How to play base ball . the strain is greater, and it is only natural that club captainswho have a good pitcher should nurse him all they can. On theother hand, it must be admitted that there are many ball playerson the field to-day who are physically unable to play, and areholding their positions to a certain extent on their old time repu-tation. There is no necessity nor reason for a ball playerbeing fat, flabby and out of condition and being unable to runaround the bases, and in the spring of the year if the captain ofthe club would insist that each day the members of the team de-vote ten o
How to play base ball . the strain is greater, and it is only natural that club captainswho have a good pitcher should nurse him all they can. On theother hand, it must be admitted that there are many ball playerson the field to-day who are physically unable to play, and areholding their positions to a certain extent on their old time repu-tation. There is no necessity nor reason for a ball playerbeing fat, flabby and out of condition and being unable to runaround the bases, and in the spring of the year if the captain ofthe club would insist that each day the members of the team de-vote ten or fifteen minutes to base-running by hitting the balland running it out to first it would develop base-running. Thereis no necessity of a ball player being a Duffey, a Wefers, or aKraenzlein, but there is not a man playing ball to-day that couldnot be taken in hand by a professional trainer like Mike Murphyof Yale and mxade into a good base-runner. This would applyto the man who weighs 200 pounds, as well as the man who. How to Play Base Ball. 39 weighs 125, or some of the fast sprinters in the world havebeen large, heavy men. If the players were educated to get ontheir toes, get set and move with the same eye that they usein hitting the ball, there would be a revolution in base-running,and it is sure to come some day. It strikes me that this is theparticular department of the game that has been neglected. Howoften do we see a batsman go to the plate, dig his heels into theground as though he was going to become a statue there, andwhen he hits the ball, if he has an idea the hit is not a good one,he will look at the ball, jog about twenty feet, and then stop,often to be greeted by a roar of laughter from the grand standif he is on the visiting team, or hisses if on the home team, whenhis little pop fly has not been caught, but handled in time to puthim out when he would otherwise have been safe had he con-tinued running at top speed. If that player was drilled to thor-oughly un
Size: 1261px × 1982px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbasebal, bookyear1903
