Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 76, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1909 — SAYS COLLEGE MEN ARE NOT LIKE PROFESSIONALS [ARTICLE]

SAYS COLLEGE MEN ARE NOT LIKE PROFESSIONALS

University Players Spoiled by Too Much Praise from Friends, Declares Storke. Alan Storke, the Pittsburg player, who entered baseball from Amherst, where he starred, is credited with saying: “A college player’s real ability never shows forth until he is snapped up by a league club and taught how to play professional baseball. There’s a big difference in these two games. “At college the trainer or coach says: ‘Come on, old man, get out there and win to-day. We want the game. Take a chance on everything. You’re our one biggest bet, you know.’ “The professional managers say: ‘Here, you cub, you’re going out there to play ball to-day, d’ye mind? It isn’t going to be football. You are to get your hands on the ball and know what to do with it when you’ve got it. There’s no rah rah fellows in this game you are going to play. If you cannot get out there and show something we’ve got plenty who can.’ “When a college player makes a grand-stand play his teammates stand him on their heads, lug him about on their shoulders and pat him on the back for a week.

“When a professional player makes a hair-raising play his fellow players take no notice of it, and only once in about ten times of these instances is the catch or stop even mentioned on the bench.

“Oh, there’s lots pf difference between the college and the professional game, but the calm, practical way of doing things in the professional ranks makes a player calm and steady himself, and makes him a far better ball player than he could ever be in college.” Storke is correct in his comparisons. Too many college players are spoiled by praise, undue, from students, and in many instances teammates almost ruin a promising player. A player might start a play wrong, a “bone head,” as it were, and then be fortunate enough to end it by a piece of luck. That man comes in for much praise, whereas had his mistake been called out and the praise eliminated he would be much better oft, as the chances are he would not repeat it again. Too much praise, like too much nagging, spoils youngsters.