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MY THIRTY YEARS . IN BASEBALL
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"MY THIRTY YEARS - IN BASEBALL.
BY
JOHN J. McGRAW i]
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GEORGE M. COHAN
‘ és ey ‘k » °
BONI ann LIVERIGHT
PUBLISHERS $3 38 New YorK
- mop
. . Oopyright, 1923, by
. BONL & LIVERIGHT, Ino.
: By arrangement with .°* Tee CHRISTY,WALSH SYNDICATE
Printed in the United States of America
INTRODUCTION
It isn’t an easy matter to write an appreciation of John J. McGraw
There’s so much in the man to appreciate
So many fine things which might be said
The life story of the little Napoleon
From the cradle to the 1922 world’s championship
We know all that
So why waste ten or twelve thousand words
Let’s get down to what we want to find out
What is it that this man has on the ball?
That is the question
The answer is—EVERY THING.
This is my flash of McGraw:
Application Sense of honor Determination Sense of duty Concentration Sense of humor Perseverance Common sense Will power Admired Courage , Hated Intelligence Worshiped Intellect Despised Great player Cheered Greater manager Jeered Generous owner Wined
Liberal leader Fastest thinker
Dined Fined
Introduction
Record holder ) Signed
Graceful winner Signed
Good loser Signed
Square Irish
Loyal American . Easy enemy Idol . Real friend Champion
Fine sportsman And what’s more Knows his game A Man.
Knows his men
Knows himself Knows he knows
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
What McGraw told his team the day before the recent World’s Series began—Why Babe Ruth failed to shine—Do college men make the best ballplayers? ...
CHAPTER II
The new play that ruined the Yanks—Ounutwitting Joe Bush—Twenty-five dollars fine for a home run that won the game. . 2. 2. 2 oe ee te:
CHAPTER III
Individual vs. team work—The “I thought” ball players—What happened to Snodgrass for the error in Boston that lost the World’s Series? . . . .
CHAPTER IV
A manager’s troubles with picturesque characters— Bugs Raymond, the spitball pitcher, and his triai by a newspaper jury. . . . 2 « « «© -«
CHAPTER V
Schreckengost and the “Cracker” contract—-How Rube Waddell put one over on Connie Mack—Walter Brodie “waits out” a Boston pitcher . . . .
CHAPTER VI
How McGraw, batting left-handed, learned to hit into left field—The curve that couldn’t be pitched—First professional days with the Olean team. . .
PAGE
18
19
25
81
Vill Contents
CHAPTER VII
Early experiences in Cedar Rapids—The half-wit who emptied the grandstand—Sammy Strang the first pinch-hitter — ee i oe GO
CHAPTER VIII
The freshest ballplayer—First meeting with Pop Anson—McGraw’s “jump” to the Baltimore Orioles —The first big league game . . . a 4
CHAPTER IX
Is modern baseball superior to old?—Plays that were never heard of thirty years ago—Origin of the “charley horse”—New spirit of the game . °
CHAPTER X
The “bench” school of training—McGraw shifted to second base—First meeting with Hugh Jennings— Trading experience for an education . .
CHAPTER XI
Ned Hanlon starts a revolution in baseball—How Jennings improved his batting average—lInvention of the “hit and run’ play—New blood for the Orioles . e e e . ° e e e rn, er eS
CHAPTER XII “Hit-’Em-Where-They-Ain’ t” Keeler—The greatest
.—~ team in baseball i aaa luck that beat the Giants. . . e. te as ae Se. CHAPTER XIII Oratory that misfired—The mustache era in baseball— Umpire Jack Kerns and the lemon “‘strike”’ CHAPTER XIV
The invisible ball—Folly of baiting the meee es oe Kelley and the hundred dollar watch . . .
PAGE
37
43
49
55
61
6
- 2
77
Contents ix
CHAPTER XV
Baseball fans now better sportsmen—“Steve” Brodie and the heckler—Old “Well! Well ass darky rooter who asked to be lynched ._. - . 82
PAGE
CHAPTER XVI
The real mark of superiority in a ball team—Secret of Ty Cobb’s success—The “steal and slam’ play— McGraw’s specialty—Effect of the lively ball . . 87
Se es Se
CHAPTER XVII
“Bench” vs. “coach line” managers—How signals are given—Personal contact in spring training . . . 92
CHAPTER XVIII
Difference between major and minor leaguers—Drill- ing the recruit—Mastering the slide—A pitcher’s peculiar fault . . . 1. 2. © «© «© © «© © 97
. CHAPTER XIX
Temperaments of rookie twirlers—The trouble with Rube Marquard—When is a curve not a curve ?— | Exit the “spitball” . . . . . . . «. . 102
CHAPTER XX
Origin of the World’s Series idea—The spree that cost the Orioles the championship—Trouble over series receipts—First intimation of “fixed” games . . 107
CHAPTER XXI
Gambling nearly kills the national sport—McGraw makes base-stealing record—An umpire’s compli- ment—Players’ share of gate receipts . . . . 112
CHAPTER XXII
The Orioles planted in Brooklyn—McGraw a man- ager—Bucking the syndicate—McGinnity comes to Baltimore 2.0. 6 8 6 pcthean( s@O@ . 117
x Contents
CHAPTER XXIII
Cutting down the big league—McGraw sold to St. Louis—Playing baseball and the ponies. . .
CHAPTER XXIV
Growth of the American League—Disagreement with Ban Johnson—McGraw accepts management of New York Giants—1902 . . . . ... .%
CHAPTER XXV
McGraw’s wide-open contract—Christy Mathewson as a first baseman—Roger Bresnahan, pitcher—Re-
building ateam . . . 2. «© «© «© «© « «@
CHAPTER XXVI
Christy Mathewson becomes a pitcher—His wonderful -memory—Other phases of the personality that made “Matty” the greatest twirler that ever lived. . .
CHAPTER XXVII
How Mathewson stopped the “squeeze play”—Cove- leskie’s scheme for keeping track of base runners— “Crazy” Schmidt discovers eer, Anson’s “weak- mess” . . 2. 2. « . a a ae
CHAPTER XXVIII
Humorous incidents—‘Steve’’ Brodie forgets to score —The umpire who “talked back” to Dummy Taylor —McGraw’s fifty-dollar umbrella joke—Wilbert Robinson and the balloon ascension . .
CHAPTER XXIX
Bresnahan becomes a_ catcher—American League formed in New York—Why the Giants refused to play a World’s Series in 1994—The Giants beat the Philadelphia Athletics in their first World’s Series —1905 . ;
PAGR
- 122
128
184
189 .
- 144
. 149
154
‘Contents
CHAPTER XXX
Greatest ball team McGraw ever managed—“Vege- table reception” of the Giants in ae A larking e e ® e e e e e e e e
CHAPTER XXXI
Sam Mertes’s great catch—Keeler pulls one out of the barbed wire—The danger of the sunfield . .
CHAPTER XXXII Science of Managing a ball team—Hitting the weak spots—Why base running is a lost art—The delayed steal e es e e e 3 @ @ @ 2 = e e CHAPTER XXXIII
The Affidavit—Making a ball club—Getting back at the fans—Police protection in Cincinnati . . .
CHAPTER XXXIV
_ Greatest hit ever made—What actually happened the day Merkle failed to touch second—Longest ——
on record e ° Py ° e ° e e e e
CHAPTER XXXV
What happens when a ball team grows old—Big trades —A new batch of famous youngsters . .. .
CHAPTER XXXVI
The check on personal habits of players—Best way to keep in condition—The aaa who ate his way out of the League . . a a oe oe
CHAPTER XXXVII
lateresting development of the game—1907-12, Phila- delphia Athletics in first rank—The team that “stole” the ee ee and Mathewson do some explaining . . . . ae
159°
- 164
169
175
- 180
185
190
. 195
xii Contents
CHAPTER XXXVIII PAGE
Greatest of all ball a a er throw on record . . . 201
CHAPTER XXXIX
Has the lively ball taken the pep out of the national game ?—Base running a lost art. . . . 206
CHAPTER XL
The All-American team of thirty years—What McGraw thinks would be the sisal ball club in the world—and why .. . a . 2ui | * * * CHAPTER XLI
Analyzing the players on McGraw’s All-America team of all time—Infielders and Outfielders who con- |~~ tributed Innovations to the sport =. . . . . 216 CHAPTER XLII
The Hall of Fame pitchers—Devore’s experience with Walter Johnson’s “‘smoke”—Rube Waddell’s hands 221
CHAPTER XLITI-
McGraw picks the All-National League team of thirty years—The first “floater” poet a aaa 8 record—Four home runs in one game . . . 226
CHAPTER XLIV The All-American League Team—Greatest of all Spit- ball Pitchers—Ty Cobb vs. Tris Speaker . . . 281 CHAPTER XLV A defense of the sandlot player—Baseball as a train- ing school for other professions . . . . . . 286 CHAPTER XLVI
Around the world with the White Sox—Baseball and the crime wave—Meeting with the King ‘of England 241
Contents Xili
CHAPTER XLVII
The mutton pie episode in London—Playing before ' the Khedive of Egypt—The Federal League’s offer to McGraw—Why the Federal League died . . 246
PAGE
CHAPTER XLVIIT
Why baseball unions fail—McGraw’s personal suBEeS tions for a real ball players’ fraternity . . . 251
CHAPTER XLIX Should a ball player marry?—Two kinds of wives— The marital year of grace . . o 2 © « 256
CHAPTER L
The Commissioner of Baseball—Why he was needed— A tribute to Judge Landis . . . .. . © 261
SS SEEETT = eRe! eee a" } ws . | rt _— - d ‘ ‘eons ne os 3 << eo a Sn a — ‘Pepe EN a aaa d Stel ed .
ILLUSTRATIONS
John J. McGraw ... . . . Frontispiece FACING PAGE
Christy Mathewson . ...... - 426 John J. McGraw, 1890 sw & 8 «=» «82
Olean Baseball Team, 1890; Baltimore Baseball Team, 1894 . . . o « «hl lw AK
Kelley, McGraw, Pond, Jennings, Keeler . . . 68 Roger Bresnahan, Frank ithaca sc ees
Christy Mathewson .. 94 ' Dahlen, Leon Ames, Wiltse, Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity. . . . . . 136
John J. McGraw, John T. Brush, Fred M. Knowles 156 Mike Donlin .... . - « 164
Jack Warner, George Browne, Dummy Taylor,
Wm. H. Keeler . ..... . . 188 John P. (Honus) Wagner . . . . . . « 202 The All American Team . .... .- 210
The All National League Team . . . The All American League Team. . . . . 282 The Polo Grounds o 8 ft 8
MY THIRTY YEARS IN BASEBALL
CHAPTER I
What McGraw told his team the day before the recent World’s Series began—Why Babe Ruth failed to shine— Do college men make the best ball players?
Waite I was arranging the: memoranda for back- tracking over thirty years of my baseball life an old friend, a man now high in world affairs, dropped in to see me. He saw what I was doing.
“Say, Mac,” he said, “tell me who, in your opinion, makes the best ball player, the college boy or the igno- rant young fellow who comes in from the town lots?”
I looked up at him in downright gratitude for the suggestion. It gives me a start—a keynote that I would like to sound throughout these memoirs.
“The college boy, of course,” I told him. ‘He has at the start the very thing the less fortunate young fellow has to acquire. He steps right in with the advan- tage of mental training. With the same amount of natural common sense behind him the college boy has a full two years’ jump on the town-lot boy.
“The difference is simply this—the college boy, or _ anyone with even a partially trained mind, immediately © tries to find his faults; the unschooled fellow usually tries to hide his, The moment a man locates his faults
he can quickly correct them. The man who thinks he is 1
2 My enue Years in Baseball
keeping bis. yatataken nndet Cover will never advance a single-step wnt he seés thie light. ?
That in a nutshell is the difference and it may explain why I have steadfastly tried to get college boys with natural ability on my many ball clubs. Usually they arrive quicker and last longer.
Some of our greatest stars have never been to college, but that does not mean that they were better off without such training. It means that they had brains enough to see the handicap and through persistence and deter- mination overcame it. Men of this type are Hans Wagner, Tris Speaker, Napoleon Lajoie, Delehanty— oh, a lot of them. I might add that Hughey Jennings and myself also were of that type, but we were quick to see the need of what other young fellows had been given by their parents. As to how we did it I will tell later on. '
It is not my purpose to moralize, even if I am at the age where men begin to get philosophical and point out things to the youngsters. In the first place, it is hard to make the youngsters listen. I do think, though, that all successful endeavors in life are based on that idea of being able to find faults and of being just as quick to correct them.
That is largely the way we won the last World’s Series.
I have been somewhat at a loss to know just what in my thirty years of baseball would be of the most interest. Candidly, I didn’t know where to start.
To get a line, though, we sent out questionnaires to fifty men in different sections of the country—some
M y Thirty Years in Baseball 3
veteran players and some fans. We made a point of not asking too many men of expert knowledge. In these questionnaires we asked for suggestions as to what the public would be most interested in—what questions that particular person would like to have answered.
The first one came in from a major league umpire—a man of imagination and understanding.
“1, They would like to know,” he began, “how the Giants won the World’s Series.
“2. Tell why you shifted from ‘waiting out’ the Yank pitchers to swinging at the first ball. Several times you made this shift.”
In the first place, we won the World’s Series because we thought we could win. Though we said nothing, we took advantage of the fact that our opponents and the public had underestimated the strength of our pitchers.
After the end of the season I did not say one word to our players about the series until the day before it actually began. I purposely kept away from them. In the meantime the newspapers were full of discussions of the weakness of our pitchers and of the strength of the Yank pitchers. They told of what Ruth and Meusel would do to us, and so on. This put the odds up to 7 to 5 with the Yanks as favorites. Not once did I discuss this with the men.
On the day before the first game I went to the club- house and had a heart-to-heart talk with the players.
“You can beat these fellows,’? I told them. “I don’t think there is a question about it. We have a big advan- tage in that they are the favorites. Not once since we started on our last drive have you pitchers failed to
4 My Thirty Years in Baseball
come through when called on, and the rest of the team has backed you up. You can do it just as well in this series. All you’ve got.to do is play ball just as if you were playing a regular game in mid-season. There is no difference. The team that gets impressed with the idea that there is a difference will become self-conscious and lose. Now, practically all of you have played in a big series and it is nothing new to you. Ina way you have observed the playing of your opponents. A lot of people have an idea that because I frequently changed pitchers in our last twenty games these pitchers were not able to stand the pace. You know better than that. We changed them for very good reasons. We'll change them in this series if necessary, but I don’t think it will | be necessary. All I ask of you is, forget about those odds—those figures merely represent the opinions of sporting writers. Get out there and play baseball just as you have all season. I'll do the directing and if any- thing goes wrong I'll take the responsibility.”
That is all that I ever said to them.
It might surprise many to know that at no time did we have the slightest fear of Ruth. There seemed to be > an impression that I was unfamiliar with the playing of Ruth and Schang. As a matter of fact I knew more about Ruth, Schang and Baker than any other mem- bers of the Yankee team. My club has played in full twenty games against Ruth. That naturally ought to give me a pretty good line on him.
I might say right here that we caught Ruth in one of his slumps and we did everything we could to make it worse for him. He is a ball player of the freak type
My Thirty Years in Baseball 5
that is likely to bust up a game at any moment. Nobody ever could hit a ball as far as he, and it was my business to see that he didn’t get hold of one. Under those circumstances the natural thing to do was to pitch him slow ones. It is difficult for a long hitter to brace him- self against a ball that barely lobs over the plate.
* * & @ * e
I signaled for every ball that was pitched to Ruth during the last World’s Series. In fact, I gave the signal for practically every ball that was pitched dur- ing the series by our pitchers, They preferred that I doit. I think ball players, as a rule, can do a more workmanlike job when they feel that someone else is taking the responsibility. Those who watched the games may have noticed that the catcher invariably turned and looked at the bench. I gave him the sign, which he in turn gave to the pitcher.
This was not done in any slipshod or guesswork man- ner. To give you an idea of our thoroughness, we pitched but nine curves and three fast balls to Ruth throughout the series. All the rest were slow balls. Of those twelve—the nine curves and three fast balls— eleven of them set the big fellow on his ear, as we say. He got just one foul off those twelve strikes. And usually we crossed him with the curve when there were men on bases. Our respect for the way he tears into a fast ball is indicated by our giving him but three to hit at during the entire series.
The trick, though, that broke the Yanks in two was
6 My Thirty Years in Baseball
a brand-new play that we pulled on them and repeated on the two occasions when they became the most dap- gerous. The public seems to have overlooked this play in the excitement.
But I am running into my second chapter.
CHAPTER II
The new play that ruined the Yanks—Outwitting Joe Bush —Twenty-five dollars fine for a home run that won the game.
LarTE in the season we discovered a new way—at least a surprising way—of breaking up an advance around the bases on a safe hit. None but a smart, an accurate player could work this play, but we had a man almost perfectly equipped to carry it out—Dave Bancroft. We used the play but little, so that it could be a sur- prise in the big series. And it was a surprise.
When there is a runner on first or second and the succeeding batter follows with a clean hit the chances are that the runner will score from second, the man on first will go to third and the batter to second. Just the © same the outfielder, nine times out of ten, makes an attempt to get the man at the plate. When it is seen that the throw will not get the runner at the plate the pitcher generally intercepts the throw and tries to make a play at one of the bases. That play has been made so repeatedly that it has come to be a sort of matter of form.
Now, if the hit scores a man from second, with the tying run, the team that allows the batter to take second on the throw to the plate is in grave danger. Another hit may win the game.
7
f _¥
8 My Thirty Years in Baseball
Our plan was for the outfielder to throw the ball directly to Bancroft in his regular position; he would turn around and whip the ball to second. If it got the runner coming down from first—the man who had hit the ball—the rally was broken up. And, even to our surprise, this play worked every time we tried it. On three occasions the Yank batter ran headlong into the trap.
In the last game, if you will remember, Bob Meusel hit a beautiful single into the outfield, scoring a runner. The throw looked as if it was headed for the plate, but instead it went directly into Bancroft’s hands and he caught Meusel, who started for second. We had made no useless attempt at the plate to prevent the first score, but we had to stop a second one. That play saved the game for us.
In the last inning of the game we pulled exactly the same play on so experienced a veteran as Wally Schang. His wallop would have won the game but for Bancroft
_ taking the ball in the same way and catching him at
second.
