Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 310, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1910 — POSSESS GOOD BATTING EYE [ARTICLE]

POSSESS GOOD BATTING EYE

English Cricketer Surpasses Baseball Ptayer as Battei—Low Ball Is His De light. We laugh and giggle at the English cricketers. His game, with the hop-skip bowler, the little wicket sticks, the flat bat and the backward and forward running, seems hilarious to Americans, and the biggest laugh of all is over the length of time it takes to play a match. Still, every game has its good qualities, and even cricket can show up something now and then, says an exchange. The English cricketer has a good batting eye. Of course, he doesn’t often get such speed served up to him as is fired at the American baseball batsman every day. Still, it is a pretty sight to see the Englishman pick them off, and in just one particular the Briton can make the American look a bunch of six nickels, inferiorly stacked. That is the cracking of low balls—shoots which come down just like the drop or spitball, and which In baseball, drive the batsman frantic. Ever watch a cricket game, with good batters up? Just notice them some day, and see how they step into, the downshoots and how they swat them to the extreme end of the adjoining scenery. . i The Englishman has, through generations, cultivated a low cut at a falling ball, and he doesn’t miss very many. As the ball drops he rakes almost along the ground, and the globule goes like the bullet from a highpower gun. It would pay a team to hire a cricket shark for a couple of weeks just to teach the boys the secret of that sweep against a low ball. A team that had been drilled that way for a little while could simply bombard the life out of the spitball pitchers, and would get a running start on all its competitors. A few years ago.it will be remembered, a team of Australian ball players visited us, and played a large number of games all over the country. The jolly Australians lost most of their games, as their pitches were easy, and they hadn’t learned anything of inside play or fancy fielding. But they always jolted the liver out of the ball, winning or losing. They slugged Tophet out of all of the pitchers who opposed them, and lost most of their games by such scores as 19 to 16. It was noticed In every game, that the Australians —all cricket players before they horned Into baseball—fairly loved a low ball. When a drop came at them they.almost knelt upon the turf, swept the bat along the sod and drove the ball—usually to left field—with a force and power that no fielder cared to face. Good stuff, and well worth trying for awhile.