Clipping:Sacrifice hits; scientific batting; early spray chart
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| Date | Monday, June 11, 1883 |
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| Text | These can be termed sacrifice hits, but without any sense of reason because the batsman does not live who can “place the ball” with the present style of swift curve throwing. The most that the surest batter can hope to do is to hit the ball hard and if he succeeds in doing this his chances of making a safe hit are perhaps about one in two. There are batsmen—Anson, for example—who claim to be able to hit a ball to right field every time, but who do not claim to be able in so doing to hit it to the ground or in the air at will. But Anson's record at the bat does not bear out this claim. A careful minute has been made of the direction of Anson's hits in the fifteen games played on the Chicago grounds this season. Out of 65 times at bat he has made 14 clean hits—6 to right field, 5 to left field and 3 to center field. Out of his remaining 51 times at bat, on which chances for outs were offered he hit 11 flies to center field, 6 to left field and 3 to right field; 5 foul flies and 4 infield flies. 5 grounders to right field, 8 to second base, 5 to short-stop, 2 to third base; and once struck out. He has made 25 hits in the direction of right field, or an average of a fraction less than 40 per cent. it will thus be seen that Anson, who is recognized as the leading batsman in America for the past seven years and whose proportion of right field hits is probably greater than that of any other right-handed batsman, has not succeeded notably in “placing the ball” and has made a small percentage of so-called “sacrifice hits.” On the whole we believe that there is a great deal of stuff and nonsense current about batsmen controlling the direction or character of their hits, and that more mischief than benefit is created by this foolishness. The thing for a batsman to do is to learn to get the ball fairly on his bat and hit it hard, trstuing to luck in the matter of direction, and to the fielding errors which hard hitting produces., quoting American Sports |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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