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BILL BUCKNER--
-P. & A. Photo
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Greatest Trainer of Baseball Players
He Wanted to Be Trainer for the Chicago White Sox and His Dream Came True

"DOCTOR" WILLIAM BUCKNER.
He wanted the job as trainer of the
Chicago White Sox baseball team and
he got it. He is on the job every
day during the season, has been late
once when a street car ran into a garbage wagon and has been off the job one day on account of sickness.

Bill Buckner is what his friends call him. His father and mother, Frank and Eliza Buckner named him Williams. In Chicago's telephone directory he is listed as William A. Buckner.
Asked what the "A" stands for and Doc answers: "I just figured I should have a middle initial like anyone else and since the folks forgot to give me one, I stuck the first letter of the alphabet in there."

Several years ago while the Chicago American League baseball club was in spring training in El Paso, Texas, Charles Dryden who was one of the greatest baseball writers of all times, then writing for the Chicago Herald Examiner, couldn't find out what Buchner's middle name was. In fact Bill didn't know himself, so Dryden in the characteristic way he had, wired a story to Chicago and called him William Ananias Buckner -- and today among the ball players in the major leagues and the sport scribes Bill is known as Ananias Buckner --in fact, he get his mail that way sometimes.

Bill Buckner is the greatest trainer of baseball players and athletes of today and he rightfully holds that honor.
At present Doc Buckner is trainer for the Chicago American league baseball club, better know as the Chicago White Sox.

During the last 21 years he has handled and kept in condition some of the best known pitchers, all of whom were stars. Among them are Eddie Walsh who holds some American league records as a pitcher; Eddie Cicotte, Frank

By Frank A. Young
16

Smith, Dr. Harry White, Ted Lyons, Urban Faber, Nick Altrock, Frank Owens, James Scott, Lefty Williams, Tommy Thomas and Cecil Pat Caraway. There are others, too numerous to mention here, who came under the watchful eye of Doc Buckner.

ALTHOUGH his work calls for taking care of all the ball players on the club, Doc lays particular emphasis on "his pitchers." "They need more attention," he says, and he ought to know. It was Babe Ruth who once told the writer "good pitching stops all good hitting." To have good pitching-the hurlers' arms must be in tip top shape.
Now, most fans and the folks in general, have an idea, and a false one at that, that all a trainer has to do is to rub a ball player down after the game is over. It is everything but that.

THE first thing a trainer of today does is to find the weight of the ball player-the best weight at which he can give the best service to his employer and to the ball club and to keep his weight down to that. At times it becomes necessary to take off 25 to 35 pounds and keep it off all during the playing season. That's plenty of work for the trainer.

The trainer of today is responsible to the owner of the ball club for the condition of the entire ball club. If a player sprains a muscle or injures himself in any way, it is the trainer's business to get him in shape in the quickest time possible. The trainer keeps an eye out for abrasions or spike wounds. In plain words he is the buffer between the club owner and blood poisoning. A pin scratch may cause a ball player, who has cost the club owner in the neighborhood of one hundred thousand dollars, to sit on the bench for weeks. Colds, coughs, corns and bunions all come in for their share of treatment.

In other words, charley horses, sprained ligaments, are only a small part of the trainer's worries.

The equipment of the trainer consists of everything that is offered for sale by a wholesale drug store plus four therapeutic lamps-one of carbon, one violet ray, one with a heating element that can fry an egg 12 inches away and one with a degree of circumference combining the violet ray and the heating element. He must also carry two electric vibrating machines, one electric machine for sinus trouble and many other things.

Then he lugs along a medicine kit with drugs of all kinds and beside carrying these things he must have the ability to know how to use them. This ability places the high class trainer of today in a much more lofty position than the public thinks-one with a turkish towel and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
Keeping 30 to 35 men in shape to enter the game at the beck and call of the manager is no play job. Let me cite you the importance of the trainer's position as it appeared to the writer last summer.

Art Shires-the Great Art from Texas-playing first base for the Chicago White Sox, was spiked by Alexander in a game at Detroit. The cut was three inches long, one-half inch deep and about an inch wide between the thigh and the knee.

ART, with his mouth full of wad of chewing tobacco, came to the bench saying to Doc Buckner "hurry up and patch this damn thing up and let me get out to my public." He unloosened his belt and slid down his trunks.

Buckner washed out the cut with a solution of zonite, sprinkled a bit of Bismuth-Formic-Iodide powder into the wound, laid some gauze over it and taped it up with some adhesive tape. In less than two full minutes the Great Art was on his way back to play first base.

Art remained in the game without losing a day for three months. This was without any attention from any doctor with the lone exception that when the team arrived in Chicago from their road jaunt, the Sox management decided it was best to send for one of the consulting physicians from a well-known hospital. This doctor asked Shires concerning the treatment that Doc Buckner had been giving him and after an examination simply said to the Sox owner, "Let Buckner continue the treatments." That alone speaks pretty well for the White Sox trainer's ability-not alone saving thousands of dollars in medical treatment but also keeping the high priced ball player from losing time on the bench. Once a winning combination is split up, many teams start losing games. More too, many managers will not yank a player as long as he is hitting consistently and an injury makes the manager switch the line-up.

BUCKNER is everything but a licensed physician. He is a trainer according to the word used by the ball players, manager and fans ; yet if Noah Webster was to write his unabridged dictionary over today, he would change the definition of the word trainer-especially where it refers to those who train ball clubs.
"How did you get to become trainer for the Chicago White Sox?" I asked Bill Buckner one day.
"Well," he said, "that's a long story itself," and then after a moment's pause he continued, "have you just got to know that?"
"I believe the public would appreciate knowing it," I answered.
"I came to Chicago," began Buckner, "and went to work in a bath house on the west side at Madison and Halsted streets. Later, after about two years, I went to

[[poem inserted between two columns of text]]
SUNDOWN
By James Mickles
Just a longing for some kissing,
'Neath the silvery moonlight glare;
Just a grieving 'cause I'm missing,
What I'd have if I were there.
Just a dreaming of you, dearest;
Watching shadows on the ground;
Just two eyes, upturned to Heaven,
As the evening sun goes down.

Just a warm heart, turtle-doving;
Wishing you were here, my own;
Just a soul that's lost in loving-
Like a baby, left alone.
Just a yearning for the old days;
Days of freedom, safe and sound;
Just a prayer, this vesper hour,
As the evening sun goes down.

Just a feeling, soft and tender,
Passing like a babbling brook;
Just a pensive soul's surrender,
While hunting for some shady nook.
Just a song I sing at twilight;
Soul's reunion, hearts are bound;
Just two hands, a'reaching skyward,
As the evening sun goes down.
[[end of inserted poem]]