
<>
~~ we,
No Games with Englishmen.
The long-continued negotiations be-
tween graduate and undergraduate repre-
sentatives of Yale and Harvard, rela-
tive to a return meet between joint
teams representing these two Universi-
ties, and Oxford and Cambridge, have
finally ended in a disagreement which
will make it impossible for the American
Universities to send a challenge to the
Englishmen. The point on which Yale
and Harvard failed to agree was the
place of the games, Yale maintaining
that they should be held on neutral
erounds, while the Harvard Athletic
Committee insisted that they should take
place in either Cambridge or New Ha-
ven. Oxford and Cambridge had un-
officially expressed their intention of
accepting and agreed with Yale in de-
siring a neutral track.
The Yale News of April 21, comment-
ing editorially on the question says:
“We have hoped all along to be able
to join with Harvard in returning the
same welcome and courtesy to the Eng-
lishmen that they showed our repre-
sentatives last Summer in England.
We are more than sorry that the Har-
vard Athletic Committee have seen fit
to extend their rule regarding the hold-
ing of games on college grounds to such
a contest—all the more so because it
would, if maintained by them against the
wishes of our guests, preclude any pos-
sibility of such games in the future.
We are strongly convinced that the atti-
tude of the Yale management has been
the right one—an attitude based on
precedent and on a just consideration
of fairness to both the home teams and
the visiting teams.”
Coodperation between readers and ad-
vertisers will more than any other
thing help to make the best University
paper that can be published.
COLLEGE BASEBALL,
The More Glaring Faults—The Base
on Balls—The Demands
on a Captain.
{Clarence Deming, Yale ’72. a former baseball cap-
tain, in New York Evening Post. }
Foremost of them is the tendency of
the college pitchers to send men to
bases on balls, included in the phrase
being “batsmen hit by the ball.” The
evil, in a general way, is known and
realized by the college experts, but with-
out any attempt to measure it with
‘accuracy. Such an attempt is made in
the table subjoined. The figures cover
twelve games played last season at Yale
Field, including two Freshmen and the
“bie” University games with Harvard
and Princeton, and, with one possible
exception, all the matches played in 1899
at the Field by the Yale Nine. The first
column of figures gives the total Yale
runs in each game, the second column
the number of Yale players sent to first
base by opponents on balls and batsman
hit, and the third column the runs made
by those players after “walking” to
first base. Corresponding columns give
the same records for Yale’s opponents:
YALE. OPPONENTS.
13 4 34° 4 3 I
18 13 as tae 8 I
6 4 TAT 6 2
“2 8 2412 3 2
4 6 By 4 I
5 6 ab 6 I
8 y 20 7 6
23 4 2166 A 2
13 8 BheG I e)
2 3 e; © 3 I
13 8 aOR 6 3
:3 8 O| 4 4 I
120 79 28 | 69 55 21
The figures show that Yale in the
twelve games of the season at the home
grounds was given 79 bases on balls,
and that the men who received them in
consequence scored 28 runs, or a little
more than 23 per cent. of the total runs
in Yale home games. Corresponding
figures and profits for her opponents
were 55 bases on balls and 21 runs, or
almost exactly 30 per cent. of the total
runs. Taking the figures for Yale and
opponents together, they show a total
of 189 runs, 134 bases on balls, and 49
resulting runs, or nearly 26 per cent.
of total runs. These, it must be noted
also, were the direct results of bases
on balls and batsmen hit, as measured
by the figures, while indirect results
might raise the average effect on scores
i@s 40° percent, or more. . The-tabu-
lation does not allow for men advanced
on four balls and subsequently let in by
errors, or hits, men forced in, or the re-
moter and demoralizing influence of the
“bases on balls’ factor on college teams.
Every observant baseball critic must
have noticed how often a bad inning
opens with the first man at the bat walk-
ing to first base. Moreover, the record
set forth in the table was made against
nervous college batsmen, too prone to
strike at the bad ball and let the good
ball go by.
