Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 187, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1917 — PIRATE MANAGERIAL JOB IS NO SINECURE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PIRATE MANAGERIAL JOB IS NO SINECURE

(By JACK VEIOCK, International News Sports Editor.) Hugo Bezdek has a man-sized Job on his mitts as manager of the Pirates. It is no cinch to take hold of a tailend teamin midseason and pump It full of life and pepper, but this is the task Bezdek has tackled, and he may surprise the critics by making good with a vim. There are always a few joy killers who predict dark things for the fellow who takes the reins as manager of a losing ball club. He gets about as much encouragement as the allies are giving Von Hindenburg these days, and if he is one of the kind who can be discouraged easily he has about as much chance of getting by as a snowball in a pot of boiling oil. The Pirate managerial job this year looks just about as big as all outdoors, and the material Bezdek Inherited when he took the wheel was not calculated to bring joy to any manager’s heart. But -Bezdek did not hesitate ■when the berth was offered to him. He simply stuck out his jaw and went to It. And he may show the critics a few things about overhauling a ball club that they have never dreamed of. Stranger things have happened in

baseball, and if the Pirate owners will stand behind Bezdek he may be the man for the permanent job. Who knows? Look at the case of Lee Fohl. Lee was appointed manager of the Cleve-* land Indians to finish out a bad season. No one thought he would stick as pilot of the club. But he’s still there, and he has had the Indians In the limelight ever since the owners of the club got behind him and handed him moral and financial support. One of the main troubles with the Pirates was the fact that they began playing ragged and often listless baseball, as soon as they found out that they didn’t have the stride* necessary to keep them in the pennant race. They were discouraged, and Callahan was discouraged, too. So the club was not really doing its best. Bezdek gained some valuable experience in the handling of men as a baseball and football coach, and he has studied"players' as a scout for the Pittsburgh club. His fighting qualities were trained during his football days with the University of Chicago, and while he wore the Maroon he was one of the greatest backs the Windy City school ever turned out.

HUGO BEZDEK, NEW LEADER OF PITTSBURGH TEAM.