After seeing Meusel caught that way we really did not expect that Schang would fall for the same trick. But he did. And by being thus caught, Meusel and Schang cost the Yanks that game.
In other words, we took advantage of the chance to upset what had become a habit in baseball. Many games are won during the season by crossing ball players who think in the same groove all the time. The idea is to observe closely, find the grooves, and then block them.
My Thirty Years in Baseball 9
' As to the reason for shifting from “waiting a man out” to hitting at the first ball, the answer seems to be obvious. We saw that the first scheme was not working. Naturally we changed our tactics. Following out my suggestion at the start of these memoirs, we located our fault and set about to correct it as quickly as possible.
In the first game I had an idea that Joe Bush might be lacking a little in control. I instructed the batters to wait him out. Let the first one go by, if necessary, and make him put one over that could be hit on the nose.
On this plan of action we went along for several innings. But Bush did not get wild. He was pitching perfectly and we could do nothing with him. Instead of our men profiting by waiting, he was continually put- ting Giant batters in the hole. He saw our plan and was laying the first one squarely over the middle of the plate.
Toward the middle of the game I ordered the batters to shift. P
“Take a crack at anything he puts over,” I told them. “Don’t wait for anything. If it is in reach, sock it,”
Luckily, we had called the turn at exactly the right minute. In a half inning, it seemed, the whole com- plexion of the game had changed. One after another our batters walked up and took a swing at the first thing that came over the plate. We popped Bush for five hits, if I remember right, and won the game in a single inning.
There appears to have been a disposition on the part of sporting writers and the public to. give me entire
10 My Thirty Years in Baseball
credit for winning this last series. I wish, sincerely, that they had not done this. As I have said, I did do all the directing, but direction and so-called generalship
<=are of no value whatever if the players do not carry them out. They deserve the credit for delivering the punch. I merely pointed out the weak spots.
An army that wins a great battle in the field usually gets the credit for the fighting—the soldiers, I mean. They should get it. The directing head merely points
— the way. No general could win a fight unless the men had the courage and the ability to deliver the punch. It is the combination that counts. A soldier, I believe, can fight much better and with more intensity of im- mediate purpose if he does not have to bother and worry
~ about the plans.
At no time and in no instance during that series did the players fail to carry out my instructions to the letter. There were no arguments and no discussions as to the advisability of this and that move. I took the entire responsibility and they seemed quite willing to let me shoulder what blame might come. If we had lost the series, I would have lost it—not they. Our success can be laid to the fact, I think, that I had absolute confidence in our players and they had a similar con- fidence in me. I could not handle a team that did not have confidence in me, and it is a cinch that I would not have a group of players in whom I did not have confidence. All I want to know is that they are honestly trying to do what I tell them. If they haven’t the ability it is my fault if I keep them. Never in my life
ee ee = mm 6 pt re Pe eee ess 27 S _ a ~iiinelip, , ee ee
M y Thirty Years in Baseball ll
have I blamed or criticized a ball player failing in an — effort to carry out instructions. |
Often we send up a pinch hitter only to have him strike out. That is a chance the manager takes. If it fails he has no right to censure the player. They can’t always hit safely. If it were possible for a ball player always to carry out his instructions—even to making the play successfully—then we should have no baseball. Managers could simply sit down in the spring and figure it out with pencil and paper.
TI have made it a point, as I have said, never to blame a player for failing in a sincere effort to carry out instructions from the bench, but I also have made it a point to censure a player, even if he won the game, by failing to obey orders, That, I regard as necessary to discipline, At first I had some difficulty in impressing this idea upon the team.
Back in 1905 I fined a player $25 for hitting a home — run with two on bases—a wallop that won the game.
We had runners on first and second with none out, and I sent up Sammy Strang to bunt. Sammy was a | good bunter and very fast on the bases. I wanted to make sure of his putting the ball down so as to advance the two runners.
To my surprise the pitcher put the first one right in the groove and Sammy, swinging from his shoestrings, caught the ball squarely on the nose and knocked it over the right-field fence for a home run, bringin the two runners with him and winning the game.
As he came around the crowd began applauding and
12 My Thirty Years in Baseball
he was compelled to take off his cap. Just at that moment he reached the dugout.
“That'll cost you just twenty-five,” I said to him.
“Twenty-five? What d’y’r mean, Mac?”
‘Didn’t you have instructions to bunt that ball?”
“Sure, but say, Mac—that one came over there like a balloon. I just couldn’t help taking a poke at it. Was @ pip, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but it'll cost you twenty-five for disobeying instructions. Suppose you'd hit into a double play?”
‘All right,” he said, “but the way that one felt I guess it was worth it.”
One of those to answer the questionnaire asks if I think stars should be encouraged for the individual work or should be made to play more inside base- ball. ‘Which does the public like best?” he asks.
The above incident is somewhat of an answer, but I will attempt to explain in more detail,
CHAPTER III
Individual vs. team work—The “I thought” ball players— What happened to Snodgrass for the error in Boston that lost the World’s Series?
Tue public, I have discovered, doesn’t care anything about the methods employed by a ball club. The fan
wants to see the home club win. So there is little con- cern in the mind of a manager as to what the public thinks of his system as long as he wins.
How often have you heard some baseball enthusiast— after the game or before—say, “I don’t care particu- larly which club wins as long as it is a good game”?
I have heard them say it all my life and I never knew of one who I believe really meant it. That is not the spirit of baseball, no matter what we hear. Such re- marks are usually made after a comfortable dinner and in an effort to display a sense of sportsmanship.
One night I had dinner with De Wolf Hopper, Louis Mann and a few other rabid fans.
“Honestly, Hopper,” I asked, “what really is your idea of a good ball game?”
“My idea of a perfect ball game and a delightful afternoon,” declared the veteran fan and actor, “is for the home club to pile up fifteen runs in the first inning. To add to my comfort I don’t want to see a single
player on the other side reach first base.” 18
14 My Thirty Years in Baseball
“Well,” spoke up another, “it is quite a thrill, at that, to have them get the bases full and then have our pitcher strike out the batter.”
“But, my dear fellow,” declared Hopper, “that isn’t comfort and pleasure. That’s suffering.”
So, you see, the baseball manager to have the public like his style or his method, must win. He needn’t worry about the details. The average fan will never understand them anyway.
Teamwork is to baseball just what it is to any other enterprise. Individualism is all right in its place, but too much of it will kill any organization in the world. The result is what counts, and the only way to get it is by teamwork.
So-called inside baseball is mostly bunk. It is merely the working out of definite plans that the public does not observe. There is nothing on a, ball field that the public could not see and understand if the fans studied the game as wedo. As I have intimated, all the fan sees, as a rule, is the victory or defeat. His eye is always - on the ball or on the runner approaching the plate. Rarely does he observe what the other players are doing. — He is an enthusiast—not a workman. |
I venture to say that not one fan out of a hundred — saw the two plays that we worked on the Yanks when we caught Meusel and Schang going to second after their hits had driven runners around. The eyes of the public were on the ball or the runner furthest advanced. If, for instance, a batter cuts a base the fan rarely ever sees it. His eye is always centered on the real action.
And this question of individualism or teamwork
My Thirty Years in Baseball 15
recalls my early remark on the difference between the college player and the town-lot fellow. The former quickly sees the advantage of teamwork—of codrdina- tion. The latter sees only himself, either making good or falling down. If he makes an error he will try to cover it up by such remarks as “Well, I thought
We call that class “I thought” ball players. There are many of them. Always they have an alibi. It is seldom that they come to the bench and ask where they made the mistake and what to do about it next time. The college player will do that. His mind is more disciplined and he is eager to learn.
A type of the college player, quick to learn, was Eddie Grant, who was killed in action in France.
After leaving Harvard Eddie was on the Philadelphia National League Club. Having heard much of Mathew- son, he was very curious to bat against him. Finally his chance came. On his first time up Matty put one right in the groove and Grant smacked it for a single. Five times in succession he faced Matty that first day and established the eee record of getting five straight hits.
“Do you know that’s Mathewson you’re hitting?” Billy Murray asked him.
“Yes,” he said, “but I don’t suppose he knows this is me.” :
“But he will,” Murray advised him. ‘What did he pitch to you?”
“Curve ball, waist-high and just inside.”
“Well, you’d better practice hitting something else.”
Now, Eddie was not stupid. He didn’t think like
16 My Thirty Years in Baseball
other bushers that he aloneghad solved Matty’s delivery. He began to study. An early success like that would have ruined a player with less brains.
“And, you know,” Grant afterward told me, “it was a good thing Idid. Matty didn’t pitch me another ball like that all season and I didn’t get a hit the next twenty times that I faced him.” |
Another type of the ambitious college player was Fred Snodgrass. He came to me as a catcher, or rather, I was so impressed with his work in a college game out in California that I asked him to join us. Snodgrass was not a great catcher, so I turned him into an outfielder. He studied every department of the game carefully and it was rare that he ever made a mistake— of judgment.
When Snodgrass dropped: that ball in Boston—the error that everybody says cost us the series—I never gave him one word of reproach. <Any player is liable to make an error. That was not a boner, as we call it. It happened to be one of those unavoidable things that come at a costly moment. Often I have been asked to tell exactly what I did to Snodgrass for that. For the first time I guess I will have to tell: I raised his salary $1,000 a year.
Snodgrass suffered more over that one error than all the rest of the team put together. To blame a player for a thing like that would show little loyalty on the part of the manager. It would ruin him for the future. Often I used to “burn up” when I read in the papers of rumors that I had released Snodgrass.
In this connection I will confess that I also raised
CHRISTY MATHEWSON
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My Thirty Y ears in Baseball 17
Fred Merkle’s salary at the end of the season in which he made the fatal blunder of not touching second in that famous game with the Cubs. |
I do not mean to imply that a premium should be placed on errors. The chances are I would have raised the salaries of both those players anyway. I wanted them to understand that I would not let such mistakes stand in the way of their progress. They had done nothing in violation of the spirit of teamwork. Both were earnest and very valuable cogs in our machine. To relieve their feelings and restore self-confidence it was necessary that they understand that the manager and the other players held them in just as much esteem as ever. :
If I make myself clear, I have tried to point out the difference between breaches of discipline and mere errors of commission, I fined Sammy Strang for hit- ting a home run and winning a ball game, while I raised the salary of a man whose error had cost a pennant and of another whose muff of a fly ball had lost the World’s Series.
It so happens that all three of these players were college men—young fellows with the advantage of sys- tematic mental training. Snodgrass and Merkle faced the gibes of fans for two years without a murmur. Never did they offer an excuse.
Benny Kauff is an excellent type of the man who comes into baseball without mental training and who could never grasp the idea of trying to find his faults instead of trying to hide them. Benny had great natural ability. It was almost impossible, though, to
18 My Thirty Years in Baseball
get his mind off himself and on the team as a whole. Benny had no early advantages. He wanted to be a star, but he could not realize that a real star must rise with the team to be of value. .
George Burns, on the other hand, never regarded as a great star, was one of the most valuable ball players that ever wore the uniform of the Giants.
Kauff was of the type of what we call freak players. The chances are I have handled as many of the so-called freaks as any other manager. It has not added to my health any, either. I will discuss those fellows in the
succeeding chapter.
CHAPTER IV A manager’s troubles with picturesque—eharacters—Bugs Raymond, the spitball pitcher, and his trial by a news- paper jury.
Ir has been my fortune—sometimes misfortune—to harbor some of the most picturesque characters in base- ball—men whose names will remain in sport history long after others of more ability are forgotten. Always I have had a weakness for these odd personalities. I assure you, though, that the spice and flavor we got out of their presence has been offset by worry and troubles. I doubt if I ever will try another one.
I shall never forget Bugs Raymond. There, by the way, was one of the greatest natural pitchers that ever lived. He had his odd ways of thinking while off the field, but once in the box he knew exactly what he was doing. All we had to do was to keep him in physical condition. That, though, was the thing nobody ever succeeded in doing.
“Say, Mac,” Chief Meyers said to me after he had caught Raymond for the first time, “that fellow can do more tricks with a baseball than any man in the world.”
And he could. Raymond’s long suit, of course, was his spitball. He could make the ball do the queerest of stunts and never did he hesitate to pull one of these tricks when the team was in a hole. Even though he sorely tried me at times, I must admit that he was
largely responsible for one of our biggest season’s successes. 19
20 $=My Thirty Years in Baseball
Every fall Bugs would promise faithfully to go on the waterwagon. In the spring he would show up as if he meant what he said. In two or three weeks he would drop right back into his old habits. His fondness for companionship was his downfall. I think he knew every man and boy in every little town we ever played in as well as in the big league cities.
One season I tried to cure him by cutting off his money supply. I warned all the players and the sport- ing writers not to lend him a nickel. Just the same he would manage to get what he wanted somehow.
One day I sent him out in the bull pen to warm up. The pitcher in the box seemed to be wabbly. In those days the bull pen was back of the bleachers and out of sight of the spectators.
A half hour later I sent the bat boy for Bugs. He could not find him. The trainer then took up the hunt. Presently he returned with the information that Ray- mond was in a saloon down Eighth Avenue drinking beer. He had taken the new ball that I had given him for warming up and had sold it to the saloonkeeper.
One fall I persuaded him to take the Keeley cure at a Chicago institute. We got encouraging reports from week to week, but finally came the news that Raymond had been expelled for having scared his roommate, an old business man, almost to death by some rough horseplay.
Bugs was very proud of his term in the Keeley Insti- tute. He even wore a class button and very proudly exhibited an album with photographs and other sou- venirs of his schoolmates. He showed up at spring training camp with all these trinkets. ‘Though expelled,
I
My Thirty Years in Baseball 21
he really had quit drinking. I never saw him look better. He started like a whirlwind.
We were in Marlin, Texas, at the time. The news- paper men were sending back interesting stories of the wonderful reform of the Bugs, as we always referred to him. In about two weeks, though, I began to see omi- nous signs. Bugs had struck up an acquaintance with some farmers and cowboys.
We went to Dallas for an exhibition game and Bugs fell off the wagon with a splash. In those days they always served cocktails with the Sunday night dinner at the old Oriental Hotel, all prepared in advance and placed on long tables in the hotel pantry, just off the dining-room.
Knowing the head steward, Bugs decided to visit him. He left the dining-room and started to the kitchen. As he stepped through the swinging doors his eye lighted on the long rows of cocktails—hundreds of them—all lined up in rows. Promptly Raymond started right down the first row, drinking one after another until he had consumed more than a dozen.
That was the beginning of his downfall. The next day it rained and we missed him. He came in after mid- night saying that he had been out with some old railroad friends.
To be sure that I did not misjudge him, I had a detective follow Bugs and make a detailed report of his activities for twenty-four hours. Mind you, all this time the reporters were still talking about Raymond’s reform and the Texas papers were picking it up.
It was still raining the second day and I sent for Raymond. He denied everything, as, usual;)'\\I was in a
22 My Thirty Years in Baseball
dilemma. I didn’t know whether to denounce him to the newspaper men, who had tried so hard to help him, or to make one more attempt to bring about reform. I didn’t expect him to stay entirely sober, of course, but I figured that if I could keep him in half-way con- dition he could win some ball games for us at the beginning of the season.
Suddenly a scheme occurred to me. I decided to hold a secret court-martial—a trial “in camera” as the Eng- lish say—with the newspaper men sitting as a jury. I knew I could trust every one of them. In fact I had never known a baseball reporter to violate a confidence. For that reason I have never hesitated to talk with them freely.
To this day the picture of that jury and the prisoner at the bar is the most amusing thing in my recollections. The jurors got up out of bed to come down and were half dressed, as I was. | |
As I remember, this jury was made up of Sam Crane, Sid Mercer, Bozeman Bulger, Damon Runyon, Charles Van Loan and one or two of the younger writers whose names I can’t recall at the moment.
“Gentlemen,” I said to them, “I have called upon you to sit as a jury on this man. He has promised all of you not to drink and you have given him every help. You have praised him in the papers. He has violated that faith. He’s a big bum that’s laid down on his friends. Now I want you to hear the evidence and then it will be up to you to decide whether you shall expose his weakness in your papers and tell: the world that he’s no good, or whether you will overlook, it, and give him
My Thirty Years in Baseball 23
one more chance. I won’t ask you to keep anything out of the papers. IJ’ll leave it to you.”
In the meantime, Bugs sat there, his bloodshot eyes downcast, his hair tousled, his face unshaven.
‘It’s a damned lie, Mac—somebody’s been lyin’ to him, fellows,” he said, in answer to my opening charge.
“You say it’s a lie? Wait until I present the evi- dence. Look at him, boys!”
“Maybe he’s just got a cold,” suggested one of the writers. ‘A fellow’s eyes get that way sometimes from too much reading.”
There was a smile and hope came into Raymond’s eye.
“I don’t smell anything wrong with his breath,” suggested another.
“How'd he get that way with no money—if it’s licker?” another remarked.
As these remarks went round I slowly unfolded the typewritten sheets of the detective’s report. Of course, all the baseball reporters knew just as well as I that Bugs had gone off the reservation and had been drunk. I began to read. |
‘Your operative followed one Bugs Raymond for eighteen hours,” it said, “and noted his every move- ment. At 9 a.m. the said Raymond went into a saloon known as the Turf Exchange. In a back room he drank seven glasses of beer, ate a handful of pretzels and two Bermuda onions. From there your operative followed the said Raymond to the Knight saloon. There he drank nine glasses of beer, ate more pretzels and two or three onions, etc.”’
The jurors took careful notes-of this°and finally
24 My Thirty Years in Baseball
summed it all up. The result of the tabulation was that Raymond, in twelve hours, had consumed forty-eight glasses of beer, a peck of pretzels and eight Bermuda onions.
‘Now, what’ve you got to say to that?” I demanded of the defendant.
“It’s a damned lie, Mac! Fellows, there ain’t a word of truth in it!”
Several members of the jury averted their faces to hide their smiles.
“You mean to tell this jury,” I asked, assuming indignation, “that this officer has sworn to a lie—you mean to say you didn’t do this drinking of beer and eating of pretzels and onions?”
“It’s a lie, just the same, Mac! Of course, I might’ve had a coupla dozen glasses of beer, but I’m tellin’ you it’s a lie—I ain’t eat an onion in seven months!”
The jury couldn’t hold in any longer. All of us broke into laughter.
“Bugs,” one of the jurors finally asked, “in view of your abstinence from onions—this technical mix-up in the report—will you promise to lay off the rest of the _ stuff if given a chance?”
‘Bet your sox I will! Fellows, I’m through!”
