Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 159, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1915 — GIANTS NOT PENNANT-CONTENDING TEAM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GIANTS NOT PENNANT-CONTENDING TEAM

(By FRANK G. MENKE.) >- The Giants are a 50 to 1 shot for the 1915 pennant —just that and nothing more. Nothing but a miracle can win for them now. The Giants have just one real pitcher —Tesreau. And no ball club ever won a pennant with less than three top-notch pitchers. Mathewson is about through. The brain of the “old master” is as crafty as of yore, but the old arm refuses to obey the dictates of that brain. And the opposition has batted the feeble shoots and slants to all portions of the lot on practically every start Matty has made this year. Marquard is erratic. One day he pitches a great game; the next day he performs like a bush leaguer. Perrltt was a winning twirler with the Cardinals, but he hasn’t touched the .500 mark with the Giants. Stroud is showing up nicely but he can’t be depended upon to win two-thirds of his games. Schupp and Schauer haven’t shown anything. And these men constitute the Giants’ defense; Tesreau, a marvelous pitcher, the fast-slipping Matty, the erratic Marquard, the in-and-out Perritt and the unreliable Stroud, Schupp and Schauer. Offensively the Giants do not show up much better. On some days they look like the greatest outfit of sluggers in existence; on others they act like a bunch of blind men. They hit in streaks; and no streak-hitting club ever won the pennant. Some wonderfully optimistic Giant rooters still see a chance for the pennant. They point to the work of the Braves/last year. They argue that the Giants can. do what the Braves did. But how different is the situation! Last year the Braves had no one to beat out but the Giants. The New York outfit overshadowed every other club in the league up to July 4th. Every other club was of the second division order. But this year there are at least four clubs that seem as powerful now as the Giants did in 1914. The Cubs, Phillies, Braves and Pi-

rates —and even the Brooklyn Dodger* —can give the Giants a mighty battle. No team other than the Reds will stack up as a pie counter proposition for the 1915 Giants, because even the Cardinals are dangerous. The Giants in an attempt to climb from the bottom to the top of the N*r tional league heap would find the climbing at least 30 per cent harder than the Braves did last year. And, furthermore, the Giants haven’t the power that the Braves had. The Braves were aided and abetted in their achievement by the most remarkable pitching feats the baseball world ha* ever known. Three twlrlers —James, Rudolph and Tyler—pitched in rotation week after week and pitched a* no trio of men has ever pitched before. McGraw hasn’t any trio to work as Stallings had. He hasn’t got a Maranville nor an Evers. His men aren’t imbued with the same fighting spirit as were Stallings’ men and, most important of all, he hasn't got the Stallings’ luck. Good playing and marvelous pitching were mighty factors, but the mightiest of all was luck. A dozen times the “breaks” saved the Braves from defeat and gave them* victory. A pennant-contending team must be well rounded —and the Giants of 1915 are not. Their pitching department is the main weakness but the catching department is not anything that should be envied. The team as a whole is prone to bobbing in pinches. “Bone” plays are frequent, and, worst of all, a hard luck jinx has been pursuing the McGraw outfit since the season began. And it’s still pursuing. But the Giants won't finish in the cellar. They probably will climb out of the rut soon and leap over frames of the Reds, Cardinals and Dodgers. They may go a notch or two further, depending very largely upon what the Cubs, Phillies, Braves and Pirates do from now on. But they wcn’t finish first unless all the players on the other clubs become afflicted with beriberi, spavin, sea-sickness and hokuspokus.