their team as far as I know. When luck seems to be breaking against them
in a game, they will take the bats and throw them wildly into the air and
let them lie around in front of their bench, topsy-turvy. They call this
changing the luck, but any other club would consider that it was the worst
kind of a jinx. It is the same theory that card-players have about
shuffling the deck vigorously to bring a different run of fortune. Then,
if the luck changes, the Athletics throw the bats around some more to keep
it. This act nearly cost them one of their best ball-players in the third
game of the 1911 world's series.
The Philadelphia players had tossed their bats to break their run of luck,
for the score was 1 to 0 against them, when Baker came up in the ninth
inning. He cracked his now famous home run into the right-field bleachers,
and the men on the bench hurled the bats wildly into the air. In jumping
up and reaching for a bat to throw, Jack Barry, the shortstop, hit his
head on the concrete roof of the structure and was stunned for a minute.
He said that little black specks were floating in front of his eyes, but
he gamely insisted on playing the contest out. "Connie" Mack was so
worried over his condition that he sent Ira Thomas out on the field to
inquire if he were all right, and this interrupted the game in the ninth
inning. A lot of the spectators thought that Thomas was out there, bearing
some secret message from "Connie" Mack. None knew that he was ascertaining
the health of a player who had almost killed himself while killing a jinx.
The Athletics, for two seasons, have carried with them on all their trips
a combination bat boy and mascot who is a hunchback, and he outjinxed our
champion jinx killer, Charley Faust, in the 1911 world's series. A
hunchback is regarded by ball-players as the best luck in the world. If a
man can just touch that hump on the way to the plate, he is sure to get a
hit, and any observant spectator will notice the Athletics' hitters
rubbing the hunchback boy before leaving the bench. So attached to this
boy have the players become that they voted him half a share of the prize
money last year after the world's series. Lots of ball-players would tell
you that he deserved it because he has won two world's pennants for them.
Another great piece of luck is for a ball-player to rub a colored kid's
head. I've walked along the street with ball-players and seen them stop a
young negro and take off his hat and run their hands through his kinky
hair. Then I've seen the same ball-player go out and get two or three hits
that afternoon and play the game of his life. Again, it is the confidence
inspired, coupled with the ability.
Another old superstition among ball-players is that a load of empty
barrels means base hits. If an athlete can just pass a flock of them on
the way to the park, he is sure to step right along stride for stride with
the three-hundred hitters that afternoon.
McGraw once broke up a batting slump of the Giants with a load of empty
barrels. That is why I maintain he is the greatest manager of them all. He
takes advantage of the little things, even the superstitions of his men,
and turns them to his account. He played this trick in one of the first
years that he managed the New York club. The batting of all the players
had slumped at the same time. None could hit, and the club was losing game
after game as a result, because the easiest pitchers were making the best
batters look foolish. One day Bowerman came into the clubhouse with a
smile on his face for the first time in a week.
"Saw a big load of empty barrels this afternoon, boys," he announced, "and
just watch me pickle the pill out there to-day."
Right at that point McGraw got an idea, as he frequently does. Bowerman
went out that afternoon and made four hits out of a possible five. The
next day three or four more of the players came into the park, carrying
smiles and the announcement that fortunately they, too, had met a load of
empty barrels. They, then, all went out and regained their old batting
strides, and we won that afternoon for the first time in a week. More saw
a load of barrels the next day and started to bat. At last all the members
of the team had met the barrels, and men with averages of .119 were
threatening to chisel into the three-hundred set. With remarkable
regularity the players were meeting loads of empty barrels on their way to
the park, and, with remarkable regularity and a great deal of expedition,
the pitchers of opposing clubs were being driven to the shower bath.
"Say," asked "Billy" Gilbert, the old second baseman, of "Bill" Lauder,
formerly the protector of the third corner, one day, "is one of that team
of horses sorrel and the other white?"
"Sure," answered "Bill."
"Sure," echoed McGraw. "I hired that load of empty barrels by the week to
drive around and meet you fellows on the way to the park, and you don't
think I can afford to have them change horses every day, do you?"
