Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 107, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1919 — SOME OF MOST FAMOUS BASEBALL STARS BEGAN CAREERS IN STATE OF GEORGIA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SOME OF MOST FAMOUS BASEBALL STARS BEGAN CAREERS IN STATE OF GEORGIA

Tyrus Raymond Cobb and Napoleon Rucker are not the only famous players who can hark back to the start of their baseball days in the balmy climate of Georgia. Some of the famous men of the diamond, exclusive of the sensational Tiger and once brilliant southpaw of the Dodgers, began careers in Georgia that vaulted them to the pinnacle of their profession. An old man who has spent his years keeping tabs on ball players and peach crops was sitting in the park where the Tigers were training at Macon, whittling on a piece of wood with a robust blade the size of a young scythe. Fan Never Misses Game. He is” an ardent fan, misses a game only when he can’t get out of bed because of rheumatism, and knows every’ ball player that ever fingered a ball in the South Atlantic league circuit. He remembers how Ty Cobb, more than fourteen years ago, then a boy just barely turned seventeen, packed the fans in the Macon ball yard just

as he attracts them to . the big stadiums of the North. He recalled,' too, how the Macon fans qtiit-on the management when in midseason, it sold “Rube” Benton to the Cincinnati Reds. Phil Douglas, now a star with the Cubs, and Jim Vaughn, who led the National league pitchers last season, received their first check for playing ball from the local management. Boycott Because of Benton. Veteran fan has distinct recollection of Benton and the riot his sale caused. “You couldn’t get standing room in the park,” explained the old man, “before Benton left here, but after that nobody would come to the games.” Strafigely enough, every man of whom the oldster related played with a pennant winner. Cobb was on three, in 1907, 1908 .and 1909; Rucker was a member of the Brooklyn team that won the National league flag in 1916, and last year both Douglas and Vaughn shared in the spoils of the world’s series games with Bostota.