Coaching is Divided into Three Parts: Offensive, Defensive, and the Use of Crowds to Rattle Players—Why McGraw Developed Scientific Coaching—The Important Rôle a Coacher Plays in the Crisis of a Big League Ball Game when, on his Orders, Hangs Victory or Defeat.
Coaching is Divided into Three Parts: Offensive, Defensive, and the Use of Crowds to Rattle Players—Why McGraw Developed Scientific Coaching—The Important Rôle a Coacher Plays in the Crisis of a Big League Ball Game when, on his Orders, Hangs Victory or Defeat.
Criticalmoments 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 thrownout 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 aplay 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 knowledgeof 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 Seymourhad 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 ofyouth, 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 itis 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 runneris 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 emitshis 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 fromwhich 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 orderednot 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.
“This is his third year with me,” laughed McGraw on the bench, “and that’s the first time he has ever failed to try to score from second base on a hit unless he was tackled.”
All ball clubs have certain “must” motions which are as strictly observed as danger signals on a railroad. A coacher’s hand upraised will stop a base runner as abruptly as the uplifted white glove of a traffic policeman halts a row of automobiles. A wave of the arm will start a runner going at top speed again.
Many times a quick-witted ball-player wins a game for his club by his snap judgment. Again McGraw is the master of that. He took a gamefrom the Cubs in 1911, because, always alert for flaws in the opposition, he noticed the centre-fielder drop his arm after getting set to throw the ball home. Devore was on second base, and one run was needed to win the game. Doyle hit sharply to centre field, and Devore, coming from second, started to slow up as he rounded third. Hofman, the Chicago centre-fielder, perceiving this slackening of pace, dropped his arm. McGraw noticed this, and, with a wave of his arm, notified Devore to go home. With two strides he was at top speed again, and Hofman, taken by surprise, threw badly.
The run scored which won the game.
The pastime of bullyragging the pitcher by the coachers has lost its popularity recently. The wily coacher must first judge the temperament of a pitcher before he dares to undertake to get on his nerves. Clarke Griffith, formerly the manager of Cincinnati, has a reputation for being able to ruin young pitchers just attempting to establish themselves in the Big League. Time and again he has forced youngsters back to the minors by his constant cry of “Watch his foot” or “He’s going to waste this one.”
Photo by L. Van Oeyen, Cleveland, Ohio
Baker out at the plate trying to stretch a triple into a home run. This picture shows Catcher Easterly of Cleveland waiting with the ball to touch Baker. The home-run hero of the Athletics is shown in the picture starting the fall-away slide in an effort to get away from Easterly. Harry Davis is approaching the plate, and Jack Sheridan is awaiting the outcome at the plate.
The rules are very strict now about talking to pitchers, but, if a complaint is made, Griffith declares that he was warning the batter that it was to be a pitchout, which is perfectly legitimate. The rules permit the coacher to talk to the batter and the base runners.
Griffith caught a Tartar in Grover Cleveland Alexander, the sensational pitcher of the Philadelphia club. It was at his first appearance in Cincinnati that the young fellow got into the hole with several men on the bases, and “Mike” Mitchell coming up to the bat.
“Now here is where we get a look at the ‘yellow,’” yelled Griffith at Alexander.
The young pitcher walked over toward third base.
“I’m going to make that big boob up at the bat there show such a ‘yellow streak’ that you won’t be able to see any white,” declared Alexander, and then he struck Mitchell out. Griffith had tried the wrong tactics.
A story is told of Fred Clarke and “Rube” Waddell, the eccentric twirler. Waddell was once one of the best pitchers in the business when he could concentrate his attention on his work, but his mind wandered easily.
“Now pay no attention to Clarke,” warned his manager before the game.
Clarke tried everything from cajolery to abuse on Waddell with no effect, because the eccentric “Rube” had been tipped to fight shy of the Pittsburg manager. Suddenly Clarke became friendly and walked with Waddell between innings, chatting on trivial matters. At last he said:
“Why don’t you come out on my ranch in Kansas and hunt after the season, George? I’ve got a dog out there you might train.”
“What kind of a dog?” asked Waddell at once interested.
“Just a pup,” replied Clarke, “and you can have him if he takes a fancy to you.”