Everybody had a good laugh and kept on swatting. McGraw asked for waivers
on the load of empty barrels soon afterwards, but his scheme had stopped a
batting slump and put the club's hitters on their feet again. He plays to
the little personal qualities and superstitions in the men to get the most
out of them. And just seeing those barrels gave them the idea that they
were bound to get the base hits, and they got them. Once more, the old
confidence, hitched up with ability.
What manager would have carried a Kansas farmer around the circuit with
him besides McGraw? I refer to Charles Victor Faust of Marion, Kansas, the
most famous jinx killer of them all. Faust first met the Giants in St.
Louis on the next to the last trip the club made West in the season of
1911, when he wandered into the Planter's Hotel one day, asked for McGraw
and announced that a fortune teller of Marion had informed him he would be
a great pitcher and that for $5 he could have a full reading. This
pitching announcement piqued Charles, and he reached down into his jeans,
dug out his last five, and passed it over. The fortune teller informed
Faust that all he had to do to get into the headlines of the newspapers
and to be a great pitcher was to join the New York Giants. He joined, and,
after he once joined, it would have taken the McNamaras in their best form
to separate him from the said Giants.
"Charley" came out to the ball park and amused himself warming up.
Incidentally, the Giants did not lose a game while he was in the
neighborhood. The night the club left for Chicago on that trip, he was
down at the Union Station ready to go along.
"Did you get your contract and transportation?" asked McGraw, as the lanky
Kansan appeared.
"No," answered "Charley."
"Pshaw," replied McGraw. "I left it for you with the clerk at the hotel.
The train leaves in two minutes," he continued, glancing at his watch. "If
you can run the way you say you can, you can make it and be back in time
to catch it."
It was the last we saw of "Charley" Faust for a time--galloping up the
platform in his angular way with that contract and transportation in
sight.
"I'm almost sorry we left him," remarked McGraw as "Charley" disappeared
in the crowd. We played on around the circuit with indifferent luck and
got back to New York with the pennant no more than a possibility, and
rather a remote one at that. The first day we were in New York "Charley"
Faust entered the clubhouse with several inches of dust and mud caked on
him, for he had come all the way either by side-door special or blind
baggage.
"I'm here, all right," he announced quietly, and started to climb into a
uniform.
"I see you are," answered McGraw.
"Charley" stuck around for two or three days, and we won. Then McGraw
decided he would have to be dropped and ordered the man on the door of the
clubhouse to bar this Kansas kid out. Faust broke down and cried that day,
and we lost. After that he became a member of the club, and we won game
after game until some busy newspaper man obtained a vaudeville engagement
for him at a salary of $100 a week. We lost three games the week he was
absent from the grounds, and Faust saw at once he was not doing the right
thing by the club, so, with a wave of his hand that would have gone with
J. P. Morgan's income, he passed up some lucrative vaudeville contracts,
much to the disgust of the newspaper man, who was cutting the remuneration
with him, and settled down to business. The club did not lose a game after
that, and it was decided to take Faust West with us on the last and famous
trip in 1911. Daily he had been bothering McGraw and Mr. Brush for his
contract, for he wanted to pitch. The club paid him some money from time
to time to meet his personal expenses.
The Sunday night the club left for Boston, a vaudeville agent was at the
Grand Central Station with a contract offering Faust $100 a week for five
weeks, which "Charley" refused in order to stick with the club. It was the
greatest trip away from home in the history of baseball. Starting with the
pennant almost out of reach, the Giants won eighteen and lost four games.
One contest that we dropped in St. Louis was when some of the newspaper
correspondents on the trip kidnapped Faust and sat him on the St. Louis
bench.
Another day in St. Louis the game had gone eleven innings, and the
Cardinals needed one run to win. They had several incipient scores on the
bases and "Rube" Marquard, in the box, was apparently going up in the air.
Only one was out. Faust was warming up far in the suburbs when, under
orders from McGraw, I ran out and sent him to the bench, for that was the
place from which his charm seemed to be the most potent. "Charley" came
loping to the bench as fast as his long legs would transport him and St.
Louis didn't score and we won the game. It was as nice a piece of pinch
mascoting as I ever saw.