After a moment of deliberation the jury solemnly acquitted him and voted to say nothing in the papers and give him one more chance.
The defendant, declaring the jury to be a regular lot of guys, went out happy and—got drunk again that night. | :
At that he partially straightened up and pitched some good ball for several weeks.
CHAPTER V
Schreckengost and the “Cracker” contract—How Rube Waddell put one over on Connie Mack—Walter Brodie “waits out’? a Boston pitcher.
You may have noticed that I have begun these memoirs with the present instead of with my early boy- _ hood days. I did this advisedly, it always having been my belief that we can use the present to reflect on the past much better than to make the old days reflect on the present. .
After I have recalled a few more of the picturesque characters of my thirty years in baseball, it is my inten- tion to go back to the early days and drift down again. In that way I hope to recall landmarks that otherwise I might forget.
Next to Raymond the most picturesque characters— I don’t necessarily mean drinking players—of my knowledge were Rube Waddell, Larry McLean, Ossie Schreckengost and Walter (Steve) Brodie.
Most baseball people remember the time when Schreck—the scorers had shortened his name to that— refused to sign a contract with Connie Mack until a clause was inserted that Waddell must not eat crackers in bed.
These two quaint characters always roomed together.
At times they were a trial to Connie, and he figured that 25
i
26 My Thirty Years in Baseball
he could keep an eye on them better by having them in the same room, especially on the road.
*‘No, Connie,” said Schreck when he showed up to sign his new contract, “I won’t sign it unless you put in there that Rube mustn’t eat crackers in the bed. You know, the big bum has got to where he eats these little animal crackers every night. I didn’t mind the flat crackers so much. But for a whole week last year I woke up with elephants’ tusks and cowhorns stickin’ *tween my ribs.”
Connie Mack gravely inserted the clause and Ossie signed. —
Like Bugs Raymond, Waddell had an uncanny ability for getting money when there was none in sight. He had worked so many schemes on Connie that the Ath- letics’ manager thought he couldn’t be fooled.
One night in Detroit Rube came to Connie’s room in deep distress. He had lost the diamond watch charm that had been given to each member of the team for having won the pennant. It was an expensive trinket and one that Waddell was very proud of. It was his fondest possession, and Mack knew it.
“I wanted to ask you what to do, Connie,” said Rube. “How can I go ’bout findin’ it? I know I had it on this afternoon.”
“I would suggest,” advised Connie, taking the matter very seriously, “that you put an ad in the local papers —yes, and offer a reward.”
“How much reward, Connie, would be right? You know I’m flat broke. You know that better than any- body.”
My Thirty Years in Baseball 27
“That’s true,” said Mack, “but you go ahead and offer $10 reward and if the diamond charm is found I will pay the reward myself.”
Rube promptly put an ad in the paper.
The next day at noon he went down to a saloon where he had left the charm with the bartender, an old acquaintance. |
“Connie,” Rube said to his manager over the ’phone, “there’s a guy down here in a saloon that’s found my diamond charm. Will you come down and pay the reward for me?”
That sounded fair enough. So Connie walked down, paid the man the reward, turned the trinket over to Rube and they walked away. Waddell was very grate- ful. At the corner, though, he left Connie, slipped around the other way to the saloon and collected $10 from the bartender, a large portion of which they proceeded to drink up.
Connie had been completely taken in. Now, you can’t say that a man who can think up that scheme hasn’t got a keen brain.
Waddell was one of the greatest pitchers that ever lived. He had such a large hand that he could encircle ' a baseball with his fingers as the ordinary man could a billiard ball. That gave him tremendous speed and also a wonderful curve.
Rube was very vain about his arm and had absolute confidence in being able to beat any club in the world. Generally he could do it, too. In the spring training exhibition games he used to demand that all the players except himself, the catcher and the first baseman be
28 My Thirty Years in Baseball
taken off the field. For fun they let him do it. All the men he did not strike out he proposed to ‘get out on infield grounders.
On several occasions he did that trick and actually got away with it.
I played on this vanity one time to win a game. That was many years ago. We knew Rube would pitch and we knew the chances were that he would beat us. As he came walking across the field from the club house I called to him to throw me a ball that had rolled out there. He made a great throw of it.
- “That’s no throw,” I called back to him. “Look at this one.” JI threw the ball back.
Rankling at my remark, he whipped the ball from the fence to the plate. Again and again we went through this procedure, our players razzing his throws every time. Finally his arm was so tired that when he went in the box we gave him a trimming. He had to be taken out before the fifth inning.
One spring the Athletics showed up in Texas, and both our teams happened to be in Dallas at the same time. I was told by some of the Athletic players that Waddell had been missing for three days, that nobody could find him. He had a habit of going off fishing at the most unexpected moments—even in the middle of the season when the race was tight.
That night we were standing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel when a fire alarm was turned in. We all moved to the curb to watch the engines go by.
Presently one came by with a clang—a hook and lad- der outfit. Imagine our surprise to see Rube Waddell
My Thirty Years in Baseball 29
on the driver’s seat clad in full fireman’s regalia, rubber boots, metal hat, and all. And he was intent on his job.
They found that Waddell had gone to the Fire Department and got a job. He put himself off as an old fireman and had slept there with the men, sliding down the pole as skillfully as the best of them when an alarm sounded. |
You can understand how quickly Connie Mack went down there and robbed the Fire Department of a good hand. Always they had to watch Rube to keep him from joining the Fire Departments in the various towns and cities where the club played.
Not long ago I was at a reunion of the old Baltimore Orioles. After having a big time several of the veterans, including Walter Brodie, were up in my room at the hotel.
““How is it, Mac,” said Steve, as we called Brodie, “that you are always making out that I pulled boners? Lot of other fellows pulled boners, too—just as many as I did.”
“Is that so?” I laughed. ‘Well, how *bout the time you took that third strike against Boston?”
All of them started to tell it, very much to Steve’s discomfiture.
Ed Hanlon, our manager, had been trying to impress upon all of us the necessity of waiting out the pitchers instead of hitting at bad balls. He could never do much with Steve. He would swing at anything. Finally Hanlon threatened to fine him if he didn’t take a strike now and then and wait out the pitcher.
In a pinch Steve went up, this idea firmly fixed in his
30 My Thirty Years in Baseball
mind. He took the first strike, the second—and the third.
“Now, don’t tell me I didn’t take ’em,” he growled at Hanlon as he came back to the bench. “I reck’n now you’re satisfied that I can take ’em—and—and I could’ve knocked any one of ’em over the fence!”
Having gone this far back, I guess before going on with Brodie and others this is a good place to start right at my beginning in baseball.
CHAPTER VI
How McGraw, batting left-handed, learned to hit into left field—The curve that couldn’t be pitched—First profes- sional days with the Olean team.
I cor my first idea of learning to place hits when but sixteen years old, the idea being forced upon me through a lack of small change. Fifteen cents in those days was a lot of money. At the time there was no way of my knowing that I was building up the most valuable | asset that any left-handed hitter could possess. My idea was purely commercial.
I was playing on the school team at Truxton, N. Y., where I was born. Always I was a left-handed hitter. The open lot on which we played was bounded on the right-field side by a schoolhouse with many windows. In right center there was a church. As a left-handed hitter naturally hits into right field, I broke several window panes. In addition to several threatened thrash- ings my father had to pay 15 cents for each pane of glass broken. Other fathers in our town had to do like- wise. Mighty few boys in that time, or in our set, ever had that much spending money at one time.
To avoid this wrath of my old dad and to save as many 15 cents as possible, I studied how to change my position at bat so as to hit the ball into left field. In time I got to where I could hit in that direction just as
well as into right. 81
32 My Thirty Years in Baseball
The mastery of that art of hitting into either field while a boy is responsible, I think, for my batting and run-getting record in the major leagues. Often I have wished that I could devise some such compulsory method to make our present left-handed hitters shift from one field to the other.
You can easily understand, for instance, what con- fusion Babe Ruth would cause the opposing outfield if he could bat either way. They would never know where to play for him. This ability to shift is also invaluable in working the hit and run play. Willie Keeler had the art down pat. You can readily understand, therefore, why he and I worked the hit and run play so success- fully for years onthe old Baltimore club. But I am getting a little ahead of my story.
I started out as a pitcher. This will serve as an answer to many who asked why I always made pitching my life study.
During the World’s Series one baseball writer quoted Bill Donovan as saying: “McGray turned out to be. the best pitcher in the series.”
Though intended as a pleasantry, I took that as a downright compliment. Even to this day I feel as if I could pitch, though I never did, in the big league. Pitching was my first love and I have never got away > from it. To me it is the most fascinating art in the world. It really is an art, too—not merely science.
During the summer months up at Truxton I worked as butch boy on the accommodation train. I sold glass pistols filled with candy, magazines, bananas, chewing gum—all the things that the butch boys still handle out
JOHN J. McGRAW 1890
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My Thirty Years in Baseball 83
in the sticks. I was one of the smallest butch boys you ever saw. I didn’t weigh more than 105 pounds.
In those days people scoffed at the idea of anybody making a baseball curve. It was but a few years ago, in fact, that many sceptics were really convinced.
In the smoking car, where I kept my stuff, there were many conversations and arguments about baseball. Very few believed that anybody could. pitch a curve.
“What are you talking about?” said a man from my town to his companion, “there”—he pointed at me—“is a little fellow who can pitch a curve.”
“Bet you $10 he can’t,” the other came back. “At least, he can’t prove it to me.”
“I'd like to take a dollar of that myself,” I chimed in. I was pretty fresh in those days.
The argument grew warmer and warmer until the money was finally put up. The conductor in the mean- time had come along and got in it.
“I'll put up three stakes, twenty feet apart,” I sug- gested, “and I will stand at one end of the row and the catcher at the other. I'll bet I can make the ball go on the right-hand side of the middle stake and the catcher will catch it on the left-hand side of the end one. That would be a curve, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, it would prove it all right,” the man declared, “and I’m betting $10 that you can’t do it.”
I had a ball and glove in my kit. So, at the next town the conductor held the train while we all got out on a vacant lot near the depot. All the passengers went with us. A man from the train said he would catch the ball for me.
34 My Thirty Years in Baseball
As cocky as you please, I got out there, wound up, and, sure enough, I pitched an outcurve that went inside one stake and outside the other. The ball didn’t break more than four inches to do this. I could easily put an eight-inch bend on it in sixty feet.. |
Well, my backer won the $10 and gave me $1 of it. The other man admitted that a curve ball could be pitched.
On account of my pitching and hitting on the school team I was made a member of the Truxton Grays, all home boys who played teams within a radius of twenty- five miles. I was very much younger and very much smaller than the other players. Still, I won two or three games, and this reputation caused the East Homer team to offer me a job. East Homer was five - miles away, and I had to walk there and back. But I got $2 for each game that I pitched or played in. I stepped right out and won my first game.
~«T want you to pitch again Saturday,” the manager said to me.
“All right,” I agreed, “but it’ll cost you $5; and, what’s more, you’ve got to send a hack to take me there and back.”
The manager argued over this, but I was obdurate, and he finally gave in, after trying to make me com- promise by paying the hack fare one way.
A. F. Kenney, a Truxton man, who managed the Olean, N. Y., club of the Iron and Oil League, had been watching me and giving me advice. After my success with the East Homer team Mr. Kenney offered me a job with the Olean team at $60 a month and my
My Thirty Years in Baseball 85
board. That’s when I really started to play ball. I jumped at the chance.
My dad tried to persuade me to remain at home, but I talked him out of it.
“Why, dad, I’ll be making $3,500 a year before you know it,” I said, and he finally gave in.
My fondest hope was realized. The height of my ambition was to be a professional ball player like those I had read about. And, sure enough, here I was, a professional. Gee, how good that word “professional” sounded !
And, with that job came the beginning of the end of my career as a pitcher. Manager Kenney put me on third base. I played six games there and we lost every one of them. I could field the ball all right, but on the throw I couldn’t hit the first baseman or anywhere near him. I was quite a bust in my start as a third base- man. I was benched—and my friend from Truxton, too! I was certainly heartbroken. That benching, though, was the making of me, and often I have thanked Mr. Kenney from the bottom of my heart. I didn’t then, though.
I was getting ready for a jump—there was no rule against it in those days—but a good laugh caused me to stay over another day or two. Al Smathers’s team from Bradford, Pa., came over to play Olean, and Smathers had six dollars bet on the result.
In the fourteenth inning of that game, with the score a tie and two out, Egan, Olean’s pitcher, singled over third. A stray dog dashed out of the crowd, grabbed the ball and ran away with it. All the players started
36 My Thirty Years in Baseball
in pursuit, but the harder they chased the faster the dog ran, thinking it fine sport. In the meantime Egan ran around the bases and the umpire allowed the run to count.
To this day Smathers has never got over losing that game and the six dollars.
Bench warming grew irksome to me. The next night I packed up quietly and slipped away into new fields.
CHAPTER VII
Early experiences in Cedar Rapids—The half-wit who emptied the grandstand—Sammy Strang the first pinch hitter.
I sumpep from Olean to the Wellsville club of the Western New York League. Again I became a pitcher, but it wasnt to last long. Every manager, it seemed, was determined to make an infielder out of me.
Though still in my teens, I was getting baseball experience rapidly. I also was beginning to get some interesting ideas of the viewpoint of the public toward | the game. It was always difficult to make baseball man- ‘ agers and owners in those days understand that the public was really a part of the game.
In one of those towns, or small cities, our ball park was Jocated on an island. To get to the grandstand the spectators had to cross a narrow bridge at the end of a side street. The main street was up on a hill.
As usual in those towns, there was a half-witted young fellow who always hung around the park, taking a personal interest in everything connected with the team. At times he was a nuisance, but it was difficult to get rid of him. He ran errands for the players and took general supervision of everything.
One day the business manager, getting peeved at this
fellow, ordered the gateman not to let him in the park 87
38 My Thirty Years in Baseball
any more, saying that he had become too much of a nuisance.
At the regular time, though, the young fellow showed up at the gate.
‘Nothing doing to-day,” the gateman told him. “You can’t come in. That’s all there is to it—orders from the boss—there’s nothing doing, I tell you.”
Not for a moment did the poor fellow imagine that they were barring him from the park. He felt badly about there being nothing doing, so he set about to save other people trouble.
He stationed himself at the head of the street leading to the bridge. As the regular everyday fans came along, whether walking or in buggies, the half-wit ran out and stopped them. |
“No use of going down there, folks,” he would tell them, “there’s nothing doing to-day. The boss just left onl for me at the gate. There’s no Seer ec ne doing.”
In the kindness of his heart the poor fellow turned them back as fast as they came. As a result we played the game to an absolutely empty grandstand. Outside of the players and attendants. there were not six people to see the game.
To make matters worse, it was pay-day and there were no gate receipts to help along. The manager had to dig down in his pocket.
After my season with Wellsville I became a rover. I joined Al Lawson’s All-Americans on a trip to Cuba. That gave me my first idea of the rest of our own country and of foreigners,
My Thirty Years in Baseball 839
Landing at Key West on our way back, I got a job with the Gainesville, Fla., team and played there during the early spring. Our team played against major league clubs then training in Florida, and that helped me wonderfully.
The papers gave me quite a lot of puBlicity on account of the Cuban trip. This, added to my work with Gainesville against the big clubs, brought me to the attention of many managers. For the season of 1891 I had offers from twenty-eight clubs. One of these was from my old friend Kenney at Olean. That, of course, I turned down. I didn’t know exactly what to do and I had no older man to advise me.
I looked over all the offers carefully and then decided to grab the job that paid the most money, no matter where I had to go. This happened to be Cedar Rapids. They offered me $125 a month, $75 advance money and transportation. I got the $75 by wire and started.
All my life I have had a deep sentiment for that Cedar Rapids club. For instance, the right fielder on it was Henry Fabian, now the groundkeeper at the Polo Grounds. I was signed as a shortstop. Other members of the club were: John Gedar, third base; Jake Drauby, first base; Wally Taylor, second base; Bill McGee, center field; Delos Woods, left field; Kid Williams, catcher; Billy Hofer, pitcher.
To illustrate what I mean by sentiment, I was looking over the names of some players that the Giants had a chance to get in the draft a few years ago. I knew nothing about any of them. But I saw that one of them was with Cedar Rapids.
40 My Thirty Years in Baseball
“That's the fellow I'll take,” I said to the Secretary of the club, “and I’m taking him simply because he comes from Cedar Rapids. That’s where I got my first start. This new fellow, Dll bet, is good.”
Arid we signed him. That fellow was Otie Crandall, the pitcher. |
I was right, too. Otie stepped right in and made good. Not only was he a good pitcher but he could sock the ball. New York fans know mighty well how we used him successfully as both a pinch hitter and a pinch pitcher.
In a close, tight place—the bases full, for instance— Crandall was one of the coolest pitchers 1 ever saw. _ He had no fear, no nerves.
One day we rushed him in from the bull pen to take another pitcher’s place.
“Huh,” he said, “where’d all those fellows come from?”
The bases were full and there was nobody out.
“Qh, all right,” said old Doc Crandall, as the boys called him, “let’s go.”
Without a flinch or quiver he started pitching and retired the side without a run. Crandall was a mighty valuable ball player. He could also play the outfield.
In this connection it was not a great while before Crandall’s time that we began to use pinch hitters—that is, keep a man on the bench for that purpose alone. I may be mistaken, but I think Sammy Strang was one of the first ones ever engaged. In the old days we couldn’t afford to have utility men sitting around the
My Thirty Years in Baseball = 41
bench except when needed in a pinch. Our utility men or substitutes were mostly the extra pitchers.
Strang was always a good hitter and very fast. He also was a good third baseman, a good second baseman and a good outfielder. The trouble was that he never cared about one position very long. He would go in and play second or third like a house afire for a few weeks and then lose his pep. He would get tired of the job. He liked new sensations. Give him any new job and he was such a naturally good ball player that he would go great guns. As soon as the novelty wore off he would get lazy.
Strang never got excited about anything in his life. Whether there were one or three men on bases and whether the world’s championship depended on whether he hit or not meant nothing to him. He was devoid of nervousness.
With a smile and a yawn he would pick up a bat, walk up to the plate and lazily slam the ball out of the lot.
I decided to keep him as utility player and pinch hitter, giving him no regular job at all. Before that the professional pinch hitter was not known. Sammy lived up to all my expectations. He hung up a hitting record which I believe will stand for a long time to come. I put him up nine times as a pinch hitter and he hit safely nine times in succession. You can well imagine what that meant to a ball club. That was in 1905 and, if you will remember, we almost walked away with the pennant that year, as we did the World’s Series.
But, getting back to Cedar Rapids—Henry Fabian tells me that when I showed up in April, 1891, I was the
42 My Thirty Years in Baseball
freshest and cockiest kid that ever broke into a ball game. I sassed everybody. I thought I was just as good a ball player as any big leaguer in the business.
To tell the truth, I’ve always thought that those fresh, cocky youngsters who think they know it all are the best prospects. They have to be taken down occa- sionally, of course, but if they can keep that cocky spirit they will be good ball players nine times out of ten. They have confidence in their own ability, and that is a wonderful thing.
Believe me, I have had some fresh ones.
CHAPTER VIII
The freshest ball player—First meeting with Pop Anson— McGraw’s “jump” to the Baltimore Orioles—The first big league game.
Txoucu he preceded me by a few years, the freshest ball player within my knowledge was Arlie Latham. His first appearance was with the Buffalo team, of which Sam Crane, the sporting writer, was the manager.
In those days ball players were nat kept on the bench for a long time before being sent in a game. The moment a new man was signed the fans wanted to see him in action at once and so did the manager. .
Arlie showed up in the morning and played in a regular game that afternoon. He was so fresh on the bench that the older players got disgusted and refused to talk to him. That didn’t so much as make him hesitate.
“Quit your mouthing and get out and show some- thing,” one of them suggested to him.
“Yes,” added Manager Crane, “either keep your mouth shut or stay off the bench.”
Arlie was next at bat. He went over and picked up a bat and deliberately turned around and made a mon- key face at his manager. Pretty good for a start, eh?
Walking to the plate, Latham addressed himself freely to the pitcher and made a profound bow to the
48
44 My Thirty Years in Baseball
stand. A minute later he caught a ball on the nose and whipped it to deep center for three bases. =
‘““Now, old Methuselah,” he called to the next batter, a veteran, “you better stop talking and do something like that. How’s that, Sam?” he called to the astonished Manager. _
The next batter did get a long hit. Latham could have walked home. Seeing where the ball had gone, though, he started turning handsprings or flip-flops and turned them all the way to the plate, landing the last time squarely on the rubber.
The crowd, according to Sam Crane, went wild with delight. |
That I consider a pretty fresh start for a youngster. But Arlie didn’t stop there. He remained fresh through- out his career. He was one of the most amusing charac- ters in baseball—a, good player, too.
Latham is now running the check room for coats and hats in one of the London hotels. William Fleischmann, a, veteran baseball fan, made this discovery of Latham. He walked into the coat room last year.
“My word, if it hain’t a bally Hamerican!” someone said behind him, trying to imitate the cockney accent.
Fleischmann turned to face Arlie Latham, just as fresh as ever.
As I say, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the fresh youngster. I guess it was because I was that way myself, and I can understand them. They don’t really mean to be impudent or disrespectful, but enthusiasm and desire for action simply bubbles out of them. To kill that spirit would be a fatal mistake. At
rr >
OLEAN BASEBALL TEAM NEW YORK AND PENNSYLVANIA LEAGUE 1890 Standing, Left to Right, Top Row—Doyle, Fee, Judson, Ansel
Center Row—Beggy, Shea, Kinney, Egan Bottom Row—McGraw, Heinie, Wetzel
BALTIMORE BASEBALL CLUB 1894 PENNANT WINNERS
Edward Hanlon says John J. McGraw was the most valuable player to a baseball club’ ‘he ever knew
My Thirty Years in Baseball 45
the same time they’ve got to be checked and put in their places occasionally.
In baseball we have a very rigid rule of seniority among players that helps to cool the youngsters off. For instance, a rookie never gets a lower berth on a. sleeper until after all the regulars have been so pro- vided.
One night we were coming from the training camp in Texas and a fresh young pitcher had been placed in an upper berth directly under the ceiling light of the car.. He turned and squirmed awhile but said nothing. The light was directly in his eyes, it seemed, no matter which way he turned. |
About midnight when everything was quiet, the young fellow started calling to me. I was in the drawing-room with the door open.
“Say, Mac,” he called out, “for the love of Mike get one of them outfielders up here. I’m a pitcher. I can’t play this sunfield !”
I guess Henry Fabian is right when he says I was as fresh and cocky as green paint when I showed up there at Cedar Rapids. I thought I had something on the rest of the fellows because I had been to Cuba.
The very first game I played for Cedar Rapids was against Anson’s Chicago Colts. At that time “Cap” Anson was probably the most famous man in baseball. The Chicago club was on the way home from a training trip to Denver. They stopped off and played an exhibition game with us.
It was the first time I had played in a class that I thought I was entitled to. I made up my mind that
46 My Thirty Years in Baseball
I would show up that big league club, and I felt con- fident that I could do so.
Bill Hutchinson, one of the best pitchers ever turned out by Yale University, was pitching for Chicago, and I got the first crack at him—a clean single.
“Say, old-timer,” I said to the famous “Cap” Anson, as I ran past him, “so, that’s what you call big league pitching, eh? We’ll murder that fellow.”
Anson looked at me in astonishment. My impudence almost took his breath away. You can imagine how this must have sounded coming from a kid of eighteen years who weighed but 120 pounds.
Before the day was over I had three hot eeounedts with the Chicago manager, but finally he saw the humor of it and smiled at me encouragingly. I'll never forget how good that smile made me feel.
At shortstop I accepted eleven chances that day and led our team at bat. It was a big day for me. After the game Anson, forgetting my freshness and im- pudence, said some nice things about my playing— actually asked me how I would like to play for Chicago sometime. That went to my head immediately. Gee, ' but I was chesty over having attracted the attention of the great Anson!
All thoughts of Three-I League (Illinois, Iowa and Indiana) and things like that went out of my head. I would be a big leaguer or nothing. ~ In those days, you must understand, we had no such baseball government and system as we have now. If a player in a small league got an offer from a big league
>.
My Thirty Years in Baseball 47
team he would simply jump his club and take it. There was no penalty attached. That was quite customary.
Bill Gleason, the famous old shortstop of the St. Louis Browns when Charley Comiskey was manager, had finished his days as a big leaguer and was playing with one of the clubs in our league. He knew of my ambition and told me he would see what could be done for me. In the meantime I had received several offers, | one from the Pacific Coast.
“TI have a-letter from Billy Barnie, manager of the Baltimore Orioles,” Gleason told me one day. “He wants to know how good you are.”
That information gave me the greatest thrill of my life. I was up in the clouds.
“Well, you can tell him I’m just about as good as they come,” I suggested, Gleason grinning at my cockiness.
Just the same he gave Barnie a good report. A few days later Gleason advised me to join the Baltimore club; that Barnie would send me a ticket.
I packed up my bag and went out of Cedar Rapids with a running jump, reporting to Baltimore in the middle of the season of 1891.
I walked into Barnie’s office and announced myself as ready to do a lot of business... For a whole minute he stared at me.
“You don’t mean to say that this is the ball player I’ve been writing about. Why, you’re just : a kid—can you play ball?”
“If you don’t think so,” I retorted, “just get me out
48 My Thirty Years in Baseball
there and watch my smoke. I’m a bigger fellow than I look.” I weighed 121 pounds.
I got my chance right away at short. I was so nervous, though, that when the first grounder came to me I kicked it all over the lot.
Then came my great chance in my first big league - game. The bases were full when I came to bat and—I struck out.
“Kid,” Barnie said to me, “what was that you said about smoke?”
Old Phil Knell was the pitcher that day, and I'll never forget his curve. Finally I hit one for a single. I had a start—and in the big league.
CHAPTER IX
Is modern baseball superior to old?—Plays that were never heard of thirty years ago—Origin of the “charley-horse”’ —New spirit of the game.
Severat of the veteran players and old-time fans have responded to our questionnaire by asking if I think present-day baseball an improvement on the game in the old days, and if I think ball players are better to-day than they were thirty years ago.
I do not wish to answer that question idly. I have given it considerable thought. In my last chapter I told of my start with the old Baltimore Orioles, which I will resume a little further on. Prior to that I dis- cussed the recent World’s Series. This, I believe, gives me a good chance to answer that question now. In those thirty years I have seen much of baseball. My greatest asset has been a good memory.
There is no question in my mind but that present-day baseball is better. Also there are more good ball players to-day than there ever were before, simply because there are more people playing ball.
In those days, if you will recall, there was but one major league. There were but few minor leagues. Consequently there was not so large a force of players to draw from. It is very much like a small college try- ing to turn out as many good football players as one
of the big universities, The ones who are selected have as :
50 My Thirty Years in Baseball
much more chance to be developed and polished in their profession.
/ The game itself has improved in many ways. To give you an idea, it was not until Charley Comiskey’s time that a first baseman was really an infielder. Before that the first sacker stood right on the bag, and balls hit between him and second base went through. I have even seen second basemen stand on the bag in the smaller games. Comiskey, Anson and others started the idea of playing well off the bag and covered infield ground like a second baseman, a shortstop or a third baseman.
This in turn developed the idea of the pitcher eover- ing first base in case the first baseman had to go too far for a ground ball. One new play like that usually develops another. As a result we work plays nowadays that were never heard of thirty years ago.
Most of you can recall when it was considered a wonderful play for a pitcher to leave his box, race over to first base and take the throw from the first baseman. A-pitcher who did this got great applause and was extolled in the newspapers for being a “heady” ball - player. In this day and time a pitcher is supposed to do that as a matter of course. Nothing is thought of it. But he is given a terrible razzing if he fails to do it.
Another play that has developed is of the shortstop covering third base on a bunt between third and the pitcher. If a runner is on second base and the batter bunts toward third, the chances are that the third baseman will be drawn in to field the ball and that | third will be left uncovered.
My Thirty Years in Baseball 51
If both the pitcher and the third baseman should go
for the bunt, it is the duty of the shortstop to dash over and cover third base so as to take a throw. ._ On more general principles, baseball has improved - simply because the equipment is bettcr. In that way it is much like billiards. Everything is made as nearly perfect as possible so that there can be no mej uapment of balls due to bad grounds.
Thirty years ago we had no such perfect grass infields and outfields as we have to-day. The ground- keepers were not expert landscape gardeners. They made a ground fairly good and let it go at that. Now- adays a ball player will kick to the groundkeeper if a single pebble interferes with the bound of a ball. The ground must not be too heavy or too fast. The grass of the infield must be as smooth as a billiard table. In the old days we had to take them as they came. Some grounds were fairly good, some were awful. ‘To-day all of them are practically perfect.
Ball players are taken care of much better every way. This is particularly true of their food and their sur- roundings for rest. The hotels are wonderful as com- pared with the days of the old Orioles. Players know Z much more about the science of hygiene and sanitation.
On top of that every club has an expert trainer, a man who rubs the players down, kneadg sore muscles, looks after every little ailment. They have hot and cold shower baths, rubbing tables, and all that sort of thing.
_ Why, I can remember when I went as long as ten
weeks without getting a rubdown. If I got one then
52 My Thirty Years in Baseball
I was lucky. It was not an everyday thing. Every- thing now is specialized. We have experts who treat nothing but sore muscles or charley-horse, as we call those peculiar kinks that bunch up the leg muscles without any warning. We have others who specialize on bones of the body. Nobody yet has been able to correct bones of the head, but mAybe that will come. I certainly hope so.
The-word_charley-horse originated from the old name given to the family horse, usually lame or broken down in the legs some way. Those family horses were called old Charley horses. So when ball players got tied up in the muscles of their legs they were referred to as charley-horse. In time this name was applied to the ailment itself.
If you have never had a charley-horse you may not be able to understand what a terrible thing it is to be a ball player. In starting with a spring for a sprint to a base, the muscles sometimes will kink up in a bunch. No amount of rubbing will put them back into their places for several days. It is very painful. Besides that, the ball player is stopped from playing.
During the last World’s Series Casey Stengel was suddenly taken out of the game after making a hit. Nobody seemed to know why. In going from first to second he suddenly pulled a charley-horse. It was with difficulty that he could even limp to the bench. As a result of that Stengel was unable to play again.
While we have more good ball players to-day than we did in the olden times and while the game itself has improved, I do not mean to say that baseball Hl spirit
My Thirty Years in Baseball 53
has improved. Rather I would be inclined to say that team spirit was even better thirty years ago. To-day the baseball player is more of a business man. He looks out for himself. As a rule, he is more concerned about his own future than the future of the club itself. There are exceptions to this, of course.
Back in the nineties a new player was looked upon as a welcome addition to the gang—not just a piece of property for the owners. The other players took it upon themselves to help develop him so as to make their organization stronger. To-day the manager gets some help from the regular players in developing a new player, but not so much as in those days. To-day he has to depend largely on the coach and his other assistants engaged for that purpose.
It is rather difficult to express just what I mean in that respect—the difference in the way a newcomer is regarded. The best illustration I can give is that a young ball player in the old days was taken in very much as the new man is received on a college football team to-day. Everybody takes a personal interest in him. That’s the way we did in baseball thirty years ago when ball players were not so numerous. Nowadays the ball player is a business man trying to sell his wares. If he doesn’t make good the players know pretty well that the management will get another in his place. He can go back to the minors for improve- ment and return when he is better developed.
_ It was that spirit of every player working for the interest of the team—every player taking a personal interest in it—that I found when I joined the Orioles
BA My Thirty Years in Baseball
back there in the early nineties. I was mighty young and fresh. Just the same they gave me a helping hand.
Before I had got going good, though, the National League consolidated with the American Association and formed a twelve-club league. This forced me to the bench, Our club was not going so good and there was a change in management. Right there I got my first impressions of constructive baseball—of how to build up a team.
CHAPTER X
The “bench” school of training—McGraw shifted to second base—First meeting with Hugh Jennings—Trading expe- rience for an education.
Tue ball player, through his eagerness to jump right into the limelight at the start and through his bitter disappointments over setbacks, rarely considers the trials and difficulties of the manager. Of course, he is young and impatient, while the manager is usually careful and cautious. The manager must be respon- sible for the team as a whole and for results. ‘The player’s concern is for his own advancement. _
1892, when I found myself on the bench as the result of the twelve-club consolidation, I felt as if the bottom had dropped out of the world. At the same time I felt confident of my own ability to make good eventually. For one time I had no inclination to jump to some other team. I bided my time as best I could and kept practicing all the while. I also watched the other players closely. I tried to imitate their good points and to avoid their bad ones. This was excellent training for me, though I didn’t realize it. AlwaysI «— have regarded bench treatment as such good training X — that I have kept good ball players there for several months and paid their salaries so that they could absorb a lot of baseball observation. An example of
this was George Burns. He had our style of game 55
56 My Thirty Years in Baseball
so pat from weeks of observation on the bench that when he went in as a regular he was almost a finished ball player. He never went back to the bench to stay.
The Orioles, at the time I joined them, were not doing so well. We were losing game after game and the attendance was hardly large enough to pay expenses. George Van Haltren was the manager and Harry von der Host the owner.
Mr. von der Host decided to change managers, and finally succeeded in securing Ed Hanlon, then with Pittsburgh.
Ed Hanlon had a wonderful faculty of organization, a trait that he had never had a chance to develop fully until he came to Baltimore. His policy always was one of construction. I find it a general impression. that Hanlon was more particularly noted for his ability to develop inside baseball, It is true that he doted on that, but if I were to decide between the two I would say he was a greater organizer and builder than a field
neral, Everybody realized his ability as a field “general but only a few ever gave him credit for his really masterful work in building up a team.
Within a few days after his arrival Hanlon began making shifts. He took me from the bench and put me at second base. I was overjoyed and naturally thought him the best manager I ever had seen)”
In my new position I played my first game against “Cap” Anson’s Chicago club. The “Cap” remembered me from Cedar Rapids. I was more than anxious to make good that day, and I did. I had a perfect fielding average and got three clean hits. This made an
My Thirty Years in Baseball 57
impression on Anson. He had forgiven me for my freshness and cockiness—rather liked it, I think. Any- way, after that game he offered to trade Jimmy Ryan for me. Ryan was an outfielder on the Chicago team. Hanlon refused, much to my delight. That was an important moment in my life. If I had gone to Chicago I would have missed those happy days on the Orioles— might have missed my chance to progress.
But Hanlon was a wise manager in ways that I did not appreciate. He thought me a little inexperienced for second base and made a deal by which he got “Cub” Stricker, a second baseman of reputation and experi- ence. I was benched again. Hanlon offered to farm me out to the Mobile, Ala., club, but I protested so violently against going that he consented to let me stay on the bench. I finished the season as general utility man. I played every position except pitcher, catcher and first base. If I remember correctly, I played in seventy-two games and did pretty well. Ex- perience was building me into a real big league ball player. Hanlon was watching me closely.
During the winter following that season, Hanlon, having felt his way, began the construction of what was to be one of the most famous baseball clubs of all time—what is known now as the old Baltimore Orioles, the team that did things. In a way this team rea.ly revolutionized-baseball, brought out its possibil- ities in ways never before thought of. |
Hanlon began making trades—big trades. So uni- formly successful was he in these deals that he got the ~ name of “Foxy Ned.” To begin with he swapped Third
58 My Thrty Years in Baseball
Baseman Tim O’Rourke to Louisville for Harry Taylor and Hugh Jennings. The former played out the season and retired to take up the study of law. Harry Taylor is now a Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, and is located at Buffalo. If he is as good a Judge as he was a first baseman and a hitter they won’t get away with many inside legal plays on him.
Hugh Jennings and I became pals immediately. We have been ever since. He is now my first lieutenant in the management of the Giants. Jennings was a red- headed, freckle-faced kid and fresh, like myself. We took to each other the first time we met, both of us having the same ambitions and aspirations. We were allowed to room together and this close association and chance to exchange ideas was of great benefit to both of us. Hughey and I have been pals all our baseball livés. We became separated when he took the manage- ment of the Detroit Tigers, but the moment he retired from that position I offered him his present job so that we could continue to be together. His friendship and loyalty have been an inspiration to me. And I want to say right here that his help in handling the Giants . has been invaluable. To those who watched closely that help could be seen in the last two World’s Series. Eventually I was placed at third base regularly and Jennings at short.: I played that position the rest of my days as an active player.
In our room at night Jennings and I used to discuss ways of playing our positions. Often we have gone out early in the morning to practice on a certain kind of grounder that had been missed the day before. I
My Thirty Years in Baseball 59
have had Jennings hit as many as sixty at me until I overcame what we had considered a fault. In turn I would hit to him. This, mind you, was in addition to the regular practice. We tried much harder to perfect ourselves mm our profession than ball players do nowadays.
