same thing happened later on in the season with men on second and third
bases, and Raymond, another featherweight hitter, pitching. It struck me
as being an oversight on the part of Chance on both occasions, probably
because he was so busy with his own position and watching the players on
the field that he didn't notice the pitcher was the next batter. He let
Schlei hit each time, which probably cost him two games.
The Giants were playing St. Louis at the Polo Grounds in 1910, and I was
pitching against Harmon. I held the Cardinals to one hit up to the ninth
inning, and we had the game won by the score of 1 to 0, when their first
batter in the ninth walked. Then, after two had been put out, another
scratched a hit. It looked as if we still had the game won, since only one
man was left to be put out and the runners were on first and second bases.
Mowrey, the red-headed third baseman, came to the bat.
"Murray's playing too near centre field for this fellow," remarked McGraw
to some of the players on the bench.
Hardly had he said it when Mowrey shoved a long fly to right field, which
soared away toward the stand. Murray started to run with the ball. For a
minute it looked as if he were going to get there, and then it just tipped
his outstretched hands as it fell to the ground. It amounted to a
three-base hit and won the game for the Cardinals by the score of 2 to 1.
"I knew it," said McGraw, one of whose many roles is as a prophet of evil.
"Didn't I call the turn? I ought to have gone out there and stopped the
game and moved Murray over. I blame myself for that hit."
That was a game in which the St. Louis batters made three hits and won it.
It isn't the number of hits, so much as when they come, that wins ball
games.
Frequently, McGraw will stop a game--bring it to a dead standstill--by
walking out from the bench as the pitcher is about to wind up.
"Stop it a minute, Meyers," he will shout. "Pull Snodgrass in a little bit
for this fellow."
The man interested in statistics would be surprised at how many times
little moves of this sort have saved games. But for the McGraw system to
be effective, he must have working for him a set of players who are
taking the old look around for orders all the time. He has a way of
inducing the men to keep their heads up which has worked very well. If a
player has been slow or has not taken all the distance McGraw believes is
possible on a hit, he often finds $10 less in his pay envelope at the end
of the month. And the conversation on the bench at times, when men have
made errors of omission, would not fit into any Sunday-school room.
During a game for the most part, McGraw is silent, concentrating his
attention on the game, and the players talk in low tones, as if in church,
discussing the progress of the contest. But let a player make a bad break,
and McGraw delivers a talk to him that would have to be written on
asbestos paper.
Arthur Wilson was coaching at third base in one of the games in a series
played in Philadelphia the first part of September, 1911. There were
barely enough pitchers to go around at the time, and McGraw was very
careful to take advantage of every little point, so that nothing would be
wasted. He feels that if a game is lost because the other side is better,
there is some excuse, but if it goes because some one's head should be
used for furniture instead of thinking baseball, it is like losing money
that might have been spent. Fletcher was on second base when Meyers came
to bat. The Indian pushed the ball to right field along the line. Fletcher
came steaming around third base and could have rolled home safely, but
Wilson, misjudging the hit, rushed out, tackled him, and threw him back on
the bag. Even the plodding Meyers reached second on the hit and McGraw was
boiling. He promptly sent a coacher out to relieve Wilson, and his oratory
to the young catcher would have made a Billingsgate fishwife sore. We
eventually won the game, but at this time there was only a difference of
something like one, and it would have been a big relief to have seen that
run which Wilson interrupted across the plate.
McGraw is always on Devore's hip because he often feels that this
brilliant young player does not get as much out of his natural ability as
he might. He is frequently listless, and, often, after a good hit, he will
feel satisfied with himself and fan out a couple of times. So McGraw does
all that he can to discourage this self-satisfaction. "Josh" is a great
man in a pinch, for he hangs on like a bulldog, and instead of getting
nervous, works the harder. If the reader will consult past history, he
will note that it was a pinch hit by Devore which won the first
world-series game, and one of his wallops, combined with a timely bingle
by Crandall, was largely instrumental in bringing the second victory to
the Giants. McGraw has made Devore the ball-player that he is by skilful
handling.