The first two games that "Charley" really lost were in Chicago. And all
through the trip, he reiterated his weird prophecies that "the Giants
with Manager McGraw were goin' ta win." The players believed in him, and
none would have let him go if it had been necessary to support him out of
their own pockets. And we did win.
"Charley," with his monologue and great good humor, kept the players in
high spirits throughout the journey, and the feeling prevailed that we
couldn't lose with him along. He was advertised all over the circuit, and
spectators were going to the ball park to see Faust and Wagner. "Charley"
admitted that he could fan out Hans because he had learned how to pitch
out there in Kansas by correspondence school and had read of "Hans's"
weakness in a book. His one "groove" was massages and manicures. He would
go into the barber shop with any member of the team who happened to be
getting shaved and take a massage and manicure for the purposes of
sociability, as a man takes a drink. He easily was the record holder for
the manicure Marathon, hanging up the figures of five in one day in St.
Louis. He also liked pie for breakfast, dinner and supper, and a small
half before retiring.
But, alas! "Charley" lost in the world's series. He couldn't make good.
And a jinx killer never comes back. He is gone. And his expansive smile
and bump-the-bumps slide are gone with him. That is, McGraw hopes he is
gone. But he was a wonder while he had it. And he did a great deal toward
giving the players confidence. With him on the bench, they thought they
couldn't lose, and they couldn't. It has long been a superstition among
ball-players that when a "bug" joins a club, it will win a championship,
and the Giants believed it when "Charley" Faust arrived. Did "Charley"
Faust win the championship for the Giants?
* * * * *
Another time-honored superstition among ball-players is that no one must
say to a pitcher as he goes to the box for the eighth inning:
"Come on, now. Only six more men."
Or for the ninth:
"Pitch hard, now. Only three left."
Ames says that he lost a game in St. Louis once because McGraw forgot
himself and urged him to pitch hard because only three remained to be put
out. Those three batters raised the mischief with Ames's prospects; he was
knocked out of the box in that last inning, and we lost the game. That
was before the days of the wonder necktie.
Ames won the third game played in Chicago on the last trip West. Coming
into the ninth inning, he had the Cubs beaten, when McGraw began:
"Come on, 'Red,' only----"
"Nix, Mac," cut in Ames, "for the love of Mike, be reasonable."
And then he won the game. But the chances are that if McGraw had got that
"only three more" out, he would have lost, because it would have been
working on his strained nerves.
XII
Base Runners and How They Help a Pitcher to Win
_The Secret of Successful Base Running is Getting the Start--A Club
Composed of Good Base Runners Is Likely to do More to Help a Pitcher
Win Games than a Batting Order of Hard Hitters--Stealing Second Is an
Art in Taking Chances--The Giants Stole their Way to a Pennant, but
"Connie" Mack Stopped the Grand Larceny when it Came to a World's
Championship._
Many times have the crowds at the Polo Grounds seen a man get on first
base in a close game, and, with the pitcher's motion, start to steal
second, only to have the catcher throw him out. The spectators groan and
criticise the manager.
"Why didn't he wait for the hitters to bat him around?" is the cry.
Then, again, a man starts for the base, times his get-away just right, and
slides into the bag in a cloud of dust while the umpire spreads out his
hands indicating that he is safe. The crowd cheers and proclaims McGraw a
great manager and the stealer a great base runner. Maybe the next batter
comes along with a hit, and the runner scores. It wins the game, and
mention is made in the newspapers the next morning of the fast base
running of the club. A man has covered ninety feet of ground while the
ball is travelling from the pitcher to the catcher and back to the fielder
who is guarding second base. It is the most important ninety feet in
baseball. From second base just one hit scores the runner. Stealing
second, one of the most picturesque plays of the game, is the gentle art
of taking a chance.
In 1911, the Giants stole more bases than any other Big League club has
had to its credit since the Pirates established the record in 1903.
Devore, Snodgrass, Murray, Merkle and Doyle, once they got on the bases
were like loose mercury. They couldn't be caught. And McGraw stole his way
to a pennant with this quintet of runners, not alone because of the number
of bases they pilfered, but because of the edge it gave the Giants on the
rest of the clubs, with the men with base-stealing reputations on the
team. I should say that holding these runners up on the bases and worrying
about what they were going to do reduced the efficiency of opposing
pitchers one-third.
