Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1906 — The SPORTING WORLD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The SPORTING WORLD

Chief of the Chicago “Spuds.” Charley W. Murphy, president of th* Chicago National baseball club, has risen to wide fame by reason of the splendid showing made by hls team. Murphy’s “Spuds” the members of the team are now called. The new

owner of the Cubs is progressive and a strenuous worker. “I will have no dead ones on my team,” he is reported to have said. Murphy recently worked himself into a fury at Johnny McGraw, manager of the New York Nationals. He berated the entire champion team as well and almost died from an attack of joy when the Cubs, led by Captain Frank Chance, took three out of four games from New York on the Giants’ home grounds. Murphy is said to have won seventyeight hats on the three Chicago victories in New York. An Old Time Athlete’s Views. The small army of trainers, handlers, rubbers and masseurs that invariably accompanies the athletic teams of colleges and athletic orgauizatlons while they are preparing for a “meet” is viewed with a certain amount of contempt by many old time athletes who have made names for theritaelves in track athletics. In former times tbe training methods were often rigorously Spartan in their simplicity. A sprinter now sixty years old, but wtib once held hl* own with the best of them, was discussing tbe situation recently. He said: "Rubbing down I did not believe In. Dieting I have implicit faith in. If I were to train a youngster for a race, if he had never done any running, I wouldn’t let him have as much as a Turkish towel after his work. “The way we trained In the old days would probably give the latter day sprinter a severe shock. All the preliminary notice we received was about seven days, and then we'd get to work and train. In other words, the runner of a score or so years ago would get out on the road and run. “Whether a man was entered for a dash or a distance run he would keep going till he had his wind in shape if he had to run a hundred miles to do it. When I was entered for a sprint I never thought of confining my training to the mere distance of tbe race, and

none of the other runners did either. When we finished the day’s work we’d rest, and all the rub downs and other rot were disregarded. “You see,'a fellow can do without rub downs, and I'd like to see the time when it becomes tbe custom. It’ll bring a stamina to American runners that they have always lacked, because it will make them develop on the same line as the great English distance men have done for the last half century.”

Fred Taral’. Ambition. Fred Taral, the little jockey, who is known from the Atlantic to the Pacific and throughout Europe as a man who could get every ounce of speed out of any horse over which he flung his leg, Is raising and training a race of jockeys. Taral, who has been riding abroad for several years, will retire from racing after this season, but In retiring he declares he will leave two Taral successors the equal If not the superior of any jockeys now riding. This has long been the ambition of Fred Taral.’ His own son, Johnny Taral, at the age of fifteen has made a name for himself In Europe, although he has ridden only eight races, and the old jockey’s hopes are centered In him abroad and in little Fred Taral, hls nephew, in this country. Little Fred Taral. just past his fourteenth year, is now under Trainer Jim McLaughlin. Where the horses are racing there this youngster can be found. At midnight he sleeps in the stalls with the horses, and when dawn breaks he begins to ride them. He Is made to rub the thoroughbreds, to feed them, saddle them, lead them through the paddocks and then give them their warming exercise. A Boy Auto Builder. Chester Ridings, twelve years old, of Clarence, Mo., has extraordinary

mechanical genius which has Just found expression in the manufacture of a perfect working automobile model a foot long. ■ He had seen but one auto, but he examined it carefully, and all the details of its construction were impressed on his memory. His model is propelled by clockwork* which he secured from a local jeweler. The guide wheel works perfectly. BiUy Laah. Manager Lajole, Cleveland Americans, has received a letter from Billy Lush in which the Yale baseball coach and the famous New Haven chicken fancier asks if be shall report to Cleveland on July X when hls contract with Yale expires.

CHARLEY W. MURPHY.