Among other faults we decided that we had over- looked our chances to get an education. Baseball had taken us out of school. I decided to take a course in St. Bonaventure College, Allegheny, Pa., and had no difficulty in persuading Jennings to go with me. We were not financially able to pay for an education, but we agreed to exchange our knowledge of baseball for — our college education. The college authorities agreed to this and our tuition cost nothing more than helping to train the school team.
We kept this up for four years, At the end of each ball season we would pack up our things and go to St. Bonaventure. That is how both of us got what education we have, though Hughey later went to Cor- nell and took a course in law. Those college days, by the way, were the pleasantest of our lives.
It was then that my youthful mind began to appre- ciate what it is to have an education, or, rather, to have a trained mind. I was determined to be in position to appreciate the principles of progress in any pro- fession, After learning the difference I have ever since made an effort to get college players whenever I could. I often have wished that some of my players had the persistence that Jennings and I had. We could have some wonderful teams if the players would try to
60 My Thirty Years in Baseball
educate and inform themselves during their off months.
But, in this digression, I have got away from Ned Hanlon’s constructive policy. I will take that up now. I had much to learn when we reported at New
Orleans the next spring.
CHAPTER XI
Ned Hanlon starts a revolution in baseball—How Jennings improved his batting average—Invention of the “hit and run” play—New blood for the Orioles.
Wuen we showed up at New Orleans in the spring of 1894 for training I got an inkling of what Ned Hanlon was trying to do in the way of building up a ball club. It was very clear to me that he was seeking youth and spirit. Up to that time—and that is often true to-day—baseball people hesitated to try anything new. Veterans can be counted on to do the right thing—at any rate, the usual thing—and there is a tendency to let them go along. But managers, in this sense of security, go too far. They do not realize that the old-timers are slipping; do not see the necessity of young blood soon enough. In other words, it is a human failing to follow the line of least resistance. The work of building is tedious and nerve-racking. To avoid it is human.
Ned Hanlon evidently hed made up his mind to get rid of all these old ideas and spring something entirely new on the big league. He had been impressed by the eagerness and ambition of kids like Jennings and myself.
So, when we arrived at New Orleans we found another young fellow—Joe Kelley. Joe had come to Baltimore in exchange for George Van Haltren,
the deposed leader of the Orioles. Joe was a wonderful 61
62 My Thirty Years in Baseball
outfielder, was fast and could hit. Like Jennings and myself, he also thought and dreamed baseball.
The first day of practice Jennings walked up to the plate, stepped into the ball and smacked it for a single. Hanlon was surprised to see that he did not pull away from the plate, as had been his failing the year before. We had corrected that fault during the winter at St. Bonaventure College.
Jennings had hit but little over .200, but had been retained on account of his wonderful fielding. He had
\ the bad habit of pulling away with his forward foot when swinging at the ball. In baseball we call that putting one’s foot in the water bucket, the idea being that a player will pull so far away as to step to the bench. That pull away naturally draws the bat so far from the plate that it is practically impossible to meet the ball squarely. We talked this over for hours. Finally I hit on a scheme that Jennings agreed to try.
In the college cage I placed Jennings up against the screen so that it was impossible for him to pull away in that direction. For hours I pitched to him. Being unable to back away he had to step into the ball. The foot, instead of going off to one side, would step di- rectly forward. This was very awkward at first. For a long time it looked as if we could not get away with the scheme. But Hughey and I were both determined. After a week of this he found himself stepping into the ball instead of away from it. —
This practice wrought such a change i in his batting that the next- season he hit .820 as against the former .200.
My Thirty Years in Baseball 63
In addition to facing the ball this changing of the direction of the step enables the batter to hit the ball += in front of the plate. He can thus meet the ball before | it breaks. In other words, he is on top of the et ! instead of the ball being on top of him.
In those days we practiced the short, sharp a at the ball instead of the long swing. Of course we did not hit so many home runs by that style of batting, but we got many more base hits and consequently won many more games. |
In this connection, it is my belief that the present epidemic of home runs is due to the fact that most of the batters are trying to hit home runs instead { of trying to hit the ball scientifically. That may be all right for a few hard swingers, but it is not good for a team as a whole. Of course, the lively ball helps a lot, but the increase in home run hitting, I believe, is largely due to the fact that batters are catching their bats on the end and swinging from their shoestrings. They are trying to hit home runs, instead of merely trying to hit safe. They will either knock the ball. out of the lot or strike out. In our early days we X worked on the theory of meeting the ball and shoving the runner around. That I still think the best system.
A while back, you will recall, I told of having fined Sammy Strang $25 for hitting a home run when I had instructed him to bunt the ball. That is an example of the difference in methods. To-day if Sammy had hit that home run he would have been a great hero. I might have fallen for the glamour of it myself, because everybody seems to be running to the long swing style
64 My Thirty Years in Baseball
of hitting nowadays. Still, I would never stand for any ball player disobeying instructions, even though it won a game.
That season we had as a battery Wilbert Robinson, one of the greatest catchers that ever lived, and John McMahon, better known as “Sadie” McMahon,. as pitcher. We have never had many better pitchers than McMahon. In addition to being a great pitcher he was a great judge of ball players and a close student of the game. |
It was “Sadie”? McMahon, by the way, who discovered George Burns, the outfielder. I had engaged McMahon as scout for the Giants. He went out with the intention of getting a good ball player or nothing.
“I may not find a good one,” he said to me; “but I won’t dig up any bad ones, It’s my idea that too much money and time are wasted on ball players just for the sake of trying them out.”
McMahon scouted all season, and I heard little or nothing from him.
“Mac,” he said on his return, “I have covered the whole United States and I have found but one ball player who looks good. I'll bet on him.”
This man was George Burns, and the fans of the country know enough about this great outfielder to appreciate McMahon’s judgment. He more than earned his year’s salary by digging up that one player.
Wilbert Robinson had his heart and soul in base- ball, and he chimed right in with the ambitions of Jennings, Kelley and myself. Though he was older, he was just as young in spirit. Working with him and
My Thirty Years in Baseball 65
McMahon, we thought up many new plays and schemes _ for advancing base runners. We really gave the hit }’ and run play its first good start. /
To work the hit and run play successfully it is necessary that the batters be adept in placing the i ball. I imagine that most every fan understands the principle of this play. The main idea is, if there be a runner on first, to signal him to start for second, as if to steal a base. At the same moment the batter swings at the next ball whether it be a good one or not. Having watched the opponents he has a pretty good idea as to whether the second baseman or the shortstop will cover second base.
If the second baseman starts to cover the bag it is the batter’s cue to smack the ball between first and second—through the spot left vacant by the second baseman. If the shortstop is to cover, the hit is shifted to the other side of the diamond. Now, it takes good batters to do that.
We worked this play very successfully several times. Hanlon, seeing the possibilities of a whole team of such ambitious players, began figuring for other new players.
Anyone with half an eye to the future could see the gradual making of a great championship team. Though we did not know it he already had put out feelers for additional talent.
Even with the small nucleus that we had we developed a fighting policy. We learned how to slide accurately and went into every game, determined to win. Never did we play for a tie. We wanted a victory or nothing. I have never believed in playing for a tie. For instance,
66 My Thirty Years in Baseball
if there is a runner on second and we need a run to tie I always call for a hit instead of a sacrifice. One run would merely tie the score. A long hit might bring the one run and start another. The main idea is to win. An effort merely to tie we always considered a sign of weakness.
Aggressiveness is the main thing in baseball. That is what we were aiming at, Hanlon added to our wallop by a series of big trades. This move on his part started something.
CHAPTER XII
“FTit-’Em-Where-They-Ain’t” Keeler—The greatest team in baseball history—Horseshoe luck that beat the Giants.
In the spring of 1894 we again arrived at New Orleans for training to find that Manager Hanlon had given us the needed cog to our machine—the key to the combination that made the Orioles the most famous of ball clubs. During the off months he had put through what I consider one of the greatest trades ever made in baseball. It was certainly the greatest ever made by Hanlon—and he made many.
Hanlon had traded Shindle and Treadway to Brooklyn for Willie Keeler and Dan Brouthers. As I remember, it was even swap. I mean Brooklyn thought it an even swap. As a matter of fact, Hanlon in a couple of trades like that laid the foundation for baseball fame and fortune. He was a wonderful trader.
Dan Brouthers was one of the heaviest hitters in baseball and Keeler developed into one of the most scientific players the game has ever known. To this day one of Willie’s remarks about hitting is a classic epigram of the diamond.
When asked the secret of batting the little fellow replied: ‘Hit ’em where they ain’t.” That was all.
In addition to Keeler and Brouthers, Hanlon also had secured Bill Clarke, the catcher, and Heinie > Reitz, the
second baseman, from California. 67
68 My Thirty Years in Baseball
With that group of talent Hanlon immediately formed a new line-up—the line-up that made the Orioles a historical institution. The batting order was: McGraw, 3b; Keeler, rf; Kelley, lf; Brouthers, 1b; Jennings, ss; Brodie, cf; Reitz, 2b; Robinson, Clarke, c; McMahon, Esper, Hoffer, Gleason, Pond and Clark- son, pitchers. Later Kid Gleason came from St. Louis and joined us. That, believe me, was a ball club.
This was a new combination, all young players, full of pep, fire and ambition. They surely could play ball. It was easily the best team of its day and time. I still hold the opinion that, from many angles, it was the best of all times. ‘Teamwork was our middle name; everything had to give way to that.
The great thing about that team was that every one of us, individually, felt that it belonged to us. Hanlon didn’t have to scold or punish a player for failing to do his part. We attended to that ourselves. No player could come back to that bench after a bad play and expect to take it easy.
Another evidence of the greatness of that ball club is that it is the only one that remains in spirit a team: to this day. Every year we have a reunion. The players have looked after each other all these years. It is like an old college football team. You can remem- ber that team as a unit. Others you can not. On other ball clubs the players have forgotten where its members’ are. On the Orioles we always know.
Dan Brouthers, for instance, is now watchman at the Polo Grounds. Dan is growing old, but he always will have a job. Keeler died at his home in Brooklyn.
. §tanding—KELLEY, McGRAW, POND Seateda—JENNINGS, KEELER
d ~ = a) i *y o—ageey/” b———— ee eee eee ss er ereey | rrr | rng. eg re! ee Semanggy | quem ene” (Nemes “Serenny ——— | F
My Thirty Years in Baseball 69
It was our custom to visit him every year before he died.
The old Orioles thought of nothing but baseball. Our interest was to win. Salaries were secondary in con- sideration. We met every night and talked over our successes and failures. If it was a trip to a theater all of us went and sat together. Nowadays one or two ball players may go out together at night. In those ' days we all went together.
We knew that we had a great ball club and for that very reason I think we won a lot of ball games. We fought each other, of course, but such rows were the result of some player making a mistake. We fought for the welfare of the team. Each player regarded himself as the manager of the other. Hanlon had little to do other than to encourage us to keep on. He had built well.
During the training period we perfected many inside plays, such as the hit and run, the unexpected bunt, and so on. Keeler was a marvelous place hitter, I was not so bad at it myself. My long suit, though, was my eye. I was a good waiter and rarely hit at a bad ball. For that reason I led the batting order. Keeler, on account of his place-hitting ability, followed me. I think, with all due modesty, that we worked the hit and run play more perfectly than I have seen since. If I reached first I would give the sign and Keeler, almost invariably, would hit the ball in the right place. Then we had Kelley and Brouthers, the long hitters, to clean up. If we slipped, there were Brodie and Robinson at the other end of the batting order to clean up after Jennings and Reitz had started something.
70 My Thirty Years in Baseball
Word had reached other clubs of our new style of play—this trick stuff by kids, as they called it. All over the league the old-timers were disposed to kid us. I shall never forget our start that year.
We went up against the New York Giants, managed by John Montgomery Ward, in a four game series. They had trained at Charleston and had come direct to Baltimore from the camp to start the season. The Giants had been touted as sure pennant winners. They had a staff of famous pitchers—Amos Rusie, Jouett Meekin, Dad Clarke and Hyler Westervelt.
All baseball was astounded by our feat of winning . four straight games from the famous Giants. Right off the reel, in the first game, Willie Keeler and I stood them on their heads by pulling the hit and run play.
They thought it merely a bit of luck that we should happen to hit the ball through a hole just left by the baseman going to cover the bag. Not for a moment would they believe such a play was prearranged.
“Just a lot of horseshoe luck,”? said John Ward, dumfounded at our victory. .
Not until we had won four games by these so-called tricks did Ward grasp the system of teamwork and new plays that had been sprung on him. He sincerely believed them to have been accidents. Later he awoke and acknowledged that we really had pulled something new in baseball.
What we did to his four star pitchers was a plenty. It happened to be my luck to win the last game by a hit in the ninth ining.
That one series made the Orioles. Seeing that our
My Thirty Years in Baseball 71
stuff had worked, we were full of confidence and cockiness. Jennings, Keeler, Kelley, Robinson and myself organized ourselves into a sort of committee. We were scheming all the time for a new stunt to pull on our opponents. We talked, lived and dreamed baseball, ‘That was the secret of our success. Woe betide the player who failed us! His life on the bench was not a pleasant one. He never forgot the roasting and never failed to deliver one if somebody else failed.
Last fall I heard much of the sensational invasions of both the Giants and the Yanks in the West. Well, that year the Orioles made an invasion that was even a greater sensation. We started on the last Western trip a half game in the lead. We finished four games ahead, having won eighteen straight games and twenty- four out of the last twenty-five. But for an accident to Wilbert Robinson, who slipped in the mud while about to make a play, we would have won the whole twenty-five.
' Our best work was at Pittsburgh, where we gave the
prettiest exhibition of place hitting that I ever hope to see. The left-handers poked the ball into left field and the right-handers poked it into right, time and time again. The Pirates were completely confused and dazed. They had never seen anything like that before —neither had we.
That fall we lost the Temple Cup series to the Giants but Jennings and I got back to St. Bonaventure as heroes. Wewere champions. It was a royal reception. But, speaking of receptions——
CHAPTER XIII Oratory that misfired—The mystache era in baseball— Umpire Jack Kerns and the lemon “strike.”
Arter the sensational season in which the Orioles won their first championship the newspapers all over the country made us famous. By attributing it to new methods, they were so carried away with the inside batting work of our team that they printed many stories to the effect that we had won the pennant without having to depend upon our pitchers. |
As a matter of fact, our pitchers did good work, but this was the cue for a lot of stories in the newspapers. Before that pitchers always had been given all the credit. This was supposed to be something new.
Our team was asked to visit the home town of one of the pitchers—McMahon, I think it was—for a big reception to be given in his honor. All of us were eager to hear ourselves extolled as well, so we went in full force. The little town talked nothing but baseball for two or three days—the coming of the now famous Orioles. :
To make the affair even more impressive the com- mittee had invited the Congressman of the district to make the address of welcome. He was noted as a famous orator, but, as you will see, knew very little
about baseball or its players. Just the same he pre- 12
ra cant *
My Thirty Years in Baseball 73
tended to. He came all loaded for a great speech, so he thought.
Being shy of information this oratorical Congress- man had secured clippings from the papers which told how we had won without the aid of our pitchers. He didn’t even realize that this big reception was given as a boost for McMahon by the home town.
The stage of the public hall was decorated with flags and baseball emblems. All of our players were seated in a semicircle facing the audience. The master of ceremonies sat in the middle with the Congressman —the big punch of the meeting—at his right. We all tried our best to look dignified and important. McMahon and the other pitchers were grouped immedi- ately behind the speaker. I can see that picture to this day. And, as I see the picture, all of us wore mustaches. That was the thing in baseball then. I had a big black one which looked very impressive—to me with my weight of 123 pounds. Robbie had a fancy © one, very carefully twisted up at the ends.
After a few words the master of ceremonies intro- duced the Congressman. We all got out for some big league stuff in the way of oratory.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” began the Congressman, “you are now looking upon the greatest collection of athletes that the world has ever known. They form what is known as the Baltimore Orioles, the greatest, most picturesque and most spectacular baseball club -in history. They have honored us by coming here to break bread with our humble townfolk. We consider that more of an honor than they can understand. Little
74 My Thirty Years in Baseball
do you realize what this growth of an athletic game and the presence of its most noted exponents means to our coming young manhood. [ Applause. |
“In my arduous duties at the National Capitol it ' may be that you think that I have had no time to give to baseball. But you are wrong. I devote much time to it. I study it and I respect it. I appreciate it. I know what this collection of sterling athletes has done. I realize how they have won. These men, despite handicaps, have won a championship. The glory and wonder of that achievement, though, is that they have won with practically no pitching staff at all—the worst pitchers in baseball !”” |
McMahon and Doc Pond, who had been leaning for- ward in anticipation of the climax, almost fell out of their chairs. The crowd was stunned for a moment and then broke out laughing.
The great orator did not know that the whole shoe was given in honor of McMahon. He had tried to bull his way through by reading the papers—Washiagton papers.
The show was a bust. The next election the Con- gressman lost that county.
It was several seasons before we got through kidding our pitching staff about that speech.
And speaking of mustaches, I must tell you One on Wilbert Robinson. |
As I have said, Robbie was always careful about his mustache having that snappy upward twist at the ends.
Tim Hurst, the umpire, who died some years ago, never thought much of mustaches. He shot many a
My Thirty Years in Baseball 75
witty crack at the players about these appendages. ‘Tim, as you know, perhaps, never took any back talk from a player. If he did the player suffered in the consequent repartee.
One day Robbie was catching and there was a Boston runner on first. By a quick move Robbie shot the ball down to the bag and the runner, apparently, was blocked off the bag.
But Hurst did not call him out. He merely spread out his hands, indicating that the runner was safe. There was a big how! from the crowd.
‘“What’s the matter with you, Tim?” Robbie demanded to know. “Are you blind? Why, I had that man frozen off the bag. There wasn’t a chance for him to get back. I tell you he was frozen off!
“All right, Old Timer,” said Tim in that cutting voice, at the same time reaching over and twisting Robbie’s mustache, “we'll call it one man froze in the game. Now, let’s go.”
For a moment Robbie was so dumfounded that he silently went on playing. But the further he went the madder he got. Back at the bench the players started kidding him. But for us stopping him I think he would have killed Hurst if he had had a chance in the next two or three innings. It was weeks before he got over the indignation of having had his mustache twisted—and by an umpire at that. To this day if anyone says anything about a runner being frozen off first it gets a laugh out of Robbie.
We had more fun with umpires in those days than we do now.
76 My Thirty Years in Baseball
In Washington the games were always started at half past four in the afternoon so as to get the crowd from the various state departments. As a result of this we often ran into darkness and there were constant rows about the games being called.
Clarkson, I think it was, was pitching one day and Robbie catching. Jack Kerns was umpiring. Kerns would never call a game on account of darkness if he could help it. We used to quarrel with him incessantly. On this day it really was getting too dark to play, but Kerns was obstinate. a
The pitchers in those days had a habit of sucking lemons between innings to keep their mouths from getting dry. Several of these discarded lemons were on the bench. Clarkson picked up one and started to the box to pitch another inning after Kerns had again refused to call the game. He left the -ball on the bench.
Taking a big wind up Clarkson whipped the lemon over the plate and Robbie caught it..
“Strike one!” Kerns called.
“Look what you called,” Robbie said, showing him. the lemon. ‘The ball’s on the bench.”
“Game called on account of darkness,” Kerns immediately announced. That was enough proof for Robbie had a great way in those days of arguing with an umpire quietly instead of showing him up before the crowd. It worked, too.
At the risk of being tiresome and garrulous I must tell one more.
CHAPTER XIV
The invisible ball—Folly of baiting the umpire—Joe Kelley and the hundred dollar watch.
In those old days at Washington when the games almost invariably ran into darkness on account of starting at four o’clock we had many amusing climaxes.
Recently I have heard an anecdote of a game in one of these so-called twilight léagues. As a matter of fact it was told of a Washington game several years ago.
A game had gone into early twilight and it was getting so dark that it was really almost impossible to see the ball. The shadow of the grandstand was on the diamond and there was danger of some player getting hurt. The umpire, though, was obstinate in refusing to call the game. I think there must have been a league understanding that all games at Wash- ington must be finished even if it actually got dark enough for the street lamps to be lighted.
On this day the pitcher in desperation called the catcher into conference. |
“Say,” he said, “you take the ball and hold it in your glove. I will simply wind up and go through the motions. It’s a cinch that umps can’t see whether there is a ball or not. After I make the motion you give the mitt a slap and show the ball. There’s a chance he’ll call a strike on this fellow and we’ll win.”
,, It was so arranged. There were two strikes on the 77
78 My Thirty Years in Baseball
batter at the time. He squared himself for a swing. The pitcher wound up and went through the motion of throwing to the plate. The catcher popped the mitt.
“Three strikes, you’re out,” called the umpire, though no ball had been pitched at all.
“Strike?” screamed the batter, “where do you get that stuff? You’re blind as a bat. Anybody could see that ball was two feet outside!”
Our Baltimore club had a reputation as umpire fighters. I guess we did make life pretty miserable for some of them. This was due largely to the never-die spirit that we had built. It was our second nature to fight for the smallest point and, as a consequence, the umpire often had to take the brunt of our wrath.
Fans often have said to me: “Why do ball players argue so long with an umpire over a decision? They know very well that he is not going to change it.”
Of course, we know that he is not going to change it but the ball player’s motive in arguing so insistently, aside from his natural disgruntled feelings, is to impress upon the umpire that the players are not going to let © anything slip by them. If he has made a mistake or if the decision is very close the chances are he will be more careful on the next one if he knows that he will be in for a ride.
I am not a believer in disputing with umpires until some player gets put out of the game. It may be news to some fans to know that at times I have announced tomy players that I would fine anyone $25 who got put out of a game for disputing with the
My Thirty Years in Baseball 79
umpire. There is nothing to be gained by losing a good player. To get put out is merely to weaken the club. Many games have been lost by players kicking them- selves out. There is a certain point at which they must stop. With a manager—a non-playing manager —it is different. If he gets put out the team can go right ahead with all its strength.
Still, it’s pretty difficult to change human nature by simple words of advice and statements of fact. If a ball player is high-strung—and all good players generally are—he can not entirely control himself when he thinks the umpire has given him the worst of it. The keen disappointment over failure to go through with a play, due to the decision, naturally arouses his temper. As between the two I would rather have a ball - player who fought for every point, even if wrong, than one who meekly submitted to everything without a word.
Back in the nineties we had a famous umpire known as “Watch” Burnham. He acquired this nickname through a run-in with Joe Kelley in a game at Balti- more. Joe will not forget that incident to his dying day.
The fans of Baltimore had presented Joe with a very valuable watch. Arriving at the club house one day he turned the watch over to the attendant to keep for him. After the players had gone out on the field Umpire Burnham came in to dress. The club house man had - to leave and he asked Mr. Burnham if he would keep Kelley’s watch until after the game, which he did.
In the third or fourth inning of the game Kelley was called out at second on a close play. It broke up our rally. Immediately there was a rush of players
80 My Thirty Years in Baseball
to argue with the umpire. We wrangled and wrangled for several minutes. Eventually Burnham got us all off but Kelley. Joe was beside himself in his dis- appointment. He fumed and fretted, following Burn- ham all over the diamond.
“Get out of here,”? Burnham finally ordered, “or I'll put you out of the game.”
“Put who out?” snarled Kelley, following him up.
“You—T'll put you out of the park.”
But Joe couldn’t be quieted. He continued to nag after Burnham. Finally the umpire pulled his watch.
*You’ve got just one minute to get back and play ball,” he told Kelley, “or I'll forfeit the game.”
“IT have, have I?” snapped Joe. With that he reached over and slapped the watch out of Burnham’s hand and kicked it across the infield.
“Now you will get out!” ordered Burnham. ‘That will cost you $25 and that watch will cost you a hundred.”
“What d’you mean a hundred?” said Kelley. ‘That Waterbury ain’t worth $3.”
‘Maybe not,” said Burnham, “but it’s yours.”
Ruefully it dawned on Kelley that he had kicked his prize watch, his present from the fans, in the dust. He picked it up and went right out of the park, and to a jeweler.
Ever after that incident Burnham was known as “Watch” Burnham.
This baiting of umpires is not nearly so popular nowadays as it was thirty years ago. One reason for that is that it is not so popular with the public.
My Thirty Years in Baseball 81
-The fans get tired of continual wrangling. Naturally they prefer to see a ball game, that being what they came for. Players often do not realize this. They think only of the game they are trying to win.
Umpire baiting and so-called rowdyism go together. Both are gradually disappearing from the game. The players themselves have helped to bring this about. There is no question that the average of intelligence is higher now than it was thirty years ago. Mental training and mental discipline do more than anything else to make a man hold his temper. With that also comes dignity. Any intelligent and well-trained man realizes that he is merely hurting himself to keep up rowdyism. It never gets him anywhere. It will be noted that much of the old baiting and rowdyism disappeared with the advent of the college men in numbers. At school they are trained to respect the authority of umpires, referees, and field judges. In baseball the training sticks with them. It is rarely that you see a college player in a long, senseless dispute with an | umpire.
Often, though, the umpires themselves are rowdies at heart.
CHAPTER XV
Baseball fans now better sportsmen—“Steve” Brodie and the heckler—Old “Well! Well !’’—The darkey rooter who asked to be lynched.
Tue rowdyism that prevailed in baseball in the earlier days was not entirely due to the players. Fans were just about as rough as the men on the field. In fact, it was their encouragement of rough tactics that egged the players on. An attack on the umpire often was a genuine treat for them.
Usually it was the spectators who gave the cue for a razzing of our opponents. To win at any cost was just as much a slogan of the fans as of the players. They would resort to all kinds of tricks to handicap the opposition. <A favorite practice, for-imstanté, ‘was for some enthusiast to sit in the stand with a small mirror and throw a reflection of sunlight into the batter’s eye. That was considered good sport and perfectly proper.
In this day and time a mati who did that would be frowned upon as a poor sportsman.
All over the country the sportsmanship of the spectator is improving. There is still room for m- provement, though. Thirty years ago the applauding of an opposing team was looked upon as little less
than treason. It is very common now for the stands 82
My Thirty Years in Baseball 83
to give the opposing team, even an individual player, an ovation.
In the larger cities, like New York, Boston and Chicago, applause is given just as freely to the enemy as to the home club. The old feeling of intense par- tisanship still exists in a few of the cities but it is rapidly disappearing. That, I think, is largely respon- sible for the increase in attendance. People appreciate the wonderful playing of certain stars and go out to see them regardless of what team they play on. For- merly the artistic work of these stars was seen only through a cloud of bitter partisanship. ‘There was a feeling that no man on the other team could do anything particularly meritorious. At any rate, such feats were never welcomed or appreciated.
The spectators are really an important part of the game, even though the players do not trust their loyalty any too much. Without the noisy support of the fans it is very difficult to start a rally sometimes. ,- A sudden burst of enthusiasm and encouragement puts the players on their toes. It is just like the establish- ment of morale and esprit in the army.
Our coaches to this day take advantage of that by urging the spectators on with a swing of the arm. It is rare that a home crowd fails to respond, especially for certain players with magnetic personality.
In their unbridled efforts at roasting the opponents, though, the fans often turned this weapon against certain players of the home club, if they were antago- nistic, or if they were falling down on their jobs.
The player has little protection from the insults of
84 My Thirty Years in Baseball
fans. He should be protected by the umpires and the police, but in lots of cases the police are sympa- thetic with the insulting spectator and will do nothing. Always I have maintained that ball players should be protected from insult the same as actors, but it is pretty difficult to work this out in a practical way.
In the old days every town had two or three fans noted for their trumpet-like voices who never missed a game. These fellows gained wide reputation for their wonderful voices and for their sayings. ‘They were a sort of institution. A fan was just as proud of such distinction as a ball player is of his batting average.
Walter “Steve” Brodie, our center fielder, was often the target for some of the shots from these foghorn fans. “Steve” had little imagination and his sense of humor was not as keen as it should have been.
“Steve” was going badly in Baltimore for two or three weeks. A certain fan who always sat in the right- field bleachers made a point of aiming sharp-edged darts at “Steve” every afternoon. Finally it got on his nerves, At the end of the fourth inning in a game with the Boston club—Beaneaters, they were called then | —we noticed “Steve” trudging along the edge of the right-field stand with a ladder. Having placed it against the wall leading up to the bleachers, “Steve” walked over to Willie Keeler.
“Say, Willie,” he whispered, “you cover right and center this inning and I'll go up and get that guy. I’ve got him spotted.”
It was with difficulty that we persuaded “Steve” that he could not leave center field uncovered—that
My Thirty Years in Baseball 85
an inning played with eight men would make the game illegal.
“Willie can play ’em both,” he insisted. ‘“He’s good as two. I’ve got to get that guy.”
A few days later “Steve” got to hitting again and the fan changed his tactics.
All the older fans of New York, it is likely, remember old “Well! Well!’ This man had a voice that could be heard a mile. Always at a critical moment, when the crowd was silent and tense, the booming voice would be heard: ‘Well! Well!”
It is very difficult to give an idea of how that sounded if you did not hear it. It always broke the tension— ~ brought a big laugh or applause.
Old “Well! Well!” was a historic institution in New York.
Down in Washington there was an old darkey of enormous stature—a regular giant—who used to sit in the far-away bleachers and make remarks about the game that kept the stands in an uproar of mirth and often threw the players off their stride. This darkey was witty as well as loud.
One day there was a pitcher in the box from Wash- ington who had come from the far South. I forget his name, but I know his first name was Jimmy.
During that week the newspapers were full of news and gossip about several lynchings down South. This old darkey rooter knew, of course, that the pitcher: came from the section where these so-called outrages had occurred. |
We had three men on bases with two out. The next
86 My Thirty Years in Baseball
batter swung at two curves and missed them. It was a tense moment for Washington. If the pitcher could get one more strike on the batter the side would be out and the game saved. There was a dead silence as the batter and pitcher stood there facing each other. You could have heard a pin drop.
Suddenly a loud, booming voice broke the silence.
“My Gawd, Mr. Jimmy,” called out the darkey rooter from the far-away bleachers, “all I asks is to git this one over and—and—you can lynch me to-night!’
The whole crowd broke into a roar of laughter. Both the pitcher and batter were so convulsed that the batter had to step out of the box and wait. It was fully a minute before Mister Jimmy could pitch the ball, And—he got the strike over.
In the deafening applause that followed we could hear the darkey’s voice:
“Yas, sir, I means it, Mister Jimmy, you kin jes® name the spot.”
CHAPTER XVI
The real mark of superiority in a ball team—Secret of Ty Cobb’s success—The “steal and slam” play—Mc- Graw’s specialty—Effect of the lively ball.
Ove Baltimore team of 1895 was even better than the one of 1894, the year of our first championship. It was practically the same team; that is, the mdi- vidual players were the same, but the machine was being perfected by more accurate adjustment of the various cogs. Each player knew the function of the other and did his part to bring about perfect coérdination.
Other clubs had good batters, good fielders, good catchers and good pitchers. It was very clear to us that an advantage would lie in the way we got the most out of our strength. We sat up at nights and talked these matters over. Every suggestien was given consideration, sometimes in the form of hot argument and sometimes in calm deliberation. We all had the same aim—to win—and we wanted it to be a victory of the team, not of the individual. | -
Obviously the secret of advantage was in base me ning—getting the larger number of runs out of a given number of hits. Right there is the mark of superiority of a ball club. That, I suppose, is true in any walk of life. |
The Orioles had speed and could hit. By constant experiment we developed a system of base running that soon became famous. At the same time we had to
develop a system of defense against base running by 87
88 My Thirty Years in Baseball
our opponents. I think I can truly say that we were pioneers in the present art of getting the most runs out of the smallest number of hits.
The hit and run play was our best form of attack, though we often varied it. If the first man up got on base and the next batter was a good place hitter, we were almost certain to signal, or give the sign, as ball players call it, for the hit and run. The runner would start from first base with the pitch and if the batter hit behind the runner he would go to third. If a play was made to get him at third the batter would go on to second. We always took chances. There is always an advantage in taking close chances. It puts the other fellow up against the worry about what to do. In other words, we would test his nerve instead of letting him test ours. That, incidentally, is one of the secrets of Ty Cobb’s success. He always tests the * other man’s nerve.
Of course, opponents got to know this system. Then it was that we had to vary it. Often we used a play that was called “steal and slam.” It was simply a variation of the hit and run. The man on first would take a lead -to actually steal the base. In that case, if the ball was a good one, the batter would slam at it. If the pitcher, expecting a hit and run, pitched out, the batter would simply let it go and take a chance on the runner stealing the base. In a majority of cases a fast runner would be safe. The batter then would be in a better ‘position than ever. With a runner on second he could take his time and wait for a good one. He could even sacrifice so as to advance the runner to third and have @ man on third with only one. out.
My Thirty Years in Baseball 89
I think we were among the first to dope out a scheme for preventing the traditional double steal when there are runners on first and third. In the early days, before my time even, it was almost certain that if the man on first started for second and a throw was made to get him the man on third would score. To this day that is a hard play to stop, but we manage to handle it rather successfully now.
Our first plan was to let the second Beeman: cover the bag. The shortstop would run in, crossing in front of second, and take the throw and whip the ball to the plate in time to get the runner from third. That was known as “the short throw.” It also had its disadvantage. Soon the runner on third got to expect the play. As a result he would run back to third and both would be safe, it being too late to get the man going to second.
The only way to beat that play successfully is to have a nervy second baseman or shortstop with a good arm. Simply let the throw from the catcher go through. If the second baseman is quick and accu- rate he can take the throw and then whip the ball back to the plate in time to catch the runner from third. If the man on third does not start then he can tag out the runner from first. To attempt this play, though, would be stupid unless the catcher and second baseman were both accurate throwers and able to get the ball away quickly. Amateurs could hardly do that.
In the last World’s Series both the Giants and Yanks made the play by taking a chance on the long throw. In a college game, where the players are not so expert, the short throw seems to work better.
90 My Thirty Years in Baseball
Another play, used merely as a surprise, is for the pitcher to intercept the throw and whip it right back to the catcher.
Still another system that we worked successfully, and it took Wilbert Robinson to do it, was for the catcher to make a bluff as if to throw to second. In- stead he turns and whips the ball to third, catching the runner off the bag. That play cannot be worked too often. Otherwise the other side will get wise and sign the man on third to stick to his bag. If he did so both runners would be safe. It is up to the nimble mind of the catcher to decide which play to make and act simultaneously with his thought.
It was not so much the originality of these various plays that counted with the Orioles. It was the perfec- tion with which they were carried out. We studied those things out at night and practiced them repeatedly in the mornings.
Though it never seemed to strike ball players that way, it is really easier to make a steal of third than of second. That was one of my long suits. It was rare that I was ever thrown out stealing third. In fact, no ball player ought to be thrown out. His eye should tell him when to start. His judgment of time and distance must be naturally accurate. In other words, he should never start for third until he has - sufficient lead. He is able to get that lead by being behind the pitcher. If he has the lead then there is - no excuse for his being thrown out. If he does miss, it is because his judgment is bad. |
Fred Merkle was not what one could call a very fast
My Thirty Years in Baseball 91
man on a sprint but he was an adept at stealing third base. He never started unless he had the right lead. Once started he rarely missed. And to steal third is of enormous advantage.
There is no doubt that the art of base running has fallen into decline due to the lively ball. That is one of the questions asked by those who have sent in filled-out questionnaires. ‘The answer is obvious.
Base running is really a matter of taking chances so as to profit by a succeeding hit. In the old days the single was to be expected. We didn’t look for doubles, triples and home runs as we do now.
Singles are also more frequent now because with a lively ball any kind of grounder is likely to shoot past an infielder for a clean hit. Fans, I believe, don’t realize how much harder the infielder’s job has become since the advent of the lively ball.
Now, instead of taking chances on base running stunts, I find that often there is more percentage in letting the runner hold his base and wait for the next man to hit one through. That accounts for the falling off in base stealing. The runner sees nothing to be gained by taking desperate chances when a long hit is likely to come any time and drive him around.
I am sorry to see the fine art of base running go into the discard, but it would be foolish to take chances that do not gain anything. In fact, the chances of the batter hitting one through are greater than those of the runner stealing the base.
There are other serious drawbacks to the lively ball.
CHAPTER XVII
*‘Bench”’ vs. “coach line” managers—How signals are given —Personal contact in spring training.
