Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1912 — FAILS TO SEE CHICAGO CUBS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FAILS TO SEE CHICAGO CUBS

Otto Knabe of Philadelphia Thinks Pittsburg Will Be Strongest Con-, tender for Pennant, Several players in the National league do not think the Cubs will finish one, two, three in the pennant scramble. One of these Is Second Baseman Otto Knabe of the Phillies, who is taking an exceptional stand in declaring that all the clubs will have to travel speedily to beat out Pittsburg for the flag. It Is seldom that a player selects another team in preference to his own to win the championship. Bu| Knabe is one, and here is what he says: “With O’Toole, Adams, Camnitz, Hendrix and Lelfield as first string pitchers, the Pirates are going to make us all hustle. I have been

studying the situation and have come to the conclusion that there will be three teams in the race —Pittsburg, Philadelphia and New York. Pittsburg and Philadelphia will have It out for first place; and we will consider ourselves more than lucky If we show the way to Fred Clarke’s “New York won the pennant last’ season because it had all sorts of luck. Pittsburg would have beaten it out had it not been for the accidents to ’Wagner, Wilson, Clarke and Miller. Philadelphia was going well when Magee was lifted and Dooin hart Had

these things not taken place the Giants would have found the going harder~and wouldn’t have finished aa well as they did. “This year, however, McGraw is going to find that he will have to play better ball Not only will he have to beat out Pittsburg and Philadelphia, but he will find that his own men won’t play as well as they did in 1911. Marquard, for one, will not be as successful; he won’t win nearly as many gkmes as he did last year. “Chicago appears to be everlastingly out of the race. From this distance I cannot see where Chance has strengthened any. He hasn’t a good man on first and unless he plays Zimmerman at third he’s going to be up against it at that corner. His pitchers are none of the best; and it’s hard to see where the Cubs are going to finish one, two, three.”^

Otto Knabe.