“They all do,” replied Waddell. “He’s as good as mine.”
The next inning the big left-hander was still thinking of that dog, and the Pirates made five runs.
In many instances defensive coaching is as important as the offensive brand, which simply indorses the old axiom that any chain is only as strong as its weakest link or any ball club is only as efficient as its most deficient department.When Roger Bresnahan was on the Giants, he was one of those aggressive players who are always coaching the other fielders and holding a team together, a type so much desired by a manager. If a slow roller was hit between the pitcher’s box and third base, I could always hear “Rog” yelling, “You take it, Matty,” or, “Artie, Artie,” meaning Devlin, the third baseman. He was in a position to see which man would be better able to make the play, and he gave this helpful advice. His coaching saved many a game for the Giants in the old days. “Al” Bridwell, the former shortstop, was of the same type, and, if you have ever attended a ball game at the Polo Grounds, you have doubtless heard him in his shrill, piercing voice, shouting:
“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” or, “You take it!”
This style of coaching saves ball-players from accidents, and accidents have lost many a pennant. I have always held that it was a lack of the proper coaching that sent “Cy” Seymour, formerly the Giant centre-fielder, out of the Big Leagues and back to the minors. Both Murray and he attempted to catch the same fly in the season of 1909 and came into collision. Seymour wentdown on the field, but later got up and played the game out. However, he hurt his leg so badly that it never regained its strength.
Then there is that other style of defensive coaching which is the shouting of misleading advice by the fielders to the base runners. Collins and Barry, the second baseman and shortstop on the Athletics, worked a clever trick in one of the games of the 1911 world’s series which illustrates my point. The play is as old as the one in which the second baseman hides the ball under his shirt so as to catch a man asleep off first base, but often the old ones are the more effective.
Doyle was on first base in one of the contests played in Philadelphia, and the batter lifted a short foul fly to Baker, playing third base. The crowd roared and the coacher’s voice was drowned by the volume of sound. “Eddie” Collins ran to cover second base, and Barry scrabbled his hand along the dirt as if preparing to field a ground ball.
“Throw it here! Throw it here!” yelled Collins, and Doyle, thinking that they were trying for a force play, increased his efforts to reach second. Baker caught the fly, and Larry wasdoubled up at first base so far that he looked foolish. Yet it really was not his fault. The safest thing for a base runner to do under those circumstances is to get one glimpse of the coacher’s motions and then he can tell whether to go back or to go on.
“Johnnie” Kling, the old catcher of the Chicago Cubs, used to work a clever piece of defensive coaching with John Evers, the second baseman. This was tried on young players and usually was successful. The victim was picked out before the game, and the play depended upon him arriving at second base. Once there the schemers worked it as follows:
When the “busher” was found taking a large lead, Evers would dash to the bag and Kling would make a bluff to throw the ball, but hold it. The runner naturally scampered for the base. Then, seeing that Kling had not thrown, he would start to walk away from it again.
“If the Jew had thrown that time, he would have had you,” Evers would carelessly hurl over his shoulder at the intended victim. The man usually turned for a fatal second to reply. Tinker, who was playing shortstop, rushed infrom behind, Kling whipped the ball to the bag, and the man, caught off his guard, was tagged out. The play was really made before the game, when the victim was selected.
It was this same Evers-Kling combination that turned the tide in the first inning of the most famous game ever played in baseball, the extra one between the Giants and the Cubs in the season of 1908. The Chicago club was nervous in the first inning. Tenney was hit by a pitched ball, and Herzog walked. It looked as if Pfeister, the Chicago pitcher, was losing his grip. Bresnahan struck out, and Kling, always alert, dropped the third strike, but conveniently at his feet. Thinking that here was an opportunity the crowd roared. Evers, playing deep, almost behind Herzog, shouted, “Go on!”
Herzog took the bait in the excitement of the moment and ran—and was nipped many yards from first base.
