The catcher—His importance in the game—Directing the play—Famous
batteries of other days—How the catcher can make or break a
pitcher—Handling high fouls the catcher’s toughest job—John Grabowski’s
great play that resulted in a change of rules—Holding men on bases—The
snap throw to first—Signs and what they are—Ray Schalk the master.
The most important player in the ball game, so far as keeping the team
working together and directing defensive play is concerned, is the
fellow with the mask and the protector back of the plate.
You don’t hear a lot about the catcher. Mostly the cheers are for the
other fellows. By the very nature of his job he can’t be sensational.
Just a hard-working, plugging ball player. But without a good catcher
it is mighty tough going, believe me.
Two things in particular make the catcher a man to look out for. In
the first place he’s the one who directs the pitching, giving signals
to the pitcher as what to pitch and when, and where. Of course with an
old, experienced pitcher this isn’t so important. For the old-timer,
having had a chance to study the hitters, knows as much about them
as the catcher himself. And frequently the pitcher will “shake off” the
catcher’s signal. That is, he will change the catcher’s signal for one
of his own.
But with kid pitchers the catcher is the works. He can make them or
break them. Catchers like Johnny Kling of the old Cubs, Roger Bresnahan
of the Giants, Muddy Ruel of the Senators and Ray Schalk of the White
Sox deserve as much credit as the pitcher himself for a well pitched
game. Fellows like that do more than simply catch the balls that are
thrown by the pitcher. They pitch right along with him, steadying him
when he needs steadying, boosting him up when encouragement is needed,
and making his way easy as possible always. That’s real catching when a
man does that.
Of course there are some ball clubs where the work of the catcher is
entirely mechanical. The Giants are an example of that. John McGraw has
long held that he would do the thinking for his ball club. He gives the
signs and calls for the pitch. His catchers do what they’re told, and
call for the pitch as McGraw himself signals. Sometimes it works out
well and sometimes not so well. But Mac is perfectly frank about it.
“You do as I tell you, and I’ll take the blame for whatever
happens,” he says. And he does it, too!
In the world series between the Yankees and the Giants Snyder, Gowdy
and Smith, who did the Giant catching, used to turn toward the bench
for their signal on every pitch. We used to kid them about it a lot—but
Mac never let up. Though it did seem to me he gave Gowdy a little more
leeway than he did the other two. Now and then Hank would be permitted
to do his own thinking. But then Gowdy was an old, experienced man who
knew the McGraw system from top to bottom.
Ordinarily though, the catcher is given free rein and is responsible
for the signs and the pitches. On our club for instance, Hug now and
then in a tight place will give the catcher instructions—but for the
most part he lets them play their own game.
The second important job of the catcher outside his mechanical work
is to boss the defensive play. A lot of people have never realized
it, but if you take a good look at the diamond you’ll realize a
peculiar thing. That is this. The catcher is the only man on the club
so placed that every single play occurs before his eyes. The pitcher
has five men working behind his back. The second baseman can’t see
the outfield. The first baseman can’t see right and center field
and he has only a partial view of left field and third base. But the
catcher, by reason of his position facing the play, sees them all—and
is in a position to direct the play of the others.
♦ “mechancal” replaced with “mechanical”
On an infield fly it is the catcher who calls the man to take the ball;
on an attempted steal it is the catcher who is in position to warn the
others. He has to have his eyes open all the time, and a team that has
poor catching is handicapped from the start.
So far as a pitcher is concerned, good catching means everything to
him and poor catching means his ruination. That’s true even of veteran
pitchers. No matter how much natural stuff a pitcher may have he can’t
pitch well unless he has absolute confidence in his catcher. And
certain pitchers and catchers work together so long that the pitcher is
lost pitching to any other man. Mathewson and Myers were such a team.
Matty always pitched to Myers and despite the fact that Bresnahan was
a great catcher, he and Matty never were able to team up successfully.
Roger on the other hand could handle Bugs Raymond like a whiz, while
Myers was lost with Bugs’ pitching.
Baseball history is full of famous batteries. Brown and Kling
of the old Cubs were a great pair. So were Walsh and Sullivan of the
famous old Hitless Wonder White Sox. Lou Criger and Cy Young worked
together perfectly for a good many years, and Johnson and Street rode
to fame together with Walter’s fast one. After Gabby left the big
leagues Eddie Ainsmith took up the burden and for a long time it was
Johnson and Ainsmith who figured in the announcement of the batteries.
I almost called it the umpire’s announcement. It’s a funny thing
how people accept a false statement as fact, simply because of long
repetition. Even the newspaper boys tell in their yarns about the
umpire announcing the battery. As a matter of fact the umpire doesn’t
announce the batteries at all. A long time ago the umpires were the
announcers, but in the last fifteen years the various clubs have
employed professional announcers to do this work. Anyway, the fans
still talk about the umpires announcing the batteries and I suppose
they always will.
Once they get an idea they cling to it. For instance when Walter
Johnson broke into the big leagues he was a fast ball pitcher and even
to this day Walter’s fast one is the subject of many a baseball powwow.
As matter of fact, Walter’s fast one has been slowed up for a long
time and in its place he has developed a curve ball that’s a peach. But
they still talk about that fast one and the curve is seldom mentioned,
except by the players themselves. Believe me, we know the difference.
Frank Snyder, the old Giant and Cardinal catcher, now manager of the
Houston club, was the victim of just such publicity. When Frank broke
into the league he was called a “sucker” on pop fouls. Couldn’t seem to
catch them to save his soul. Naturally the word went out that he was
weak on fouls. Snyder overcame that weakness long, long ago. Right now
there isn’t a better man on foul flies in either league than Snyder.
But the idea got out, and in the minds of the fans he’s still as much a
sucker as the day he broke in.
Speaking of foul flies—there’s one of the toughest things a catcher
is called upon to handle. Catching a high fly directly over your head
is never easy, and when you’re hampered by a mask and protector in
addition, it’s twice as tough. In catching a foul fly the catcher
must first locate the ball, then he has to discard his mask and
start moving. And always, you must remember, he’s handicapped by the
closeness of the backstop and stands, and the fact that he’s
within verbal range of the fans and the rival bench as well.
Like catching flies in the outfield, catching fouls back of the plate
is entirely a matter of practice. But there’s this difference. The
outfielder, facing the play, can see the ball from the minute it leaves
the bat. The catcher doesn’t see it at all. He hears it nick the bat
and senses that it’s somewhere in the air over his head. The pitcher
usually yells to him as to its direction and whether or not he can get
it. So do the fellows on his own bench. But their voices very likely
are drowned out by the fake advice that comes from the rival bench.
It’s up to him to locate that ball quickly, and if you think that’s an
easy job, just try it.
I mentioned Frank Snyder and his foul fly weakness before. Frank
overcame it wonderfully—and did it by practice. He used to go out to
the park after the other fellows had gone and get someone to hit high
flies for a half hour at a time. Gradually he developed his sense of
direction and then he started to improve. Today he’s almost perfect in
that department.
The greatest bit of foul fly catching I ever saw happened in
Philadelphia last season. Johnny Grabowski made the catch, and
wonderful as it was, it came near costing us a ball game. We were
engaged in one of those nip and tuck thrillers with the A’s. Eddie
Collins was on third base and Ty Cobb on first when Al Simmons raised
a foul that was headed for the A’s dugout. John ran over, throwing his
mask aside as he ran. He bumped into the rail alongside the dugout, but
stuck out his glove for the ball. The impact of the ball carried him
right on over the rail and he tumbled head over heels down the incline
to the concrete runway some four feet below.
Everyone thought he was killed—and all the A’s rushed down to help him,
the doctor among others. When John started to get up the Doc held him
down saying:
“Take it easy, old man, take it easy. You’re all right!”
Meantime while John was fighting to get to his feet Collins trotted
home after the catch and Cobb tore all the way to the plate from first
base. Those two runs would have whipped us, and of course we all
squawked. It was a play that wasn’t covered by the rules, and after a
conference with the other umpires, Tommy Connolly ruled that Collins’
score should be allowed, but that the other runner would have to
go back to third base. Grabowski, he ruled, had made the catch outside
the playing field and had been the victim of unintentional interference
into the bargain.
But what a catch it was! Cy Perkins, the Athletic catcher, made one
almost as good a season or two previously when he tumbled into a field
box at the Yankee stadium. He skidded around on his ear considerably,
and lost a lot of skin, but he held the ball for a third out that
retired the side and eventually won the ball game.
One of the prettiest defensive plays a catcher can make is the snap
throw to first base to catch a runner. I think a base runner never
feels so foolish as when he is picked off first base by the catcher.
And some of the boys are experts at it. The best man I ever saw at this
particular play was Sam Agnew, the old catcher of the St. Louis Browns.
I don’t know whether Sam invented the play or not, perhaps he did. But
he certainly was an expert. He could snap that ball down there like
nobody’s business, and it was a pretty clever and daring runner who got
more than two yards away when Sam was behind the plate.
The advantage of such a play, of course, is that it saves the
pitcher and enables him to concentrate more on his pitching and less
on the base runner. Luke Sewell of the Cleveland Indians is one of the
best present day catchers at snapping a throw to first base. In the
course of the season Luke picks off twenty-five or thirty runners in
that way, and more important than that, he holds the others so close to
the bag that stealing is cut to a minimum.