The Giants were having a nip and tuck game with the Cubs in the early part
of last summer, when Devore came to the bat in one of those pinches and
shot a three bagger over third base which won the game. As he slid into
third and picked himself up, feeling like more or less of a hero because
the crowd was announcing this fact to him by prolonged cheers, McGraw
said:
"Gee, you're a lucky guy. I wish I had your luck. You were shot full of
horseshoes to get that one. When I saw you shut your eyes, I never thought
you would hit it."
This was like pricking a bubble, and "Josh's" chest returned to its normal
measure.
Marquard is another man whom McGraw constantly subjects to a
conversational massage. Devore and Marquard room together on the road,
and they got to talking about their suite at the hotel during a close game
in Philadelphia one day. It annoys McGraw to hear his men discussing
off-stage subjects during a critical contest, because it not only
distracts their attention, but his and that of the other players.
"Ain't that room of ours a dandy, Rube?" asked Devore.
"Best in the lot," replied Marquard.
"It's got five windows and swell furniture," said Devore.
"Solid mahogany," said McGraw, who apparently had been paying no attention
to the conversation. "That is, judging by some of the plays I have seen
you two pull. Now can the conversation."
Devore went down into Cuba with the Giants, carrying quite a bank roll
from the world's series, and the idea that he was on a picnic. He started
a personally conducted tour of Havana on his first night there and we lost
the game the next day, "Josh" overlooking several swell opportunities to
make hits in pinches. In fact he didn't even get a foul.
"You are fined $25," said McGraw to him after the game.
"You can't fine me," said Devore. "I'm not under contract."
"Then you take the next boat home," replied the manager. "I didn't come
down here to let a lot of coffee-colored Cubans show me up. You've got to
either play ball or go home."
Devore made four hits the next day.
In giving his signs from the bench to the players, McGraw depends on a
gesture or catch word. When "Dummy" Taylor, the deaf and dumb twirler, was
with the club, all the players learned the deaf and dumb language. This
medium was used for signing for a time, until smart ball players, like
Evers and Leach, took up the study of it and became so proficient they
could converse fluently on their fingers. But they were also great
"listeners," and we didn't discover for some time that this was how they
were getting our signs. Thereafter we only used the language for social
purposes.
Evers and McGraw got into a conversation one day in the deaf and dumb
language at long range and "Johnny" Evers threw a finger out of joint
replying to McGraw in a brilliant flash of repartee.
Every successful manager is a distinct type. Each plays the game from the
bench. "Connie" Mack gives his men more liberty than most. Chance rules
for the most part with an iron hand. Bresnahan is ever spurring his men
on. Chance changes his seat on the bench, and there is a double steal.
"Connie" Mack uncrosses his legs, and the hit and run is tried.
Most managers transmit their signs by movements or words. Jennings is
supposed to have hidden in his jumble of jibes some catch words.
The manager on the bench must know just when to change pitchers. He has to
decide the exact time to send in a substitute hitter, when to install
another base runner. All these decisions must be made in the "batting" of
an eye. It takes quick and accurate judgment, and the successful manager
must be right usually. That's playing the game from the bench.
VI
Coaching Good and Bad
_Coaching is Divided into Three Parts: Offensive, Defensive, and the
Use of Crowds to Rattle Players--Why McGraw Developed Scientific
Coaching--The Important Role a Coacher Plays in the Crisis of a Big
League Ball Game when, on his Orders, Hangs Victory or Defeat._
Critical moments occur in every close ball game, when coaching may win or
lose it. "That wasn't the stage for you to try to score," yelled John
McGraw, the manager of the Giants, at "Josh" Devore, as the New York
left-fielder attempted to count from second base on a short hit to left
field, with no one out and the team one run behind in a game with the
Pirates one day in 1911, when every contest might mean the winning or
losing of the pennant.
"First time in my life I was ever thrown out trying to score from second
on a base hit to the outfield," answered Devore, "and besides the coacher
sent me in."
"I don't care," replied McGraw, "that was a two out play."
As a matter of fact, one of the younger players on the team was coaching
at third base at the time and made an error of judgment in sending Devore
home, of which an older head would not have been guilty. And the Pirates
beat us by just that one run the coacher sacrificed. The next batter came
through with an outfield fly which would have scored Devore from third
base easily.
Probably no more wily general ever crouched on the coaching line at third
base than John McGraw. His judgment in holding runners or urging them on
to score is almost uncanny. Governed by no set rules himself, he has
formulated a list of regulations for his players which might be called the
"McGraw Coaching Curriculum." He has favorite expressions, such as "there
are stages" and "that was a two out play," which mean certain chances are
to be taken by a coacher at one point in a contest, while to attempt such
a play under other circumstances would be nothing short of foolhardy.
With the development of baseball, coaching has advanced until it is now an
exact science. For many years the two men who stood at first and third
bases were stationed there merely to bullyrag and abuse the pitchers,
often using language that was a disgrace to a ball field. When they were
not busy with this part of their art, they handed helpful hints to the
runners as to where the ball was and whether the second baseman was
concealing it under his shirt (a favorite trick of the old days), while
the pitcher pretended to prepare to deliver it. But as rules were made
which strictly forbade the use of indecent language to a pitcher, and as
the old school of clowns passed, coaching developed into a science, and
the sentries stationed at first and third bases found themselves occupying
important jobs.
For some time McGraw frowned down upon scientific coaching, until its
value was forcibly brought home to him one day by an incident that
occurred at the Polo Grounds, and since then he has developed it until his
knowledge of advising base runners is the pinnacle of scientific
coaching.
A few years ago, the Giants were having a nip and tuck struggle one day,
when Harry McCormick, then the left-fielder, came to the plate and knocked
the ball to the old centre-field ropes. He sped around the bases, and when
he reached third, it looked as if he could roll home ahead of the ball.
"Cy" Seymour was coaching and surprised everybody by rushing out and
tackling McCormick, throwing him down and trying to force him back to
third base. But big McCormick got the best of the struggle, scrambled to
his feet, and finally scored after overcoming the obstacle that Seymour
made. That run won the game.
"What was the matter with you, Cy?" asked McGraw as Seymour came to the
bench after he had almost lost the game by his poor coaching.
"The sun got in my eyes, and I couldn't see the ball," replied Seymour.
"You'd better wear smoked glasses the next time you go out to coach,"
replied the manager. The batter was hitting the ball due east, and the
game was being played in the afternoon, so Seymour had no alibi. From the
moment "Cy" made that mistake, McGraw realized the value of scientific
coaching, which means making the most of every hit in a game.
I have always held that a good actor with a knowledge of baseball would
make a good coacher, because it is the acting that impresses a base
runner, not the talking. More often than not, the conversation of a
coacher, be it ever so brilliant, is not audible above the screeching of
the crowd at critical moments. And I believe that McGraw is a great actor,
at least of the baseball school.
The cheering of the immense crowds which attend ball games, if it can be
organized, is a potent factor in winning or losing them. McGraw gets the
most out of a throng by his clever acting. Did any patron of the Polo
Grounds ever see him turn to the stands or make any pretence that he was
paying attention to the spectators? Does he ever play to the gallery? Yet
it is admitted that he can do more with a crowd, make it more malleable,
than any other man in baseball to-day.
The attitude of the spectators makes a lot of difference to a ball club. A
lackadaisical, half-interested crowd often results in the team playing
slovenly ball, while a lively throng can inject ginger into the men and
put the whole club on its toes. McGraw is skilled in getting the most out
of the spectators without letting them know that he is doing it.
Did you ever watch the little manager crouching, immovable, at third base
with a mitt on his hand, when the New York club goes to bat in the seventh
inning two runs behind? The first hitter gets a base on balls. McGraw
leaps into the air, kicks his heels together, claps his mitt, shouts at
the umpire, runs in and pats the next batter on the back, and says
something to the pitcher. The crowd gets it cue, wakes up and leaps into
the air, kicking its heels together. The whole atmosphere inside the park
is changed in a minute, and the air is bristling with enthusiasm. The
other coacher, at first base, is waving his hands and running up and down
the line, while the men on the bench have apparently gained new hope. They
are moving about restlessly, and the next two hitters are swinging their
bats in anticipation with a vigor which augurs ill for the pitcher. The
game has found Ponce de Leon's fountain of youth, and the little, silent
actor on the third base coaching line is the cause of the change.
"Nick" Altrock, the old pitcher on the Chicago White Sox, was one of the
most skilful men at handling a crowd that the game has ever developed. As
a pitcher, Altrock was largely instrumental in bringing a world's
championship to the American League team in 1906, and, as a coacher, after
his Big League pitching days were nearly done, he won many a game by his
work on the lines in pinches. Baseball has produced several comedians,
some with questionable ratings as humorists. There is "Germany" Schaefer
of the Washington team, and there were "Rube" Waddell, "Bugs" Raymond and
others, but "Nick" Altrock could give the best that the game has brought
out in the way of comic-supplement players a terrible battle for the
honors.
At the old south side park in Chicago, I have seen him go to the lines
with a catcher's mitt and a first-baseman's glove on his hands and lead
the untrained mob as skilfully as one of those pompadoured young men with
a megaphone does the undergraduates at a college football game.
My experience as a pitcher has been that it is not the steady, unbroken
flood of howling and yelling, with the incessant pounding of feet, that
gets on the nerves of a ball-player, but the broken, rhythmical waves of
sound or the constant reiteration of one expression. A man gets accustomed
to the steady cheering. It becomes a part of the game and his
surroundings, as much as the stands and the crowd itself are, and he does
not know that it is there. Let the coacher be clever enough to induce a
crowd to repeat over and over just one sentence such as "Get a hit," "Get
a hit," and it wears on the steadiest nerves. Nick Altrock had his
baseball chorus trained so that, by a certain motion of the arm, he could
get the crowd to do this at the right moment.
But the science of latter-day coaching means much more than using the
crowd. All coaching, like all Gaul and four or five other things, is
divided into three parts, defensive coaching, offensive coaching and the
use of the crowd. Offensive coaching means the handling of base runners,
and requires quick and accurate judgment. The defensive sort is the advice
that one player on the field gives another as to where to throw the ball,
who shall take a hit, and how the base runner is coming into the bag.
There is a sub-division of defensive coaching which might be called the
illegitimate brand. It is giving "phoney" advice to a base runner by the
fielders of the other side that may lead him, in the excitement of the
moment, to make a foolish play. This style has developed largely in the
Big Leagues in the last three or four years.
Offensive coaching, in my opinion, is the most important. For a man to be
a good coacher he must be trained for the work. The best coachers are the
seasoned players, the veterans of the game. A man must know the throwing
ability of each outfielder on the opposing club, he must be familiar with
the speed of the base runner whom he is handling, and he must be so
closely acquainted with the game as a whole that he knows the stages at
which to try a certain play and the circumstances under which the same
attempt would be foolish. Above all things, he must be a quick thinker.
Watch McGraw on the coaching lines some day. As he crouches, he picks up a
pebble and throws it out of his way, and two base runners start a double
steal. "Hughie" Jennings emits his famous "Ee-Yaah!" and the third
baseman creeps in, expecting Cobb to bunt with a man on first base and no
one out. The hitter pushes the ball on a line past the third baseman. The
next time Jennings shrieks his famous war-cry, it has a different
intonation, and the batter bunts.
"Bill" Dahlen of the Brooklyn club shouts, "Watch his foot," and the base
runner starts while the batter smashes the ball on a hit and run play.
Again the pitcher hears that "Watch his foot." He "wastes one," so that
the batter will not get a chance at the ball and turns to first base. He
is surprised to find the runner anchored there. Nothing has happened. So
it will be seen that the offensive coacher controls the situation and
directs the plays, usually taking his orders from the manager, if the boss
himself is not on the lines.
In 1911 the Giants led the National League by a good margin in stealing
bases, and to this speed many critics attributed the fact that the
championship was won by the club. I can safely say that every base which
was pilfered by a New York runner was stolen by the direct order of
McGraw, except in the few games from which he was absent. Then his
lieutenants followed his system as closely as any one can pursue the
involved and intricate style that he alone understands. If it was the base
running of the Giants that won the pennant for the club, then it was the
coaching of McGraw, employing the speed of his men and his opportunities,
which brought the championship to New York.
