After an intermission of one year, a high school nine will again represent its school on the diamond. No definite plans have been arranged for the baseball season, as yet. However, moves have been made for entering the team in the West Shore League. It is believed that a Mechanicsburg team would be welcomed by the league which includes Lemoyne, Marysville, New Cumberland, Enola, and Camp Hill.

Coach Mercer announced that there would be no call for candidates until after spring football practice which will start as soon as weather conditions permit and continue for about ten days.

(February 15, 1929 Torch)

Do you know that we have excellent material on our baseball nine? Do you know that prospects are bright for a championship team? Are you going to help?

There is one way that we as "rooters" can prove to the "townspeople" that we are not a "one major sport school." That way is an easy one. It is by going to the games and cheering our team.

Attendance at the games will cost nothing as the admission price for games is included in the S.A.A. ticket.

Our coach knows that the team needs our support. The Town demands a real interest in baseball. We realize that we owe the team our support. Let us put our feelings into real concrete effectiveness by our attendance at every baseball game of the season.

(April 12, 1929 Torch)

With "Dique" Hinkel in the box, MHS nine again found the stride and held the fast Gettysburg nine to a 3-2 score. In the eighth inning the score was tied at two runs each when Gettysburg bunched hits and scored the winning tally. The game was a fast one throughout, but probably the greatest excitement was produced by Hinkel’s fine work on the mound and the fine work of Morett and Starr.

The starting line-up for MHS was Walter, lf; Linn, 3b; Starr, 2b; Morrett, cf; Messinger, ss; Houser, 1b; Moyer, c; Westhafer, rf; Hinkel, p. Hinkel struck out 7. Walter, Messinger, Marrett, and Houser had hits.

(May 17, 1929 Torch)

On a wet diamond MHS conquered Marysville by a score of 24 - 3. Hinkel, in the pitcher’s box, was, at all times, master of the situation, allowing only two hits during the five innings he pitched. He allowed only three hits altogether.

Linn, Messinger, and Houser were batting stars of the game. Marysville had a total of nine errors, while our boys had only one which was not so serious and did not result in a run.

MHS scored 3 runs in the first inning, 1 in the second, 5 in the third, 8 in the fifth, and 7 in the seventh.

MHS’s box score was:

 

MHS	AB	R	H
Westhafer, rf	4	2	1
Kaley, rf	1	2	1
Linn, 3b	6	3	3
Messinger, ss	3	3	3
Morett, cf, p	6	2	1
Starr, 2b	6	2	1
Houser, 1b	6	2	2
Moyer, c	3	1	0
McCarl, c	3	1	2
Gelwicks, lf	3	2	1
Stansfield, lf	1	1	0
Hinkel, p, cf	5	3	2

Double: Westhafer; Struck out by Hinkel, 8, by Morett, 3

(Following this article was a poem that reflected the school’s use of baseball as an end-of-the-year activity for the senior class:)

The day was bright and glorious,

When the Better Citizens, great and small, Journeyed to Memorial Park to play a game of ball.

The score was five to seven, the academics were ahead,

Mr. Robb then called the game as it was dark he said.

Now this is our last meeting, as we are seniors all,

So we hope that next year’s class will complete our game of ball.

(June 3, 1929 Torch)

The 1929 Torch published a "Class Prophecy" that contained the following prediction for one of MHS’s current players:

‘Dique’ Hinkel pitched an excellent game for the Yankees today, holding the opponents to a 0 score. As a twirler, Hinkel is excelled by no ball player on the diamond. Since his entrance into Professional ball, other stars have grown pale.

The 1929 Torch also contained the following information about "Dique" and fellow senior Harold Stansfield from that year’s team:

RICHARD HINKEL: "Dique" is one of our enthusiastic football players. He is not a one sport man, however, as he proved himself a very able pitcher on the diamond this spring. He is very fond of a good time and he surely has it. He loves to entertain the class with a little thing commonly known as a pocket handkerchief. He surely can make the "hanky" do funny things. If the class gets very, very slow, he joins "Buz" Kreitzer in an unanimous vote of "aye" in regard to the sleeping question. He makes frequent journeys to Harrrisburg because his "inspiration" lives down there. You really could not blame the boy, now could you?

HAROLD STANSFIELD: "Boots" may rightly be called one of the biggest men of our class. His manly features have been the "Waterloo" of quite a number of our fair co-eds. To show himself well founded in all things, "Boots" made the varsity football team, the track and baseball teams and was one of the mainstays in each sport. Harold came here from Shiremanstown to get a knowledge of "something" so that he may be well fitted to do "something." No mortal pen could line the haunting perplexity that overcasts his manly countenance when he has the Buick and a ticket to a dance and he can’t decide whether to go to New Cumberland or come to town.

Babe Ruth ordered more different wood bats -- about 170 per season total -- than any other person in history, though most of them he gave away as souvenirs.

On the other hand, immortal Ty Cobb used the same model during his entire 25-year career. Babe Herman was the player who broke the most bats. "I don’t know how he did it," once reported Bud Hillerich, founder of Louisville Slugger bat factory. "He must have broken more in a season than some minor league teams buy for a whole team."

Conversely, Bill Terry, New York first baseman, used only two Sluggers to win the 1930 batting crown (.401). He hit safely 100 times with the first bat and 154 times with the second, before it, too, splintered during a post-season brainstorm in Cuba.

Ted Williams was so finicky he once returned a batch of his bats, stating, "The grip doesn’t feel just right." A check revealed they were off by .005 of an inch.

Williams would also rub resin and oil into the handles of his bats until they turned black. And every day of his playing career he lovingly bathed the handle of any bat that was hitting good in alcohol, "to keep it cool."

Frankie Frisch, who played for the New York Giants under John J. McGraw, was another bat babier. He used to hang his bats up in a barn, like Italian sausages, and massage them all winter with bone.

Honus Wagner boiled his bats in creosote, to harden the wood. Others had other recipes, rubbing in tobacco juice, tar or any number of home-concocted secret salves -- always with affection, of course. "You get one that’s hitting good," once commented Richie Ashburn, "and you nurse it along and, son-of-a-gun, if you don’t develop a real affection for it."

Pitchers sometimes developed their own hexes for such superstitious hitters. In 1964 Gaylord Perry gave up a hit to Nellie Fox that scored the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. As Fox was running to first base, Perry picked up Fox’s bat and shattered it against the dugout steps. Fox, stunned, came running to the dugout and dropped to his knees and cradled the mortally wounded bat. "I just had her where there were some base hits in her," wailed Fox.

Most big leaguers are very finicky about their bats. Ted Williams, for example, used to spend hours sorting through timber stacks for narrow grained wood because he believed "the narrower the grain, the stronger the wood." Dick Bartell, conversely, along with Al Simmons, believed the widest grain made the wood less likely to splinter.