Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 168, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1915 — SLUGGERS ARE GOOD AT TRAP SHOOTING [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SLUGGERS ARE GOOD AT TRAP SHOOTING

Joe Jackson! The name Inspires the shivers in American league pitchers; it inspires enthusiasm in the American league fan. “Some sweet hitter, that boy," says the fan. When Connie Mack first plucked Joe from the bushes, he wasn’t exactly a green lemon, but he wasn’t ripe for high baseball society. As I recall it, he had two faults; he didn’t wear socks and he was troubled with homesickness, says a writer in an exchange. I do not think Connie would have fired him because of his dislike for hose, but an attack of homesickness caused him to desert, and a deserter is looked upon with about the same favor in big league baseball as he is in the army. After Joe recovered from Bakeritis (new name for aversion to wandering from one’s own fireside), he spent a season in New Orleans, where he made Southern league pitchers’ life so miserable they induced Mr. Somers to yank Joe back into the American league again, and Cleveland has domiciled the sockless sockdolager ever since. He “has. been about half the Cleveland team the last two years; the other half wears socks, doesn’t get homesick and is very do-

cile and inoffensive to the other seven clubs in the league. It takes a keen eye and steady nerves to run second to the wonderful Ty Cobb for league batting honors. Joe Jackson has done that several times. There’s a reason. Joe says: “Next to baseball, give me a shotgun. In the field or at the traps, I find great enjoyment in its use." Get the idea, Mr. Wood B. Slugger? It doesn’t pay for a ball player to allow his eye to become dim and his nerves unstrung by a winter of idleness. Shooting keeps eyes in trim, nerves taut, muscles firm. ' Ty Cobb is a trapshooter, and a good one; so is Speaker. Chief Ben. der won his own game recently with a two-base biff; he spent most of his spare time all last winter trapshooting. Bender is some shooter, too. Got 25 straight one time and 22 is easy for him. If the world’s series winners will invest some of their easy money this f”ll in shotguns and will use them throughout the winter, I’ll bet on them to repeat next year. I’ll also bet Joe Jackson is the only trapshooter on the Cleveland team.