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  "description": "Babe Ruth chases another home run record while the Reds, Cubs and Pirates reshape the National League race. The Sporting News from May 27, 1926 captures baseball at a turning point, with pennant contenders rising, dynasties wobbling and legends still commanding the spotlight.",
  "path": "/ruth-hornsby-and-the-reds-baseballs-biggest-stories-from-may-27-1926/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-27T21:53:32.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.diamondghosts.com",
  "tags": [
    "Babe Ruth",
    "Walter Johnson",
    "Lundgren",
    "Stan Coveleski",
    "Earl Whitehill",
    "Gibson",
    "Bob Shawkey",
    "Tom Zachary",
    "Waite Hoyt",
    "Herb Pennock",
    "Urban Shocker",
    "Miller Huggins",
    "Tony Lazzeri",
    "Mark Koenig",
    "Johnny Mostil",
    "Joe Dugan",
    "Lou Gehrig",
    "Pat Collins",
    "Benny Bengough",
    "Bill Skiff",
    "Willie Kamm",
    "Urban Faber",
    "Everett Scott",
    "Ray Collins",
    "Ray Schalk",
    "George Sisler",
    "Sam Jones",
    "John McGraw",
    "Art Nehf",
    "Heinie Groh",
    "Frank Snyder",
    "Irish Meusel",
    "Bill Terry",
    "Ross Youngs",
    "Hack Wilson",
    "Travis Jackson",
    "Doc Farrell",
    "Andy Cohen",
    "Freddie Fitzsimmons",
    "Scott",
    "Hugh McQuillan",
    "Jesse Barnes",
    "Virgil Barnes",
    "Frankie Frisch",
    "Rogers Hornsby",
    "Jack Hendricks",
    "Edd Roush",
    "Rube Bressler",
    "Curt Walker",
    "Bubbles Hargrave",
    "Red Lucas",
    "Wilbert Robinson",
    "Dazzy Vance",
    "Jess Petty",
    "Charley Dressen",
    "Babe Pinelli",
    "Emil Yde",
    "Pete Donohue",
    "Eddie Collins",
    "Lee Fohl",
    "Topper Rigney",
    "Fred Haney",
    "Howard Ehmke",
    "Lefty Grove",
    "Jack Quinn",
    "Heinie Manush",
    "Connie Mack",
    "Ty Cobb",
    "August Johns",
    "Ed Wells",
    "Lil Stoner",
    "Sam Gibson",
    "Ken Holloway",
    "Rip Collins",
    "Clyde Barfoot",
    "Dutch Ruether",
    "Alex Ferguson",
    "Jackie Warner",
    "Charlie Gehringer",
    "Honus Wagner",
    "Jimmy Dykes",
    "Al Simmons",
    "Bob Fothergill",
    "Bucky Harris",
    "Dutch Leonard",
    "Les Bell",
    "Taylor Douthit",
    "Jim Bottomley",
    "Heinie Mueller",
    "Ray Blades",
    "Flint Rhem",
    "Vic Keen",
    "Bill Sherdel",
    "Cincinnati Reds",
    "Texas Christian University",
    "Tris Speaker",
    "Cleveland Indians",
    "Charlie Jamieson",
    "Fred Spurgeon",
    "George Burns",
    "Luke Sewell",
    "Chick Autry",
    "Glenn Myatt",
    "Walter Miller",
    "Joe Shaute",
    "Sherrod Smith",
    "George Uhle",
    "Ben Karr",
    "Slim Harriss",
    "Norman Lehr",
    "Eddie Rommel",
    "Earle Combs",
    "Joe Judge",
    "Buddy Myer",
    "Roger Peckinpaugh",
    "Sam Rice",
    "Bob Reeves",
    "Nick Cullop",
    "Chicago Cubs",
    "Tony Kaufmann",
    "Charlie Root",
    "Grover Cleveland Alexander",
    "Chicago White Sox",
    "Bill Barrett",
    "Swede Risberg",
    "Moe Berg",
    "Boston Red Sox",
    "St. Louis Browns",
    "Paul Zahniser",
    "Hal Wiltse",
    "Charley Ruffing",
    "Doc Gautreau",
    "Dick Rudolph",
    "Philadelphia Athletics",
    "Chick Galloway",
    "Joe Sewell",
    "Bill Wambsganss",
    "Sam Gray",
    "Charley Willis",
    "Philadelphia Phillies",
    "Art Fletcher",
    "Brooklyn Robins",
    "Gus Felix",
    "Johnny Butler",
    "Charlie Hargreaves",
    "Jacques Fournier",
    "Babe Herman",
    "St. Louis Cardinals",
    "Whitey Witt",
    "Merwin Jacobson",
    "Bill Marriott",
    "Chick Fewster",
    "Eppa Rixey",
    "Rabbit Maranville",
    "Bill Hinchman",
    "Bob McGraw",
    "Kiki Cuyler",
    "Glenn Wright",
    "Pat Moran",
    "Pittsburgh Pirates",
    "St. Louis",
    "Max Carey",
    "Paul Waner",
    "Clyde Barnhart",
    "Carson Bigbee",
    "Harold “Hal” Wiltse",
    "Harold Wiltse",
    "Armando Marsans",
    "Milton Stock",
    "New York Giants",
    "Brooklyn",
    "Reds",
    "Jack Dunn",
    "Cardinals",
    "New York Yankees",
    "John B. Sheridan",
    "Ernie Nevers",
    "Stanford University",
    "Red Grange",
    "Christy Mathewson",
    "Amos Rusie",
    "Rube Waddell",
    "Ted Sullivan",
    "George Wright",
    "Babe Adams",
    "Hubert “Shucks” Pruett",
    "Detroit Tigers",
    "Pie Traynor",
    "Shoeless Joe Jackson"
  ],
  "textContent": "Select Content from The Sporting News - May 27, 1926\n\n## Todays Sporting News\n\n  * Ruth’s Ambition Is New Record, His Inspiration, New Contract\n  * Hendricks’ Stock as Manager Rises\n  * Alien Mobs Do Not Discourage Tigers\n  * Sisler Takes Dose Without Flinching\n  * Cincinnati’s Chief Marksman: Pete Donohue\n  * Cleveland Upholds Prestige of West\n  * Senators’ Chests Back to Normalcy\n  * Hitless Cubs Lead National With Bat\n  * Red Sox, at Least, Keep ’Em Guessing\n  * No Pink Tea Stuff With A’s This Year\n  * Inevitable Happens to Brooklyn Robins\n  * Barney’s Schedule Keeps Bucs Moving\n  * New Jewel in Dark Setting: Harold Wiltse\n  * Death Takes Dan O’Neil, Veteran Baseball Man\n  * Stock Does Well at Mobile\n  * National League Power Shifts Westward\n  * Back of the Home Plate — By John B. Sheridan\n  * Baseball By-Plays\n  * “The Fight in the Dark” — Ruth, Cobb and Gehrig\n  * Chilly Doyle’s “An Eclipse”\n  * Bill Byron’s Butterfly Story\n  * Rube DeGroff and the Lightning Storm\n  * Advertisements\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n### RUTH’S AMBITION IS NEW RECORD, HIS INSPIRATION, NEW CONTRACT\n\n\nBETWEEN THE TWO THEY INSPIRE YANKEES\nBambino Ahead of Great Mark of 1921 and Team Has Pennant Urge; McGraw May Not Be Through Making Changes.\n\nNEW YORK, N.Y., May 24.—Babe Ruth is making a gallant fight for a renewal of his $52,000 contract, which expires in October. He is ahead of his 1921 record for home runs—fifty-nine being his highest notch—and he seems to be in a fair way to hang up a new mark. Most of his circuit drives at the Yankee Stadium this Spring have dropped into the conveniently located right field bleachers, into which many other players are making similar drives.\n\nAt the present gait, the Yankees, led by Ruth, will make more home runs at the Stadium than any of the other American League teams on their own grounds. Home-running has become such a fad at Col. Ruppert’s ball park that thousands of fans have gone crazy over the outlook for another Ruthian record.\n\nThe fine playing of the Bambino, individually, has inspired the Yankees beyond a question of doubt. He is playing the game of his life, both in batting and fielding. He is in superb physical condition and paying strict attention to the business of proving to Col. Ruppert that he still is worth the highest salary ever drawn by a major league star.\n\nFollowing Ruth’s example, every member of the New York American League team is doing his level best to maintain a commanding lead in the pennant race. That is just what the fans pay their good money to see, with the result that the Yankees are drawing greater crowds daily than at any time since 1924.\n\nIt rained Sunday, May 16, and 60,000 fans, who wanted to see the second game of the White Sox series, were bitterly disappointed. Up to that day, Ruth had lined out 12 four-baggers against his thirteenth made on May 25, 1921. Those 12 wallops were charged against Pitchers Walter Johnson, Ruling, Lundgren, Stan Coveleski, Gray, Holloway, Earl Whitehill, Gibson, Bob Shawkey, Karr, Levsen and Thomas in the order named.\n\n### Breaks Loose Against Browns.\n\nRuth waited until Wednesday’s game with the Browns before increasing his home run totals with two, one off Tom Zachary and the other off Ballou, while on Thursday he knocked out his fifteenth off Gaston. Ruth’s fifteenth homer in 1921 wasn’t recorded until May 30, so everybody was happy. The Yankees made a clean sweep of the Brown series, to run their consecutive conquests to 11 straight games.\n\nThey had outclassed the Indians, White Sox and Browns by a wide margin, after breaking even with the fighting Cobblers, for which the metropolitan baseball public showed its appreciation. Splendid pitching by Waite Hoyt, Herb Pennock, Urban Shocker and young Tommy Thomas, the Toronto recruit, has cut an important figure in the recent triumphs of the team.\n\nMiller Huggins normally is proud of his reorganized ball club and is well satisfied with his kid infielders, Tony Lazzeri and Mark Koenig. Lazzeri, by the way, beat the White Sox on Tuesday by knocking a home run over Johnny Mostil’s head with three men on bases. In the absence of the crippled Joe Dugan, Mike Gazella is playing third base satisfactorily.\n\nIt is worthy of note that the Yankees, with Lou Gehrig, Lazzeri, Koenig and Gazella in action, have the youngest infield in the majors. The average age of these men is less than 23, yet they are working together like experienced veterans.\n\nPat Collins has caught all of the Yankees’ games so far and soon may need a rest, although he seems to be a horse for work. Benny Bengough is laid up with a lame shoulder, which refuses to respond to treatment, so that Huggins has just purchased the release of Bill Skiff from Milwaukee, with which club he had refused to sign.\n\nSkiff lives in New Rochelle, a suburb, and has played with Kansas City, the Pirates and Milwaukee. He had a good batting record last year in the American Association and Huggins says he is just the man he needs for emergency duty behind the bat.\n\nThe White Sox, during their stay, were crippled. Willie Kamm still was unable to play and Earl Sheely had a sprained ankle. Urban Faber received a terrific drubbing in one of the games here, one of the worst in his long career. The fielding of Everett Scott at shortstop was a revelation to Huggins and many critics who pronounced him a “back number” when he was turned loose by the Yankees last year. He killed several base hits and his throwing was both swift and accurate.\n\nRay Collins, in an interview, praised Scott in unmeasured terms and also predicted a bright future for Grabowski, one of his young catchers. He said that Grabowski had learned many valuable pointers from Ray Schalk and some day would be a star backstop.\n\n### Browns’ Pitching Weak.\n\nGeorge Sisler’s Browns, in their series, fought gamely, but the slugging of Murderers’ Row was a trifle too much for them. Sisler was dragging around a lame leg and couldn’t play in the first encounter. To a man up a tree, it appeared that the Browns’ fatal weakness was located in the pitching department.\n\nOf course, the Yankees have played a majority of their games at home, backed up by loyal friends. They have held the leadership by hard, determined and clever all around skill. But soon they must go West, where they will receive their first real test. If they can weather the gale which awaits them in that part of the country, then it will be time to have visions of a World’s Series.\n\nIf the success of young Thomas, who has pitched two victories in fine style against Western teams, isn’t temporary, Huggins will have reason to feel easier. Thomas works like a seasoned big leaguer and will receive a regular turn. The Yankees’ leader is planning to take the blanket off Braxton, the left-hander, in the near future, as the latter has begun to impress him favorably.\n\nBob Shawkey has had a broken bone removed from his foot and will be inactive for six weeks or more. Sam Jones still is an in and outer, so that on the coming Western trip the Yankees’ pitching burden must be shouldered by Hoyt, Pennock, Shocker and young Thomas. Looks like a severe strain for all of them.\n\nJohn McGraw still is tinkering with the stumbling Giants. Having tied the historic can to Art Nehf and Heinie Groh, the Little Napoleon exploded another bomb last week when he got rid of Hartley, McNamara and Wisner. He sent Wisner, much against his will, to Indianapolis in part payment for Florence, the former Georgetown University catcher, who has been going great guns in the American Association.\n\nFlorence already is wearing a New York uniform and made his bow in Pittsburg. Hartley, a fine chap, was turned adrift because his batting had fallen below requirements. But it remains to be seen how Florence will hit the old apple.\n\n### Snyder Ready to Quit?\n\nFlorence and McMullen, the big Texan, are ready to step into Frank Snyder’s shoes at any moment. Snyder, once the greatest catcher in the National League, gradually has been nearing the end of his career and down in Florida recently he was quoted as saying that he wouldn’t mind quitting the game.\n\nThe fate of Irish Meusel still hangs in the balance. He has played good and poor ball ever since the getaway last April. He has become slow in fielding and McGraw has benched him frequently. It is significant that the Giants’ leader is using Moore, a newcomer, and Bill Terry, sub first baseman, in the outfield lately.\n\nTerry can be taught how to play in the outfield and perhaps that is McGraw’s idea. A hard hitter like Bill shouldn’t remain idle in the dugout. Ross Youngs, who is getting over injuries, is sure to return to his old position in right and as soon as Hack Wilson is able to stand the gaff, McGraw will return him to center.\n\nRay Southworth, whose batting has been one of the surprises of the campaign, probably will be shifted to left when Tyson and Young return, which would seem to indicate the passing of Meusel.\n\nWith Shortstop Travis Jackson here, having his injured knee treated by a specialist, Doc Farrell, tooth puller, has been covering shortstop in bang-up style. Also he is driving out numerous safe hits. His all-around cleverness has diminished the loss of Jackson more than McGraw had expected. Result, the doctor of molars will remain where he is.\n\nJackson was crippled right after Groh was released. Consequently, the Giants needed another infielder. So McGraw pulled the string attached to Andy Cohen, the Jewish shortstop of the Waco Texas League team, and will introduce him at the Polo Grounds this week.