In spite of the fact that bigness and great strength are essential in the weights, it is equally true that they require a clever skill and finesse, which is as absolutely necessary to any respect able performance as it is, to the ordinary observer, almost completely concealed. The putting of the shot or throwing of the hammer looks like a mere feat of brute strength, and it is not until some husky football guard, for example, who has been accustomed to ploughing like an express train through half the opposing team, tries off-hand to throw the hammer and ignominiously fails, that one suddenly realizes that there is something in the game besides mere beef and steam. Weight throwing requires as clever " foot-work," almost, as boxing, and the distribution of the weight of the body calls for the subtlest instinct and judg ment. The lengths of the steps, inclination of the body, and management of the elbow in the shot-put, the speed with which the hammer is swung, the inclination of the body away from the hammer, the angle made by the shoulders and the plane in which the hammer handle lies, keep ing the feet within the narrow circle without losing speed and power — these and other equally subtle details are things which only instinct, in tuition, long practice, and intelligently directed effort can master and put into effect. Many a powerfully built man trains for seasons, perhaps, and yet never is able to put the strength he really has into the shot as it leaves his hands, or to get over the fault of " letting the hammer throw the man." Requiring as they do so much beef and strength, the weights have naturally been more practised by the comparatively seasoned and mature athletes of the clubs than by college undergradu ates. Those collegians who have gone in for weight-throwing over here have, however, reached a much higher degree of proficiency than that attained by varsity men in England, and at the international games the performances of the Oxford and Cambridge men as compared with our undergraduates have been as a rule almost farcical. With his record-breaking 1904 shot-put of 48 feet 7i- inches the young California giant, Rose, entered a class by himself ; but for the matter of that such performances as those of Plaw of California and De Witt of Princeton with the hammer, of Beck and Sheldon of Yale and of many other less remarkable college heavyweights of recent years, quite take their place beside all but the most extraordinary feats of the club athletes.
George R. Gray, who first came into athletic prominence in 1887, when he won the shot event at the national championships, has the most remarkable record for consistent high-class per formances of any shot-putter that has yet appeared either here or abroad. For eight years in suc cession Gray won the shot event at the national championships. He won again in 1896 after a lapse of one year, and in 1892, fifteen years after his first appearance, he won again in the same event. Gray was not a large man, and in his ordinary clothes he would never have been taken for a weight-throwing champion ; but he made up in skill and steam what he lacked in size, and he was extremely well put together. His records were made not only in throwing the regulation sixteen-pound shot, but in the twelve, fourteen, eighteen, twenty-one, and twenty-four pound shot as well. His old world's record of 47 feet for the
sixteen-pound shot was made at Chicago, on September 16, 1893. Until the appearance of Rose this record held for America, although it was surpassed in Ireland by D. Horgan, the Irish champion, with his put of 48 feet 2 inches. At Mott Haven the shot was first put over 4o feet, in 1887, when Coxe of Yale won the inter collegiate championship with a put of 4o feet 91 inches. Since then Hickock, Sheldon, Garrett of Princeton, McCracken of Pennsylvania, Schoenfuss of Harvard, Beck, the intercollegiate champion, and various other heavyweights have all put with out difficulty farther than 4o feet. F. S. Beck of Yale, the intercollegiate champion, first won in 19oo with a shot-put three inches better that 44 feet. Two years later Beck added 52 inches to this distance, and in i9o3 he again broke his own intercollegiate record and set the distance at 46 feet.
It is a far cry from the days of '76, when " Father Bill" Curtis, throwing from a stand without run or follow, hurled the old-fashioned hammer 76 feet 4 inches, to John Flanagan's throw, in 19or, of 171 feet 9 inches with the regulation sixteen-pound hammer, sent from the regulation seven-foot circle. Anywhere from 8o to 90 feet was considered an exceedingly good throw in the early days of track athletics, and it was not until the hammer handle was lengthened from 3 feet 6 inches to 4 feet, the whole hammer — head and handle — made to weigh sixteen pounds, and the throw from a stand changed to a throw within a seven-foot circle with unlim ited run, although no follow, that the distances began to creep up above one hundred feet.
C. A. J. Queckenberner, the first to win under the new rules at the national championships, made a throw in 1887 of 102 feet 7 inches. No national champion has since won with a throw of less than 1 20 feet. In 1889 J. S. Mitchell appeared. He won the championship that year and defended it successfully for eight consecutive years, until he went down before that other brawny Celt, the present champion, John Flanagan. Mitchell's hammer-throwing was not extraordinary, judged by present-day standards, and his better perform ances were at the heavier weights ; but he was a very consistent performer, and fourteen years after he won his first championship he won again, in 1903, with a longer throw than he had ever made before. There never was a weight-thrower who more thoroughly looked the part, and who kept on looking the part year after year while more meteoric athletes got too fat or too lazy to com pete and dropped out of sight. You can still see him now, any day, nearly twenty years since he first began to win championships, shouldering his huge bulk through the nervous rush of Park Row, his broad face tanned winter and summer and look ing as healthy as a side of beef. There are many things to see in the newspaper office where he works as sporting editor, but none, in that feverish and neurotic atmosphere, more cheerful and refreshing than the sight of the veteran weight thrower seated at his desk, with a drop-light shin ing on his tanned face and his audible checked waistcoat, and with a pencil gripped in his huge fist, placidly writing about some meet of yesterday or forecasts for to-morrow.