Baseball player profiles: Dead ball era

  At Cincinnati Larry McLean took part in ninety-eight contests with more or less credit, fielding for .973 and batting for .243. Larry is generally a heavy hitter, usually hugging the .300 mark. This year, however, his batting suffered a serious slump. McLean has a great throwing arm, but he is very slow and might well be matched with Meyers in a championship slow race. - Baseball Magazine, Feb. 1913, vol. X issue 4 " The Greatest of all Catchers" by F.C Lane

  The bulk of the work, therefore, fell upon Ivy Wingo, who caught in ninety-two games, batted for .265 and fielded for .957. Wingo shows every promise of be-coming a great catcher. He is a hard and willing worker and when he has gained a little more experience will undoubtedly rank very high.- Baseball Magazine, Feb. 1913, vol. X issue 4 " The Greatest of all Catchers" by F.C Lane

It seemed the settled policy of Manager Clark to put his faith in veteran stars rather than in  young players who were comers. - Baseball Magazine, Feb. 1913, vol. X issue 4 " The Greatest of all Catchers" by F.C Lane

Kelly, the high priced partner of O’Toole, hit tremendously, fielded fault-lessly and showed great all around promise. His batting average of .318 and his fielding average of .990 tell an excellent story of his ability. - Baseball Magazine, Feb. 1913, vol. X issue 4 " The Greatest of all Catchers" by F.C Lane

Easterly, through his varied career at Cleveland and Chicago, showed that he is a batter of much promise, but his catching ability by no means equals his work with the stick. While he batted for .311 in ninety-three games (which is a good average for an outfielder let alone a catcher) his work behind the bat was far from brilliant. Easterly is a mechanical player who has little talent  for the finer points of the game.  - Baseball Magazine, Feb. 1913, vol. X issue 4 " The Greatest of all Catchers" by F.C Lane

  Stephens was never accused of being a star. His work, so far as the records are concerned does not appear worse than others. He took part in seventy-four games, batted for .252 and fielded for .954. But Stephens at best is a second string catcher and his participation in so many games was merely due to the fact that there was no other catcher at St. Louis who was e ven so well fitted for the position as he.

  At New York Sweeney suffered somewhat in the general disintegration of a once great club. When at his best Sweeney has no superiors in the Ameri-can League and it is doubtful if there was a more consistent performer than he last season. He took part in no games, batted for .268 and fielded for .955. While his work suffered noticeably at times and was never over-steady, it was generally of a high order and sometimes even brilliant. - Baseball Magazine, Feb. 1913, vol. X issue 4 " The Greatest of all Catchers" by F.C Lane

  At Philadelphia the passing of Ira Thomas proved a heavy loss. Thomas was never a flashy or brilliant catcher, but no one excelled him in intimate knowledge of the game or in shrewdness and all around ability in handling his position. Thomas this season took part in forty-six games, batting for .210 and fielding for .971. General slowing up on his part as well as his failure to re-gain his batting eye led Connie Mack to use Lapp most of the season. - Baseball Magazine, Feb. 1913, vol. X issue 4 " The Greatest of all Catchers" by F.C Lane

  Carrigan has always been a heavy hitter but this season was by no means his best. He took part in eighty-seven games and batted for an average of .263. Carrigan has at all times been a good dependable catcher and one who might be expected to rap out a safe hit at almost any critical time during a contest. In fact, he has generally deserved a place in the front rank of American League catchers, but there was nothing particularly brilliant in his record for 1912. Cady, although but a recruit, was given the responsibile posi- tion of catching throughout the World’s Series games. He acquitted himself very creditably in this by no means easy task, and his record was consistently good. In the forty-three games in which he officiated behind the bat he maintained a bat-ting average of .279, while he led the league in fielding with an average of .994. A fielding average, however, is an uncertain quantity at best. It may mean a great deal. It may mean absolutely nothing. The most that coul...

  Street was long one of the great-est catchers in the American League al-though he was a notoriously weak batter. Part of his supremacy lay in the fact that when behind the bat he always kept up a running fire of conversation with the batter in an effort to rattle that unfortun- ate individual. It stands to reason that when a man is facing a pitcher at a critical moment it is not going to make his nerve any steadier to have a tanta-lizing voice behind his ear pouring forth a constant strain of disconcerting re-marks. Street won the nickname of ”Gaby” on this account and no little of his success as catcher was due to his con-stant, irritating flow of language. - Baseball Magazine, Feb. 1913, vol. X issue 4 " The Greatest of all Catchers" by F.C Lane

  Chief Meyers, for instance, is so slow of foot that he misses, in the course of a season, many f lies which a faster man would succeed in getting under Cutting off the runner at third is not so important, large-ly because it happens by no means so frequently. This throw is much shorter but to counterbalance that advantage it has to be made even more quickly and (needless to say) many errors result from the catcher’s tremendous effort to get the ball there in time. Any one who has seen Chief Meyers shoot the ball into left field in a most commendable but ill-fated attempt to locate the third baseman will realize the difficulty of the task. . -Baseball Magazine, Feb. 1913, vol. X issue 4 " The Greatest of all Catchers" by F.C Lane