Page:Spalding's Baseball Guide (1894).djvu/64



moment a shrewd, strategic pitcher sees a batsman standing at the bat in bad form, he feels sure of capturing him. On the other hand, it bothers the best pitchers to see the batsman untiring in his efforts to stand in good form in his position, and fully prepared to meet every ball pitched to him. This 'proper form' for hitting every ball is, of course, fatiguing to the batsman, when the pitching is at all wild, but it must be kept up in order to secure chances for hitting the ball when it comes within fair reach of the bat."

In making batting a feature of a team play, too much attention is paid to out-field hitting, and in doing this the importance of economizing a player's strength in running bases after a hit is entirely lost sight of. The ambition to excel in home run hitting leads the batsman to forget that every such run involves the costly expenditure of physical strength consequent upon running a 120 yards at one's utmost speed, a test of strength in sprint running which ordinarily requires a good half hour's rest to recuperate from the trying effort. How much more effective is it, in the saving of strength, to earn single bases by hits, than four bases at a time by a homer. Then, too, in the case of home runs, all the attractive features of fine fielding are sacrificed, which single base hitting so frequently yields.

Suppose the first four batsmen sent to the bat each make home runs, the result is a score of 4 runs, without a chance offered to the fielders for sharp fielding, all of them, except the one out-fielder going after the ball, standing idle as lookers on at the doings of four 120 yard sprint runners. Suppose, however, that the first four batsmen each make single hits, the result is one clean earned run to begin with, with three men on bases, and at the lowest estimate, not counting for the sharp base running, the chances are that the other three runs would follow before six men had gone to the bat; and with this single base hitting there would follow chance after chance for all the attractive features of sharp in-fielding and active base running in stealing bases. In fact there is no comparison in the two methods of batting, the strength-saving method of single base hitting being in every way preferable.

AN INTERESTING CLUB RECORD.

An interesting analysis of the play of the twelve clubs for the season of 1893, is shown in the appended table, in which the total figures of runs scored, sacrifice hits made, bases stolen, "battery" and fielding errors committed, as also the base hit and fielding averages of each club for the entire season, are given. The names of the clubs are given in the order of their relative position at the end of the pennant race: