Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 206, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1914 — IRISHMEN ARE VERY SCARCE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

IRISHMEN ARE VERY SCARCE

Real Son of Erin Cannot Be Found on . Washington Team—lrish Stars Are Comparatively Few. A recent fanning bee developed the fact that there is not a single Irishman on the Washington baseball club. Can you beat it? Thirty-odd ball players and the only Irishman in the lot is half German? Griffith, himself of Welsh extraction, has a team of all nationalities, including a Cuban, yet he cannot produce a real son of Erin. Germany leads in the Washington ranks, with Schaefer, Altrock, Moeller and Engel as charter members. Johnson is of Scotch-English extraction, and the club has several members of this ancestry. This state of affairs brings out an important question. Are the Irishmen fading out of the big league? There was a time when almost every star in the game was of Irish extraction, with maybe a Dutchman or an Englishman thrown in for good measure. How few Irish names do you find among the stars of today. Look over the list of the real big fellows: Cobb, Speaker, Jackson, Johnson, Mathewson, Rucker, Tesreau, Bender, Plank, Alexander, Evers, Daubert, Baker, Konetchy, Wheat, Zimmerman, Oldring, Doyle, Chase, Archer, Meyers, Mclnnes. There is a sprinkling of Irish in that list, but they are greatly in the minority. Eddie Collins’ name would indicate that his ancestors hailed from Erin, though Collins comes from an old Tarrytown family. Evers is of Irish stock, and, of course, there is no German in either Larry Doyle or Stuffy Mclnnes. As for Archer, he was born in Ireland, which also was the birthplace of two fellow club maskmen, Roger Bresnahan and Tom Needham. Yet contrast the list of the stars of today with some of the stars of the past, such as King Kelly, Buck Ewing, Mickey Welch, Tim Keefe, Charlie

Comlskey, Tiernan, Hanlon, O’Rourke, Bennett, Dunlap, Duffy, Joe Kelley, Meekin, Tebeau, Burkett, Thompson, McAleer, Brouthers, 'Delehanty, Jennings, McGraw, Jim Collins and Mike Donlin. ; However, while the Irish stars of the game seem to be passing out, It still takes the Irishmen to run the teams. One-half of the major league managers are Irish, and the Irish managers include John McGraw and Connie Mack, who have more or less monopolized the world’s series spoils the last fqw years. The others are Hugh Jennings, Red Dooin, Jim Callahan, Bill Carrigan, Hank O’Day and Wilbert Robinson. “Robby” Is mentioned last, as we are not absolutely certain that he is Irish.

Nap Rucker.