Tener on Anson
In 1917, John Tener wrote an article in “Baseball Magazine” about Cap Anson, his former manager with the Chicago White Stockings.
John Tener
The former pitcher and outfielder, who went on to serve in the United States Congress and as Governor of Pennsylvania, and who in 1917 was president of the National League said:
“Pop Anson was the Greatest Batter who ever lived. You may look up his record, compare it with others and draw your own conclusions. When I say this I am well aware of the claims of Ed Delehanty, Hans Wagner and many other great hitters. I give them all due credit, but in my opinion, Anson was the greatest of them all.
Anson
“He was, first of all, a free hitter. He loved batting…He had that true eye which enabled him to hit the ball squarely on the nose. His hits were line drives. They were solid smashes with the full force of his muscular shoulders behind them.”
[…]
“He was an excellent judge of the precise fraction of a second that he needed to swing that heavy bat of his against the best the pitcher could offer. He didn’t exactly place his hits, but he contrived to drive the ball behind the base runner about where he wanted to drive it…He was big and strong and heavy. Some hitters of the present day fatten their averages by their nimbleness in reaching first. Anson drove the ball solidly into the outfield and took his time in going to first.”
Conte on Mendez
Jose Pepe Conte was a well-known sportswriter in Havana, Cuba. Frank Menke of Heart Newspaper’s International News Service (INS) said of him:
Jose Pepe Conte
“Pepe is a fellow who knows heaps and heaps about ancient history, European customs, chemistry, baseball and prize fighting.”
The Pittsburgh Press called him:
“(A) Cuban newspaperman, political personage, and unearther of baseball talent.”
In 1912, the INS distributed an article Conte wrote about the pitcher he thought was the best ever:
“American baseball fans can talk all they want about their (Chief) Benders, (Christy) Mathewsons, (Ed) Walshes and (Mordecai) Browns, but down in our country we have a pitcher that none of the best batters in the country can touch. This is the famous Black Tornado, (Jose) Mendez. Talk about speed. Why, when he cuts loose at his hardest clip the ball bounces out of the catcher’s mitt Talk about speed, Mendez has to pitch most of the time without curves because we haven’t a catcher who can hold him. To make things better, Mendez can bat like (Ty) Cobb. He has won his own games on various occasions with smashes over the fences for home runs. He weighs about 154 pounds and is a little fellow.”
Jose Mendez
[…]
“No one has been found who can hold him when he really extends himself. He has shown his skill in the past when he has faced the best batters of the Cubs and Detroit teams when those teams were champions, and when the Athletics went there last year. Mendez has more curves than any pitcher in America, and if some inventive genius could produce a whitening process whereby we could get the fellow into the big leagues he could win a pennant for either tail-end team in either league.”
Sullivan on Comiskey
In his book, “The National Game,” Al Spink said Ted Sullivan was “the best judge of a ball player in America, the man of widest vision in the baseball world, who predicted much for the National game years ago, and whose predictions have all come true.”
Ted Sullivan
Sullivan was a player, manager, executive, and in 1921, he wrote a series of articles for The Washington Times called “The Best of my Sport Reminiscences.” He said of Charles Comiskey, who he was crediting with “discovering” at St. Mary’s College in Kansas:
Charles Comiskey
“As a player, Comiskey was easily the best first baseman of his time…His intuition in defining the thoughts of his opponents and making his play accordingly placed him head and shoulders over any man that played that position before or after.
“Comiskey was with John Ward and King Kelly one of the greatest of base runners. I do not mean dress parade base running, either, merely to show the crowd he could run. Comiskey’s base running was done at a place in the game when it meant victory for his side. He was far from being the machine batter that Anson, Roger Connor and some others were; but as a run-getter, which means the combination of hitting, waiting, bunting and running, he outclassed all others. Jack Doyle, when in his prime with Baltimore and New York, was the nearest approach to Comiskey in brainwork. There are no others.”
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