It wasn't the speed of the men that accounted for the record. A sprinter
may get into the Big League and never steal a base. But it was the McGraw
system combined with their natural ability.
"Get the start," reiterates McGraw. "Half of base stealing is leaving the
bag at the right time. Know when you have a good lead and then never stop
until you have hit the dirt."
It is up to the pitcher as much as the catcher to stop base stealing, for
once a club begins running wild on another, the bats might as well be
packed up and the game conceded. Pitchers make a study of the individual
runners and their styles of getting starts. In my mind, I know just how
much of a lead every base runner in the National League can take on me
with impunity.
"Bob" Bescher of the Cincinnati club was the leading, bright, particular
base-stealing star of the National League in the season of 1911, and the
secret of his success was in his start. He tries to get as big a lead as
possible with each pitch, and then, when he intends to leave, edges a
couple of feet farther than usual, catching the pitcher unawares. With the
two extra feet, Bescher is bound to get to second base at the same time as
the ball, and no catcher in the world can stop him. Therefore, it is up to
the pitcher to keep him from getting this start--the two more feet he
seeks. I know that Bescher can take ten feet from the bag when I am
pitching and get back safely. But, I am equally sure that, if he makes his
lead twelve feet and I notice it, I can probably catch him. As a good
ribbon salesman constantly has in his mind's eye the answer to the
question, "How far is a yard?" so I know at a glance exactly how far
Bescher can lead and get back safely, when he is on first base. If I
glance over and see him twelve feet away from the bag and about to start,
I turn and throw and catch him flat-footed. The crowd laughs at him and
says:
"Bescher asleep at the switch again!"
The real truth is that Bescher was not asleep, but trying to get that old
jump which would have meant the stolen base. Again, he takes the twelve
feet, and I don't perceive it. He gets started with my arm and goes into
the bag ahead of the ball.
"Great base runner," comments the fickle crowd.
Bescher has only accomplished what he was trying to do before, but he has
gotten away with it this time. Being a great ball-player is the gentle art
of getting away with it.
Spectators often wonder why a pitcher wearies them with throwing over to
the first base many times, when it is plain to see that he has no chance
of catching his quarry. "Bill" Dahlen used to be one of the best men in
the game for getting back in some way when on base, employing a straddle
slide and just hooking the bag with his toe, leaving "a shoe-string to
touch." The result was that he was always handing the pitcher the laugh as
he brushed himself off, for none can say Dahlen was not an immaculate
ball-player.
But the pitchers found out that they could tire Dahlen out by repeatedly
throwing over to the bag, and that, after five throws, which required
five dashes and slides back to the base, he was all in and could not steal
because he didn't have the physical strength left. Thus, as soon as Dahlen
got on, a pitcher began throwing over until he had him tired out, and then
he pitched to the batter. So "Bill" crossed them by living on the bag
until he thought he saw his opportunity to get the jump, and then he would
try to steal.
Few good base runners watch the ball after they have once left the bag.
They look at the baseman to see how he is playing and make the slide
accordingly. If Devore sees Huggins of St. Louis behind the base, he
slides in front and pulls his body away from the bag, so that he leaves
the smallest possible area to touch. If he observes the baseman cutting
inside to block him off, he goes behind and hooks it with just one toe,
again presenting the minimum touching surface. If the ball is hit while
the runner is en route, he takes one quick glance at the coacher on the
third base line and can tell by his motions whether to turn back or to
continue.
McGraw devotes half his time and energy in the spring to teaching his men
base running and the art of sliding, which, when highly cultivated, means
being there with one toe and somewhere else with the rest of the body. But
most of all he impresses on the athletes the necessity of getting the
start before making the attempt to steal. As long as I live I shall
believe that if Snodgrass had known he had the jump in the third game of
the world's series in 1911, when he really had it, and if he had taken
advantage of it, we would have won the game and possibly the championship.
It was in the contest that Baker balanced by banging the home run into the
right field bleachers in the ninth inning, when I was pitching. That tied
the score, 1 to 1.
