El Paso Herald · El Paso, Texas · 1913

How Great Men Play the Game: Jake Daubert

Scar's How Great Men Play the Game takes up Jake Daubert of Brooklyn in July 1913: he fields with his bare as well as the mitt hand, he calls all the infield plays, and he hits them almost as soon as they leave the pitcher.

Scar’s midsummer subject for How Great Men Play the Game is “Jake Daubert, First Base, Brooklyn Nationals,” and the panel opens with the first baseman at full vertical stretch: “He fields with his bare as well as the mitt hand and with his great reach pulls down the fouls and wild throws.”

The middle drawing gives him a speech balloon, “Shortstop’s ball!,” and the explanation underneath: “He’s the field captain of the team and he calls all the infield plays.” At the plate, Scar the biomechanist reports that “when batting he leans his body forward in the swing and on account of his great height he hits them almost as soon as they leave the pitcher,” which would make the effective pitching distance to Jake Daubert somewhat shorter than to everyone else in the league.

The corner box this time studies him digging a low ball out of the dirt: “And did you ever notice? How easy he picks ‘em up.” The National League noticed too. Daubert was in the middle of the season that won him the Chalmers award as the league’s most valuable player, so Scar’s title for the series was, as usual, doing no exaggerating.