Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 214, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1917 — KNOCKS BALL PLAYERS [ARTICLE]

KNOCKS BALL PLAYERS

Pie Way Administers Rap to Members of Fraternity. Former Yale Pitcher Not Very Highly Pleased With His Experience as Professional Ball Player—, Found It a Loos. Nelson M. Way, better known as Pie Way, former Yale pitcher and later a member of the New York Giants’ staff of box artists, retired from the game for good not long ago to enter upon a business career. Pie was not very highly pleased over bis experience as a professional player, as the following remarks attributed to him attest: *1 don’t want to be In the position of attacking baseball, th"t Is, professional baseball. It Is noue of my business and I haven’t amounted to enough In the game to stand as a critic. But I can say that I found it a loss, so far as I was concerned. I say this in spite of the fact that I could sign at least two very satisfactory contracts with good minor league clubs, with the prospect, of course, of working my way to the big league. But I don’t want It. “Jack Coombs put It correctly when he said that a college man goes into the big league with an education and comes out without one. Coombs is a college man who has spent a number of years In organized baseball, and he ought to know. In fact, I could see It for myself. You have no great Incentive to read or keep up with the times; there is no bookish association. “Few of the big leaguers do any worth-while reading and association with them does not tend to any amount of mental development. Of course, this does not appeal to all, but I am speaking of the general run. They are all good fellows, so far as that goes, but I merely say that the life they lead does not Incline to mental cultivation. Then you spend about all the money yon earn. It appears on the surface of course that you can save a lot of money; I couldn’t "There are tips at the hotels and money to be dropped here and there every day until yon find that yoq are living pretty much up to your income. And so playing along, you run through the prime of your youth and slow up. Then what have you got ahead of you? That is the way I figure it out. Of course, if a fellow can jump Into fast company and get $5,000 or $6,000 a year it will be all right, provided you know when to quit. But you never do. Baseball gets a hold on you. “Now when I was with Yale I did not feel the grip of baseball. In a city when the other fellows would go to a big league park I would go to some show; that Is to say I wasn’t ranch of a fan. But after several months in « regular organization I can see the difference ; the game gets into you’ and yon want to stick. So I quit before the thing got too firm a grip on me.”