- Cards Must Beat Giants to Return in Higher Position
- Braves May Help Some
- Philadelphia and Brooklyn Should Be Easy for Huggins Men, but New York and Boston Both Appear Real Obstacles to St. Louis Pennant Progress.
July 24, 1914 Age 23
By W. J. O’Connor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sporting Staff.
PITTSBURG, Pa., July 24. WITH more than a fighting chance for the pennant, the Cardinals today are speeding East for the most important intersectional series any St. Louis club has undertaken since the spavined Browns made a bid for the American League title in 1903. Four games each in Philadelphia, Boston, Brooklyn and New York, two in Pittsburg and a like number in Chicago is the schedule mapped out for Huggins’ bustlers.
In the series at home the Cardinals acquired 17 victories in 25 games. A repetition of this sort of ball will surely keep the club In the thick of the pennant fight.
Manager Huggins left St. Louis last night with every regular but Cozy Dolan in fit condition. Dolan remained behind but will start Friday evening for Philadelphia. He had the stitches removed from the cut on his arm Thursday night and expects to be ready to play in the Boston series starting next Thursday.
During Dolan’s absence Cruise and Riggert will alternate in left field, while it is barely possible that when Cozy returns, Manager Huggins will take much-needed rest and switch Magee to second base. Hug would profit by a short layoff before the New York series as the strain of keeping his team in the pennant fight has begun to tell on him. Withal he has played a plucky game and even though track sore, he still is a big factor in the ball game.
Cards Must Trim Giants.
To shorten the gap between their present position and first place the Cardinals will be obliged to take the Giants’ measure in at least three of the four games on their trip. Although they have been winning with commendable persistency, the Cards have gained little ground because the Giants have found easy picking in Cincinnati and Pittsburg. McGraw’s pitchers have righted themselves after a slump early in July, and with Mathewson, Marquard and Tesreau going at top speed it will be hard to subdue the champions.
Manager Huggins really believes, though, that he has a better pitching staff, as It now stands, than McGraw. He has in Sallee one of the greatest moundsmen in either league. Perritt has developed, while Doak and Perdue have looked good in recent outs. With this band of regulars and the additional prospects of Dan Griner coming through with an occasional good game, the Cardinals are well-equipped for the stretch drive in the torrid N. L. derby – in fact better equipped than any other club in the league with the possible exception of Boston, which has just finished a successful trip in the west.
It is pleasing, too, to realize that Boston has quite a number of games yet to play with the Giants and it will undoubtedly be up to the gingery Braves to check the champions’ unlawful speeding. Boston has come from a rank last to a bang-up fourth and is now making a determined bid for a higher berth. Stallings’ club has traveled at a terrific pace, however, and it hardly is reasonable to expect them to continue.
The Cards feel secure of third place as absolutely their worst fate, this season: and, by remaining in the “money,” they figure that a fall series with the Browns will be attractive and very remunerative.
But there isn’t a man on this trip who hasn’t a feeling deep down in his heart that THE CARDINALS MAY BE A CONTENDER IN THE NEXT WORLD’S CHAMPIONSHIP. They are money-mad and can see nothing but a pennant. The Cards are being chaperoned on this trip by John Callahan, of North St. Louis, the diminutive mascot who brought the team such good luck. Next to Huggins, Callahan Is the most important person on the trip. He Just about has his own way even though he hesitated risking his life in an upper berth last night.
Wray’s Column
‘Tis a Pitiful Race.
SO the New York Giants seem to have the best chance to land the National League pennant, this year, and become champions for the fourth consecutive time, breaking all big league records for successive championship winning. This means the usual acclaim, much red-hot adjectives and nitrate-of-strontium tinted rhetoric, about $2500 apiece extra for the players and other accompaniments that greet champions, whether cheese or genuine.
And yet the Giants form but the ghost of a great team and the National League wind-up will present something of the same excitement as when a gouty man struggles across the finish ahead of a ‘one-legged man and another with locomotor ataxia.
Cards Have a Real Chance.
EVEN the Cardinals have a chance to win the pennant this year. This club has accomplished big things in coming up from last place to make a pennant fight. The team has more vim and punch than all its rivals and has the right germ working In it. But Huggins will be the luckiest of lucky men if he can get away with a championship with the outfit he now owns. Just consider for a moment what the “Rabbit” is working with:
- One good, hard-hitting catcher; one hard-working, fair recruit receiver.
- One minor league first baseman, who has hitherto been used for substitute work.
- One tired out, ready-to-retire second-sacker, Huggins himself. Hug is not hitting, throwing or getting on.
- One converted first baseman playing shortstop.
- One substitute player, recently from the minor Leagues, playing third.
- Three fair outfielders, of whom the most sensational appears to be Cozy Dolan, who couldn’t make good for the Pirates, Phils or New York Americans, and who is over 30 years old.
- Four good pitchers, two of them, Doak and Sallee, good enough for anybody’s club.
The club has ordinary substitutes in Riggert, Cruise and Nash. It has spirit in abundance and this is the factor, plus the really good pitching, that has helped most to boost the team high in the race.
To win a pennant with this outfit Huggins will be an extremely lucky guy. Just as was Marvin Hart when Jim Jeffries willed him the world’s title for beating an ordinary light-heavyweight named Jack Root.
“Champion” Is Just a name, after all but it’s a name that cops the coin. And that brings more than glory, as any of onr popular champions will tell you.
Local Ball Teams Have Had but Three Pennant Flurries in 26 Years
WITH the Cardinals off on a pennant dash through the Eastern end of the circuit only 4 1/2 games out of first place, comes the reminder that this is the third time in 26 years that a St. Louis club has been close enough to a flag to cause worry over the outcome. In 1902, the first year of the American League club in this city, the Browns gave Philadelphia a bang-up battle for the flag, running second by a narrow margin. In 1908 the Browns again furnished the excitement, departing for their last swing around the circle in first position. The team collapsed when the pitchers let down, returning in fourth place, where it finished.
L. C. Davis Sport Salad
On the Job Again.
Oh, where oh, where is our little dog Flip?
Oh, where oh, where can he be?
He’s wanted to help win the championship-
Please send him back to Marie.
Oh there, oh there is our little dog Flip;
He’s gone back home to Marie:
The Cards will now win the championship.
As easy as easy can be.
Marie Britton’s little dog “Flip,” the Cards’ official mascot, has been found.