The base on balls factor in college
games, resulting so often in literal self-
defeat of college teams, is due very
largely to an error in judgment of col-
lege pitchers, and not so much as is
commonly believed to mere lack of con-
trol of the ball. Excluding, of course,
fouls, the pitcher has four balls as a
kind of capital to be used in the pur-
chase of three strikes. His prime fault
is his tendency to treat the first two of
these four balls as surplus rather than
capital. He uses them to deceive the
batsman by a bad ball rather than to
compel strikes. The first and second
balls are thus, for example, wide in or
out curves away from the plate or a
kind of experimental “up-shoot,” the
most difficult ball of all for the pitcher’s
control. The wise batsman knows this
weakness of college pitchers in general
and often banks on it successfully. With
two balls called and no strikes, the
pitcher’s capital is half gone, and the
risk of four balls is only to be modi-
fied by straighter pitching and easier
opportunity for the base hit. There are,
of course, pitchers and pitchers. Some
of them, cool-headed and with fine
control, can afford the initial “tricks”
and to treat the two first balls as surplus,
but such experts are few and excep-
tional. In general, the college pitcher
is far wiser if he treats his four balls
as capital, forces strikes, or relies upon
the fielder. How far the old evil will
be abated by the new form—if college
nines adopt it—of the home plate, which
will, in effect, allow the pitcher to de-
liver his ball over a straight line instead
of, as heretofore, between two points, re-
mains to be seen.
THE IDEAL BACKSTOP.
No position on a college ball nine of-
fers more vivid contrast with the pro-
fessional precisians than that of catcher.
It is a place where, assuming as first -
essentials fair accuracy and speed in
throwing to bases, the chief efficiency
depends on form, and form consists
mainly in economizing motion and dis-
tance, thus saving the small fraction of
a second that cuts off the runner at sec-
ond base or catches him momentarily
napping at third or first.
catcher of bad form—and he belongs
to the great majority—overdoes his body
work. His habit is by violent exertion
to always place himself in front of the
ball. He will leap for an overhead ball
that he can readily reach, fling himself
sidewise for a moderately wide ball,
and before he throws to a base is prone
to take a needless step. Each of these
body efforts wastes the vital instant, not
compensated for even though the catcher
is agile and quick. The type may be
called, for brevity, the “body,” or “cur-
vilinear” catcher. Contrast with him
the “arm” or “straight-line” catcher.
He stands firmly planted. His work is
arm work. The wide or high ball he
rarely uses his body to reach. He is al-
ways poised ready for the quick throw
without waste of motion. His general
action is mechanical—but not wooden—
precise, even. Steady himself, he
steadies the whole team. Not many
such catchers have college baseball cap-
tains been able to find, but they would
have found more of them had “form”
been more deeply impressed on candi-
dates. Yale has had but two—Dann, the
great catcher of fifteen years ago, and
the later and even superior John Green-
way. This year Cunha, whose over-
weight body absolutely forces straight-
line catching, exhibits strikingly some
of its vantages. Were he a lighter man
and with a little longer reach, he might
be bracketed with Dann or Greenway.
BASE RUNNING.
A more palpable flaw in college base-
ball teams is poor base running, which
has been a persistent fault with Yale
nines. Depending as it does on the in-
dividual judgment and temper of the
base runner, it is one of the hardest of
faults to eradicate, and is the stumbling-
block of captains and coaches, especially
when they have to deal with men inex-
perienced in match games. The voice
of the coach may assist the runner in
such a game, but only in those cases
where the runner’s instant decision is
not necessary. As a general result, the
academic base runners fall into one of
two defective groups— the too timid or
the t o bold, the man who risks nothing
and loses his opportunity to make his
base—after reaching first—or the player
who risks too much. But the crying
fault of the college base runner is his
tendency to be “dead” near abase. He
is rarely .poised ready to take instant
advantage of the slip of an opponent.
If on third base and leading homeward,
he does not follow up the pitcher’s arm,
nor does the settling of the ball in the
catcher’s hands find him in forward
motion—not too far to be caught by the
catcher’s throw, but actually under the
momentum, which is better for a start
than a long lead. So, too, the college
runner after a base hit fumbled in the
outfield has a chronic habit of pausing
at first base instead of overrunning and,
at least, poising for second; nor have
college base runners, as a rule, fully ap-
praised the importance of the drop be-
hind the base. All these last are defects
which ought to be within the easy power
of the captain to correct. So, too, is the
exasperating habit in too many out-
fielders, otherwise good players, of patis-
ing at the end of a forward run for a
short fly, taking it on first bound in-
stead of trying the fly-catch. If scorers
could more often mark as an error that
defect—usually due to timidity—it would
occur less frequently on college teams.
