Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 169, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 July 1920 — LAUD JENNINGS FOR HIS RULE ON CARDS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LAUD JENNINGS FOR HIS RULE ON CARDS

Struck Squarely -at Heart of Bad Condition. Manager of Detroit Tigers Wants His Men to Devote More Time to Study of Baseball While Off the Playing Field. Hugh Jennings when he issued an order forbidding the Detroit players to play cards during the pennant season struck squarely at the heart of a bad condition of present day baseball, writes William .B. Hanna in New York Sun. Hugh wants his men to think more baseball when off the field, and that is exactly where most baseball players are shy. I don’t imagine Jennings had any particular objedtion to card playing per se —unless the gambling factor threatened harm to team

morale —but that he wanted to do something to have his men give study to their calling. To a large extent among modern ball players there exists a pose that it is not the thing to talk shop. Any outsider who does is a bore and a pest and that sort of thing. The ball player isn’t any too shrewd a baseball thinker on the field that be can afford to forego entirely thinking off the field. The game would be better off in quality with twice as much impromptu and informal discussion of “shop” as there is these days, and such discussions make for unity and esprit de corps. They make for community interest. Card playing that reduces off the field thought of one’s vocation to something like nil is harmful, as would be any other practice that had the same effect. The sensible ball player ought to find time for both business and recreation, for he has' so much time off the field.

Hugh Jennings.