The first thing that every manager teaches his players now is to obey
absolutely the orders of the coacher, and then he selects able men to give
the advice. The brain of McGraw is behind each game the Giants play, and
he plans every move, most of the hitters going to the plate with definite
instructions from him as to what to try to do. In order to make this
system efficient, absolute discipline must be assured. If a player has
other ideas than McGraw as to what should be done, "Mac's" invariable
answer to him is:
"You do what I tell you, and I'll take the responsibility if we lose."
For two months at the end of 1911, McGraw would not let either "Josh"
Devore or John Murray swing at a first ball pitched to them. Murray did
this one day, after he had been ordered not to, and he was promptly fined
$10 and sat down on the bench, while Becker played right field. Many fans
doubtless recall the substitution of Becker, but could not understand the
move.
Murray and Devore are what are known in baseball as "first-ball hitters."
That is, they invariably hit at the first one delivered. They watch a
pitcher wind up and swing their bats involuntarily, as a man blinks his
eyes when he sees a blow started. It is probably due to slight
nervousness. The result was that the news of this weakness spread rapidly
around the circuit by the underground routes of baseball, and every
pitcher in the League was handing Devore and Murray a bad ball on the
first one. Of course, each would miss it or else make a dinky little hit.
They were always "in the hole," which means that the pitcher had the
advantage in the count. McGraw became exasperated after Devore had fanned
out three times one day by getting bad starts, hitting at the first ball.
"After this," said McGraw to both Murray and Devore in the clubhouse, "if
either of you moves his bat off his shoulder at a first ball, even if it
cuts the plate, you will be fined $10 and sat down."
Murray forgot the next day, saw the pitcher wind up, and swung his bat at
the first one. He spent the rest of the month on the bench. But Devore's
hitting improved at once because all the pitchers, expecting him to swing
at the first one, were surprised to find him "taking it" and, as it was
usually bad, he had the pitcher constantly "in the hole," instead of being
at a disadvantage himself. For this reason he was able to guess more
accurately what the pitcher was going to throw, and his hitting
consequently improved. So did Murray's after he had served his term on the
bench. The right-fielder hit well up to the world's series and then he
just struck a slump that any player is liable to encounter. But so
dependent is McGraw's system on absolute discipline for its success that
he dispensed with the services of a good player for a month to preserve
his style.
In contrast, "Connie" Mack, the manager of the Athletics, and by many
declared to be the greatest leader in the country (although each private,
of course, is true to his own general), lets his players use their own
judgment largely. He seldom gives a batter a direct order unless the pinch
is very stringent.
The most difficult position to fill as a coacher is at third base, the
critical corner. There a man's judgment must be lightning fast and always
accurate. He encourages runners with his voice, but his orders are given
primarily with his hands, because often the noise made by the crowd drowns
out the shouted instructions. Last, he must be prepared to handle all
sorts of base running.
On nearly every ball club, there are some players who are known in the
frank parlance of the profession as "hog wild runners."
The expression means that these players are bitten by a sort of "bug"
which causes them to lose their heads when once they get on the bases.
They cannot be stopped, oftentimes fighting with a coacher to go on to the
next base, when it is easy to see that if the attempt is made, the runner
is doomed.
New York fans have often seen McGraw dash out into the line at third base,
tackle Murray, and throw him back on the bag. He is a "hog wild" runner,
and with him on the bases, the duties of a coacher become more arduous. He
will insist on scoring if he is not stopped or does not drop dead.
Some youngster was coaching on third base in a game with Boston in the
summer of 1911 and the Giants had a comfortable lead of several runs.
Murray was on second when the batter hit clearly and sharply to left
field. Murray started, and, with his usual intensity of purpose, rounded
third base at top speed, bound to score. The ball was already on the way
home when Murray, about ten feet from the bag, tripped and fell. He
scrambled safely back to the cushion on all fours. There was nothing else
to do.