There are many tricks to the coacher’s trade, both offensive and defensive, and it is the quickest-witted man who is the best coacher. The sentry at first yells as the pitcher winds up, “There he goes!” imitating the first baseman as nearly aspossible, in the hope that the twirler will waste one by pitching out and thus give the batter an advantage. The coacher on third base will shout at the runner on a short hit to the outfield, “Take your turn!” in the dim hope that the fielder, seeing the man rounding third, will throw the ball home, and the hitter can thus make an extra base. And the job of coaching is no sinecure. McGraw has told me after directing a hard game that he is as tired as if he had played.
Everything Fair in Baseball except the Dishonest Stealing of Signals—The National Game More a Contest of the Wits than Most Onlookers Imagine.
Everything Fair in Baseball except the Dishonest Stealing of Signals—The National Game More a Contest of the Wits than Most Onlookers Imagine.
Whenthe Philadelphia Athletics unexpectedly defeated the Chicago Cubs in the world’s series of 1910, the National League players cried that their signals had been stolen by the American League team, and that, because Connie Mack’s batters knew what to expect, they had won the championship.
But were the owners or any member of the Philadelphia club arrested charged with grand larceny in stealing the baseball championship of the world? No. Was there any murmur against the methods of Connie Mack’s men? No, again. By a strange kink in the ethics of baseball John Kling, the Chicago catcher,was blamed by the other players on the defeated team for the signs being stolen. They charged that he had been careless in covering his signals and that the enemy’s coachers, particularly Topsy Hartsell, a clever man at it, had seen them from the lines. This was really the cause of Kling leaving the Cubs and going to Boston in 1911.
After the games were over and the series was lost, many of the players, and especially the pitchers, would hardly speak to Kling, the man who had as much as any one else to do with the Cubs winning four championships, and the man who by his great throwing had made the reputations of a lot of their pitchers. But the players were sore because they had lost the series and lost the extra money which many of them had counted as their own before the games started, and they looked around for some one to blame and found Kling. One of the pitchers complained after he had lost a game:
“Can’t expect a guy to win with his catcher giving the signs so the coachers can read ’em and tip the batters.”
“And you can’t expect a catcher to win a gamefor you if you haven’t got anything on the ball,” replied Kling, for he is quick tempered and cannot stand reflections on his ability. But the pitcher’s chance remark had given the other players an excuse for fixing the blame, and it was put on Kling.
I honestly do not believe that Kling was in any way responsible for the rout of the proud Cubs. The Chicago pitchers were away off form in the series and could not control the ball, thus getting themselves “into the hole” all the time. Shrewd Connie Mack soon realized this and ordered his batters to wait everything out, to make the twirlers throw every ball possible. The result was that, with the pitcher continually in the hole, the batters were guessing what was coming and frequently guessing right, as any smart hitter could under the circumstances. This made it look as if the Athletics were getting the Cubs’ signals.
“Why, I changed signs every three innings, Matty,” Kling told me afterwards in discussing the charge. “Some of the boys said that I gave the old bended-knee sign for a curve ball. Well, did you ever find anything to improve on the old ones? That’s why they are old.”
But the Cubs still point the finger of scorn at Kling, for it hurts to lose. I know it, I have lost myself. Even though the Athletics are charged with stealing the signs whether they did or not, it is no smirch on the character of the club, for they stole honestly—which sounds like a paradox.
“You have such jolly funny morals in this bally country,” declared an Englishman I once met. “You steal and rob in baseball and yet you call it fair. Now in cricket we give our opponents every advantage, don’t cher know, and after the game we are all jolly good fellows at tea together.”
This brings us down to the ethics of signal stealing. Each game has its own recognized standards of fairness. For instance, no tricks are tolerated in tennis, yet the baseball manager who can devise some scheme by which he disconcerts his opponents is considered a great leader. I was about to say that all is fair in love, war, and baseball, but will modify that too comprehensive statement by saying all is fair in love, war, and baseball except stealing signals dishonestly, which listens like another paradox. Therefore, I shalldivide the subject of signal stealing into half portions, the honest and the dishonest halves, and, since we are dealing in paradoxes, take up the latter first.
Dishonest signal stealing might be defined as obtaining information by artificial aids. The honest methods are those requiring cleverness of eye, mind, and hand without outside assistance. One of the most flagrant and for a time successful pieces of signal stealing occurred in Philadelphia several years ago.
Opposing players can usually tell when the batsman is getting the signs, because he steps up and sets himself for a curve with so much confidence. During the season of 1899 the report went around the circuit that the Philadelphia club was stealing signals, because the batters were popping them all on the nose, but no one was able to discover the transmitter. The coachers were closely watched and it was evident that these sentinels were not getting the signs.
It was while the Washington club, then in the National League, was playing Philadelphia that there came a rainy morning which made the field very wet, and for a long time it was doubtfulwhether a game could be played in the afternoon, but the Washington club insisted on it and overruled the protests of the Phillies. Arlie Latham, now the coacher on the Giants’, was playing third base for the Senators at the time. He has told me often since how he discovered the device by which the signs were being stolen. He repeated the story to me recently when I asked him for the facts to use in this book.
“There was a big puddle in the third base coaching box that day,” said Latham. “And it was in the third inning that I noticed Cupid Childs, the Philadelphia second baseman, coaching. He stood with one foot in the puddle and never budged it, although the water came up to his shoe-laces. He usually jumped around when on the lines, and this stillness surprised me.
“‘Better go get your rubbers if you are goin’ to keep that trilby there,’ I said to him. ‘Charley horse and the rheumatism have no terrors for you.’
“But he kept his foot planted in the puddle just the same, and first thing the batter cracked out a base hit.
“‘So that’s where you’re gettin’ the signs?’ I said to him, not guessing that it really was.Then he started to jump around and we got the next two batters out right quick, there being a big slump in the Philadelphia hitting as soon as he took his foot out of that puddle.
“When the Washington club went to bat I hiked out to the third base line and started to coach, putting my foot into the puddle as near the place where Childs had had his as I could.
“‘Here’s where we get a few signs,’ I yelled, ‘and I ain’t afraid of Charley horse, either.’
“I looked over at the Philadelphia bench, and there were all the extra players sitting with their caps pulled down over their eyes, so that I couldn’t see their faces. The fielders all looked the other way. Then I knew I was on a warm scent.
“When the Washington players started back for the field I told Tommy Corcoran that I thought they must be getting the signs from the third base coaching box, although I hadn’t been able to feel anything there. He went over and started pawing around in the dirt and water with his spikes and fingers. Pretty soon he dug up a square chunk of wood with a buzzer on the under side of it.
“‘That ought to help their hitting a little,’he remarked as he kept on pulling. Up came a wire, and when he started to pull on it he found that it was buried about an inch under the soil and ran across the outfield. He kept right on coiling it up and following it, like a hound on a scent, the Philadelphia players being very busy all this time and nervous like a busher at his début into Big League society. One of the substitutes started to run for the clubhouse, but I stopped him.
“Tommy was galloping by this time across the outfield and all the time pulling up this wire. It led straight to the clubhouse, and there sitting where he could get a good view of the catcher’s signs with a pair of field-glasses was Morgan Murphy. The wire led right to him.
“‘What cher doin’?’ asked Tommy.
“‘Watchin’ the game,’ replied Murphy.
“‘Couldn’t you see it easier from the bench than lookin’ through those peepers from here? And why are you connected up with this machine?’ inquired Tommy, showin’ him the chunk of wood with the buzzer attached.
“‘I guess you’ve got the goods,’ Murphy answered with a laugh, and all the newspapers laughed at it then, too. But the batting averagesof the Philadelphia players took an awful slump after that.
“‘Why didn’t they tip me?’ asked Murphy as he put aside his field-glasses and went to the bench and watched the rest of the game from there. And we later won that contest, our first victory of the series, which was no discredit to us, since it was like gamblin’ against loaded dice,” concluded “Arlie.”
The newspapers may have laughed at the incident in those days, but since that time the National Commission has intimated that if there was ever a recurrence of such tactics, the club caught using them would be subjected to a heavy fine and possibly expulsion from the League. So much have baseball standards improved.
