February 2, 1904 - The St. Paul Gobe, MO - NORMAN ELBERFELD TELLS OF SOME GREAT PLAYS
Little Shortstop Tells of Game in Which He Made all the Hits and Drove in Enough Runs to Win Clash for New York Team.
IT IS not a cinch by any means to dig up the good and bad plays one has made. If my team can win the game, that is about sufficient for me, and I forget many times just how prominently I may have figured in the victory.
"The best batting I remember having done was right up on Washington heights last season, when we were playing the Philadelphia Athletics. Connie Mack had saved Rube Waddell for us, and the famous southpaw never had more speed or better benders. When Rube is right he is a wonder, and when it is remembered that he fanned thirteen batters that afternoon it can be appreciated that he was pretty near being right. It was Rube's first appearance of the season in New York, and he was more than anxious to pitch a winning game. It was the closest kind of a contest, and we just managed to win out 4 to 3. I was the lucky boy that day. I made four clean plunks off Rube, drove in three runs and scored one myself. That wasn't so bad, when you say it quick. The were only four hits made off Rube that day. So I copped.
"It was one of those lucky days when a player can hit a pea, Rube didn't fool me a little bit. I refused to let him drive me away from the plate, but stood up close and just met the ball. Every hit was a hard one, too, and on a line. If I had attempted to swing hard I might not have made a hit. There is everything in a batter timing the ball well and then just meeting it. One will be surprised at the swiftness with which the ball shoots off the bat."
IT IS not a cinch by any means to dig up the good and bad plays one has made. If my team can win the game, that is about sufficient for me, and I forget many times just how prominently I may have figured in the victory.
"The best batting I remember having done was right up on Washington heights last season, when we were playing the Philadelphia Athletics. Connie Mack had saved Rube Waddell for us, and the famous southpaw never had more speed or better benders. When Rube is right he is a wonder, and when it is remembered that he fanned thirteen batters that afternoon it can be appreciated that he was pretty near being right. It was Rube's first appearance of the season in New York, and he was more than anxious to pitch a winning game. It was the closest kind of a contest, and we just managed to win out 4 to 3. I was the lucky boy that day. I made four clean plunks off Rube, drove in three runs and scored one myself. That wasn't so bad, when you say it quick. The were only four hits made off Rube that day. So I copped.
"It was one of those lucky days when a player can hit a pea, Rube didn't fool me a little bit. I refused to let him drive me away from the plate, but stood up close and just met the ball. Every hit was a hard one, too, and on a line. If I had attempted to swing hard I might not have made a hit. There is everything in a batter timing the ball well and then just meeting it. One will be surprised at the swiftness with which the ball shoots off the bat."
