Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 268, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1918 — BEAT HIMSELF OUT OF TITLE [ARTICLE]

BEAT HIMSELF OUT OF TITLE

Eddie Roush of Cincinnati Loses Claim to Batting Championship by Making Great Catch. Eddie Roush of Cincinnati, s£ill uncertain of his official batting perage, has Just discovered that he is the only man in baseball history who knocked himself out of ja undisputed claim so the batting championship by making a great catch. Impossible, you say? Not at all. Usually, great catches knock the hostile batsman out of base bits, but Roush knocked himself out of the leading, honors. He made a desperate stumbling catch on a fly in a protested St. Louis game—and the game, in which he had made two hits, was thrown out of the records, entirely because of the doubt whether Roush’s catch constituted a “momentarily held” play, as he had Juggled the ball before he gripped It. Had he muffed it cold, he would have preserved his two hits and the unquestioned leadership of the league.