Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 309, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1916 — WATCH JONES’ OUTFIT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WATCH JONES’ OUTFIT

Will Be Real Dark Horse in Next Season’s Race. Manager Contends That Pitching ia First Essential for Winning Combination—McGraw of New York Giants Agrees.

Grandstand managers are pretty well agreed that' Fielder Jones’ Brownies lack that run-making essential —a punch. Sixty-four games of the onerun margin variety, 35 of these defeats, are pointed to as evidence that the club is deficient in batting effectiveness, writes Ed Wray in St. Louis PostDispatch. It is also agreed by the amateur managers that Fielder Jones is making a mistake in sitting tight with his present outfit and in planning to continue his 1917 campaign with the same punchless cast. But there is the large “on-the-other-handl’ 1;q his argument, one that can be backed up by figures. Batting is far from being everything in the life of a successful team; and that the injection of a little more timeliness into the swatting of our Brownies, plus the team’s great superiority in speed, may yet vindicate the club’s manager. The answer to this view will, of course, be: “See what happened to the club this year. It had a fair trial.” Jones argues differently. He maintains that a good start would have brought confidence and a near-first-place position to his club. Jones holds—and he is supported by facts*—that pitching is the first thing

needed by a team. With that anything is possible. He regards the failure of his own club as due to Koob’s illness at the start and in midseason Davenport’s failure to round to form until he had lost about nine games. Plank’s tardy return to championship class and the failure of Hamilton to come through, rather than to the downfall of clean-up men Pratt and Marsans. Johnny McGraw is ready to O. K. the view about pitching. For, while everybody is crediting his new infield with the return to winning form of the Giants, it is noteworthy that the pitchers of the club, in annexing their long string of victories, allowed a grand average of only 1.5 earned runs per nineinning game.

Manager Fielder Jones.