\n\nWisner, who had begun to look like a first rate pitcher before he was sent to Indianapolis, will be recalled in September. Meanwhile the Giants will try to get out of the second division, into which they have dropped for the first time since 1916, through the combined pitching efforts of Greenfield, Freddie Fitzsimmons, Red Ring, Scott, Hugh McQuillan, Jesse Barnes and Virgil Barnes, the smallest staff that McGraw has carried in the last decade.\n\nRumored that Capt. Frankie Frisch recently was plastered with a $50 fine for making a dumb play. Wonders never cease!\n\nJOE VILA.\n\n* * *\n\n## HENDRICKS’ STOCK AS MANAGER RISES\n\n\nMUCH CREDIT DUE LEADER OF REDS FOR SHOWING THUS FAR.\nHandles Team with Rare Judgment and Is Getting Everything There Is to Be Had; Lucas Appears in New Role.\n\nCINCINNATI, O., May 24.—Cincy’s high-flying Reds are in the midst of a stretch of games that should tell if the club really is where it belongs or is just a flash in the pan. Against the Eastern clubs on their home lot the Reds looked like the allied debt collected and made all comers feel sick to the tune of 13 games to two.\n\nThere’s a strong suspicion around the league that the strength of John Heydler’s circuit is centered in the West and that our beknighted section of the country is liable to pop up with four first division teams along about September 29. So, for a little over a week the Western clubs will be clawing away at one another and the Reds, with seven straight games with the Cardinals and four with the Pirates, all to be played in a space of nine days, are in for a test that should show just what the team has under its collective belt and hat.\n\nNeither the Cardinals nor Pirates are easy picking any longer. Earlier in the year, when both those teams were playing below their real speed, the Reds knocked them off regularly, but as they enter this stretch of games with the men of Rogers Hornsby and Bill McKechnie, the tribe which Jack Hendricks has steered to the top of the league and kept there, has every reason to feel it is as good, if not better, than any rival.\n\n### Under Able Leadership.\n\nThe Reds are on top because they have been doing good work in every department of the game and also getting excellent direction. Hendricks is handling his team like a real manager and the only possible fault that any one can find in his work is that he occasionally lets a pitcher linger on the hill too long. However, his team has won 16 of its last 20 games, and when an outfit is stepping that fast it can’t be doing much wrong.\n\nOne thing the fans outside of Cincinnati probably have not noticed is that the Red have been stepping so fast with very little help on the attack by Edd Roush, supposedly the team’s greatest hitter. Roush has been having one heck of a time getting his eye on the ball this Spring, with the result that he is hitting less than .275, possibly 75 points below his normal gait. Any club that can win when its main gun is spiked, must have a lot of class elsewhere along the line and that is true of the Reds.\n\nSome of the boys, of course, are hitting over their heads, but this is not true of many of the regulars. Rube Bressler and Curt Walker are the only ones who play daily who are above .300, while Bubbles Hargrave also is in that company.\n\nAs a pitcher, Red Lucas no longer is the demon he was in the early Springtime. His offerings have been slammed plenty of late, but his hitting is so hard and timely that he’s a fixture on the team.\n\n### Robins Thoroughly Chastised.\n\nThe Brooklyn series, in which the Reds captured four straight, was the big laugh of the year in Redland. That club came to town right on Cincy’s heels and on the morning of the first day several of Uncle Wilbert Robinson’s hired hands told those within earshot that they would show Cincinnati what a real ball team was.\n\nThe Robins had been getting excellent pitching and thought they were pretty near invincible. But they lost four straight, 5 to 1, 7 to 2, 8 to 5 and 11 to 3, and looked bad in every game.\n\nPerhaps the best laugh of the series was on Uncle Robby, although Dazzy Vance also let himself in for a good one. We called up Robby the day he hit town and asked him if there was anything wrong with Jess Petty, who hadn’t pitched for quite some time.\n\nRobby was a bit indignant. “Are you another dummy, too?” he asked. We pleaded not guilty and asked him to shed the light.\n\n“There’s nothing wrong with Petty,” was his comeback, but you ought to know a left-hander has no chance against Pittsburg, so I didn’t pitch him there. He’ll be in there this afternoon against your club.”\n\nWe thanked Robby and then floored him with this: “You say no left-hander has beaten Pittsburg; do you know how many left-handers have beaten the Reds this year?”\n\n“What’s that?” came over the wire.\n\n“You may not know it, but no left-hander has beaten Cincinnati this year and if you pitch Petty today, you may get the answer,” we told him.\n\nRobby then gave it as his opinion the Reds should be a sucker for a good southpaw, pitched Petty and saw him slaughtered.\n\nThe night before the last game of the set, Vance cornered Charley Dressen in the Havlin Hotel lobby for a little “goat-getting.” “You’re the leadoff man for Cincinnati, aren’t you, young fellow?” Vance asked.\n\n“I am,” Dressen replied.\n\n“Well, here’s a tip for you then,” Dazzy continued. “Go to bed early tonight and get a good rest, because I’m going to make an example of you tomorrow and throw the first three right past you.”\n\n### Dressen Gave His Answer, Too.\n\nCharley took his wife out that night and danced until after midnight. The next day he stepped to the bat against Dazzy with a record of 18 straight hitless swings behind him, pasted a single in the first inning, got two more before the game ended and had a big hand in making Dazzy look like a sandlot pitcher.\n\nDressen’s throwing arm, by the way, still appears to be a bit weak, but he’s getting by with it at third base satisfactorily. He’s made several pegs and got his man that didn’t seem possible for a weak arm; and as long as he does as well as he has been doing there seems small chance of Babe Pinelli getting back on the bag.\n\nBefore hitting the trail for St. Louis to start their long string of games with the Cards, the Reds took the count from Emil Yde, who thus became the first southpaw of the year to tame them. And he was the seventh left-handed gent to start against them. In that game, Cincy’s winning streak of four straight went blooie and also a streak of five straight winners for Pete Donohue, who was wild and lacked his usual assortment of foolers.\n\nWhile home, the Reds played 15 games and drew a total paid attendance of 149,237, while the crowds for the 27 games the Reds have played at home total 248,834, which is pretty good, considering the sort of weather that has prevailed.\n\nTOM SWOPE.\n\n* * *\n\n## ALIEN MOBS DO NOT DISCOURAGE TIGERS\n\n\nCOBB’S TEAM MAKES IMPRESSIVE RECORD AWAY FROM HOME.\nWhitehill Is Joined by Johns and Others as Successful Flingers; Wells Finds His Right Spot in Relief Role.\n\nDETROIT, Mich., May 24.—Pausing at Navin Field for three days this week, the Tigers looked back with satisfaction upon the results of their first Eastern trip of the year. Of 15 games played along the Atlantic they won eight, lost six and tied one. Of four series played, they dropped only one—that to the up and coming Athletics in Philadelphia.\n\nThe Tigers left home on April 28, but they did not go directly to the seaboard. First they encountered the Browns at Sportsman’s Park, and later the White Sox at Comiskey Field. All told they played 22 games, winning 12, losing nine and tying one.\n\nAfter getting an even break in St. Louis, the Cobbmen moved into Chicago to take two of three starts from the Eddie Collins clan. Then they started East. Opening in the Yankee Stadium, they split even with the cohorts of Miller Huggins and then advanced confidently upon the Red Sox at Fenway Park. Counting the game that was transferred to Navin Field because of the prohibition of Sunday baseball in Massachusetts, the Tigers took three of four games from Lee Fohl’s athletes, now facetiously called the “Little Tigers,” because of the presence of Topper Rigney, Fred Haney, Howard Ehmke and Ira Flagstead on the roster.\n\nIn Philadelphia, the Tigers fell into a pronounced batting slump. Or, was it that the Mackian pitchers were unusually effective? At any rate, the Bengals could not get a run off Lefty Grove in the first game and they went until the ninth inning of the second before they scored off Ol’ Jack Quinn. At that point they were saved from their second successive shutout only because Heinie Manush, while running bases, got in the way of a thrown ball.\n\n### Mack Praises Whitehill.\n\nThanks to some efficient pitching by Earl Whitehill, the Tigers took the third game and prevented the Macks from sweeping the series. That, incidentally, was Whitehill’s fourth victory of the trip and it won for him unstinted praise from Connie Mack.\n\n“He is not only a good pitcher, he is a great pitcher,” Mack was quoted as saying after he had watched the young left-hander check the upward climb of his Athletics. “If Ty Cobb had a couple more like him, we would not be wondering where the American League pennant is going. He would know.”\n\nIn the opening game of the series in Washington, August Johns became the first Tiger pitcher to record a shutout victory this season. Please note that Johns did not pick a set-up for this feat. He waited until he was sent against the champions of the league.\n\nJohns held the Senators to six hits, no two of which came in the same inning. He was a trifle wild. The record shows that he issued six passes, but the commentators in the press box seem agreed that Johns’ wildness added to his effectiveness.\n\nIt was the second exceptional game that Johns had pitched since the season opened. In his first major league start, he held Cleveland to four hits and deserved a shutout that he did not get because of erratic support. Johns is now credited with winning five games and charged with losing two.\n\n### Wells Does Some Relieving.\n\nThe Tigers also got some good pitching from Ed Wells in the East. In the second game at Philadelphia, he replaced Lil Stoner in the second inning and battled on even terms for the rest of the way with Quinn. The trouble was that Stoner had yielded five runs before he departed from the diamond.\n\nIn the second Washington game, Wells again excelled as a relief pitcher. He rescued Sam Gibson and helped Detroit defeat the Senators for the second successive afternoon.\n\nThe next day both clubs put their pitchers on parade. Cobb, in a vain effort to make it three in a row from Washington, used Stoner, Ken Holloway, Rip Collins and Clyde Barfoot in that order. Dutch Ruether, Fred Marberry and Alex Ferguson were found for a greater number of hits than the Tiger quartet, but they did less damage and the Senators eventually won, 13 to 10.\n\nWashington’s chance to even the series was lost on Saturday, when the game was called at the end of the eighth inning to permit the Tigers to catch a train for the West. At that time the score was tied, 6 to 6.\n\nIn their effort to finish on equal terms with the Tigers, the Senators drove Whitehill from the box in the third, scoring two runs before George Dauss was rushed to his assistance. It was the first time Whitehill had been off form in six starts.\n\nJackie Warner got back into the game in Washington when Frank O’Rourke suffered a split finger. O’Rourke’s injury, however, was not serious and he is again ready for duty at short, second or third.\n\nThere does not seem to be any chance that O’Rourke will displace Charlie Gehringer at second base. Gehringer has been improving with each passing day and Cobb seems to be thoroughly satisfied with his progress.\n\n### Ty Still Making Records.\n\nThe Eastern trip saw Cobb add another to his list of baseball records. In the second game of the Philadelphia series, Cobb passed Honus Wagner’s total of official times at bat. Cobb tied Wagner’s mark of 10,427 when he lined to Jimmy Dykes in the second inning. He passed it when he flied to Al Simmons in the fourth. Since then he has broken his own record a number of times.\n\nIn fact, in every game he plays, Cobb puts his achievements farther from the reach of his rivals of the present or future. The longer he remains in competition the less chance they will have of catching him.\n\nBob Fothergill, who has been spending most of his afternoons lately on the bench, got into the third game in Washington. He played left field and made four hits in five times at bat. A fine stop behind second by Bucky Harris kept the Tiger fat boy from making it “five for five,” a rare achievement in baseball.\n\nA report is out that Rip Collins is going to the Mission Club of the Pacific Coast League. The Tigers sent Dutch Leonard out there last Fall to help pay for Jackie Warner, but so far Leonard has refused to report. If Leonard persists in remaining out of the game, Detroit will have to send the Missions another pitcher. It may be Collins.\n\nSAM GREENE.\n\n* * *\n\n## SISLER TAKES DOSE WITHOUT FLINCHING\n\nSOME FANS FIGURE HE WOULD BE WISE IN DROPPING REINS.\n\nCould Continue as Player Minus Burden of Manager and Still Be Idol; Cardinals Due to “Bust Out” with Hits.\n\nST. LOUIS, Mo., May 24.—“Well, what are they going to do about the Browns?” That question is flung at one from all sides in good, old, patient St. Louis, barren of pennant for 30 years. What are they going to do about the Browns? Surely, THEY will have to do something. But what, and how? Phil Ball would like to know. He is the man who is doing the most suffering. He is the man who must pay the bills, whether the turnstiles click or corrode with rust. He is the man who put half a million dollars into improvements at Sportsman’s Park, thinking, perhaps, the lightning would strike, for he figured he had a fair to middlin’ team. Ball’s disappointment is complete.\n\nBut what to do? It is a problem that rakes the very heart of the long suffering baseball fan of St. Louis.\n\nThe Browns are coming home from one of the worst road trips a St. Louis team has ever experienced. Opening the journey in Cleveland, they won a single game and dropped two. In Philadelphia four straight were lost; Washington grabbed three out of four; Boston took the only game of a series, in which two games were postponed because of rain; New York swept through for four in a row; a single game was played on the way back, in Detroit and lost, and a series was opened in Cleveland with a victory.