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Frank Chance

Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as softball.

Frank Chance was born on Saturday, September 9, 1876, in Fresno, California. Chance was 21 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April 29, 1898, with the Chicago Orphans. He was dubbed as The Peerless Leader as he led the Cubs to pennants in 1906-08 and 1910 as their player-manager. Some called him Husk because he was husky, strong, and aggressive. He made his opinions known and never backed down from an argument. He ran his clubs with a clenched fist, coming down hard on any player who gave anything less than 100 percent. Eventually, he had trouble hearing criticism, or anything at all. Since he crowded the plate, he too often was beaned, and his hearing was eventually affected. As a result, he developed a peculiar whine which grated on his teammates and opponents.

Chance reached the majors as a catcher and part-time outfielder with Chicago, but when Johnny Kling came along, he shifted to first base. He led the National League, with 67 stolen bases in 1903, and with 57 in 1906, when his 103 runs scored were also the league high. In only six seasons he played in more than 100 games, but he batted better than .300 in the first four of them.

He was a powerful striker of the ball with a lethal shot who back-checked responsibly and played the game cleanly. He, with all his dedication and devotion in his play, has achieved many goals in his overall baseball career. He had the ability of defeating the opponent easily by giving some extra hard work and efforts.

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