The estimate is not quite fair, for Brice Evans is lefthanded and,
though it seems hardly patriotic to dwell upon it, our own Chick Evans
was put out of the English amateur championship several years ago by
Bruce Pierce, a southpaw from Tasmania. Still, lefthanded golfers of any
consequence are rare. Football has a few southpaw or rather southfoot
heroes. Victor Kennard won a game against Yale for Harvard with a
leftfooted field goal. He and Felton were two of Harvard's greatest
punters, and both of them were leftfooted kickers. There must have been
some others, but the only one I can think of at the moment was Lefty
Flynn of Yale, who was hardly a great player.
Almost all boxers adopt the conventional righthanded form of standing
with the left arm advanced, but Knockout Brown, for a few brief seasons,
puzzled opponents by boxing lefthanded. He jabbed with his right and
kept his left hand for heavy work. Of all the men nominated as
possibilities for the international polo match only one is lefthanded,
Watson Webb, the American, and one of the greatest and prettiest
horsemen that America has turned out in many a year. In tennis we have
done better, with Norman Brookes, Lindley Murray, Dwight Davis and Beals
Wright.
But the complete triumph of the lefthander comes in baseball. Tris
Speaker, greatest of outfielders and manager of the world's champion
Cleveland Indians, is lefthanded. So is Babe Ruth, the home run king,
and George Sisler, who led the American League in batting. Ty Cobb,
like the Roman emperor before whom Paul appeared, is almost persuaded.
He bats lefthanded. Almost half the players in both leagues adopt this
practice since it gives them an advantage of about six feet in running
to first base. And yet, in spite of this fact, thousands of meddling
mothers all over the country are breaking prospective lefthanders into
dull, plodding, conventional righthandedness. Babe Ruth was fortunate.
He received his education in a protectory where the good brothers were
much too busy to observe which hand he used. His spirit was not broken
nor his natural proclivities bent. Accordingly he made fifty-four home
runs last season and earned over one hundred thousand dollars. The world
has sneered at us all too long. Even a lefthander will turn in time.
Michael
The man who gave us Michael said that he was a Shetland terrier.
Frankly, I don't believe there is any such thing; unless Michael is it.
But there is no denying a Scotch strain of some sort. There is a good
deal of John Knox about Michael. He recognizes no middle ground. There
was no difficulty, for instance, in convincing Michael of the wickedness
of some manifestations of the grossness which is mortality, but it has
been impossible to make him accept any working compromise such as those
by which men and dogs live. He can see no reason why there should be any
geographical limits or bounds to badness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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