For nine innings I had been pitching myself out, putting everything that I
had on every ball, because the team gave me no lead to rest on. When Baker
pushed that ball into the bleachers with only two more men to get out to
win the game, I was all in. But I managed to live through the tenth with
very little on the ball, and we came to the bat. Snodgrass got a base on
balls and journeyed to second on a sacrifice. He was taking a big lead off
the middle base with the pitcher's motion, and running back before the
catcher got the ball, because a quick throw would have caught him. It was
bad baseball, but he was nervous with the intense strain and over-eager to
score.
Then came the time when he took a longer lead than any other, and Lapp,
the Athletics' catcher, seeing him, was sure he was going to steal, and in
his hurry to get the ball away and save the game, let it past him.
Snodgrass had the jump, and probably would have made the base had he kept
on going, but he had no orders to steal and had turned and taken a step or
two back toward second when he saw Lapp lose the ball. Again he turned and
retraced his steps, and I never saw a man turn so slowly, simply because I
realized how important a turn that was going to be. Next I looked at Lapp
and saw him picking up the ball, which had rolled only about three feet
behind him. He snapped it to third and had Snodgrass by several feet.
Snodgrass realized this as he plunged down the base line, but he could not
stop and permit himself to be tagged and he could not go back, so he made
that historic slide which was heard almost around the world, cut off
several yards of Frank Baker's trousers, and more important than the
damage to the uniform, lost us the game.
Snodgrass had the jump in his first start, and if he had kept right on
going he would have made the bag without the aid of the passed ball, in my
opinion. But he did not know that he had this advantage and was on his way
back, when it looked for a minute as if the Athletics' catcher had made a
mistake. This really turned out to be the "break" in the game, for it was
on that passed ball that Snodgrass was put out. He would probably have
scored the run which would have won the game had he lived either on second
or third base, for a hit followed.
After losing the contest after watching the opportunity thrown away, some
fan called me on the telephone that night, when I was feeling in anything
but a conversational mood, and asked me:
"Was that passed ball this afternoon part of the Athletics' inside game?
Did Lapp do it on purpose?"
In passing I want to put in a word for Snodgrass, not because he is a
team-mate of mine, but on account of the criticism which he received for
spiking Baker, and which was not deserved. And in that word I do not want
to detract from Baker's reputation a scintilla, if I could, for he is a
great ball-player. But I want to say that if John Murray had ever been
called upon to slide into that bag with Baker playing it as he did, Baker
would probably have been found cut in halves, and only Murray's own style
of coasting would have been responsible for it. If Fred Clarke of
Pittsburg had been the man coming in, Baker would probably have been
neatly cut into thirds, one third with each foot.
Clarke is known as one of the most wicked sliders in the National League.
He jumps into the air and spreads his feet apart, showing his spikes as he
comes in. The Giants were playing in Pittsburg several years ago, before I
was married, and there was a friend of mine at the ball park with whom I
was particularly eager to make a hit. The game was close, as are all
contests which lend themselves readily to an anecdote, and Clarke got as
far as third base in the eighth inning, with the score tied and two out.
Warner, the Giants' catcher, let one get past him and I ran in to cover
the plate. Clarke came digging for home and, as I turned to touch him, he
slid and cut my trousers off, never touching my legs. It was small
consolation to me that my stems were still whole and that the umpire had
called Clarke out and that the game was yet saved. My love for my art is
keen, but it stops at a certain point, and that point is where I have to
send a hurry call for a barrel and the team's tailor. The players made a
sort of group around me while I did my Lady Godiva act from the plate to
the bench.
Murray has the ideal slide for a base gatherer, but one which commands the
respect of all the guardians of the sacks in the National League. When
about eight feet from the bag, he jumps into the air, giving the fielder a
vision of two sets of nicely honed spikes aimed for the base. As Murray
hits the bag, he comes up on his feet and is in a position to start for
the next station in case of any fumble or slip. He is a great man to use
this slide to advantage against young players, who are inclined to be
timid when they see those spikes. It's all part of the game as it is
played in the large leagues.
The Boston team was trying out a young player two years ago. Murray
remarked to McGraw before the game: