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EDITORS HERALD-CRIMSON:-The question of professional training for college nines has been so of ten discussed and argued to no purpose that it is hardly necessary to go over the same old ground again, but one or two points may perhaps be dwelt on without taxing too much the patience of the reader already exhausted on this topic. The playing of college men with professional teams, although excellent practice, as it teaches them to be cool, to eatch surely and to use their heads, is not absolutely necessary to produce a fine playing nine. Now throwing and catching the ball and good field work may be admirably practised among amateurs without any outside aid, as last years college base-ball record shows, but batting and making safe hits is quite another thing and it is here that professional aid always tells. It is absurd to believe that the practice given to batsmen by an amateur pitcher can accomplish the same results as that given by a professional, since the pitching is not so swift nor so sure, two requisites seldom found in an amateur pitcher. The delivery of the ball may be supplemented with a number of dodges only known to the regular ball player but an amateur generally settles down to one method, particularly his own of pitching the ball, which will soon be learned by the rest of the team and consequently no good will come of the practice. I once heard an old ball player say "take an ordinary fielding nine, but all sure and hard hitters, add the finest pitcher and catcher in the league and it would beat almost any nine set before it. While this statement may be slightly exaggerated it has "much of method" in it for the strength of a team lies in its "battery" and its ability to hit good pitching. This ability can never be learned from an amateur no matter how faithfully the nine may practice. It is difficult to see why there should be any objection to a trainer who could coach the nine in batting and give them the advantages of good pitching. Gymnasiums have their directors and "crews" their coaches; why not the nine? If a man began the study of the classics or in fact any branch of learning unaided by an instructor, he would soon come to a stop and make no advance whatever without professional aid. Unless students learned their knowledge from older and abler men, fit to impart it, there would be but few who would educate themselves unaided. This fact might be applied to athletics as well as to classics and the result would be as gratifying in the former as it has proved to be in the latter. The influence of a professional coach on the nine would have to be exceedingly strong indeed to make them ungentlemanly.
M.
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