\n\nA recapitulation of the doings, or rather misdoings, since May 3, shows 15 defeats and but three victories. In the Eastern sector the team won but one game, that being against Washington.\n\n### Boss Sisler Sits Tight.\n\nWhile the team was East, a story broke to the effect that George Sisler was to be removed, or would step out, as manager. The truth of this was denied by Sisler, who declared he had no intention of surrendering the reins and that the team would begin to win as soon as the cripples got back and the players regained confidence. There was but a perfunctory denial of the report from the Browns’ business office, and Phil Ball was not quoted at all on the matter.\n\nThere is a growing feeling among the Brown partisans that a change in management might benefit the team. These fans make no bones about the fact that the Browns are a superior team. Sisler, they feel, has done well enough with the team since 1924, when he took charge of it, but that he unfortunately is not equipped with the verve and fight so essential in a crisis.\n\nSome of them believe that Sisler could make himself stronger as an idol in St. Louis if he would relinquish the management and go back to starring as a first baseman. The burden has weighted heavily on the even-going player, and his all-around performance, no doubt, is beginning to feel its effects. Persons close to Phil Ball, are of the opinion that he feels much the same way about it. But he is in a ticklish position.\n\nShould he ask Sisler to resign, it would unquestionably mean that he would lose the services of a player who has delighted St. Louis fans for many years. Precedent has it that a “canned” manager always goes elsewhere. On the other hand, if Sis were to request that Ball relieve him of his responsibilities, he would be sacrificing none of his standing, would save himself embarrassment, and perhaps in the end would be more popular. But, of course, George wears no man’s collar.\n\n### Is Signed as a Player.\n\nStrangely enough, Sisler is not employed under a manager’s contract. When he signed as leader of the team in the Winter of 1923, he did so on a regular players’ contract, and whatever extra stipend he receives from Ball is a private agreement between the two.\n\nThe Cardinals have been going along at a .500 clip, the home stand, no doubt, being a bit disappointing to Manager Rogers Hornsby. But the team stacks up pretty well, and once the hitting gets going full blast, there will be another customer knocking at the first division gate.\n\nIn the home stand drawing to a close, the Cardinals have won eleven and lost nine games. They dropped two out of three to the Reds on their first visit; lost three out of four to the Robins; split four games with the Giants; won three straight from the Braves; took the series from the Phillies, three to two, and the opener from the Reds in the leaders’ next visit.\n\nHornsby’s pitching has not been bad. But the batting, including his own, has been way off. The latest figures show the team hitting in sixth place, with an average of .263. That is not the gait of the Cardinals.\n\nHornsby, himself, has dropped off to .365, but he is not a fast starter and will be hammering the ball before long. Les Bell had an average of .316 and has been going along in good shape, getting his long wallops in regularly. Taylor Douthit, Jim Bottomley, Heinie Mueller and Ray Blades are all below the .300 level and they must have a lot of bingles tied up inside of them.\n\n### Two Pitchers Going Great.\n\nFlint Rhem is really the leader of the National League pitchers just at present. When he beat the Phillies last week, he hung up his seventh win of the season, with but one reverse. Right behind him is Vic Keen, who had a record of six victories and one defeat after last week’s doings. Bill Sherdel is another, who has started to come through regularly.\n\nHornsby was the recipient of the “most valuable player” award for 1925, prior to last Saturday’s game with the Phillies. President John A. Heydler of the National League, and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis were in St. Louis for the occasion. James M. Gould, sporting editor of the St. Louis Star, and president of the National Baseball Writers’ Association, made the presentation of the medal and Heydler handed him a sack containing $1,000. It was a great day for the Rajah.\n\nThere was a proclamation from the mayor, in which Hornsby was pointed out as one of the city’s most valuable assets, and a number of organizations took part in a demonstration at the ball park.\n\nThe $1,000 was handed to Rogers in the form of 200 five dollar gold pieces. Just to show that he is a good sport, this champion hitter put his hand into the bag after the game and gave each member of the squad one of the coins.\n\n* * *\n\n## PITCHER PETE DONOHUE\n\nCincinnati Reds pitcher Pete Donohue, one of the National League’s steadiest left-handers, featured in a 1926 newspaper portrait during Cincinnati’s pennant chase.\n\nTHE Cincinnati Reds, in their sensational early season dash, are displaying a combination of power that may make them a decidedly interesting factor in the National League race. At the outset, Jack Hendricks was not conceded to have much of a hitting team. There was, of course, Edd Roush, and one or two others, who could be relied upon to produce base hits with regularity, but not a great deal was figured of the men all the way down the line. But those Reds have been hitting at a merry clip.\n\nAdd to the punch the fact that the Reds have just about the sweetest pitching staff in the old league, and you have a real threat. Hendricks can take the blanket off any one of five or six slingers and sit back to watch a pretty fair exhibition of the art of taming opposing batters.\n\nRanking at the top of this excellent pitching brigade is Pete Donohue, the lad who jumped to the majors directly from college. The big right-hander has turned in seven wins for his team and has lost but two games. By all odds, he has made the best start of his career with Cincinnati, and with any kind of luck will go over the 21 victory mark, which has been his stopping point two different seasons. In 1922, Donohue won 21 games and lost 15, and again last season he had 21 triumphs, with 14 reverses.\n\nPete joined the Reds in 1921, after completing his education at Texas Christian University. He started right off by winning more games than he lost, and has been on the high side of the averages each year. His record with the Reds to date stands at 90 wins and 55 defeats.\n\nDonohue was born at Athens, Tex., November 5, 1900, and the best of his career should be in front of him.\n\n* * *\n\n## CLEVELAND UPHOLDS PRESTIGE OF WEST\n\nEIGHT OF 14 GAMES WON BY TRIBE ON INVASION OF EAST:\n\nTris Speaker’s Team Gets Good Pitching When Bats Are Stilled, and Lots of Batting When Flingers Fall Down.\n\nCLEVELAND, O., May 24.—The Cleveland Indians came home from their first Eastern invasion of the season ensconced in second place and with the best record of any of the Western clubs for the jaunt along the Atlantic Coast line. The Tribe won eight out of 14 games and took the long end of the series against three clubs, which is a record worth talking about. The Indians took three out of four from Boston; two out of three from the champion Washington team, and three-fourths of the games played with the Athletics.\n\nThe only flop was in New York, where the Yankees won three straight, and with any sort of a break the Indians might have taken two of the games there. But a team that goes as well as the Indians did on the road needs no subjunctives in its behalf.\n\nThe Indians won the big portion of the road games because they arose to the various situations. When the batting was slight, the pitching usually was good, when the pitching slumped, the hitters came to the front and the fielding was uniformly good, although two of the defeats could be chalked to bad play with the gloves, if one wanted to be critical. Through it all, the Tribe hustled and two of the victories over the Mackmen, who looked anything but pennant contenders, can be attributed to heads up play.\n\n### Boys Are Meeting the Ball.\n\nAll of the Indians are hitting their normal gait, with the exception of Charlie Jamieson and Speaker, and both of those stars are beginning to climb. Spoke has pulled himself up close to the .250 mark and is just taking a pace that is bound to carry him up to his regular speed. The same goes for Jamieson.\n\nHowever, the hitting of Fred Spurgeon is the surprise of the season. No one expected Freddie to bat as he is. He made a great start at the beginning of the year and then fell under the .300 line. But on the Eastern trip he pulled himself well above that mark once more. He made seven hits in the Athletic series and six in the three games at Washington. It is impossible for opposing teams to play position on him. He hits to right, left and center field; bunts and does everything to mess up an opponent. One of the Athletics asked your correspondent what it was Spurgeon could not hit. The answer is nothing.\n\nGeorge Burns continues to murder all sort of pitching, while the Sewell brothers and Summa keep right on busting the ball. Luke Sewell was forced out of the game in Philadelphia when a ball split his finger. At that moment, Chick Autry, the second catcher, was at home fighting an incipient attack of appendicitis, so Glenn Myatt donned the armor once more, although he had not worn a big suit for more than two months. Myatt caught sterling ball through the Athletic series and deserves a world of credit for his efforts.\n\nThe Indians greatly impressed the Philadelphia critics and several of them rated the Tribe as second only to the Yankees in general strength. The Tribe goes to St. Louis for four days this week, and then comes home to settle down for a three week’s stay, during which every team in the league will be played and Speaker hopes to gain a lot of ground during that time. Walter Miller, the fine left-hander, will be back during the home period, and that will strengthen the pitching staff.\n\n### Uhle’s Luck Isn’t There.\n\nDuring the Eastern invasion Joe Shaute won two games and lost none, although his work was persistently sloppy and he needed help several times. Buckeye Levsen won one and lost one although he also was derrick’d when bad breaks put him up a tree. Levsen won two and lost one while Sherrod Smith had an even break in two games. George Uhle was the tough luck pitcher winning two and losing three.\n\nIn the first Washington game, Stan Coveleski had the better of Uhle, the margin being 4 to 2. However, it required some sensational fielding to pull Covey through the game. But the Nats are strong on fielding and saved him neatly. In the second game, Bucky Harris started Dutch Ruether, who had lost only one game up to that time. The Indians chased Ruether in the fourth and won the game, 12 to 5. Buckeye faltered after getting off to a bad start and Ben Karr went out to save the game for him. Karr has developed into our best relief pitcher, and when he has control his fork ball is unbeatable.\n\nWalter Johnson and Sherrod Smith hooked up in the final game of the series, and after the second inning, when the Nats made four hits and two runs, Smith junked them and allowed only one hit. The Indians hopped on the Fire Ball King in two innings and put over enough luggage to give them the game, 4 to 2.\n\nStepping over to Philadelphia, the Tribe was pitted against Lefty Grove, another gent who had lost only one game. It took some hustling baseball to beat Lefty, but he was trimmed, 6 to 5, Shaute pitching the last inning, after Levsen had given way for a pinch hitter in the ninth, when the Tribe scored two runs. The Athletics played bad ball in that game to give the Tribe its chance. Jimmy Dykes committed a mental blunder that lost the game.\n\n### It Wasn’t Their Day.\n\nThe second game was dropped to the Macks and Slim Harriss. Slim had not won a game previous to that start, and when the Tribe made two runs in the first inning, it looked like curtains for him once more. Mack had two relief men warming up, and one more hit would have finished Slim. But Uhle had nothing that day and was driven out in the second. Karr was no better, and finally Norman Lehr, a rookie, was called in, and he stopped the Macks, but the Indians lost, 10 to 2.\n\nIt required 15 innings to decide the third game, 4 to 3. Buckeye and Eddie Rommel were the starters. Uhle finished for Buckeye, while Pate and Baumgartner worked for Mack before the game was finished. In the last of the series, Shaute and Jack Quinn, the starters, were chased early, while Ben Karr came in to save the game that Walberg and Heimach could not.\n\nOf all the Eastern clubs, the Nats looked like the strongest team and in the opinion of the Indians must be beaten for the pennant. New York has power, but will find the going rough away from home, while the Athletics are not so good as in 1925. The Cleveland players were greatly heartened by the success of their Eastern trip and believe they can take the Yankees down a peg or two when that club heads West.\n\nTris Speaker will make disposition of two players within the next few weeks, and that will bring his club under the league limit. It is likely that two young pitchers will be farmed out for further seasoning, and one other also may be let go when the crippled members of the team get back into the harness. At all events Tris hasn’t far to go to get down to the player limit.\n\n* * *\n\n## SENATORS’ CHESTS BACK TO NORMALCY\n\nHARRISMEN FIND GOING RATHER ROUGH ON HOME STAND.\n\nFive Defeats in Six Games at One Stage, Due to Failure of Pitchers, Give Champs Severe Set-Back.\n\nWASHINGTON, D. C., May 24.—The Washington team had its slump last week and it was no joke. Five games out of six were lost at one stage, including four in a row. These were the last two with Cleveland and the first two with Detroit. Each and all of Washington’s four veteran star pitchers were bowled over in a row in these four contests, something which no local fan ever expected to live to see. Walter Johnson was the only one who went the route.