CLYDE SUKEFORTH: We had a tryout camp with 500 in Indianapolis.

[Anybody come out of that one?]

Yeah, we got two boys who played professional, but we didn't get any Sniders.

[You were really looking for diamonds in the dirt at these camps?]

That's right. You could get a dozen guys, possibly, with good abilities, who can do what a ballplayer has to do. Some of them, nine out of ten of them, will disappoint you in one way or another. I mean, you know, attitude and everything, so many of the intangibles that you can't see. There's so many guys that just give up on it.

You take a young fellow, you sign him up, those young kids, and they go to different...they go South to spring training. The climate's different, the food's different, and now he's playing with boys of his own ability, where he was the big star back home. He's homesick, and he's not doing well, and all the while he's losing interest. So many of them just don't like it well enough to take the bitter with the sweet. But you've got to like it. Like everything else, you've got to go all out. I don't care how much ability you have.

[That's also true at the major league level. Some players care more than others.]

Yeah, a lot of people come in different.

[Ted Williams resented those who talked of his natural ability but ignored his hard work, but then there are players like Babe Ruth]

Oh, he was blessed with everything. He was a rare bird.

[Then there's Rogers Hornsby, who was so dedicated he wouldn't even go to the movies]

He was dedicated. It would take a psychiatrist to pick that out, I think. I mean, you'd think particularly nowadays with the kind of possibilities that there are for a fellow who has some ability, why he wouldn't give it 110 percent. Why, you can become a millionaire in a very few years. Not too many businesses offer that prospect. But, a lot of them are lukewarm. A lot of them sign, take your bonus, and in a year or two even quit.

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