The incident is a great illustration of the unfair method of obtaining signs. Since then, there have come from time to time reports of teams taking signals by mechanical devices. The Athletics once declared that the American League team in New York had a man stationed behind the fence in centre field with a pair of glasses and that he shifted a line in the score board slightly, so as to tip off the batters, but thischarge was never confirmed. It was said a short time ago that the Athletics themselves had a spy located in a house outside their grounds and that he tipped the batters by raising and lowering an awning a trifle. When the Giants went to Philadelphia in 1911 for the first game of the world’s series in the enemy’s camp, I kept watching the windows of the houses just outside of the park for suspicious movements, but could discover none. Once in Pittsburg I thought that the Pirates were getting the Giants’ signals and I kept my eyes glued to the score board in centre field, throughout one whole series, to see if any of the figures moved or changed positions, as that seemed to be the only place from which a batter could be tipped. But I never discovered anything wrong.
There are many fair ways to steal the signs of the enemy, so many that the smart ball-player is always kept on the alert by them. Baseball geniuses, some almost magicians, are constantly looking for new schemes to find out what the catcher is telling the pitcher, what the batter is tipping the base runner to, or what the coacher’s instructions are. The Athletics have a greatreputation as being a club able to get the other team’s signs if they are obtainable. This is their record all around the American League circuit.
Personally I do not believe that Connie Mack’s players steal as much information as they get the credit for, but the reputation itself, if they never get a sign, is valuable. If a prizefighter is supposed to have a haymaking punch in his left hand, the other fellow is going to be constantly looking out for that left. If the players on a club have great reputations as signal stealers, their opponents are going to be on their guard all the time, which gives the team with the reputation just that much advantage. If a pitcher has a reputation, he has the percentage on the batter. Therefore, this gossip about the signal-stealing ability of the Athletics has added to their natural strength.
“Bill,” I said to Dahlen, the Brooklyn manager, one day toward the end of the season of 1911, when the Giants were playing their schedule out after the pennant was sure, “see if you can get the Chief’s signs.”
Dahlen coached on first base and then went to third, always looking for Meyers’s signals. Pretty soon he came to me.
“I can see them a little bit, Matty,” he reported.
“Chief,” I said to Meyers that night as I buttonholed him in the clubhouse, “you’ve got to be careful to cover up your signs in the Big Series. The Athletics have a reputation of being pretty slick at getting them. And to make sure we will arrange a set of signs that I can give if we think they are ‘hep’ to yours.”
So right there Meyers and I fixed up a code of signals that I could give to him, the Chief always to use some himself which would be “phoney” of course, and might have the desirable effect of “crossing them.”
In the first championship game at the Polo Grounds, Topsy Hartsell was out on the coaching lines looking for signals, and the Chief started giving the real ones until Davis stepped into a curve ball and cracked it to left field for a single, scoring the only run made by the Athletics. Right here Meyers stopped, and I began transmitting the private information, although the Chief continued to pass out signals that meant nothing. The Athletics were getting the Indian’s and could not understand why the answers seemed invariably to be wrong, for a couple of them struck outswinging at bad balls, and one batter narrowly avoided being hit by a fast one when apparently he had been tipped off to a curve and was set ready to swing at it. They did not discover that I was behind the signals, although to make this method successful the catcher must be a clever man. If he makes it too obvious that his signals are “phoney” and are meant to be seen, then the other club will look around for the source of the real ones. Meyers carefully concealed his misleading wig-wags beneath his chest protector, under his glove and behind his knee, as any good catcher does his real signs, so they would not look at my head.
Many persons argue: if a man sees the signs, what good does it do him if he does not know what they mean? It is easy for a smart ball-player to deduce the answers, because there are only three real signs passed between a pitcher and catcher, the sign for the fast one, for the curve ball and for the pitchout. If a coacher sees a catcher open his hand behind his glove and then watches the pitcher throw a fast one, he is likely to guess that the open palm says “Fast one.”
After a coacher has stolen the desiredinformation, he must be clever to pass it along to the batter without the other club being aware that he is doing it. He may straighten up to tell the batter a curve ball is coming, and bend over to forecast a fast one, and turn his back as a neutral signal, meaning that he does not know what is coming. If a coacher is smart enough to pass the meanings to the batter without the other team getting on, he may go through the entire season as a transmitter of information. To steal signs fairly requires quickness of mind, eye and action. Few players can do it successfully. Perhaps that is why it is considered fair.
