- Infielder of Real Class Could Win Flag for “Hug”
- A Player Like Hauser at Shortstop, With Jack Miller Back at First, Would Enable the Cards to Romp Through the Battered Old National League.
- Eastern Press Not Taking Cards Seriously
August 10, 1914 Age 23
By W. J. O’Connor. Of the Post-Dispatch Spotting Staff.
NEW YORK, Aug. 10. HUB PERDUE will hurl shrapnel at the Giants today, in the second round of the “croocial” series, and he will probably draw as his foe the famed Chris Mathewson, who is just now about the best pitcher in the National League, according to figures on such matters. Real Class.
The Cards have a material advantage as a result of their stirring 3-2 victory over Marquard, Saturday, and with the celebrated southpaw out of the way there are high hopes for a grand cleanup by the pretenders of Miller Huggins. If Matty should fail to go the route this afternoon, the Giants will be in a sad plight, as they will be forced to use Tesreau for relief duty. But there’s no real indication that Mathewson is going to falter. He’s not in the habit of doing such things in the pinch, as his club still needs victories to clinch the N. L. flag.
Can’t See the Cards.
An interesting feature of the Cardinals’ stay in this city is the fact that they have been beautifully ignored by the experts who compound the “dope” for the big dailies. The smart media refuse to take the Cardinals seriously. They have concentrated all their efforts in trying to convince the public that the Braves have the only chance of beating out the Giants. This in spite of the fact that THE CARDS HAVE WON EIGHT OF 13 GAMES FROM THE CHAMPIONS.
There is still another angle which the bulging-browed critics have overlooked, to wit: The Cards finished last in 1913. Today they are a fraction of a point out of second place, and must be recognized as a pennant contender. Should they win, they will have done something never before accomplished In the history of organized baseball jumped from last to first place in one year.
Cards Have a Chance.
But we are not predicting a pennant for the Cardinals, although they still have a good fighting chance. However, after following Hug’s team through its desperate run of bad luck on the trip, the writer is convinced that THE CARDINALS WILL FINISH NO WORSE THAN THIRD this season. They will beat out the Cubs for sure, because they have the pitchers and speed on the bases. They should beat out Boston unless the Braves maintain their uncanny luck.
Huggins has a good pitching staff since Griner mastered the spitball and Perdue attained his proper stride. We regard a staff made of Sallee, Doak, Perritt, Perdue and Griner as the best in the National League. In a man-for-man comparison, they excel the Giants’ hurling corps, while Hug has more talent than Stallings, who boasts of a great trinity in Rudolph, James and Tyler.
And it is a peculiar but interesting and true fact that the addition of Hub Perdue has rounded out this staff and made it twice as valuable as it was before. Indeed, the Perdue deal was the swap of the season. IT WAS A GREATER TRADE THAN THE FAMOUS GOLD BRICK DEAL WITH PITTSBURG that involved eight men. In snaring Wilson, Miller, Dolan, Butler and Robinson from Pittsburg, Hug gave up talent that would have brought a big price on any market. Koney, Harmon and Mowrey were regarded as seasoned, and good players. They were in demand. But Whitted and Cather were excess baggage, an excrescence.
In return for these two second-string men, who are still bench warmers, even in Boston, Hug received a bang-up pitcher, a smart and thoroughly tested workman, in Perdue. An outsider may not appreciate Perdue’s worth to a club. He’s the sort of man who can be worked every third day in a pinch. He’s thick through the chest and powerful. He loves work. Should one of the regulars become disabled, Hug is doubly fortified with Perdue, because Hug can work him out of turn.
Then Perdue’s presence has had a psychological effect on the other hurlers. It’s a question of contracting the habits of your associates.
Griner Now a Spitter.
Dan Griner has mastered a spitball and become an important factor. Perritt has improved and showed more grit than any man on the club. Doak, frail, is almost leading the League, because Hug gives him a long rest between jobs. And this is possible only because Perdue is filling a gap that existed early in the season.
Indeed, the Cardinals, with two such men as Perdue and Sallee, must be considered a pennant factor, if not this year, next season sure. However, we wish to go on record with the statement that if the Cards today could get a shortstop of the Hauser, Maranville or Tinker stripe they would breeze through this spineless old League. They would win on the bit in a merry canter.
The Cards spent a very quiet Sunday, a party being chaperoned by Jack Miller, who lives over on the Jersey side, on a fishing trip. Manager Huggins went to the shore, while Mr. and Mrs. Britton returned to Atlantic City, hopeful that the Cards would take four in a row.
Zinn Beck will remain on the third corner in this series, as he is a seasoned performer and should be a big help to the Cards. He made two plays Saturday that went a long way towards winning the game for the Cards.
If Perdue goes through with his part today, Willie Doak will he used tomorrow, with Perritt in the final Wednesday. Sallee will be saved for reserve duty.
Wray’s Column…..
Won’t Take Us Seriously.
CRITICS of the East, at this writing, refuse to take the Cardinals seriously, as a pennant contender, and are giving most of their attention to the Braves as being the truly dangerous factor in the coming pennant wind-up.
Probably the belief that no team can jump from last place to first in one season is responsible for the reluctance on the part of Eastern critics to consider Huggins’ team. Or is it that the club has been so long a jest that Easterners cannot recognize the real stuff beneath the ordinary exterior of the team’s makeup.
If it is this, we can’t blame them, in one way; yet rival clubs have no arrays of talent that warrant much more enthusiasm. They all resemble crazy quilts that have been to the wash once too often.
The fact remains that, as far as can be seen with a microscope, the Cardinals are neither better nor much worse than any of the first division teams of the league.
A Sample Criticism.
HUGGINS need not work up a fever over lack of attention being shown his club by New York. A Gotham critic, according to our war correspondents, has called attention to the wonderful “run-getting ability of the Cardinals.” And the memorable Boston series only a few days old! That critic surely put the wrong “english” on his observation, making us wonder if, after all, the conjectures of New York talent as regards visiting teams are always of the most penetrating variety.
Let’s Not Worry.
WE’RE losing no sleep over the injustice being done the Cards, if any, because deep down and near the back of our conch is the idea that the club that finishes first in the National League will be a lucky rather than a deserving aggregation.