In the palmy days of the Orioles Ned Hanlon was one of the few managers who kept to the bench, never going on the field. Other managers like Johnny Ward were active players. Though I did not realize it then I am now convinced that the bench manager has a decided advantage. |
Instead of centering his thoughts on a particular play or an individual player, Hanlon was able to grasp the situation as a whole. That helped him immeasur- ably in building up his famous machine.
One of my correspondents, having noticed that I have stuck to the dugout for the past two seasons, writes to inquire if I ever intend to go on the field again, and would like to know why I changed my system.
What I have just said about Hanlon really answers that question. As long as I remain a manager I intend to stick to the dugout during all the championship games. I have found that my opportunities for general observation are much better. I see things on the field that would escape me if I was on the coaching lines. This is particularly true in the shifting of the outfield which often becomes necessary in the varying stages
of play on the diamond. 92
My Thirty Years in Baseball 93
While coaching at third base I often found myself so concentrated on watching and directing the runner that I overlooked chances for shifting the attack at the bat. I also was too far away to discuss the situ- ation with the men on the bench.
If one is acting as coach on the base lines he must concentrate on the efforts of the runner. Otherwise he would be no good as a coach. Therefore I find it much more advantageous to leave the coaching to others and direct the whole team from the bench.
Personally, I would prefer to be out on the field in uniform because I always had a liking for being in the midst of the fight. To get the best results, though, I find that it is better to get in the dugout and stay there.
It is much easier to give signals—or signs, as we call them—from the bench. Moreover, they are not so obvious to opposing players and to the spectators.
This system of signals, by the way, is not nearly so elaborate as the public seems to think. Three or four good signs are sufficient. A complicated system is worse than none at all. I have seen some so compli- cated that the players spent more time in trying to figure them out than in making the play.
Naturally, I have no intention of making my signals public. It has taken me too long to build them up. I will say, however, that my signs are very few and very simple. It wouldn’t make a bit of difference to me if the opponents should discover them. I could change them between innings. After all, there is little ad- vantage in stealing signals. The chances of getting crossed are greater than the advantage.
94 My Thirty Years in Baseball
Signs are worked in various ways. On the old Balti- more team, for instance, our signal for the hit and run was for the batter, upon reaching the plate, to rub the palm of his hand over the end of the bat, as if wiping off the dust. That meant for the runner to start on the next ball pitched.
An old signal for stealing a base was to pull the visor of the cap down over the eyes.
The signs from catcher to pitcher are very simple. For a curve ball the catcher can show two outstretched fingers in the palm of his mitt. For a fast ball he will show one. For a pitch-out he can slap the mitt with his whole hand. Practically all pitching signals are variations of that plan. On my club I give the sign _ to the catcher and he relays it to the pitcher.
It is likely that fans have often seen the pitcher shake his head to the catcher. That means that he does not agree with him as to what should be pitched. You do not see that on my clubs nowadays. I give the signals myself and the players know that what I say goes. Whether my judgment is good or bad, it is final. I take the responsibility for the mistake.
Some of the great pitchers give the signals them- selves. Matty often gave his own signals, also McGinnity, Wild Bill Donovan and many others. After a catcher has worked for a pitcher who is a real artist for any length of time he knows pretty well what is in the pitcher’s mind. In that case he gives the signals until the pitcher shakes his head.
There have been a few players who were very expert in stealing signals. The man in the best position to
FRANK BOWERMAN ROGER BRESNAHAN
LARRY DOYLE CIIRISTY MATHEWSON
My Thirty Years in Baseball | 95
do this is the runner who reaches second. He has a chance to look directly in the catcher’s mitt. As soon as he catches the system he in turn signals the batter. The old Athletics were supposed to be very clever at this. Eddie Collins could solve a system very quickly, and had to be watched all the time. Incidentally, it is not considered bad sportsmanship to steal signals when it is merely a question of crossing wits. In fact it is looked upon as quite an achievement.
The stealing of signals by mechanical means is looked upon as low and mean.. Many stories have gone the rounds of men sitting in the center-field bleachers and spotting the signals by aid of field glasses. At one _ time there was quite a sensation about a semaphore being used in one of the parks to tip off the signs to batters. I never knew if that were true. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe it to be any great advantage.
On one occasion when Al Bridwell had left us and was with another team he came to the Polo Grounds anxious to help his batting average. Nothing depended on the result of the games, The race was over.
Roger Bresnahan, who was catching, laughingly told Bridwell what was coming each time. Despite the sup- posed advantage of this knowledge, Bridwell couldn’t get a hit out of five times at bat.
Some managers seem to dote on mysterious and complicated signals. They often carry it too far. Instead of giving these signs by moving the cap, rub- bing the bat, or some such move, one of the Boston managers used to give them by certain expressions.
The most laughable one I ever knew was for the
96 My Thirty Years in Baseball
coach to yell out “Red Leary, the Bank Robber!” That was the cue for the runner to steal.
Getting back to bench management—I do not mean to say that I will never go on the field again during the training period. There it is absolutely necessary that the manager put on a uniform and work out with the players. To observe them carefully and ‘study their dispositions he must be right out among them.
In the spring, though I am getting a little heavier and older, I always put on a uniform and go through every practice with the players. They will testify to the fact that few of them ever beat me to the grounds. I try to get there first and stay until the last. It is rather difficult to make a young player try anything that he does not think the manager is willing to try.
The example to these ambitious youths means a lot. It peps them up to find that a manager twice their age is always on the ground ahead of them and going through the same work that they are expected to do.
It’s tough on the manager, too—make no mistake about that—but he’s got to. go through. |
Often I have been called a hard driver of men. I may be, but I never drive a young fellow any harder than I am willing to be driven myself.
The few weeks of spring training are the most important of all. I will touch on that in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XVII
Difference between major and minor leaguers—Drilling the recruit—Mastering the slide—A pitcher’s peculiar fault.
Prxrsons familiar with baseball—even our most faith- ful fans—would be astonished to know the difference between a minor league and a major league player. Just that a young man does well in a minor league and has a great record is no certain indication that he is of major league caliber. The line of demarcation is very plain to one who has made the game his profession.
“The difference between a major leaguer and @ minor leaguer,” I heard someone say one day, “is one step in going to first base.”
That is a pretty good definition, though, of course, it is not complete.
Often you see a minor leaguer who looks like a world beater and you have no doubt that he would be a star in the big league. That is true—sometimes. As a rule, though, you are thrown off your judgment by lack of comparison. With that particular minor league team the player really is wonderful. Put him in the line-up with a major league club and you will see the difference immediately. What you thought great speed then looks slow.
To your surprise you will often find that he is dvave
being thrown out at first by just one step. He lacks 97
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just that little amount in speed. It may be some other fault, like getting away from the plate; like facing pitching in a new form. That one little thing is missing. ‘That is what my friend meant by “one step” in getting to first.
The first thing I notice in youngsters when they report is their speed. If they have it I pay more atten- tion. If they haven’t—unless they should happen to be phenomenal hitters—they might as well go right on back.
Very few recruits from the minor league know any- thing about the art of hase running. As a rule they have been allowed to go along in a hodge-podge way and do the best they can. If they play well enough to win games that is considered sufficient. Very little attention is paid to perfecting their style—making them finished ball players.
Sliding is extremely important in baseball and I spend as much time on that, if not more, than any other branch of the training. Merely sliding into the bag is not sufficient. ‘They must know the hook slide, or “fall away,” and they must be able to do it either to the left or to the right.
The idea of this slide is for the player to go into the bag feet first and throw his body either to the left - or to the right as he falls so as to avoid being touched with the ball. The runner hooks one foot to the bag, which serves as pivot for his body to swing around.
If the runner does that slide perfectly the biggest. spot the baseman has to touch is the calf of his leg. He does not like to touch the spikes—cold steel.
My Thirty Years in Baseball 99
Sliding practice is a tough grind. Players do not like to do it because there is no excitement about it. Those who are determined, though, stick until they have mastered the trick.
We use a sandpit about five feet wide and ten feet long. In regular turn they go into this time and time again until all are tired out.
One of the most determined players I ever saw was “Baby Doll” Jacobson, now with the St. Louis club. He is a giant in stature and always was a good hitter. For a big man he is rather fast on the bases. He was a very poor slider, though, at first.
It was tough on a big fellow like him to hit that sand with his whole weight, but he stuck at it for hours at a time. Not once did I ever hear him whimper. In time he got where he could do the hook slide as well as any of them. You know, there is no longer a jolt to sliding when the trick is mastered. Men like George Burns and Jack Murray could slide all day and not be hurt. Murray, if you remember, was so adept in sliding that if no effort was made to touch him he would come right up on his feet, using the bag as a brace. Ty Cobb is another beautiful slider. As a matter of fact baseball has improved so much in the finer details that a major leaguer has to be a good slider to hold his own in the hot competition.
Half the battle in training players in spring practice is to be able yourself to do the thing that you want them to grasp. Nothing so impresses your pupils, old or young, with the correctness of your ideas and system as personal demonstration. When a man is past forty-
100 My Thirty Years in Baseball
five this trick of sliding into a sandpit is not easy. I often illustrate by doing it myself, just the same. In my days on the Orioles I was an excellent slider. That was one of my strongest points. Knowing the trick so well I can get away with it even with my increasing weight. Many nights, though, I go to bed a very sore- muscled man. |
It is much easier and more enjoyable to direct bat- ting practice. No ball player ever loses his love for smacking a baseball on the nose. The feel of it is just as satisfying to me now as it was thirty years ago. I have never lost my “eye” and can judge a ball. just about as accurately to-day as I ever could. Batting is not such a jolt to the system and [I find little difficulty in holding my own with the young fellows in that department of the game. I usually take part in every practice game where we choose up and play the regulars against the rookies, I play with the rookies, of course, and we give the regulars some pretty tough battles.
In these practice games I have an excellent chance to observe the spirit of the many players. If they’ve got pep it comes out. If they haven’t, the lack is so apparent that everybody notices it.
My pitchers are always my first study, the catchers and fielders being taken up later. There are so many boxmen and some so green that to size them up intelli- gently and fairly isa long and difficult task. A man- ager can not afford to make a mistake. Unless he is extremely watchful he is likely to overlook some young fellow with great possibilities.
There are times, too, when some of my old pitchers have not fully grasped our system until well in the
My Thirty ¥ ears in «; Baseball 101 ee
championship season. It 3 is es that this system 18 complicated. It is usually due to these pitchers having so much to unlearn. They have been permitted to get set in bad habits and some of them never entirely get out of them. The most trouble, naturally, is with the rookie boxmen. The majority of them, according . to my experience, have not been coached even in the first rudiments of the science. They have been allowed to run wild—go as they please—by their former bosses, who permitted them to work out their own salvation. If they happen to get by with a few victories apparently that has been considered good enough. Faults are
passed over. - To give you an idea—Louis Drucke came to us a much touted rookie. He certainly seemed to have everything. In the regular season we suddenly dis- covered that the opposing teams could run bases on him as they pleased. A runner on first would know exactly, it seemed, when Drucke was going to throw to first or pitch to the plate. They called the turn invariably. By close observation we soon found the fault. He had a peculiar habit of lifting his right heel from the ground just before he pitched to the plate. He did not do this when he was going to throw to first. The other players had discovered it and were running © wild on him. As soon as he corrected the fault his work improved one hundred per cent. That little mannerism probably never would have been discovered in the minor leagues. Our opponents in the major leagues, though, spotted it in a week.
Pitching faults are numerous. I will take up one more and then get back to our Oriole days.
CHAPTER XIX -
Temperaments of rookie twirlers—The trouble with Rube Marquard—When is a curve not a curve?—Exit the “spitball.”
THE most difficult problem a manager confronts in building up a pitching staff is the rookie twirlers, with great natural ability and dozens of faults, who have made a reputation in the minor leagues. They must have done something to get promoted. As a result of this many of them imagine that they know it all. And you mustn’t lose sight of the fact that youth is youth. ‘These players are mere boys with very little development of their reasoning powers—simply harum- scarum kids.
You can readily understand how easy it is to turn the head of a boy of nineteen by newspaper publicity and public admiration. To escape that a young man must be unusually level-headed. And if he is too serious and reflective he is lacking in pep and spirit. 4
This problem, I imagine, confronts executives in many lines of business as well as in sport.
It is not at all uncommon for these self-satisfied young men to resent openly any coaching intended to remedy their faults. They don’t think they have any.
This type of young pitcher is quickly spotted by his new manager and the coaches. Then our problem begins. We don’t want to kill his self-confident spirit,
and at the same time he must be reformed to be of a 102
My Thirty Years in Baseball 103
any value to himself or to the club. Wilbert Robinson had a great knack of handling these young men. Jen- nings also seems to understand them. They must be made to like their instructors and to have confidence in them. If we get that far there is a chance.
Many of them, though, prove utterly impossible. The only thing is to cast a boy like that aside, much to his surprise and indignation. On his return to his home or old club he makes it clear to his friends and to the newspaper men that he was not given a fair trial. And he goes right along with his faults, remaining in the minor leagues until the end of his playing days. He never understands.
Most of the rookies are willing and anxious to be taught. They can be developed, and it is from pitchers of this type that we get our great stars.
A famous pitcher with whom we had great difficulty at first was Rube Marquard. Apparently he had every- thing. In the American Association he was almost unbeatable. It was on that record that we paid $11,000 for him. I still think that the immense amount of publicity following that deal in which Rube got the sobriquet of the “Eleven thousand dollar beauty” inter- fered a lot with his progress. I don’t mean to say that Marquard was swell-headed. He was anything but that. It was nervousness over living up to a great reputation that seemed to upset him.
Wilbert Robinson was our coach then and I turned Rube over to him. Marquard got very fond of Robbie and by degrees the old coach was able to work him out of his faults. |
104 My Thirty Years in Baseball
His main fault was of putting the ball over the plate with nothing on it, as we say. Rube had trouble with his control. After whipping a few curves—and he had a beauty—and some fast ones around the batter, he would find himself in the hole. So fearful was he of not being able to get the ball over when it came down to two- and-three that he would simply toss it over as straight as a string. In other words, he had so much stuff that he was afraid to use it.
Obviously the only thing to do was to perfect his control so that he would not get in that hole. He worked very hard and under constant coaching finally settled down.” Instead of being afraid to turn one loose he got to where he could even play the corners with either his curve or his fast one. When right Mar- quard’s fast ball had a peculiar jump to it that was a complete baffler to opponents. It was in the use of this ball at the right moment that he won his nineteen straight games.
The point I try to make is that if, Marquard had been of the swell-head type, who refuse to recognize faults, he would never have been a successful big league pitcher. I have seen many pitchers with as much natural stuff as Marquard had who never got past the training period. |
Very few of our present-day fans remember Amos Rusie. He was a wonderful pitcher and his greatness lay exactly in the spot where Marquard’s early fault developed.
Rusie had tremendous speed and a wonderful curve. He could throw a curve ball almost as fast as his
|
My Thirty Years in Baseball 105
regular fast one. Not only that, but he had the nerve and confidence to whip his curve over the plate when in a hole. As a rule, pitchers do not dare try a curve when the count is two strikes and three balls. They’ve got to get the ball over, and to be sure they usually use their fast one. ._Rusie had no such mis- givings. If in such a hole he would deliberately pitch his curve ball with every ounce of steam he could put on it. Usually he stood batters on their ears by that kind of pitching.
Rusie, by the way, is now assistant watchman at the Polo Grounds. Dan Brouthers-is the other watch- man. Often we get together and talk over old times. Always I have had a deep sentiment for veteran ball players, and I try to get them a good place any time there is a chance.
For the enlightenment of those who, perhaps, are not so familiar with baseball terms I had better explain that in the lingo of ordinary pitching we recognize only two terms—a. fast ball and a curve.
All balls that are twisted out of their natural course are called curves. The outcurve, the drop, down shoot, and so on, are simply a curve ball to the professional player. To us there is no such thing as an incurve. That is what we call a fast ball. Of course, I am assum- ing that the pitcher is right-handed. A so-called incurve is nothing more than a ball thrown in a natural way with great force. A ball thus thrown will naturally curve inward, to a certain extent. If it takes a sharp jump, due to the speed, we call that the “break on his fast one.” In other words, the inshoot is the natural
106 My Thirty Years in Baseball
course of a ball. A curve is unnatural, due to a reverse twist being put on it.
So, when you hear ball players speak of a curve or a fast one you will understand that “curve” means any- thing that takes an unnatural bend. One thrown naturally and with great speed is a fast one.
Of course there is the slow ball, which comes under a distinct classification, as does the spitball. The latter is not allowed except by pitchers who were already using it at the time the rule was passed to abolish it. Every ‘team has to register its spitball pitchers and notify the league heads in advance of the season. Unless a man is so registered as a “spitter” he is not permitted to pitch that ball. In time all of them will disappear. Youngsters are not allowed to use that freak of the pitching art and the spitball itself will soon become obsolete.
Personally, I never like the spitball because I think it affects the arm of the man who uses it. Just the same, I have had some spitball pitchers, Bugs Ray- mond was one of the best in the world. Mathewson could pitch the spitter, but rarely used it in a game. He never considered it part of his equipment.
Thirty years ago we had some masterful pitchers. In the next chapter I want to discuss some of them in connection with the Temple Cup Series.
CHAPTER XX
Origin of the World’s Series idea—The spree that cost the Orioles the championship—Trouble over series receipts —First intimation of “fixed” games.
Tue first germ of the World’s Series idea—the suggestion that led to the winding up of the baseball season with a classic climax—came from William Tem- ple, a prominent citizen of Pittsburgh and a baseball enthusiast of the highest and most helpful type. It came at the end of the 1894 season when the Orioles made their first sensational win of the National League championship.
For several years at the end of each championship fight there had been wide discussions as to whether the best club had won the flag. Obviously it had. Still, there were hundreds who held the belief that if the second team had got a Beene start, for instance, it would have won.
Mr. Temple suggested that the first and second teams play a series of games to determine which was the superior club at the moment. As a trophy to the win- ner he gave a beautiful and expensive cup, known as the Temple Cup. As a consequence the post-season classic took the name of the Temple Cup Series.
This was regarded as a bit of genuine sportsmanship and four series were played—1894-5-6-7. While these
games were fully as interesting at the time as the 107
108 My Thirty Years in Baseball
World’s Series affairs are now, it dawned upon baseball people then that such a test was unfair to the winner of the championship. It took the edge off a victory that had been the result of a whole season’s hard work. To permit a short series to rob a club of such glory did not seem right. There was a lapse of several years before another series was played. After Brooklyn and Pittsburgh fought it out in 1900, Brooklyn winning, the Temple Cup Series idea was abandoned. The cup was given to Joe McGinnity by the players. I have heard that he still has it.