In holding men on bases you know, or in running bases, the jump from
first base to second is the important one. As the ball players figure
it, a man on first base isn’t so dangerous. It generally takes two
singles to score him from there. But once he gets on second base he’s
in scoring position. That’s why pitchers and catchers make so much more
effort to stop a man from stealing second than they do from stealing
third. And that, too, is why a catcher who is an expert on the snap
throw is a mighty valuable man. Benny Bengough of the Yankees is
another catcher who has the snap throw down pretty well, though I don’t
think Benny is as clever at it as Luke Sewell.
The one thing a good catcher must have is nerve! He, more than any
other man on the team, must block the runner—and blocking a runner
when he’s coming in full tilt with spikes threatening takes a lot of
real nerve. The old idea used to be that a catcher had to be a big,
strong oversized fellow in order to stand the gaff of holding up a
pitcher and blocking runners. That’s bunk.
Some of the greatest catchers in the business are fairly small men.
Muddy Ruel of the Washington Senators is a little fellow. Yet there are
few better catchers in the league than Muddy. I think he’s the most
accurate thrower I’ve seen since I’ve been in baseball, and he has the
trick of blocking a runner, too. When you come sliding into Muddy at
the plate you’re lucky if you can get even a corner to touch—and if the
throw is accurate Muddy will nail you nine times out of ten.
Benny Bengough and Ray Schalk are little fellows, too. So is Gordon
Cochrane of the Athletics. Cy Perkins isn’t very big either, and Mike
Gonzales, while he’s tall and rangy, is built a good deal like a bean
pole. He hasn’t much weight. Yet they’re all mighty good performers,
and disprove the idea that catchers have to be big, bruising fellows to
hold their jobs.
One of the things a young catcher has to look out for is getting
out of position. The catcher if he’s on his toes will back up plays at
first base, so long as there’s nobody in scoring position. But a lot
of the boys carry the thing a little too far, and go straying down the
third base line to back up plays there. When they do that they’re in
trouble.
Heine Zimmerman, the old Giant and Cub third baseman, will go down into
history as having pulled one of the greatest boners of all time in the
1917 world series when the Giants played the White Sox. Heine, you may
remember, in the final game chased Eddie Collins across the plate with
the run that won the game and the series for the White Sox. Of course
it was a funny thing to see. The big, lumbering Zimmerman trying to
catch Collins, who was as fast a runner as you’ll find in baseball. And
Eddie made it better by laughing over his shoulder as Zim made a wild
dive to put the ball on him. And Heine Zimmerman through all the years
has been the goat on a play that wasn’t his fault at all.
The real goat on that play was the Giant catcher, who, instead of
covering the plate, came rambling down the third base line, leaving the
path to the plate alone and unprotected. Once Eddie was away, Zim had
no one to throw to. The catcher was out of position and he could
do nothing but take up the chase that was hopeless.
The moral of course is plain enough. When there’s a possible scoring
play on, it’s up to the catcher to stick to that plate like glue. It’s
his job to protect it—and the minute he starts rambling around the lot
he’s making a mug of himself and his whole ball club.
I’ve seen a lot of good catchers in my day. Bill Carrigan of the old
Red Sox, who was catching when I broke into the league and the man who
caught the first big league game I ever pitched, was a great one. So
was Eddie Ainsmith. So was Steve O’Neill, who used to be at Cleveland,
and is now with the St. Louis Browns. Steve had real baseball instinct.
He was what the boys call a “smart catcher,” and in his prime he was
fast, too. In recent years he has put on weight and the old legs have
begun to buckle a bit. He has lost a lot of his stuff. But he still can
think with the best of them, and he’s a mighty good man to have back
there when a young pitcher is in the box.
I think the best catcher I ever saw, though, was little Ray Schalk of
the White Sox. Ray had everything. They tell a story to the effect that
when Ray first joined the White Sox, Commy wouldn’t give him a
chance.
“Why you’re too little,” Comiskey said. “Those big fellows out there
will break you into small pieces.”
“That, Mr. Comiskey,” Ray replied, “is my worry!”
And once in the game he proved that a little fellow is as good as
anybody if he knows his stuff. Schalk had everything it takes to make
a great catcher. He had speed, and judgment and nerve. He has a great
throwing arm, and he never gets nervous or rattled. And he can hit
pretty well too—which is always a good thing.
Before the old White Sox got mixed up in that scandal they were one of
the greatest ball clubs I ever saw on the field, and Ray was as good as
any of them.