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10 I ®owan ®aw <ora©tf»njj] ~ ’ 11 Here’s the Only Time That Georgia Gave McWhorter Any Kind of Interference-—and It Wasn’t Much I jK»~kw^sXlr » %3C&It«> jKiIJ 3*^- «KitJM MH tr*F :i "' 1:! H■ I j?W flhilill) 1 a <Saft>jr z „ r , r ’< Xi•** 4&W s *■ Wk.---> 1 WW- ■■■ < UrSFL ftifm lffjßß Ifc , MH\> Tx. , . •£ T 's r •’ 7,.: /a ftyftw wb.r J Z^B^- 5 W. z , < i Jb : ' TUI lr' .. /w / / < MMm£ ■»>mWpw » ZW**. Wl ‘/AH ':' tN- v a *■ Mjffisifc?' 3 -• Wg-.i , : , ''Li. * /hI ’/flj/ - ’«-••' kx< . * -lr S~'' ..-> —Mita* / <* w ,_?• JwW HP V’-■ 4S#r » •- • - - x - ’ , . r (^arMtEl» . f.:- - , .''OL-' -• '■*’ « • ■•«* ?,;.■ r < • •♦ - ~ ■ - - .. •-- . -g*- ■ ■ t . '" : —7 tx3 ~ - ■ -4 1 i,j has same likely football material, bill in (lie game against Vanderbilt Saturday their attack was verv much 'bush league. Me\\ lmrt< r. a wonderful offensive player, tried linn* and again to make decided' gains, hut nearly always wn dropped in his tracks because his team mates gave him no help. Georgia’s interference amounted to naught, and Coach Cunningham must work hard to improve this important pari of the game, or a Atlanta Is Off Again on Football-less Week Georgia Plays Alabama Saturday and Will Wiir By Percy H. Whiling. AT LANTA is off again on an other foot ba 11 less week. <>n Saturday the Tech team plays- hut it plays in far-away Jacksonville. Not until a week from Saturday will there b< a contest in Atlanta. And that day there will he a real one. for Au burn plays here that day. and the Auburn-Tech game is always some performance. Georgia has a verv moderate game Saturday, with the i’niversi ty of Alabama as the opposition. The following Saturday Cunning ham’s men get busy with Sewanee. A’anderbilt takes on a light game Saturday, with the i’niversity of Mississippi (provided that team doegn’t cancel), but the following Saturday gets bust in earnest with Virginia. At that the fact that Virginia was so unmercifully trounced Saturday by V. M. 1. fwhich latter 1 team lost the pre vious Saturday. 31 to 0. to Prince ton), makes this game look rather clnchy for the Commodores, and it will not surprise anybody here If the Commodores run up almost the score on the Virginians that they did on Georgia Sewanee plays Tennessee Sat urday in Chattanooga, and it should be an interesting game. The Knoxville team is all of an uncer tainty anti nobods is absolute ly sure as yet Just what to expect of Sewanee. It appears that, in the South at least, the coming week doesn’t promise any stirring football do ings • « • W'V that the mud, lashed up into the semblance of a billowv ocean by the heroic struggle on Ponce Deixmn field Saturday after noon. has begun to settle back to its normal smoothness and the football folks have had a chance to think oxer the strange happenings of that fateful game. Georgians aft asking themselves a lot of things, among them this "How the dick ens did It happen anyway?" Forty-six to nothing scored by what appears to be only an aver age Vanderbilt team on what s. emed an ex'-cpi tonally strong Georgia eleven 46 to 0! It wasn't a mere defeat, it was a merciless drunbing. it will not take over <mr mote At Lyric this week, the “Mother Love’’ drama, “Madame X.’’ xs aixom h ■hOHIVI H3AV3M WOX| AXNVq QNV NV3l| ■xnoxs ‘sxdv9honrh| BKOT IIJ I I game like that for everybody to reconstruct their notions about that Vanderbilt team. I’nless the dope is badly deranged, it is a wonder team an eleven so good that it will make history for itself that will not for many years be forgot ten. There wasn't any license for an average team to beat Georgia the wav Vanderbilt beat them. There was not a lot of difference in the weight. In experience the Athe nians had perhaps a slight edge. Georgia had the advantage in con dition. The Commodores’ vaunted speed was nullified by the muddy field. And yet. despite all this. thiu'gs, Vanderbilt just everlastingly romped. Then* wa|n't a time when there appeared any real chance that Georgia would score. Once, and only once, was there a worried expression on a Vander bilt face. It was when Georgia had made a couple of first downs in succession and were going good. It even looked had enough so that Joe Covington. who was re served for rear I rouble, was stuck in Whether it was Joe's peppery - presence or just the petering out of Georgia's sprint, but. anyhow, the ball was lost, and Vanderbilt was off again on the mad chase on ward and ever onward to Georgia's goal line. If the Vanderbilt team has no hard luck with injuries -and in- / Juries are always a dangerous pos sibility, for the Commodores have a tolerably fragile back field —the Vanderbilt team will not have trou- > ble this year, except w ith one game and that one with Harvard And. say what you please, if the Com modores get up there in. good shape and with everybody on edge, look out for surprises! it is like ly that the Crimson will have enough power and drive to down the Commodores, but they are like ly to be treated io forward passes and end runs tlial will startle them. • • ♦ ZANE tiling about the Georgia team they had some clever play*. One was a fake end run which was built around the known fact that evfry opposing team will play to hold McWhorter. (>n this play McWhorter and the interference are started, around one tmi. Then the hall Is passed to somebody e-l-e. who comes tearing through center for a good gain. Owing to the eagerness of tile Vanderbilt men not to let M< Whorter get through . their fingers, this worked capital ly several times. Cunningham's men also uncorked some neat dou ble passes and showed that they knew a lot of advanced foothall. \\ nat they fell dovvn on. often, was i lack of aptness and training in tie rudiments inability to tackle, start fast, to charge hard and the like. And these are things that Georgia teams mum learn f r<im assistant coaches, if at all For they do not lie within the scope of a head coach. If the Red THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN AND NEWS.MONDAY. OCTOBER 21, 1912 and Black is to show well through the rest of the season, it needs some of its many loyal alumni to come to the rescue and to give their time as individual coaches. If the Georgia material can learn the rudiments and can leave Alex Cunningham free to teach the big principles of football, it will vet come through the season with the record of only one defeat. For the material is surely there. • * • SATURDAY'S game was adver tised as a duel between Mc- Whorter and Hardage. It came mighty near turning out an un equal but mighty brave fight be tween McWhorter and the whole Vanderbilt team. It wasn't quite that, for Henderson and Peacock played good ball and several other Georgia men did fairly well. But in the main McWhorter played the largest part of the game for Geor gia. It is pointed out that McWhorter did not gain as much ground as Hardage Well, hardly. Suppose conditions had been re versed and McWhorter, aided by the brilliant Vanderbilt interfer ence and starting 'behind that hard-charging Commodore line, has played with Vanderbilt against Georgia! And suppose Hardage had been working with the demor alized Red and Black eleven. Would Hardage have gained as much ground as .McWhorter did? We don't know the answer. But it's worth considering. No danger that we shall try to detract anything from the brillian cy of Hardage's performances. There's a halfback worthy of the very highest position! What John Craig at his best had on him we don't pretend to know. Also, be it mentioned, his running mate. Col lins. is only a step or two behind in brilliancy, but he is a shade fragile to compare with the Com modore captain. • • • I T was our impr< ssiun that, after a ' fool hall game, til* ball belonged to the winning team. If this Is true. it was tutor sporisnu nship on the part of the Georgia team to attempt to get awa\ with tin ball. From our own personal viewpoint, it would seem that. w to the Geor gians, that bull would he a rather sorry soiivtjiir. GORDON AND RIVERSIDE IN BIG BATTLE TODAY BARNESVILLE, GA. Oct. 21 The Gordon football team emerged from the Locust Grove game wlrti only a few bruised players. Today Gordon Journeys to Gainesville, where a game will be played with the fast Riverside team. Both teams appear to be pretty evenly match ed. and a bard game is sure to be the result. BIG PREP GAME TODAY. LOCUST GROVE, fl A Oct 21 An In teresting Kame in prep school circles will be played here today, when the Stone Mountain team comes to Locust Grove for a game with the locals Eugenie Blair in “Mad ame X,” at the Lyric this week. * good team of husky, likely-looking players will have a bad season. The Georgian photographer snapped nearly evert scrimmage when the ball was in possession of Georgia, and in this picture alone did the Athens eleven show any interference for the man with the ball—and surely the interference in this play doesn't amount to much. Coach Cunningham verilv needs some assistants at Athens. SOMEGEORGM DOPEPICKEDUP IT SIG GAMES By W. S. Farnsworth. Ji ST before the last game of the world's series in Boston I had a long talk with Frank Farrell, president of the New York league club. He tipped me off that he doesn't believe Tommy Mc-Mil lan, ex-Yellow Jacket star, will stick up in the fast company be cause of his inability to hit. "I am going to give McMillan another chance next spring.” said Mr. Farrell, "but 1 don’t believe he will do. He can’t hit. The little fellow is a mighty good infielder and a fair man on the bases, but I have got to get some hitters for my team next season, and unless McMillan takes a big brace I fear I will have to ask waivers on him.” a PHILADELPHIA scribe at the big games told me an, interesting story about Claude Derrick, former Georgia crack, who has been secur ed by the Yankees for next year. It seems that Connie Mack let Der rick go to Baltimore the past sea son. where he played corking bull. Mack tried to get him back by draft this fall, but Washington drew him and then traded him to New York. The shrewd Mack hung onto Der rick for two years, but Claud went to the bad after the Athletics had made their first Western trip to Chicago last spring. Mack sold him to Baltimore, believing he had reached the end of his career be cause of an accident that happened in the Windy City. But Derrick soon recovered in Baltimore and today is considered the best of the youngsters drafted by the Majors. The accident was the result of a 10l of tomfoolery. A member of one of the swellest clubs in Chicago in vited the Athletics one hot night down to his club to lake a plunge in a big pool. In the party were Derrick. Bris and Rube Oldring. Oldring and Lord thought they would have some tun with Derrick am! began holding him under the water. First one ami then the other would pu-h him down. Finally he became exhausted and nearly , drowned. It took two physicians al! that night to bring him around. The shock Derrick suffered was so great tltai he went al! to pieces anil was unable to play any kind of ball. Mack as a result sold him to Baltimore. But the Georgia lad is t > K. now and all the scouts at the series predicted that tlie Yan kees have made a swell "catch." pHORGE S'I’ALLINGS believes he will land in the first divis ion with his Boston team next year, "All I will need to finish better than fifth is of pitchers," he told me on the return to New York after the deciding game. Wise baseball men consider Stallings as great a manager as McGraw and Mack. Hughey Jen nings claims that the Georgian knows how to handle players bet ter than anybody in the world. "Look at the way he carried that New York bunch into second place," said the Detroit manager. "And look what Chase did the next year willl the same outfit," he added. Twenty-Five Greatest Southern League Players ■(•••I- •:•••? •(-••I- -i-*v +•+ +•+ No. I—Sparks Wore Ball Room Pumps at Debut By Fuzzy Woodruff. A PAIR of pumps, entirely prop er for a ball room, but strangely out of the picture on a ball field, and a pair of hose as red as a blood-stained Balkan hiljside made a debut of a career notable. And the career afterward made baseball history, and base ball history |hat the lovers of the game are proud to boast about. The shiny slippers and the in carnadined hosiery were worn by Frank Sparks on his first appear ance as a professional ball player. They were discarded the next day, but the brand of basebail that the youthful hurler pitched to the ac companiment of the fancy foot wear remained to keep him as one of the most formidable slabmen the National league knew for years. Not more incongruous to his sur roundings than the adornment of his nether limbs was the man who made his debut that afternoon in the early nineties. The scene was set in the old Highland park grounds in Mont gomery. Birmingham was the op posing team. John McCluskey, afterward manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, was manager and ilrst baseman of the Montgomery club. He had dug Sparks out of Howard college, where he had starred for Alabama's Baptist in stitution of learning and basebail. Fans Have Never Forgotten, McCluskey's club was dragging along in she race, and then, as now. the finances of the Montgomery club were not of J. Pierpont Mor gan proportions. The attendance was slim that blazing August aft ernoon. but right now Columbus himself could not discover a man between the ages of eighteen and eighty in Montgomery who will not swear that he saw that debut. '1 here were tine and resounding whoops <>f derision when Sparks took the slab and began tossing to old Heinie Peitz, who caught him. Those crimson stockings and that pair of pumps could not be over looked by the native wits. Some choice Jests were flung across the field for the benefit of the embry onic star. He seemed as much like a ball player as Roosevelt is like Taft, lie was not of a. pitche.r’s size ami helft, though those were not the days of the gigantic hurlers. He was blushing a beautiful accom paniment to his hosiery and his delivery was as awkward as a real debutante's. The Birmingham batters were not slow to go after him. Old Dad Phelan, with his brigand mus tachios. and all the rest of the rough neck crew threw badinage that added to his discomfiture. The home fans settled back to watch the revelry. Was Sold to the Phillies. Then Sparks began to pitch. He used the same slow hall and sweeping curve and absolute con trol that later made him a terror •••••••••••••••••••••••••• X FUZZY WOODRUFF I : WRITES SPARKLING J J BASEBALL SERIES J • • • This is the first of a series of • • stories The Georgian will print on • • “Twenty-five Greatest Southern • • League Players,” written by Fuz- • •zy Woodruff. There is no one • • better acquainted with Southern • • league doings for the past fifteen • • years than Mr. Woodruff, and all • • his articles, like today’s, will be • • filled with spice and ginger. He • • opens his series with Frank • • Sparks, who, after graduating • • from this circuit, went to the • • Philadelphia National league club, • • where for years he was consid- • • ered one of the world’s greatest • • pitchers. • •••••••••••••••••••••••••• to National league hitters. That .tight he owned Montgomery. The next season saw him in a Birming ham uniform, but he was sold ear ly in the race to the Phillies, and for nearly fifteen years he drew a salary and earned it. too, as a slabman servant in the City of Brotherly Love. Sparks’ career in the National league is too recent in date to re count. Managers came and man agers went, but Sparks stayed. AH the time he pitched steady, heady, consistent baseball. He was rarely brilliant, but he nearly always managed to go thiough a. season with more wins to his credit than losses, however poor the team be hind him happened to be. It is extremely doubtful if a hurler ever remained in the major t leagues so long with so little stuff. His fast ball was absolutely of a negative quality. His curves were Wide, but broke nicely, and he had that great asset for a pitcher—an ability to outthink a majority of batsmen. Was a Gentlemanly Player. He was one of the first of the "gentleman” ball players. He was a rare bird when he first broke into fast company. Those were the halcyon days of the roughneck. Sparks shunned demon rum. to bacco, eir.se words and all those other pleasures we are told to eschew when we are young and practice when we learn "wisdom." He never played Sunday ball. He was always immaculate in his dress, being in appearance a rather tinnicky business man rather than a demon athlete. His voice was as soft as the whisper, of a spring zephyr and his words as carefully chosen as those of a Sunday school superinjendent when he explains why the lions didn't eat Daniel. Until 1810 Sparks remained on the Philly pay roll When he was through he was given an uncondi tional release as a reward for Ions: anti faithful service ami was not stow to grab on with Johnny Dobbs, of Chattanooga. Though the Lookouts finished fourth in 1910, Sparks led the league in pitching. Arm Gone, Won With Hoad. The next season found him a«aln with Dobbs, only this time he was back on his old stamping ground tn Montgomery, where fifteen years before he had faced his first pro fessional batter and bravely brook ed the taunts In reference to his pumps and crimson stockings H« pitched Dobbs' outfit into second place tn 1911, but his arm was practically gone. His thinking ap paratus remained intact, however, and he was able to be one of the league's leaders. He saw that his baseball days were over. His careful living in ths days of his prime had guaranteed a fat bank account and 1912 found him, still looking the business man and now a real business man, en gaged In the pleasant pastime of making two dollars for one In the little north Alabama town from which he emanated. There he teaches a Sunday achool class and votes for Richmond Pear son Hobson and other prohibition ists. but among his holy of holies are a pair of patent leather pumps and a blazing set of hosiery. He has never forgotten that baptism of blood and native humor. VANDERBILT LEADS SOUTHERN ELEVENS WITH 307 POINTS A'anderbilt. with 307 points snored against their opponents, leads the South ern football teams. Here is how the Southern teams rank this morning Vanderbilt. 107 Bethel .. » 100 Maryville ~ ~ • 54 Rose Poly.. .. .. .9 46 Georgia.. .. .. 4 307 J Sewanee. 34 Morgan .. * 101 Florence Normal .. .. .. .. .. .. ® 27 Chattanooga .. ». .. .. 1 162 ’ Auburn. 36 Alumni * 56 Mercer.T 27 Florida .. ') 27 Clemson* •• ... . 146 ♦ Alabama. 52 Marion .. . •• •• •• ' 62 BirminghamJJ 3 Tech '■ • 0 Mississippi Agricultural and M Hl' ' Clemson. 59 Howard, 26 Riverside • ? 6 Auburn 91 . Georgia. 33 Chattanooga ' 33 Citadel 0 Vanderbilt 66 ♦" Mercer. 29 Gordon.? o Auburn■ 36 Howard 0 Tech h 65 Tech. 0 Eleventh Cavalry.. f 20 Citadel • 20 Alabama 16 Mercer 31 *