Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 195, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1913 — NAP LAJOIE THINKS JOHNSON IS BEST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NAP LAJOIE THINKS JOHNSON IS BEST

"Walter Johnson la far and. away a better pitcher than Joe Wood, or any other pitcher in the American league,” declared Larry Lajoie, than whom there could scarcely be a better judge of pitching. “Johnson simply has so much stuff and speed that if he turned loose his hardest throw with his stuff on, no catcher could get down in time to receive the ball. “Every ball he throws has stuff on itSome of the hops his fast ones take are bigger curves than the biggest the average pitcher has. I’ve seen him throw balls up to the plate that didn’t look larger than a pinhead. Wood is a good pitcher, all right, but he is simply not in Johnson’s class, nor is anybody “Wood broke into the league from Kansas City against us in 1908, in Boston. There was a little house in centen field, and we had about seven men who were hitting .300. “Wow! What a reception he got!

First we’d knock a brick out of the chimney, then a few shingles off' the roof, then we’d batter a window pane. “Nobody ever did anything like that, to Johnson, and never will. When a fellow is coaching off first when he’s pitching, it’s next to impossible to see his fast one. If he didn’t have good control, he would kill so many batters he would be barred from the league. He’d wreck every club he pitched against There’s next to no chance to duck or back away from hi* delivery. “Almost any time yon get a hit off Johnson don’t figure that you're smart. Just figure it that you’re lucky; lucky that you happen to make that blind swing in the spot where the ball came. If all the pitchers in the league were like Johnson the pitcher’s box would hove to be placed at second base so one club could get a run without the game going into extra innings.”

Walter Johnson of Washington.