Douglas Daily Dispatch

By EDWARD J. NEIL
(Associated Press Sports Writer)

No. 8—The Paradox

PHILADELPHIA (AP)—"Big Jarge" Earnshaw may be a big rough fellow on a ball field but out of the park he's persuasive enough to own a highly profitable insurance business and gentle enough to cut a wide swath through the highest society of Philadelphia and Montclair, N. J.

Earnshaw went to college at Swarthmore, the robust son of a family wealthy enough to have kept him far away from physical toil if he had had ideas of that sort.

Instead "Big Jarge" was the college pitching hero, 200 pounds of willing brawn stretching six feet three inches in height.

He carried that willingness into baseball although he displayed the stubbornest streak in rookie history breaking into the game.

For three years after leaving college he was the property of Jack Dunn, manager of the Baltimore Orioles. Each spring Dunn sent him a contract and each year, without ever having thrown a ball professionally, he pencilled the document "not enough money" and sent it back.

Now he sits on the bench of the champion Athletics—and tries to find enough pitching work to satisfy him.

When Connie Mack looks around for relief for some struggling hurler, Earnshaw tries to beat Bob Grove to the job.

He hustles to the nearest ball so that he can get out there and go to work.

"I'll stop 'em," he says. "Give me that leather."

Earnshaw, now the best right-hander in baseball, thinks he gets too much rest. He'd like to work every other day but Connie won't let him.

"If I rest too much I lose my control," he insists.

Earnshaw is a rollicking sort of fellow, good-natured with a bent toward the comedian, popular with the club.

He fancies himself tremendously as a hitter and when he really is batting well he confesses that he'd hate to be the pitcher who had to face him coming up to bat.

He got four hits against the Browns one day and was so proud that Al Simmons the slugger, approached him with doffed cap in mock humility and inquired:

"What is your weakness, Mr. Earnshaw?"

"Honest," the pitcher replied. "I don't know. If I had to pitch to myself right now I'd be absolutely puzzled."

The subject of ambidexterity interests him deeply. He heard once of a fellow who could pitch with both arms equally well.

"Golly, that would be great," he announced. "I could walk up to Connie in the spring and tell him I'd sign up all right for my left arm but I wanted more for my right. I could hold out one arm on him unless he came across."

The thought intrigued him so he tried to warm up a couple of times with both arms.

For once this fall it seems as though he will get enough work.

The world's series schedule with the Cardinals is so arranged that there are rest periods between the first two in St. Louis and the three in Philadelphia and before the final pair in St. Louis, providing the last two are necessary.

If Grove wasn't around Earnshaw would like to pitch every game. As it is he'll pitch at least two and probably three.

Tomorrow—Anything Al