“(Hal Chase) was the fancy Dan of all time around baseball infields. The fellow really was marvel-all steel springs. And what a man for short hop throws… He would wait until the last part of a split second to sweep his gloved right hand down there and come up with the ball like picking daisies.”
“No other player in baseball history was so richly praised for his defensive skill – no one. His (Hal Chase) brilliance with the glove is easier to document than Ty Cobb’s temper, Hack Wilson’s drinking or Walter Johnson’s fastball; it is all over the literature of the sport.”
“For all the things that have been charged against Chase, the fans cannot help remembering his astonishing fielding feats around first. ‘Prince Hal’ could do things with his hands that no other first baseman of the past decade has even attempted. He had wonderful natural grace, and amazing speed in covering ground. Without a thought of attempting anything fancy, he would make one-handed grabs that left the spectators speechless… Chase had a baseball brain that worked with his hands. It is doubtful if a smarter player, using smart strictly in a baseball sense, ever wore cleats. At times he was well nigh uncanny.”
“I’m definite about the best glove I ever saw at first base. Gehrig had more power and could run,” Ruth said shortly before his death in 1948. “In time he became a good major league first baseman. But the Prince (Hal Chase) was also a very fine hitter who played his entire career before the ball was juiced up. He couldn’t run, he could fly. And aside from Ty Cobb, he was the best baserunner I ever saw. Fielding, are you kidding? Prince Hal was the greatest fielding first baseman that ever played. He was worth the price of admission just to watch him toe-dance around first base and pick those wild throws out of the dirt.”
“Chase can play first base as it never was played and perhaps never will be played is a well known truth.”
“Gehrig was no Hal Chase, indeed no one but Chase ever was. In agility and quickness of movement, Chase was in a class by himself. As a fielding first baseman he was unmatched and without any doubt whatsoever the greatest who ever lived.”
“A left handed hitter, Chase could pivot like a ballet dancer; in fact, it is not all inappropriate to speak of his movements, his footwork and his throwing and fielding as though it were a dance.”