The New York Giants took the first cup from us in 1894 in four straight games. This rather took the edge off the enthusiasm of Baltimore fans and somewhat dulled the luster of our capture of the season’s pennant.
At that, we managed to win the Temple Cup the next three times, though we did not win the pennant in 1897. Our post-season victory took the limelight away from the championship Boston team just as the Giants had hurt us in 1894, |
I shall never forget that first Temple Cup series. To be sure that the Giants finished second so as to get a chance at the cup, Jouett Meekin and Amos ‘Rusie pitched every other game for New York for the last month of the season. Can you imagine pitchers — going through a strain like that in this day and time?
Not only that, but they stepped right in and pitched all the games against us in the series, winning the famous cup in four straight games, each winning two.
New York rooters came down on us in a great flurry. Such old fans as De Wolf Hopper, Digby Bell, Nick
My Thirty Years in Baseball 109
.
Engel and Harry Stevens went crazy with delight over the success of Johnny Ward and his Giants. After that series Ward retired from baseball, by the way, leaving a wonderful record behind him, due to his work with the Providence and New York clubs for sixteen years.
John Ward was an outstanding character in the game and his personality was admired by fans and baseball people throughout the country. He became a lawyer, and has been my personal attorney for years. Though we had many scraps on the ball field he was an oppo- nent that one could warm up to. He had both fighting spirit and rare playing ability.
While Jouett Meekin and Amos Rusie pitched won- derful ball in that first series they could not have won but for the great support given them by the Giant play- ers, especially Ward, Mike Tiernan and Eddie Burke.
I do not offer this as an alibi but, to tell the truth, Hughey Jennings and myself were about the only Oriole players who were in proper condition to put up. the kind of game we had shown all season. We were very young and knew little of the joys of all-night affairs. At that time, and for a long time after, neither of us had ever taken a drink. I had never smoked. In fact, I have never smoked to this day.
But the Baltimore fans and others were determined to show how much they appreciated what we had done to bring a championship to the old town. With all the banquets and other affairs arranged to celebrate our winning of the flag—and several days elapsing before beginning the big series—it is not to be wondered at that
110 My Thirty Years in Baseball
most of the boys were knocked out of their stride. Naturally, the players thought they were entitled to break training for a short spell. So did their Baltimore friends, evidently.
_ Just as in the case now the receipts for the Temple Cup Series were divided among the players. Right away considerable feeling was aroused among the play- ers over the discovery that several members of the con- testing clubs had agreed to pool their shares and divide fifty-fifty, no matter which side won. In other words, some of the players had decided not to take a chance.
Quite a few of the victorious team, after having made such a despicable agreement, refused to abide by it. There were many quarrels over this and the friction lasted for years. In fact, this feeling lasted as long as the welchers continued in baseball.
I had no particular sympathy with either side to the argument—it was a degrading arrangement at all times—but I took particular pains to let the welching players know what I thought of them by verbal shot during and after every game that I played with them. So did the rest of the Orioles. Still the Giants refused to loosen up and settle. After so much talk about it I don’t believe our players would have accepted the money anyway.
Jennings and I returned to St. Bonaventure College when the Temple Cup Series was over and remained there all winter. Night after night we thrashed over our defeat at the hands of the Giants, between study hours. It soon became an obsession with us to win the pennant again so that we could have one more crack
My Thirty Years in Baseball 111
at them. We were determined that we would not lose another series through lack of condition of any of the players, even if both of us had to constitute ourselves policemen.
The next spring, 1895, the question that is always uppermost in a ball player’s mind after winning a pen- nant arose. We wanted more money. We had many arguments with Manager Hanlon over the salary ques- tion, but finally all came to terms and we reported to the training camp, which had been changed from New Orleans to Macon, Ga. Due to our school work we were ten days late, but both were in splendid condition, almost fit and ready for the championship season to begin right then.
The whole team went at the training conscientiously. There were no laggards. Never was there such a bunch out for morning practice. That post-season defeat at the hands of the Giants had taught everybody a lesson.
Our success of the previous year in winning the pen- nant by united and aggressive methods had been a last- ing inspiration. Confidence oozed out of us. We knew that we had to be in the best possible condition, though, and that became our main aim.
As a result of this strenuous work and determination we had no treuble in winning the 1895 pennant.
The Boston club was the contender and we played
them for the cup. It was just before that series that x
I heard for the first time in my life rumors of ball games -
having been fixed. ‘Though I did not believe it, the mere idea sort of sickened me.
CHAPTER XXI
Gambling nearly kills the national sport—McGraw makes base-stealing record—An umpire’s compliment—Players’ share of gate receipts.
Towarp the end of the 1895 season it became evident that the Orioles had won the pennant ; that the Beaneat- ers, as the Boston club was then known, would be our opponents in the Temple Cup Series. Almost imme- diately ugly rumors began to circulate around Boston.
One of the newspapers hinted that all was not right. ‘That was enough. Scandalmongers all over the city were whispering that the big series had been fixed. There was considerable gambling among the fans at that time and to repeat a rumor was almost the same as stating a fact.
These damaging rumors, which were absolutely un-
true, started over some dissatisfaction about the dis- tribution of tickets. If I remember right, it had some- ‘ thing to do with the number of free tickets. Anyway, “trouble started. There was just as much excitement \ then over the Temple Cup Series tickets as there is now ‘over the World’s Series—proportionately so, I mean. Though we have had no rumors about post-season games being fixed since the World’s Series idea began— excepting the Black Sox scandal of 1919—~you will remember that for several years a sensation was started every fall about ticket speculation. It all comes from the demand for seats being greater than the supply.
Any time 100,000 people want to get into a park that 112
My Thirty Years in Baseball 118
holds but 25,000 a percentage of the public is going to be discontented and disgruntled. There is no way out of it. Peevishness is but natural.
Incidentally, gambling is the one thing that will al- ways ruin baseball if given half a chance. Baseball is different from other forms of professional sport. It does not need betting to add spice to it, like horse rac- ing, for instance. In fact those who really enjoy the game most—get worked up over it—seldom bet.
At any rate, the situation became so bad in Boston that several of the remaining championship games were transferred to Hampden Park, at Springfield, Mass. The attendance in Boston had fallen off to almost noth- ing. This park at Springfield, by the way, had been used for baseball since the days of the old “Massa- chusetts game.” That game—something like rounders —was a forerunner of the present baseball. The fielders could throw the ball at a base runner and put him out that way. That wouldn’t be such a bad idea to-day, especially if a manager was permitted to throw at a player who had just pulled a bone play.
The games at Springfield did fairly well—drew better than at Boston during those dreary ane at the finish. We walked in with the pennant.
That season I batted well and stole serteacees bases. I am told by the statisticians that, based on the number of chances, that base-stealing record would have beaten every player before or since. That season was featured by the really wonderful playing of Jennings, Keeler and Kelley. They were all hard hitters, and when it came to baseball brains no player ever had any-
thing on them.
114 My Thirty Years in Baseball
Another great factor in our victory was Wilbert Robinson. He was smart as a whip behind the bat and, my! how he could “bust that old apple,” as the players say to-day.
Robbie was of immense service in salving the umpires behind the plate. He had a way of making them like him. But for his diplomacy and soft soap we should have got the worst of many a close decision. I was con- tinually pecking at them from third and it took the combined efforts of Robbie and Manager Hanlon to keep me from getting put out of the games, I was in. hot water continually, it seemed. Maybe I deserved it. Anyway, Robbie was the sugar and I the vinegar of the club.
To help me in preparing these memoirs, a friend has just sent me a lot of newspaper clippings of those days. One will give you an idea. It is an interview given to a paper by Arlie Latham, who was then umpiring. We had just protested his working in our games:
“Robbie and McGraw are working both ends against the middle. Robbie sleeps in a salve factory and Mc- Graw eats gunpowder every morning for breakfast | and washes it down with warm blood. When a poor, inoffensive and well-meaning umpire appears in Balti- more Robinson meets him at the plate, shakes hands with him and remarks: ‘I’m glad you came over. They tell me you’ve been doing great work out West. The boys say you are the best in the business, and between us I’m glad you are here. These are pretty tough games, old man, and that other fellow we had here was a little to the bad. Of course, he’s a good fellow, but I’m glad you are here. You want to watch this pitcher
My Thirty Years in Baseball 115
we are trying to-day. Great lad—keep your eye on that outside corner. He gets lots of *°em just on the edge. The other fellow missed ’em.’
“And all this time,”? concludes Latham. “McGraw is barking and snapping around the umpire’s heels and threatening to bite him. If one system doesn’t work, the other one usually does. The Orioles are not getting much the worst of anything.”
Not a man on our club ever believed that we were beaten, regardless of the score. In one game in Boston the Beaneaters had us 13 to 0 up to the ninth inning. Jack Stivetts was in the box. We went in for our half and knocked in fourteen runs. That was the greatest rally I ever hope to see.
We met the Beaneaters in the Temple Cup Series and won out with comparative ease. We were in the pink of condition this time. The former experience had warned us against taking part in too many dinners and other forms of celebration in Baltimore.
The Orioles played in two more Temple Cup Series after that but we never lost again.
A comparison of the gate receipts, the winning shares and so on of those days with the more recent World’s Series gives a pretty fair idea of the steady growth of baseball.
That you may get this clear in your minds—TI ad- dress the remark to the younger fans—you must bear in mind that we had no National Commission in those days and we did not play under the rules and regula- tions provided in the National Agreement of 1905.
The players got a larger share of the money than now. No part of the money went to a commission and for
116 My Thirty Years in Baseball
other purposes, as is the case under the present ar- rangement. The players got practically all the receipts and they were divided, 60 per cent. going to the winners.
In the last Temple Cup Series in which I participated —the one of 1897—my winning share was around $900. I forget just how many players came in for a share, but there were not nearly so many as to-day. The at- tendance at the games averaged around six or seven thousand.
In the first series—that of.1905—-played under the rules provided in the National Agreement, our New York team ‘met the Philadelphia Athletics and won. The winning players each got $1,100. The attendance at each game, however, was more than twenty thousand.
In 1921, when we met the Yanks at the Polo Grounds all records were broken. That, though, was a nine game series. The winning players each got $5,400. The attendance was pretty close to 40,000 the biggest - day.
In 1922, the last series, the winning players got $4,400 each. But that was a seven game series and they got a share of the receipts for four games only. | In this last series, by the way, the club owners made hardly enough to pay expenses. The fact that we won in four straight games robbed the club owners of a chance. That, by the way, is quite a tribute to the honesty of baseball. By dragging the series along a lot of money could have been made. Later on I will explain why we didn’t play a series in 1904,
Not realizing that my main troubles in baseball were about to begin I had a great time that winter of 1897- 1898.
CHAPTER XXII
The Orioles planted in Brooklyn—McGraw a manager— Bucking the syndicate—McGinnity comes to Baltimore.
Dvurine the winter of 1898-99 the players of the Baltimore club and the fans of Baltimore were amazed to find that the whole Oriole team had been bodily trans- ferred to Brooklyn. It was the biggest sensation that baseball had yet known. The first resentment at what is still called syndicate baseball went all over the coun- try. The people of baseball were indignant.
Manager Ned Hanlon had been transferred to Brook- lyn and the whole club was to go with him. Von der Host, owner of the Baltimore club, had become also part owner of Brooklyn. His partner was a man named Abell.
Baltimore was never a city to support a loser. When it was seen that we should lose the pennant in 1898 the attendance fell off considerably. This prompted the shift to Brooklyn. You can well imagine the feelings of the fans of Baltimore.
The scheme was for the players of the Brooklyn and Baltimore clubs to be pooled. Hanlon was to take the best for Brooklyn and the “culls,” as we called the mediocre or slipping players then, were to go to Baltimore.
Keeler, Jennings, Kelley—all the best players of the Orioles—were told to report to Brooklyn. Robinson and myself refused to go. We were in business in Balti-
more at the time and thought it unfair to be yanked 117
118 My Thirty Years in Baseball
away like that. There was much argument, much hem- ming and hawing, but we stuck it out. We would not
Finally it was decided that we could stay in Balti- more and that I could be the manager, with Robinson as main assistant. He had been captain of the Orioles and would centinue in that capacity.
That is how I got my start as a manager in 1899. That is when my troubles began. I quickly noted the difference between merely playing and running a ball club. But I was determined to make good, even though I was quite young. I was but twenty-five years old.
I had one great advantage that nobody had figured on—my memory. That has been my greatest asset. I knew and remembered the weakness and strength of nearly every player in the big league. This good mem- ory, by the way, is a sort of gift to me. I never doped out any system of remembering things. I guess it 1s due to my intense concentration on anything in which I am interested. To give you an idea of how much I: depend upon it—I am using all the names and dates in these memoirs from memory. I never keep records or notes. |
This memory was to come in handy for me more in di- recting the game on the field than in construction.
I set about to organize a club as best I could. After a few months this was my batting order: McGraw, 3b; Holmes, lf; Keister, 2b; Lachance, 1b; Brodie, cf; Sheckard, rf; Magoon, ss; Robinson, c; Hill, p.
I happen to recall that line-up for a particular game against the Cincinnati Reds because we were beat- en out in the ninth inning, the game winding up in a
M y Thirty Years in Baseball 119
scrap in which Tommy Corcoran, Keister, mpCG mI and [I figured.
As soon as possible that year I made a trade by which I got Gene Demontreville from Chicago. Later I got Jennings back.
In this transfer of Demontreville there was an amus- ing incident. The scorers and players had shortened Demontreville’s name to Demont. We all called him that.
I telegraphed him $100 to pay for his ticket from Chicago to Baltimore. There was much excitement over this deal and we tried to keep the details quiet un- til it was all over. Demontreville was told to get his ticket without saying anything.
Gene went down to the telegraph office and inquired: ‘Have you got a $100 money order here for Eugene Demontreville?”
‘‘We have not,” replied the cashier. “We’ve got a hundred dollars here for Gene Demont—but no Demon- treville.”
‘“That’s me,” declared Gene. “I am the same fellow.”
But the cashier wouldn’t stand for it. Though Gene argued and persuaded, explaining how baseball people had changed his name, there was nothing doing.
As a result the money had to be wired back to Balti- more and another order sent to Demontreville.
To get Demont I had to trade Magoon for him. That, I think, was my first real good trade. Then trouble came.
Manager Hanlon, in Brooklyn, got wind of what I was doing. He promptly announced that Jennings would be traded to Baltimore for Demontreville and
120 My Thirty Years in Baseball
Jerry Nops, one of our best pitchers. In this Von der Host, the owner of both clubs, backed him up. I was up against it. It eventually turned out that I kept Jennings and later held on to Demontreville.
To give you an idea of the excitement over deals in those days I reprint a clipping from one of the Balti- more papers: “Jennings was not a gift of the kind- hearted Mr. Hanlon. Manager Eddie knows a trick worth two of that kind-hearted dodge. Demontreville and Nops go to Brooklyn for Jennings and the wise men navigating the Brooklyn and Baltimore syndicate explain it in a way that would be interesting to a nov- elist seeking a new plot. |
‘“‘As the magnates tell it Von der Host was trying to get Jennings without McGraw knowing it; McGraw was trying to trade Magoon for Demont without Von der Host knowing it, and Hanlon was trying to get Nops and Demont without anybody knowing it.”
Anyway, I went west with Nops and Jennings on the club. Nops, by the way, was one of the greatest left- handed pitchers of his day. Finally, I persuaded Von der Host to let me keep Demontreville. But I will not go into the many complications of that trade which kept baseball fans stirred up for quite a while.
My really good constructive work of that first sea- son as a manager was to develop Joe McGinnity and Jimmy Sheckard. They had been tossed to me from Brooklyn. Seeing that I was not to get the best of any transfers I decided the best thing to do was to get the best out of what came to me.
Joe McGinnity was one of the best pitchers I ever knew. He had all kinds of stuff—natural ability—
My Thirty Years in Baseball 121
but his greatness lay in his aptitude for remembering the weakness of opposing batters. In a pinch he knew what to do and how todo it. I never knew him to make the same mistake twice.
As old ball players will tell you, I had a penchant for remembering what kinds of balls certain batters had hit best in past games. That has been my biggest aid in all my years in baseball. I have had to do the remem- bering for most of my clubs. It is rare that a man comes along like McGinnity or Mathewson, who will remember with me. __
With McGinnity and the other pitchers I discussed these things daily. We had a pretty good idea of what we would do, but most of them would forget. McGinnity did not forget. That made him a great pitcher—his faculty for avoiding a mistake in judgment the second time.
You may be surprised to know that I have had many catchers who could not remember their instructions from the bench to the plate.
Starting with this collective determination to build up a team and win we made a great showing that first year, bringing the Baltimore Club right up in the race. It was still a twelve club league and our unexpected spurt was widely discussed. As a result I had several offers from other clubs. My services were in demand as manager. Among the clubs that tried to get me was Chicago. Von der Host and Hanlon declared, how- ever, that they would not sell my contract for $10,000 and gave this out to the papers.
I was eager for further progress—things were brew-
ing.
CHAPTER XXIII
Cutting down the big league—McGraw sold to St. Louis— Playing baseball and the ponies.
Roumsuines of a coming upheaval in baseball—an upheaval that was to really change the baseball map— began to be heard in 1899, the year I managed the Orioles. Though we did not realize it for some time, that was to be the end of the old Orioles, the team that now lives in history.
It is not my intention to deal much with the govern- ment of the game, historically, in these memoirs. But to make clear the exciting incidents of that year and the next it is necessary that I give a little background. My purpose in the rest of the story is to be personal and incidental.
As I have said, several offers had been made for me during our lively season of 1899. At first Ned Hanlon and Harry Von der Host refused to consider any such offers. Soon their attitude changed. There were
rumors of the National League being cut down to eight__
clubs. This meant, of course, that Baltimore would be one of the clubs to be dropped. Business had fallen off because of the Spanish-American War, and it was a struggle to make both ends meet. Though it was
repeatedly denied, the players had good reason to be-
lieve that the big cut was coming.
The league heads hesitated to act openly for fear 122
My Thirty Years in Baseball 123
the new American League, then expanding, would grab the territory. We played the season out but the owners knew that Baltimore was doomed. Obviously the only way to escape a heavy loss was to sell the players be- fore the balloon burst.
I was not surprised, therefore, when notified during the winter that Robinson and myself had been sold to. the St. Louis club. I never knew