Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 155, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1916 — SERIOUS BALL PLAYER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SERIOUS BALL PLAYER

Frank Snyder of Cardinals Is Greatest Catcher In Game. Discarded New Automobile Because It Interfered With Batting—Smiled Once When Donlin Tried to Get His Goat. Frank Snyder of the Cardinals is the greatest catcher in baseball today, bar none. John McGraw says so, and there are few fans who have seen Snyder play who will deny what McGraw says in this case. A little incident previous to the departure of the Cardinals on their last trip east last fall indicates why Snyder Is a great ball player and why he means to stay one, says Sporting News. Several St. Louis ball players had bought automobiles. Snyder hadn’t given the buzz wagons much attention, but he finally got to thinking about it, so one day he took a walk along automobile row in St. Louis. He hadn’t any particular intention of buying, but Just thought he would give them the once over. Passing a show window, he saw an automobile that struck his fancy. He may not have known a carburetor from a friction drive, but the machine had class that even Snyder could fathom. In he stalked, and pulling his six feet and two inches and his 44 chest up to the approaching salesman, said shortly: “How much for that automobile in the window?” “That will cost you two thousand dollars, complete, with all the latest —’*

Bnd the salesman began to extol the various advantages of the car. “That’s all right. I’ll take her,” said Snyder shortly. “Trot her out and show me how she runs.” Snyder learned the points of his machine and ran it for a week or two. One day he appeared at the Cardinal ball park via street car. “Where’s the automobile, Frank?” & fellow player inquired. "Shipped her home to Texas. Can’t lead the National league in hitting and catch good ball if I run that thing around,” was the answer. Nobody had noticed that Snyder’s work had been affected by his automobile driving, but the attitude taken by the young catcher shows his seriousness of purpose. It’s the something in Snyder that wins while other players fail and complain and seek alibis. They say Frank Snyder never smiled but once, and he seldom talkß. That smile came to his lips when Mike Donlin tried to get his goat one day by calling him a name no Texan takes. It was a smile terrible to behold. That

Mike Doulin is alive today, or at least is not a cripple for life, is due to the fact, probably, that Cardinal players who know Snyder’s disposition and realized what his short laugh meant for Donlin grabbed him bodily, a half dozen or mare of theiki, and held him until Donlin could escape to the dulM house. V- < ■

Frank Snyder.

Mike Donlin.