\n\nThe worst of it was that the Griffs should have won all of the five games lost, with the exception of the first one of the Detroit series. In that contest, August Johns, the little Fort Worth southpaw, who now uses the stage name of Arthur instead of Augustus, had the Griffs at his mercy all the way and gave them their second shutout of the season. It was also the first time the visitors had shut out an opponent.\n\nJohns has been a corking good pitcher for several years and should have stuck when he was up before, but got no real trial. In fact, he was fit for the big time before that.\n\nThe Senators have been getting a lot of men on, but have not had so much success in getting them around. Poor work on the paths was largely responsible. In their second defeat by the Tigers they needed one run to tie when they went to bat in the ninth inning. Three batters in succession made hits and a steal of second base was mixed in, but not a runner got beyond that bag.\n\n### Break Even at Home.\n\nAs will be seen from the above, the home stand against the Western clubs was a failure. On their home grounds the champions could only break even, the games being divided as follows: Against Chicago, won two and lost two; against St. Louis, won three and lost one; against Cleveland, won one and lost two; against Detroit, won one and lost two; total, won seven and lost seven. No pennant ball there.\n\nBefore the first Detroit game, Representative Sosnowski of the First Michigan Congressional District, presented Ty Cobb with a floral horseshoe. Instead of striking out, Cobb contributed three hits, a run and a steal and drove in a flock of runs, doing enough to win the game if Johns had not been there to share the glory.\n\nTy is generally conceded to be the greatest player ever in the game. The absolute proof of this is the fact that he can go out and win a game by his own individual efforts oftener than any one else ever has been able to.\n\nThe Griffs’ setback came at a time when it enabled the Hugmen to amass a lead of six games, which is a formidable handicap to overcome against a team going as they are. It is just another reminder of the maxim, “As goes Babe Ruth, so go the Yankees.” In Ruth, Earle Combs and Lou Gehrig they have the three leading run getters in the American League and, by the way, Bucky Harris is next in order.\n\n### Senators Have Punch, Too.\n\nThe Yanks exhibit a terrific punch in many of their exhibitions, but that is not all. It will be noted that they also win a lot of games in which they are outhit. They sure are pizen, but the Griffs still think they have the antidote. The champions are doing some batting, too, and are a pretty good second in that respect, with .296 to date.\n\nThe locals broke their losing streak in their third encounter with the Tigers, by the score of 13 to 10. Seven pitchers worked. It was Friday, which is Ladies’ Day here, and a local paper expresses the view that the two teams decided to give the fair ones one of those Friday bargain days they dote on, in which quantity was more conspicuous than quality.\n\nEven in victory, one of the big four was knocked off the peak, when the water cure was prescribed for Dutch Ruether by Doc Bucky Harris. Dutch left three on, three balls and no strikes on the batter, and only one out. This gave Fred Marberry a chance to do one of his favorite stunts. Firpo set down the Tigers without a run.\n\nThe local club has gone back to 3:30 as the hour for starting games. The change to 3 o’clock did not work as well as they anticipated, but there has been no mad rush to the ball yard since they went back to 3:30, owing to the team’s poor showing.\n\n### May Alternate at First.\n\nJoe Judge strained a leg again and was out for one day, Bluege Harris taking his place. It was announced that Harris would work against left-handed pitchers frequently in future. Buddy Myer has done the shortstopping in some recent games, Roger Peckinpaugh being a little under the weather. Myer is a flash on the paths. He has stolen five bases in 74 times at bat, while Sam Rice, who leads the team and is one of the league leaders, has swiped seven in 174 times at bat.\n\nBob Reeves, the Georgia Tech shortstop, reported last Thursday and has made a fine impression in practice as a batsman, but needs a little instruction in some finer points of defensive play.\n\nThe Washington Club put in a bid for Nick Cullop when the Yankees sent him to St. Paul on option, as did two other American and two National League clubs. These clubs claimed that the player had already been two years under option, but the Yanks denied this. The argument turned on Cullop’s status at Omaha in 1924. President Ban Johnson decided in favor of New York, and the five clubs accordingly waived on Nick.\n\n* * *\n\n## HITLESS CUBS LEAD NATIONAL WITH BAT\n\nTHEREIN LIES TRUE REASON FOR SUCCESS OF CHICAGOANS.\n\nJoe McCarthy Has Also Been Handling Pitchers with Judgment and Cunning; Sox Run Into Trouble in East.\n\nCHICAGO, Ill., May 24.—The “Business as Usual” sign still hangs over the entrance to the Cubs’ park. The Bruins, despite all the gloomy predictions made for them, refuse to curl up around the tail-end of the ladder. Instead, they have been knocking off their callers with marked regularity for a record of ten wins and seven defeats against the Eastern teams. The details of the feat are three out of four over the Giants; three straight from the Phillies, one out of three with the Robins, and three out of five with the Braves.\n\nThe answer to this showing that has caused the North Side to sit up and pay attention can be found in the team batting of the National League entries. The last checkup showed the Chicago Cubs to be heading the parade in this particular, and if that doesn’t show that baseball advance dope is a lot of bunk, what does? They were supposed to be weak with the stick, but a few of the men started to hit, and the entire team got the habit. Of course, it doesn’t pay to shout too early, because something might happen, but here’s the season six weeks gone, and they haven’t showed signs of flopping yet, so maybe a lot of boys are going to be fooled.\n\nAnother thing that has been a potent factor in the Cubs’ successes is that Manager McCarthy, besides keeping the entire outfit on its toes and playing tight baseball, has used exceptional judgment in the use of his pitchers. There is no trick about using a staff of four men who can work in order, but McCarthy happens to have about six who must be reckoned with, and so far he has been able to pick spots for them. That is, letting certain pitchers work against their favorite teams.\n\n### Joe Plays the Averages.\n\nFor instance, Tony Kaufmann was used only against the Giants and Braves, and he beat both. He always has been successful against these outfits. The most successful of the entire staff, however, is Charlie Root, the Coast Leaguer who has worked in practically every series, and won the majority of his starts.\n\nThe thing that is going to give the Cubs their acid test is the pending Eastern trip. So far this year they have played only at Cincinnati and St. Louis. There is no reason in the world why they shouldn’t hit just as well on foreign soil as at home, but it must be remembered that ball teams do many things for which there is no explanation.\n\nDuring the coming journey they will visit every city in the circuit, and undoubtedly will collect at the gates because of the showing made to date. At Philadelphia, which is McCarthy’s home town, a huge celebration will be put on in behalf of the Cub leader. Joe is to get various presents, but probably won’t fare quite as well as Grover Cleveland Alexander, who last week was tendered a costly sedan by his Chicago admirers.\n\nThe initial Eastern jaunt of the Chicago White Sox was not so good. The trip started with an even break at Washington in four games. Then three defeats in four starts at Philadelphia, three crushing smacks in as many starts against the Yanks in the Ruppert stadium and lastly, two wins out of four battles against the Red Sox.\n\nThe performance of the Sox in the East has caused some alteration in the rosy predictions made for them at the start of the season. Some experts were daring enough to express a belief the Eddie Collins gang would be able to provide the eventual winner with a hot argument.\n\n### It’s a Long Way to October.\n\nPractically all of them agreed that Collins’ would have no trouble in landing at least a first division berth. At this writing even the position with the select four of the Johnson circuit is not available, but there is no need to get excited because the season still is a long way from its conclusion. Not that the Sox are going to win a pennant against such competitors as the Senators, Yanks and Athletics; but they certainly have reason to believe in their rights to stick close to the heels of the mentioned trio.\n\nSo far, it looks very much as if a jinx were hovering over the Chicago hose. Bill Barrett, who was slated for right field, is still limping around with his bum leg. He tried to play the final at Philadelphia, and was so handicapped by his ailment that he personally lost the game by being unable to get three fly balls that under ordinary circumstances he would have handled easily. Willie Kamm also is out, although it was figured he would be back a week ago, and the reliable Earl Sheely is on the fritz because he hurt his weak leg in a play against the Yanks.\n\nKamm’s absence has been partly offset by the good mechanical work and hitting of Hunnefield, but, of course, there is only one Kamm playing third base. However, should it happen that Sheely would be forced to remain in the stable and let his hoof mend, Collins would have reason to howl about his misfortunes, because the team has no utility first sacker. McCurdy has gone there in the few games that Sheely was forced out of before the finish, but McCurdy happens to be a catcher, and is not thoroughly acquainted with front door duties. Nobody on the team can hit like Sheely with men on the bases, so naturally, it is no simple job to supplant him.\n\n### Scott Same Old Master.\n\nEverybody has been wondering how long it would be before Everett Scott’s well-worn legs would melt and force him to rest. So far, the Deacon has done very well, and given no sign of retreating. He is providing the Sox with a better brand of shortstopping than they’ve enjoyed since Swede Risberg took the short cut to oblivion.\n\nWhat’s more, Scotty is hitting fairly well, considering that he never was much of a sticker, even in his peak days. When, and if, he does weaken under the strain of continual toll, the job will be turned over to Moe Berg, the ex-Princeton athlete, who was purchased from Reading. Berg now is polishing up on law at Columbia University. He talked with Manager Collins when the Sox were in New York, and said that he would be ready to lay aside his law volumes and don baseball attire about the first of June.\n\nSo much has been heard of Berg the fans would like to see him.\n\nCollins has another shortstop possibility in Hunnefield. In the juggling of talent that sometimes occurs in a wild and woolly game, Hunnefield switched from third to short in a couple recent games, and gave a pretty fair exhibition. He has plenty of mechanical ability, and an unlimited amount of confidence. At short, with Collins at his side to guide him, he might develop into something worth while. He is fast and has a hard-boiled throwing arm.\n\n* * *\n\n## RED SOX, AT LEAST, KEEP ’EM GUESSING\n\nTHEY’RE SO GOOD ONE DAY AND SO TOTALLY BAD NEXT.\n\nImprovement Is Noted in Pitching, While Batting Has Also Perked Up; Braves Hobble Along on Road.\n\nBOSTON, Mass., May 24.—The Boston Red Sox have been having all sorts of rough luck, and yet, when they won three games last week, one from the St. Louis Browns—the only game of that series—and then two from the Chisox, the team looked as if it did not have to make excuses or apologies for itself. Boston fans are much mystified about these Sox. In the first place, the team looks one game as if it were easily the worst team in the big leagues. Then it turns face about and kicks through with a performance that leaves the fans breathless with delight and excitement, and hopeful for the future. It is one of the mysteries of the game that this team can look so terrible one day and then turn about and gather first prize the next day.\n\nYour old baseball fan will tell you that when a team hits one extreme and the other with amazing frequency, there is some little team thing the matter, that the morale of the club is below par, and that when certain things are adjusted better, happier results may be expected. The Boston fan can stand those more frequent wins.\n\nBob Quinn’s left-field bleachers burned after a Saturday game several weeks ago, and have not yet been replaced. The building laws here state that the new structure must be made of concrete and steel, and it is by no means likely that Bob and his associates at this time wish to rebuild in that costly manner those left-field bleachers. The team has not been going good enough to need those seats just at this moment. However, let the Lee Fohlmen hit a winning streak, and the left-field bleachers, with a seating capacity of 3,000, will be missed sorely.\n\n### Fans Welcome Chance to Yell.\n\nBoston is ripe for a revival of interest in the game. But it cannot start that revival until one of the teams shows something. This city now is in the condition which Philadelphia was in after Connie Mack’s terrible cellar teams of so many years. When Connie got together a pretty good club he forthwith started to make all sorts of money, and Philadelphia immediately became one of the greatest of baseball cities. Now Boston has had that same period of famine, and would get right up on its rear legs and howl itself hoarse if the Red Sox, or the Braves, could come through and play even .500 ball.\n\nStories have been rife to the effect that the Red Sox are to leave Fenway Park and go to Braves Field, and there play all their games. It sounds like a sensible move, but the Sox do not care about losing their identity, and the name Braves Field would have to be changed before such a thing was tried.\n\nMuch of the immediate future of big league ball in this city depends upon the manner in which the fans vote on the question of Sunday baseball this Fall. It goes on the state ballot. If the voters say that Sunday ball shall be played, it is safe to predict right now that there will be a big readjustment in big league circles here, that at least one new big ball park will be constructed, and that the Boston teams will immediately strengthen. Not because they are not in the mood to strengthen now, but because their financial condition is such that it does not seem sound for them at this time to pay out much for players of the $50,000 and $100,000 type.\n\n### Yes, They Cost Money.\n\nAfter everything is said, modern baseball resolves itself pretty much to a position where it is apparent that the team willing and capable of paying $50,000 or $100,000 for the pick of the minor leagues, can build up surely and safely, whereas the club that depends on scouts to pick up players here and there for $5,000 or $10,000, is hopelessly up against it, in a matter of competition. It hardly seems necessary to make the statement that the team which has $50,000 or $100,000 rookies has a better chance to finish up high in the standing of the clubs than the one which pays out one-tenth those sums for new men. You might as well expect a boy scout to do so well with a tin knife as the scout with the two-dollar imported knife with the tempered steel blades.\n\nOne of the little things which has brightened the face of Bob Quinn of late is the return to the game of Paul Zahniser. He was the big factor in the first victory of the team over the Chicago Hose, although the records will carry the story that Hal Wiltse was the winning pitcher. As a matter of fact, Wiltse pitched only one inning, the ninth, to three men and a double-play helped him mightily.\n\nHoward Ehmke’s work steadily improves in caliber, and it would help Bob Quinn’s team if that long Swede keeps it up. Charley Ruffing seems gradually to be coming back into the appearance which made him look so promising a year ago. The Red Sox can show just what hopes they have when these pitchers get into condition. They are the type of ball club that needs good pitching, anyhow. If they lack the hurling, they are bound to look crude. That is true of any team, but particularly one like the Sox, very much in the making as yet.\n\n### Braves’ Infield Below Par.\n\nDoc Gautreau is one of the answers to the fall-down of the Braves. So, too, is Dave Bancroft. These small fellows have not been playing their game. In fact, Doc is out of the game with a very badly spiked leg, and was among the absent on the bulk of the Tribe’s Western games. His play was not so strong before he was hurt. That applies to the road games. Here in Boston he was pretty good, though below his late 1925 showing.\n\nBanny has been in the game, but obviously is not playing along at the inspired gait he maintained whenever he was in the game last year. It is almost too much to ask of a playing manager to continue showing the world how a position should be played when he is overworked, over-worried and his team going to small pieces, with the pitching bad, and the catching possibly even worse than the pitching.\n\nThe Braves have some good pitching talent, but you’d never believe it, judging by the way the team was tossed and buffeted around in the West on its first trip. It remains for them to get going under the tutelage of Dick Rudolph and Manager Banny. Then the team may begin to approach that appearance which was forecast for it by the experts in Dixie this Spring.\n\nSome of the high-priced men on the Wigwam payroll, with whom there was more or less trouble last Winter, are not delivering in anything like the style to which they are entitled to deliver by virtue of their generous salaries. There must be a quick movement towards improvement or certain of the Braves who rate themselves stars will fall down with a real thud.\n\nBURT WHITMAN.\n\n* * *\n\n## NO PINK TEA STUFF WITH A’S THIS YEAR\n\nMACK INVOKES MARTIAL LAW WHEN THERE’S TEAM LET-UP.\n\nWrath of Veteran Leader Roused After Two Games with Cleveland Are Gummed Up; Carlson Stars for Phillies.\n\nPHILADELPHIA, Pa., May 24.—It was natural that there had to be a slight reaction in the wild spurt of the Philadelphia Athletics up the percentage table. It came last week when the Macks lost the final game of the Detroit series on Tuesday, and then the first game of the Cleveland series Wednesday. Then they beat Cleveland Thursday, and lost in 13 innings to the Ohioans on Friday, that being their third defeat of the week. Their record at that point, therefore, was 13 victories out of their last 17 games.\n\nIn the winning streak that started May 3 with the Yanks, the maximum of success was nine straight wins, and the worst spot was two straight defeats, and that’s a showing that no team need feel ashamed of. But there’s a lot of tough work ahead of the Athletics and their strength, grit and staying powers meet with the severest test of the year. The stern requirements of the schedule have not escaped Connie Mack, and he has declared martial law and impressed on each member of the roster the importance of the games to come.\n\nTwo of the games lost last week were sheer gifts to the rivals. The first Cleveland defeat was a heart-breaker. The Macks had Cleveland 5 to 1 as late as the seventh inning, and were breezing home when Chick Galloway failed on an easy double play in the eighth, and a minute later Joe Sewell socked the ball over the right field wall and pared the Mack lead to one run.\n\n### It Wasn’t Their Day.\n\nStill the game would have been saved had not Jimmy Dykes failed to take Pinch Runner Knode after he made a wide turn of third base in the ninth, and then fell down trying to scramble back. The ball was thrown hard and true to Dykes, who did not know Knode’s plight, and he let him get to his feet and regain the bag. Had he been tagged, the game would have ended 5 to 4 in favor of the Macks, but he not only failed on this play, for he also let Fred Spurgeon run from first to second, holding the ball, when only a throw was needed to stop him.\n\nWith this opening, Tris Speaker shot a double and the Indians nosed out the A’s, 6 to 5. It was the first time the usual alert-minded Dykes had committed a “boner” in years, or at least one that was so expensive.\n\nMack was wrathy after this defeat, and the next afternoon Bill Wambsganss was at short in place of Galloway. Bill has been a keystone dender for ten years, but he covered the post in good style, and helped Slim Harriss win his first victory of the season after losing four straight. The Macks flogged George Uhle off the premises in two innings, and were also unkind to Ben Karr and Norman Lehr.\n\nWambsganss was on duty again Friday at short, and even played better ball than he did the day before. The Athletics spurted after Cleveland took a three-run lead, but the trouble was that they did not go far enough with the materials they had. They scored a run each in the sixth, seventh and ninth innings, and tied the score when they should easily have made more and won in regulation innings.\n\n### It Wasn’t Their Day.\n\nFor instance, in the sixth inning they had one run home, the bases full and nobody out, and could not make another run, which if scored, would have decided the issue. Buckeye Levsen was taken out in time by Tris Speaker, and Uhle proved an able rescuer. When the game went into extra innings, Uhle got better all the time, while Baumgartner, who succeeded Eddie Rommel and Pate, was in trouble in every inning. Finally the Ohioans spanked him for one run in the thirteenth inning and won the overtime battle, 4 to 3.\n\nThe loss of this game following similar conditions Wednesday made Mack furious. Neither game should have been dropped, and the A’s should have been in second place.\n\nMack is better off for pitchers than he was a week ago. Both Sam Gray, right-hander, who hurt his ankle ten days ago, and Charley Willis, left-hander, are now available. Slim Harriss, an uncertainty not long ago, has finally found the way to win, although his defeats were not all blamable on him, and Rommel, who had tonsilitis, has recovered.\n\nThe Athletics have four right-handers and six southpaws, and they certainly will get all the work they want in the present tough string of games.\n\nPhiladelphia has supported the team handsomely in its run of success. Daily attendance averaged between 10,000 and 12,000, while capacity was attained on Saturdays.\n\nThe Philadelphia Phillies will be back at Broad and Huntingdon streets this week for a long home stay after a harrowing time of it in the West. The brilliant hurling of Hal Carlson was the only redeeming feature.\n\nThe Phils won six games on the tour which started in Greater New York, and of this number Carlson pitched four of them. He beat New York, Pittsburg and St. Louis twice, all through sheer excellence on the mound.\n\n### And He’s Still Improving.\n\nCarlson was regarded as a mediocre pitcher when he came here in 1924, being drafted from the Wichita Falls Club, where Pittsburg had sent him. He won eight games and lost 17 in 1924, and it looked as if he would get a ticket for the minors again, but Art Fletcher never lost faith in him and had him South last year. Carlson was a much better pitcher in 1925, winning 13 and losing 14 games. It was not until well along in the last half of the season that effectiveness came almost overnight to this pitcher, who finished the season strong.\n\nCarlson always had the stuff, but did not know how to use it. He finally mastered a change of pace, and began to throw a slow ball with the same motion as a fast one. Since then he has been pitching almost as consistently as any pitcher in the National League. He started off this season where he finished last year, and has been beating everybody in sight.\n\nCarlson was 32 years old May 17, and pitched seven seasons for Pittsburg before joining the Phils. He is another example of a pitcher with a world of stuff who did not start to win until he crossed the 30-year mark.\n\nAs a whole, the Phils have not been hitting the ball very hard, and some of the players complain they have had no luck on the trip. Both Rube Bressler and Huber have been robbed of hits right along.\n\nWhen they get back to Broad and Huntingdon, their happy hitting grounds, the Phils expect to nick the walls hard and often. They have the hits in them, sure enough, but it is a question of getting them out of their system.\n\nJAMES C. ISAMINGER.\n\n* * *\n\n## INEVITABLE HAPPENS TO BROOKLYN ROBINS\n\nPITCHING ALONE UNABLE TO CARRY TEAM AT PENNANT PACE.\n\nUncle Robby Sees Whole Team Fall Off in Grip of Batting Slump; Heavers Lose Some Tough Ones.\n\nBROOKLYN, N. Y., May 24.—Things have changed since last we wrote. The Brooklyn Robins have not only lost a lot of their tail feathers, but their wings have been so badly crippled that they have slipped badly in the percentage column. Inexplicably weak hitting has been responsible for the slump. The pitching has remained good and most of the time excellent, but the Robins simply can’t make runs, or, at least, they have not made any of consequence in the past week.\n\nEven when they were in the splurge that carried them to the top of the National League on April 30, and kept them there until they were deposed by the Reds on May 15, the Robins were not hitting freely. They were getting runs at long intervals, but those were sufficient because their pitchers were delivering championship ball and better.\n\nWhat ails the athletes who are not hitting, is impossible to say, but the fact sticks out like a sore thumb that Zack Wheat, Gus Felix and Dick Cox have been in batting slumps. Johnny Butler, who has never been strong with the stick in the National League, is a weak brother just now. Charlie Hargreaves who, two years ago, was something of a .400 hitter in a few games, and made a specialty of thumping in pinches, has so far failed to deliver as advertised, that Jacques Fournier, victim of a bad leg, batted for him recently.\n\n### Slump Has Been General.\n\nWheat went through one stretch of 17 at-bats without a hit. Then he had another streak of 11 at-bats without a safe swat. Wheat is under .300 at this writing. Wheat, with a double, and Babe Herman, with a single, got the two hits which Pete Donohue allowed the Robins in Cincinnati on May 19.\n\nGus Felix in center had much to do with the winning streak that gave the Robins nine of their last ten games in the East, and five of their first seven with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cubs in the West, but Felix has suffered the common fate. His average to May 19 fell to .274, but he was not as bad as Dick Cox, who dropped to .234, and for that reason dropped out of the lineup. President-Manager Wilbert Robinson was much irked by the slipping of his outfield and announced he would use Whitey Witt and Merwin Jacobson in the outfield against right-handers, and send Cox and Felix against southpaws.\n\nBabe Herman has been going great guns, which is responsible for Fournier remaining on the bench. When Herman was bought from the Pacific Coast League last year he was reported to be fast enough and versatile enough to play the outfield as well as first base. He has not only been hitting, but has been fielding grandly at first, and is held there. If Fournier’s injured leg is sufficiently repaired, and the outfielders continue in their slump, the logical move would seem to be to try Herman in the suburbs. He might go wrong on the defense, but he would, at his present rate, outclass offensively any of the five outfielders while those lads are in the slough of despond.\n\n### Robby May Bench Butler.\n\nJohnny Butler’s batting average of around .220 is so dismal that talk is heard of returning Bill Marriott to third base. Chick Fewster boosted himself by making two of the eight hits the Robins got off Eppa Rixey on May 20. Fewster has been hitting around .285. Rabbit Maranville is getting one hit a game in most games, as his average of around .260 to .265 shows, but such a capable fielding shortstop can be carried with that figure.\n\nHerman, by the way, would have had an even better figure if the luck had not broken against him. One of the games with the Pirates was stopped in the Robins’ half of the eighth, after Herman had doubled, and the score went back to the seventh, washing out Herman’s hit. The two teams later played another tie, and Herman had a hit washed out by rain, which fell while the Robins were at bat.\n\nHe should tell his troubles to Bill Hinchman, the former Pirate. Bill compiled, some years ago, about 20 at-bats, without a safe blow. He broke the streak by making a home run off a Brooklyn pitcher in Pittsburg. A minute later the game was called forever by a young cloudburst, which left Bill the heftiest hitless wonder in the league, as the game had not gone the legal distance.\n\nDazzy Vance made baseball history last year when he held the Cubs to four hits and lost, 4 to 3, because three of the hits were home runs, and the other was a single made by a batter ahead of a four-base clouter. Bob McGraw put in a bid for the medal for being bejinxed when, on May 15, in Pittsburg, his record of three straight winnings stopped at that point, because he allowed three hits and lost, 2 to 0. One of the three hits was a homer by Kiki Cuyler, and another was a triple by Glenn Wright.\n\n### Can Get Runs for Petty.\n\nSouthpaw Jess Petty was beaten by the Reds on May 19. It was his second straight defeat after having won his first five of the season. The score was 5 to 1. Petty’s record for effectiveness has been something to paste in the book. In his first six games—five victories and one defeat—he allowed four earned runs.\n\nThe five runs for which the Reds nicked him on May 19 were all earned, but even so he has allowed nine earned runs in seven games. The kind of help he has received is demonstrated by the dope showing that the Robins have averaged two runs per game for Petty.\n\nSpeaking of the Reds, why doesn’t somebody mention the late Manager Pat Moran’s nerve, when so much is being written about Manager Miller Huggins staking his chances on two rookie infielders, Tony Lazzeri and Mark Koenig? Pat did not hesitate to sell, or try to sell, his veteran infielders in the Winter of 1921-22, and started the 1922 season with Babe Pinelli at third and Doc Caveney at short. They were both from the Pacific Coast League, and they made good, although Pinelli is still with the Reds, while Caveney has gone to the bush—but Moran could not foresee that Caveney would develop into what Uncle Wilbert Robinson calls a “tissue paper athlete,” one who is ever suffering from injuries.\n\nTHOMAS S. RICE.\n\n* * *\n\n## BARNEY’S SCHEDULE KEEPS BUCS MOVING\n\nBUT HE DOESN’T CARE AS LONG AS IT IS IN RIGHT DIRECTION.\n\nGradual Increase in Batting Power of Bill McKechnie’s Crowd Makes Them Look More Like Champions.\n\nPITTSBURGH, Pa., May 24.—The world’s champion Pittsburgh Pirates have just about completed their long stay at home. After hopping to Cincinnati for a one game they went to Chicago for a three-game series, and on Thursday the Cubs will accompany them to Pittsburg, to stay for the remainder of the week. Next Sunday the Buccaneers return to Cincinnati, rushing home again that night and bringing the Reds with them for Memorial Day battles on Monday, May 31. The Reds will also be here on the following day.\n\nThe first invasion of the East by Western clubs starts on Thursday, July 3, but the schedule arrangement is an unusual one. While the Reds open at Boston that day, and the Cards start in at Philadelphia on Friday, June 1, the Pirates and Cubs remain in this city for games Thursday, Friday and Saturday, June 3, 4 and 5, while the Giants and the Robins battle each other at the Polo Grounds.\n\nThe Pirates’ first game in the East will not be played until Sunday, June 6, when they appear against Wilbert Robinson’s men at Ebbets Field, and the Cubs make their initial appearance against the Giants at the Polo Grounds on the same afternoon.\n\nBut for the weather man, the Pirates would have been the first of the Western quartet to play in the East this season. A week ago, the Pirates and Robins, who were in the midst of a series at Forbes Field, boarded the rattlers on Saturday night and traveled to Brooklyn, where they intended to play on Sunday. This game was arranged by moving up a clash originally set for September 16. However, it rained all day Sunday, and the teams came back to Pittsburg that night, without accomplishing anything.\n\n### Eastern Teams Not So Tough.\n\nThe champs are looking forward to the coming long trip without fear. The Eastern clubs have shown no great strength in their clashes in the West. In fact, the outcome of the intersectional series was more one-sidedly in favor of the occidentals than any one figured in advance it would be.\n\nThe Robins were the only outfit who did anything worth while, and even they found the going a bit rough. The Giants maintained their slump throughout their travels, and were considerably buffeted before they got back home.\n\nThe National League race is proving decidedly interesting, mainly due to the upsets which have occurred. Teams which before the campaign opened looked like prime favorites have failed to come through as expected, and other teams, which were poorly regarded, have been tearing things loose at a lively rate.\n\nThe Cincinnati Reds have been one of the early season sensations. Jack Hendricks has his men playing up-to-date ball, and delivering the goods, because he has been receiving excellent pitching almost every day, and because the other departments have been co-ordinating to a wonderful extent.\n\nHendricks is credited with having executed a ten-strike when he got Art Nehf, when the veteran pitcher was cast adrift by the Giants. Nehf is to be allowed to take his own time about getting in trim to pitch, but he is counted upon to turn in eight or ten victories for the Porktown crew.\n\nMany experts have revised their early season dope on the outcome of the race, and predict that the Reds will be a much more potent factor than either the Giants or the Cardinals.\n\n### Cardinals Not Hitting.\n\nThe collapse of the Rogers Hornsby offense has been one of the surprises to date. A team with such sluggers as Hornsby, Jim Bottomley, Ray Blades and others, has no apparent right to the last notch in team hitting, but that is where St. Louis finds itself at present, and the hope of the Mound City fans for a place in the sun is a dim one.\n\nWhen the Giants were here last week, they presented a rather pathetic appearance. John McGraw had just released Nehf, Heinie Groh, Wisner, Hartley and McNamara. The remaining members of the team hardly knew what to expect next. Gotham scribes accompanying the team facetiously claimed that the players had gotten into the habit of approaching the hotel clerk each morning and asking him if they were still registered as members of the Giants.\n\nMcGraw adopted much more drastic measures in dealing with the situation which confronted him than did Manager Bill McKechnie of the Pirates, when his team was not winning. The Buccaneers were just about as bad off as the Giants for a time. In fact, the two clubs ran neck and neck in the second division for several days. However, McKechnie did nothing radical. He did make a few shifts in his batting order, and a switch or two in his outfield, but throughout the slump, he professed full faith in the ability of his charges to regain their lost stride.\n\nBill’s confidence has been partially justified, and there is every indication that still better results are about to be produced.\n\nThe permanent outfield make-up is still in doubt, and undoubtedly hinges largely on the physical condition of Captain Max Carey, who returned to his position in center field against the Giants last week, after having been on the bench for some time. Kiki Cuyler was shifted to left field, after having played in right until Carey’s absence brought about a shift to center. With Carey’s return, Cuyler moved across to left, and McKechnie is depending on Paul Waner and Clyde Barnhart in right.\n\n### Youngster Gets the Call.\n\nWaner is likely to do most of the playing there, and it is believed to be only a question of a short time until he will be looked upon as a regular member of the outer garden trio. When he failed to break into the line-up regularly at the start of the race, the story was circulated that he had failed to make the grade, and that the Pittsburg Club was not going to realize on its investment in him. This was not the case, however.\n\nMcKechnie wanted him to have plenty of time to become familiar with his surroundings, and is believed to have handled him just right.\n\nPaul’s work recently has been of the highest order in every way. He is hitting the ball hard and often, and is displaying intelligence that is more than ordinary in fielding his position, and handling difficult raps in every direction. He is very fast on his feet, covers a lot of ground, keeps his head up all the time, and is becoming a real favorite with the Forbes Field patrons.\n\nAnd, by the way, where is there a club with as much classy outfield material as the Pirates? In addition to the trio mentioned above, Carson Bigbee is still hanging around, in good physical trim, and eager to break into the game whenever an opportunity shall present itself.\n\nRALPH S. DAVIS.\n\n* * *\n\n## NEW JEWEL IN DARK SETTING\n\nHarold “Hal” Wiltse, promising Boston Red Sox southpaw, featured in a restored 1926 newspaper portrait during his early American League seasons. Image reconstructed from a damaged halftone source using AI-assisted restoration.\n\n### PITCHER HAROLD WILTSE\n\nLee Fohl told interviewers at New Orleans last Spring: “We can’t finish any lower than we did last season.” That served as a short-cut for the Boston Red Sox manager from making any predictions as to where his Boston team might finish and it was just about the way he felt about it. He was quite sure his team wasn’t going anywhere in particular, but he did have a sneaking suspicion that his pitchers might spring a surprise. Thus far, the men he depended on to hold up the burden of the flinging work have fallen down. However, one of his newer ones, Harold Wiltse, late of Mobile, has been doing fine work. He is a left-hander, with youth and pretty good pitching sense.\n\nTwo of his recent performances stamp him as being of pretty good major pitching stock.\n\nWiltse, who hails from Clay City, Ill., was born August 6, 1903, and began playing ball with Terre Haute in 1921. Boston bought him the next Spring and sold him to Beaumont in mid-season. In 1924 he was with Mobile and was again taken on by the Boston Club that Fall. The Red Sox optioned him to Mobile last Summer and he did good work in the Southern League.\n\n* * *\n\n## DEATH TAKES DAN O’NEIL, VETERAN BASEBALL MAN\n\nAI-generated portrait recreation of Eastern League president Dan O’Neil based on a heavily degraded 1926 newspaper image published after his death.\n\nEastern League Executive Long a Colorful Figure of Diamond Sport; New Chief to Be Named This Week.\n\nBASEBALL lost one of its pioneers when Dan O'Neil, president of the Eastern League, and member of the National Board of Arbitration, died at his home in Holyoke, Mass., Tuesday, May 18. He was 66 years old. O'Neil had not been in good health for a year or more, but attended to the multitudinous duties of his league as usual. His duties were more exacting than formerly this Spring because of the unsettled condition at Bridgeport, which required his personal attention, a few days before the season opened.\n\nO'Neil was a tireless worker in the interest of the league and made personal work of many local club details. He was ever ready with counsel and assistance. The veteran executive had been advised by friends to remain away from the parks of the circuit during the chilly days of the Spring, but he felt it his duty to make periodical inspection tours and this, it is believed, hastened his death, which was due to diabetes aggravated by a severe cold.\n\nAll games in the league were canceled on Thursday, May 20, the day of the funeral. The funeral, held in Holyoke, was attended by baseball men and friends from every city in the league. Floral tributes came from all parts of the country.\n\nAmong those at the funeral were Mike Sexton, president of the National Association, and Secretary J. H. Farrell. Both paid glowing tribute to the sincerity and lofty ideals of the deceased.\n\n### Born in Ireland.\n\nO'Neil was the most colorful baseball personality New England has ever produced. Born in Ireland, he came to this country with his parents at the age of seven, settling in Unionville, Conn. The family moved to Holyoke in 1870 and O'Neil had since made his home there. He broke into professional ball as a player in Holyoke in the early ’80’s. In 1903, with the late Jake Becker, Albert de Wolfe, Fred A. Winkler, Patrick H. Prindiville and Jons J. Masdfen, he bought the franchise of the Waterbury Club in the old Connecticut League and the team won the pennant that year.\n\nIn the Winter of 1904, he bought the Springfield Club of the same league, which he sold in 1908.\n\nO'Neil’s greatest innovation in baseball was his importation of Cuban players when he was operating the New Britain, Conn., franchise in the Connecticut League. His club was in last place and the season had two months to go when he started a controversy by injecting four Cubans into the lineup, the quartet of islanders having been brought to New Britain by him from Havana. The four Cubans played sensational ball, and aided by them his team finished third and would likely have captured the flag with more time to go.\n\nThe four Cubans were Armando Marsans, an outfielder, who later went to the Cincinnati Reds and to the Yankees; Rafael Almeida, third baseman, who went to the Reds and later wound up in the International, and Padrone, a pitcher. O'Neil came in for considerable criticism, based on the color factor. The owner proved, however, that his four stars, despite their dark complexions, were as white as Nordic blondes and won his point.\n\n### Friend of All Sports.\n\nO'Neil had been president of the Eastern League since 1916. Baseball did not monopolize his interest in the field of sport, he being fond of the trotting field, boxing, football and track and field events. In his early days of managing in the old Connecticut League, the forerunner of the Eastern, O'Neil was one of the loop’s sensational figures. He was quick to reward his players for their work on the field. When a player hit a homer or drove in a winning run, Dan could be seen in front of the players’ bench peeling off a bill from the roll he always carried and presenting it to the lucky player.\n\nO'Neil also staged the unheard of stunt of having one of his Connecticut League clubs play four games in one day, thus causing the late James H. O’Rourke of Bridgeport, former president of the Connecticut League, considerable anguish. O'Neil had located his club in Springfield, whence he had transferred it from Holyoke, and rivalry was keen between his Ponies and the Bridgeport Club, run by O’Rourke. As the end of the season approached, O'Neil discovered that he could not win the pennant if he played all his remaining games, as rainy weather had worked havoc with his schedule. However, he had three postponed games with the weaker Meriden, Conn., team and he suggested the idea of playing the three on the day he was booked to play Meriden at Meriden, along with the scheduled game. This meant a double-header in the morning and another twin bill in the afternoon. The Meriden fans wallowed in the feast, the greatest ever served up in one day to the league patrons in a Connecticut city. Springfield won all four games, going ahead of Bridgeport by a very few points in the percentage table. O’Rourke protested and fumed, but it did him no good.\n\nThe success of the Eastern, a Class A organization, has been due to the wise leadership of O'Neil. Now and then a troublesome situation has arisen, as was the case with the Bridgeport franchise this Spring, but O'Neil’s diplomacy and businesslike tactics always paved the way to a solution. In recognition of his services, the league last Winter re-elected him for five years and voted to increase his salary to $7,500.\n\n* * *\n\n## STOCK DOES WELL AT MOBILE\n\nFormer Big Leaguer May Be Going Back,\nBut Still Has Class.\n\nMOBILE, Ala., May 23.—Is Milton Stock going back? Is the diminutive third baseman, who made such a flash debut in the majors, going to fall by the wayside like hundreds of others who live their day and then hobble into a slower circuit? Has age projected its long, skinny fingers to pat Milton on the back and then throw him into the discard?\n\nThat’s the question confronting local sportdom. Stock is a member of the Mobile Bears, having been signed when he was given an unconditional release by the Brooklyn Robins. It was a long step back.\n\nBut, like the proverbial stream which rolls on and on and on, Milton is continuing his ambling on the same diamond he played when he broke into fast company. He’s an old man. He’s a young man. The spark of “carry on” has flickered into a flame and it doesn’t seem there’s any stopping of him. He has seen ten years’ service in fast company. He is back again in slower company. His feet are still churning the clay of baseball diamonds and his bat is still meeting the offerings of pitchers with the same gusto as it did when he had to step to remain in fast company.\n\nMilt. is playing “heads-up” ball on third base. Opposing players have found that he can field bunts, throw and do everything. He has been doing that for 12 or more years and he is capable of doing it many more years. His signing made the city “baseball crazy,” despite the poor showing being made by the Bears.\n\nThe signing of Stock did not come as any surprise after announcement was made that he had been given his release by the Robins. During the Winter months, Milton made his home in Mobile, as his wife is a native Mobilian. He often expressed his desire to manage or have stock in a minor league baseball club.\n\nSo Milton is still “carrying on.” Is he going back? Well, there’s nothing but time that will tell, but Milton, in the meantime, is making hay while the sun shines and his determination to be a great ball player is as fiery as ever.\n\nGEORGE M. COX.\n\n* * *\n\n## Baseball Races Do Change.\n\nLong not so very long ago that the challengers of the Western section of the National League adopted a very pessimistic attitude in regard to baseball. Young and old assumed that the New York Giants never would be crowded into the background and that the West never would get that prominence in the National League, to which it was entitled.\n\nSubtly it was intimated, and not always with such subtlety, either, that the National League looked upon all environs of the Giants with a certain disdain righteousness because of the game’s acceptance at the Polo Grounds. That kind of talk, of course, was rank heresy and only a little removed from calling a star, whoever he might be, out if he was hypochondriac. Yet there were times when the thinly veiled sneer at the playing of the Giants was not removed from that.\n\nToday the Giants have been crowded into the second division. They may not remain there, and they may. When the first Eastern invasion of the West was over, nearly all of the East was in the second division. The loss of another game or two by Brooklyn and the West would have routed the East, skull and bones.\n\nSo there is a new situation now. In a way, the West is riding in the saddle in the National League. But what is the West going to do about it? Is it going to get any better because the East has been submerged? The attendance at the Western games is satisfactory enough. All the clubs have been doing well, except possibly St. Louis, and the latter would have done much better than it has, were it not for an object that impaired the buds of those major league clubs in that metropolis.\n\nThere have been crowds at Pittsburg which helped Barney Dreyfuss to a larger share of the world’s goods than he already has. Chicago has done very well, indeed, and the fact that the championship of the team has played with it one of the best advantages has by no means been lost upon the attention of the Chicago fans. Cincinnati has done remarkably well and will continue to do well while the team rides high. Cincinnati has developed more rapidly as a positive baseball center than other Western cities. It must all winter, for the Reds to hold the affection of their commercialized patrons.\n\nBut how long will it be if perchance the Giants go home and play to little or nothing, before some owner of the National League will begin to exclaim, “Look at those empty benches! Isn’t it a shame?” Can the National League eliminate the New York situation from its baseball cranium and not regard its publicity lens in the wrong direction?\n\nWe know that the National League never has been at variance at different times with the policy of the New York Club, yet it is said that one great reason why one club is now doing very well in that organization, observed that he thought the New York Club was very well administered because it gave up a percentage of the World’s Series receipts to other clubs without the slightest compunction.\n\nAnd yet, when Andrew Freedman wanted to pool receipts and divide them, they called it syndicate baseball.\n\n##\n\n## National League Power Shifts Westward\n\n### Consistency and Championships.\n\nWhen Jack Dunn and Organized Baseball were at outs because Dunn opposed the draft on the grounds that it belittled his club and made it appear a subsidiary to the fans of Baltimore, he made the remark that his principal endeavor, so far as the personal game was concerned, was to win a pennant for Baltimore. For that reason he wanted the same right to retain his players that was exercised by the major leagues.\n\nIn other words, he wished to be considered as having a team that would rate along with the major leagues. It is such a healthy ambition that no one seemingly can find fault with the desire.\n\nBut the major leagues did find fault with it because they wished the International League to pay the same respect to them that other minor leagues had paid from time to time. Much of this respect was agreement to permit the major leagues to step in and help themselves at a nominal sum annually to that which must be elevated.\n\nThe International now has the modified draft which is so little of a draft that no one need stay awake nights to keep it out of the milk pan.\n\nThe Baltimore Orioles go on winning pennants from year to year as a cucumber merely knows. The point we would like to emphasize to minor league men is that having got in the business of winning pennants, Dunn shows no disposition to relinquish it. When some of the other minor league presidents were hobnobbing around here and there in the Spring trying to get this big league club and the other to give them players, Dunn hung onto all that he had and when hard-pressed for the services of one or two of them, put a price on them that was too much for the major, although, as Dunn said, not too much for what they meant to him if he could win another pennant.\n\nMinor league presidents have been heard to say more than once that anything they had was for sale except the franchise. Some of them might be induced to sell that. Very few of them, however, have been heard to say, as Dunn does, that he will win a championship, but he won’t sell anything as long as he has in mind the winning of a pennant.\n\nIf some of the minor league clubs which are not successful, wish to know why they do not succeed, they might go to Baltimore and take a lesson or two from Dunn orally.\n\n### Parched by the Baseball Moth.\n\nThe Summer approaches and the housewife carefully puts away her choicest tapestries, and rugs, and such other furnishings as are decorative and of the greatest value in her eyes that they may be preserved for her enjoyment in the following Winter. She guards against the moths.\n\nWhen the Summer approaches, too, the baseball manager brings out his best and choicest players, and enters them in competition against other players to try to win a little something in the way of bunting, which the flag mast of his home ground will float another year. But if the Winter moths have entered into his property, his baseball chattels, his personalities upon which he is dependent for his success, woe to him.\n\nWhere were the moth balls and the camphor and the other of the Winter safeguards against moths for the Giants that they so quickly faded away when they were brought out into the sun and where were the guards against disaster for the St. Louis Browns?\n\nOf other clubs a little might be said in the same strain, but of these two in particular much may be said. The collapse of the Giants makes one think of the crumbling away to dust of the contents of the wooden chest which concealed Ginevra. When the Giant mastodons were pierced by the hot fire of competition they became inert.\n\nIt is not the first time that a team of Giants has slipped into a rut under John McGraw. One was shattered in 1906, others in later years and now another in 1926, and he is back again in his old occupation of building up. There is none, perhaps, who is a handier builder.\n\nEven now, when the process of reconstruction is but begun, we are curious to know what the outcome will be and what the team may look like in another year or so.\n\n## The Dan O’Neil Leaves Us.\n\nThe president of the Eastern League, Daniel O’Neil, who had not been in the best of health for some time, is dead. The Eastern League loses one of the best advisers it ever had. Indeed, the league loses a man who was principal sponsor for it and principal adviser to it, who handled its affairs with rare good judgment and its finances in such a manner, that it was kept alive and prosperous, after the various cities of which it is made up, were one by one the victims of adversity and hard times in baseball.\n\nEven at the start of this season the league had its troubles in Bridgeport which were overcome when O’Neil took the bull by the horns, declared the franchise non-existent because it was not being operated, and placed the club in the hands of citizens of Bridgeport who agreed to see it through.\n\nLike all presidents of minor leagues, because of necessity to the clubs, because of the frequency with which minor league men give up the fight if the prize of victory does not come their way, O’Neil had his measure of trouble. But he met them vigorously and courageously.\n\nDan O’Neil was not an advanced theorist in baseball and in some respects he was a minor league man through and through, yet he was more of good to baseball, much more of good to it, than many another who has assumed to play a larger part.\n\nThe deceased president was a power for conservation in the affairs of the National Association and in that respect a power for good in baseball, and because of the fact that he knew his particular territory so well we imagine the Eastern League will have some trouble to find a successor as competent and certainly none more faithful nor useful to the office that he filled.\n\n### An Old, Old Story.\n\nOften St. Louis has had poor luck in championship races. Occasionally a St. Louis team has given promise, and has faded, and so St. Louis goes from year to year hoping for a new turn from Fortune’s wheel but never quite sure that it is to happen.\n\nThis year both St. Louis teams began with promise. Both had mighty fine things said about them. You may have agreed or disagreed with what was said or may not have agreed with it. That is part of the game.\n\nThe trouble is, however, that such fine things were said and the teams did seem to be so good that it has been an awful hard tumble not to find either of them near the top. The Cardinals started out bearing every mark of their reputed strength.\n\nThe Browns have started. If steam isn’t injected enough they will be nothing late they will never arrive, not even at Nearby, perhaps, just Anywhere.\n\nWhat a halcyon time the Middle West would have if one of those St. Louis teams could get going and bid defiance to the world. It’s all right enough for New York to go glubbing around saying, “What is a championship here and there?” New York has had ’em. But imagine a city and a state and a lot of neighboring states that haven’t had any.\n\nThat’s what hurts St. Louis.\n\n### Pity the Blind.\n\nWhat a year of sadness it has been for the prophets of baseball. But we can’t all sit in the sunshine and eat sorghum on our corn cake.\n\nFirst of all, the New York Yankees utterly refused to turn away any kind of prophetic form, and what a time they are having of it in New York!\n\nThen the Browns refused to reform and turn to form. And that’s another time.\n\nThe Cubs that had been slathered all over the Coast, slathered all over the National League.\n\nThe Brooklyns, that had been annihilated by the Yanks, climbed through the National League and looked down upon the blustery Giants, and others.\n\nThe Pittsburgers, predicted to struggle through their circuit, have barely been able to ride the ripples of the Monongahela.\n\nThe “dead ball” has resulted in the greatest home run record that Babe Ruth ever made to date.\n\nThe present day that was to part the baseball world in war isn’t conspicuous enough to bring the new for a bull fight at a country dance.\n\nBut what’s the use? A prophet has got to live.\n\n* * *\n\n## BACK OF THE HOME PLATE\n\n### OBSERVATIONS OF A VETERAN SCRIBE\n\n### By John B. Sheridan\n\nWHAT is the matter with local baseball clubs? Nothing that I can see in the instances of the majors and some of the big minors, except too much money. That is a trouble with which most people would be glad to be worried. It is not easy to tell a good American that money can be, indeed is, usually utterly ruinous. If it is, they cheerfully admit that they are willing to be ruined by it. Yet, prosperity which all Americans, all peoples, strive for with pathetic energy, has ruined more men and women, more nations than adversity ever has ruined. Millions of men and women can endure adversity with success. Few of them can successfully cope with wealth. Ability to endure, stand poverty, is common. Ability to endure prosperity is most uncommon.\n\nMoney appears to be flowing in upon the great baseball clubs just as it is flowing in upon the promoters of pugilism, horse racing, football, golf, and all sports. That's the answer. No use in me playing Elijah and warning a wealthy Jerusalem against its fall. The object of all real Americans being to make money, the baseball clubs doing it, what else is there to be asked for? Has not the ultimate been achieved? Surely.\n\nYet, there are loud cries of “What is wrong with baseball?” from owners and supporters of clubs that are not in the first division or about to break therein. These clubs are yelling: “What is the matter with us?” Their patrons are yelling these things even louder than the owners. Well, what of it all?\n\nToo much money. Things made too soft for the young men today. They don’t have to try a lick to make money. In some instances, money is fairly thrust upon them. An instance of this is the case of young Ernie Nevers of the St. Louis Browns. A football player of note at Stanford University, an All-American fullback—whatever that may mean—young Nevers caught the crest of the boom in professional football last Fall which took its impetus from Red Grange of Illinois. As soon as Nevers was ready to accept, a promoter shoved $25,000 in his hand. The Browns gave him a contract. Kept as far as it went.\n\nThe Browns went on a trip. Nevers refused to go unless his young wife was permitted to accompany him. There is a rule, which I believe to be wise and just, that players of the St. Louis American League team cannot take their wives with them on tours of the club. Nevers refused to go without his wife.\n\nHell, if I had the doing of it he could not take his wife with him on a trip, not if he was Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Rogers Hornsby and Babe Ruth rolled into one and had as many wives as Solomon or Brigham Young. Not that a young American has not a right to have his wife travel anywhere wherever he and she list at any time they elect. If I wanted to take my wife on such a trip I’d buy her transportation and have her meet me wherever I wanted her to meet me. She might travel on the same train as the team, but not on the same car, nor stay at the same hotel. No club could fairly object to a player carrying his wife along under such conditions.\n\nBut to take his wife with the team, no, no, no. I’d keep my contract with the club and show up for all game engagements, but I’d take my wife wherever I wanted to take her. Young Nevers stays at home. For my part, if I was George Sisler, Nevers could stay at home for the balance of his natural life. He may make a pitcher some day. Even if he is to be another Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Amos Rusie and Rube Waddell in one, I’d make him think.\n\nLet that go. The point is that Nevers is so well off before he gets his ears dry in Organized Baseball that he does not have to work to be able to “kick in” to the wife on Saturday night. Too much money.\n\nHell’s bells and little chickens, if Nevers was like the average young man is, and should be, owed money for his furniture and for grocery bills that he could not pay, he’d leave his young wife at home and go wherever his work called him. I am strong for the young man who is fond of his wife? That’s right. But I am a dee sight stronger for the young man who is so fond of his wife that he will leave her and go out to work for her.\n\nSweet Mother Mary, the airs the hand-fed athletes give “theirselves” nowadays. I remember when Charley Comiskey was playing ball and selling newspapers for Ted Sullivan at Dubuque, somewhere about 1882, making $150 a month and figuring on getting married. Came an offer from the St. Louis Browns to play ball for $125 a month, which was less than Commy was making in Dubuque. Oh, believe it, Commy loved the girl. She lived with him for 40 years after. But he saw that his future lay in going to St. Louis for less money than he was getting in Dubuque. He had to leave the girl in Dubuque. He went to St. Louis, made good, married her, and did not take her on trips with the team. He had not time for her when playing baseball, but made her a splendid husband for 40 years, when death closed her eyes. Comiskey probably made more money than any man that ever played ball, bar perhaps, A. G. Spalding, A. J. Reach or George Wright.\n\nSome people will say that it is fine that a man should love his wife so that he does not wish to be separated from her even for one minute. Prunes. It calls for very much more love when a man will part from his wife to follow his business from which he and she derive a livelihood. If young Nevers was placed in the condition wherein most young men find themselves, which is the only fit and proper condition for a young man just married—broke—he’d leave the wife quickly enough. If he did not want to leave she’d see that he did. I have seen a lot of wives and noted that they are much more sensible and much more practical than men. They have a keen realization of the fact that life is not all love-making, that people must eat once in a while and live somewhere and have a few clothes, a car, a radio set and, at least, a pet dog, dam ’em.\n\nForty years of observance have taught me that the only young man worth a tinker's toohoodle is the young man who has two conditions—(1) Ambition. (2) Broke.\n\nWhen Comiskey was poor and ambitious in Dubuque in 1882, Henry V. Lucas was then a rich young man of St. Louis. Lucas went into the baseball business with the old Unions and $1,000,000. Henry Lucas died years ago, broke. Comiskey must be worth $7,000,000 today.\n\nThat’s what’s the matter with major league baseball today. Too much money. Too much money is what ruins championship ball clubs. A fat, well fed young man, who lolls in an easy chair with slippers and dressing gown on, will never get anywhere. The best ball I have ever seen played was by hungry young men who wanted an advance of $50 to $100. The best singing I have ever heard has been done, not by acknowledged stars, but by hungry boys and girls who wanted to get the money that stars get. Of course, when they arrive they lose ambition and decline. That is why I have always thought that if I had a ball club I’d get rid of my stars before they attained comfort and ease. Peddle them at their peak.\n\n* * *\n\n## Baseball By-Plays\n\n### AN ODE TO THE OLD.\n\nGraybeards, lift your glasses high,\nGive to Youth the stony eye!\nYouth is raging—let it rage;\nDrink, my hearties, drink to “Age!”\nHere’s to Tris Speaker ranging far;\nHere’s to Eddie Collins, still a star!\nHere’s to Walter Johnson, lift your glass!\nYears are passing—let ’em pass!\n\nYouth must have its fling, they say,\nSurging onward day by day;\nWho are we to quarrel with you—\nSoon enough they learn the truth.\nHere tonight we drink to “Age,”\nSpread its record ’cross the page—\nHere’s to Collins on the job!\nHere’s to Grover Cleveland Alexander—and to Ty Cobb!\n\nGraybeards, youth must have its fling—\nAutumn falls in lap of Spring!\nOut across the sunset skies!\nGlasses up! The challenge flies\nFrom the sandlot and the bush\nYouth is pushing—let it push!\nMeet ’em, graybeards, with a grin—\nDrink to Babe Adams!—And to Jack Quinn!\n\n—FORD FRICK.\n\n* * *\n\nHubert “Shucks” Pruett, who used to fool Babe Ruth in the American League, and is now pitching for Oakland in the Pacific Coast League, pulled a swift one the other day. Pruett had been pitching a ball that had become soiled and darkened by usage. A kick was made on the pill and Umpire Van Graflan threw out a cleaner one to the pitcher. Pruett sized it up. Tossed it around in his hands and, approaching the umpire, tossed it back to him.\n\n“That ball’s too big,” said Pruett.\n\nVan Graflan, not thinking, or preferring to let Shucks have his little joke, obligingly tossed him another pellet which had seen a bit more wear.\n\nShucks is getting to be a slicker.\n\n* * *\n\nAt the conclusion of the third game of the recent series between the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees in New York, the players engaged in a fight in the tunnel which leads from the dugouts to the clubhouses. The melee had its inception during an argument between Earl Whitehill, who was pitching for the Tigers, and Lou Gehrig, the Yankee first baseman. The two grappled when they came in contact in the darkened tunnel and along came Ruth who picked Gehrig up and was dragging him to the clubhouse. Babe’s burden suddenly became limp and it was discovered that an unidentified party had pasted Gehrig a knockout punch while Babe had him in tow.\n\nWhen Gehrig was revived Ruth suddenly remembered that he had been kicked during his rescue efforts. “It was Cobb,” chorused his mates. Out of the clubhouse flew Babe to the Tiger lair. He challenged Cobb; “or the guy who kicked me.” Cobb informed him that he did not go in for kicking and the Bambino retreated.\n\nBack to the Yankee clubhouse went the Bambino, still boiling. Fred Merkle told him he had held Cobb’s arms from behind throughout the fight and that it could not have been him. But other Yankees insisted that it was Cobb. Again the door of the Tiger clubhouse flew open and, behold, there stood the Babe again.\n\n“It was you who kicked me in the tunnel,” quoted Babe, “and I’ve come to settle.”\n\nThere was a chuckle and Cobb in his politest mien informed the Bambino that he did no such thing. “But,” said the Peach, “if you make me very angry, I may take a kick at you.”\n\nWhereupon Ruth went back to the Yankee clubhouse. Finis, “The Fight in the Dark,” or “Who Kicked Babe in the Tunnel?”\n\n* * *\n\n### AN ECLIPSE.\n\nA spell is on the multitude when Rogers Hornsby swings his bat,\nThere’s charm in Kiki Cuyler’s speed and grace and punch, and all o’ that;\nThe rooter’s pulse is quickened as the form of Cobb appears,\nWith countless scars and glamour from a score of fighting years.\nOh, what a show of love of sport, when Pie Traynor’s all aglow!\nAnd men and nations pause when Walter Johnson starts to throw.\nWonder pictures, all resplendent—but, to keep the records straight,\nDon’t forget the first-prize winner, folks—“Bambino at the Plate!”\n\n—CHILLY DOYLE.\n\n* * *\n\nBill Byron, one-time National League umpire, who, since leaving the Pacific Coast League, has gone into retirement, had his fill of funny experiences on the ball field. Asked not so long ago for the funniest situation of his career, Bill told of this one which had occurred in a minor league game:\n\n> “I had chased about half the home club from the field and the manager was much disgusted. Late in the game, a big butterfly insisted on flying about the diamond, mostly between the batter and the pitcher.\n\n> “At a rather critical spot in the game the manager, coaching at third, called for time. I stopped the game and asked him what was the trouble.\n\n> “‘Nothing, except that since you are so good at chasing players off the field, why don’t you chase that butterfly?’\n\n> “I wanted to laugh, but I decided to try to ‘make good,’ and did. I sneaked out and on the first try put my cap over the butterfly. I then summoned the batboy and ordered him to take it to the clubhouse.”\n\nRed Roche tells this one: Back in 1916 he was a member of the Scranton team and Rube DeGroff was one of the outfielders. In a game against Wilkes-Barre one day, a terrific lightning storm broke out of what looked like a clear sky. In the midst of it, DeGroff called time out, and sitting down in center field, removed his shoes.\n\nHe was still shoeless when he came to bat, and inquiry was made as to why he was pulling the Shoeless Joe Jackson.\n\n“Well,” said DeGroff, “I came near getting mine once before from lightning in the O.-P. League. I’m not taking any chances on my spikes attracting that stuff and the Great Umpire is not going to call me out for not thinking.”\n\n* * *\n\n## Advertisements\n\n1920s Reach Sporting Goods advertisement promoting higher-quality baseball equipment and cleaner fielding in the major leagues, published during the 1926 baseball season.",
  "title": "Ruth, Hornsby and the Reds: Baseball’s Biggest Stories from May 27, 1926",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-27T21:53:33.772Z"
}