is the type of man who cannot afford to carry too much
weight. He is stronger when he is slimmer.

In contrast to him is George Wiltse, who maps out a training course with
the idea of adding several pounds, as he is better with all the real
weight he can put on. By that I do not mean any fat.

George came whirling and spinning and waltzing and turkey-trotting and
pirouetting across the field at Marlin Springs, Texas, the Giants' spring
training headquarters, one day in the spring of 1911, developing steps
that would have ruled him off any cotillion floor in New York in the days
of the ban on the grizzly bear and kindred dances. Suddenly he dove down
with his left hand and reached as far as he could.

"What's that one, George?" I yelled as he passed me.

"Getting ready to cover first base on a slow hit, Matty," he replied, and
was off on another series of hand springs that made him look more like a
contortionist rehearsing for an act which he was going to take out for the
"big time" than a ball-player getting ready for the season.

But perhaps some close followers of baseball statistics will recall a game
that Wiltse took from the Cubs in 1911 by a wonderful one-hand reaching
catch of a low throw to first base. Two Chicago runners were on the bags
at the time and the loss of that throw would have meant that they both
scored. Wiltse caught the ball, and it made the third out, and the Giants
won the game. Thousands of fans applauded the catch, but the play was not
the result of the exigencies of the moment. It was the outcome of
forethought used months before.

Spectators at ball games who wonder at the marvellous fielding of Wiltse
should watch him getting ready during the spring season at Marlin. He is a
tireless worker, and when he is not pitching he is doing hand springs and
other acrobatic acts to limber up all his muscles. It is torture then, but
it pays in the end.

When I was a young fellow and read about the Big League clubs going South,
I used to think what a grand life that must be. Riding in Pullmans, some
pleasant exercise which did not entail the responsibility of a ball game,
and plenty of food, with a little social recreation, were all parts of my
dream. A young ball-player looks on his first spring training trip as a
stage-struck young woman regards the theatre. She cannot wait for her
first rehearsal, and she thinks only of the lobster suppers and the
applause and the lights and the life, but nowher