The college’
A similar error, that of waiting for slow
—or high bounding—ground hits, is too
common in collegiate infield play.
More familiar defaults in college base-
ball, such as striking at balls palpably
bad, striking after two or even three
balls called with no strikes, and the
tendency of errors to breed errors and
“rattle” a team, are to be charged to
that nervousness natural to college teams
and which training at best can only
diminish. It is a trait which, after all,
adds to the freshness and charm of
academic baseball, in contrast with the
sodden coolness of the professional hire-
ling. What that inherent nervousness
peculiarly tests is the quality of the col-
lege baseball captain—a man in whom,
more than in the head of any other
branch of college sports, must strong
traits unite. College baseball exacts
from him the judgment which discrimi-
nates the moderate player who will be-
come strong from the strong player who
will become weak; the player nervy
from the player nervous; and the player
who in one position is a pillar of the
nine, in another its load. To quick and
acute decision on the field and in the
emergencies of play the captain must
join the steadiness which ballasts his
team and a character and_ self-poise
which command its respect—all these in
addition to his knowledge of the tech-
nique of the game. A prime fact in
college teams, as contrasted with pro-
fessional nines, is what may be called
the sentimental and emotional element
giving rise to problems which the pro-
fessional captain rarely faces or faces in
much less degree. Its very suscepti-
bility makes the college nine easier both
to make and to mar, and demands from
the captain peculiar gifts of tact and of
judgment. As an example of what the
great college captain in baseball can do,
not many Yale men of that college gen-
eration will forget how Phil Stewart of
’86, himself but an indifferent player and
inheriting the weakest of baseball ma-
terial, put together, as it seemed by sheer
force of personal character, a Yale nine
that pulled out the championship.
Citi tis
Law School Baseball.
The basebali team of the Law School
returned April 19, from its Easter trip
to the South, having lost four of its six
games scheduled. On the whole the
work of the Nine was very creditable,
the scores of the lost games being very
close. The result of the trip is given
below: Wednesday, April 11, at New
York, St. Francis Xavier 18, Law School
17; Thursday, April 12, at Myerstown,
Pa., Albright College 5, Law School 15;
Friday, April 13, at Annville, Pa., Leb-
anon Valley College 8, Law School 7;
Saturday, April 14, at Baltimore, Md.,
John Hopkins University 7, Law School
6; Monday, April 16, at Washington,
D. C., Howard University 11, Law
school 12; Tuesday, April 17, at Ash-
land, Va., Randolph-Macon College 8,
Law School 7. The team was made up
as follows: Payne, 1902, c.; Fessenden,
1901, p. and Ib.; Malone, 1900, Ib. and
p.; Lane (Captain), 1900, 2b.; Buchanan,
1901, ss.; Robertson, 1901, 3b.; Bacon,
1902, lf.; Hine, tIgoo, rf., and Lyman,
1900, cf. Substitute, McGrath, r9o2.
er
The Famous Drop Hick.
{Arthur Poe at Princeton’s Chicago Banquet.}
As to the football game and the team
of which I have been asked to speak, I
honestly think there were ten men on
the field in that game who could have
done as well or better than I did. I
happened to have the opportunity, that
was all. Our success was due to the
fact that there were eleven men in every
play. It was the Princeton spirit that
won. It was drummed into us to sacri-
fice the individual for the good of the
team. We were confident we could de-
feat Yale. No one can truthfully say
that we didn’t outplay Yale from begin-
ning to end. Princeton has had better
teams in the past and will have better
teams in the future, but no team with
better spirit than that of 1899. Captain
Edwards has not been given proper
credit for this. The play which won the
game did not originate with Duncan or
myself. It was Captain Edwards who
decided to try that kick. Four of us
were anxious for the honor of making
the kick, so confident did we feel that
it could be done.