If a team is going to make a success of signal stealing it must get every sign that is given, for an occasional crumb of information picked up at random is worse than none at all. First, it is dangerous. A batter, tipped off that a curved ball is coming, steps up to the plate and is surprised to meet a fast one, which often he has not time to dodge. Many a good ball-player has been injured in this way, and an accident to a star has cost more than one pennant.
“Joe” Kelley, formerly manager of the Reds, was coaching in Cincinnati one day several yearsago, and “Eagle Eye Jake” Beckley, the old first baseman and a chronic three hundred hitter, was at the bat. I had been feeding him low drops and Kelley, on the third base line, thought he was getting the signals that Jack Warner, the Giant catcher in a former cast of characters, was giving. I saw Kelley apparently pass some information to Beckley, and the latter stepped almost across the plate ready for a curve. He encountered a high, fast one, close in, and he encountered it with that part of him between his neck and hat band. “Eagle Eye” was unconscious for two days after that and in the hospital several weeks. When he got back into the game he said to me one day:
“Why didn’t you throw me that curve, Matty, that ‘Joe’ tipped me to?”
“Were you tipped off?” I asked. “Then it was ‘Joe’s’ error, not mine.”
“Say,” he answered, “if I ever take another sign from a coacher I hope the ball kills me.”
“It probably will,” I replied. “That one nearly did.”
It is one of the risks of signal stealing. Beckley had received the wrong information and I feltno qualms at hitting him, for it was not a wild pitch but a misinterpreted signal which had put him out of the game. His manager, not I, was to blame. For this reason many nervous players refuse to accept any information from a coacher, even if the coacher thinks he knows what is going to be pitched, because they do not dare take the risk of getting hit by a fast one, against which they have little protection if set for a curve. On this account few National League clubs attempt to steal signs as a part of the regular team work, but many individuals make a practice of it for their own benefit and for the benefit of the batter, if he is not of the timid type.
As soon as a runner gets on second base he is in an excellent position to see the hands of the catcher, and it is then that the man behind the bat is doing all that he can cover up. Jack Warner, the old Giant, used sometimes to give his signals with his mouth in this emergency, because they were visible from the pitcher’s box, but not from second base. The thieves were looking at his hands for them. In the National League, Leach, Clarke, Wagner, Bresnahan, Evers, Tinker and a few more of the sort are dangerous to have onsecond. Wagner will get on the middle sack and watch the catcher until he thinks that he has discovered the pitchout sign, which means a ball is to be wasted in the hope that a base runner can be caught. Wagner takes a big lead, and the catcher, tempted, gives the “office” to waste one, thinking to nail “Hans” off second. The Dutchman sees it, and instead of running back to second dashes for third. He starts as the catcher lets go of the ball to throw to second and can usually make the extra base.
Many coachers, who do not attempt to get the signs for fast and curved balls, study the catcher to get his pitchout sign, because once this is recognized it gives the team at the bat a great advantage. If a coacher sees the catcher give the pitchout signal he can stop the runner from trying to steal and the pitcher has wasted a ball and is “in the hole.” Then if his control is uncertain the result is likely to be disastrous.
Several players in the National League are always trying to get the batter’s signs. Bresnahan, the manager and catcher of the St. Louis club, devotes half his time and energy to looking for the wireless code employed by batter and baserunner. If he can discover the hit and run sign, then he is able to order a pitchout and catch the man who has started to run in response to it several feet at second base. He is a genius at getting this information.
Once late in 1911, when the New York club was in St. Louis on the last trip West, I came up to the bat with Fletcher on first base. I rubbed the end of my stick with my hand and Roger exclaimed:
“Why, that’s your old hit and run, Matty! What are you trying to do, kid me?”
“I forgot you knew it, Rog,” I answered, “but it goes.”
He thought I was attempting to cross him and did not order a pitchout. The sign had been given intentionally. I hit the ball and had the laugh on him. If a catcher can get a pitchout on a hit and run sign he upsets the other team greatly. Take a fast man on first base and the batter signs him that he is going to hit the next ball. The runner gets his start and the ball comes up so wide that the batter could not half reach it with a ten-foot bat. The runner is caught easily at second base and it makes him look foolish. That is why so many catchers devote time tolooking for this signal. It is a great fruit bearer.
Many of the extra players on the bench are always on the alert for the hit and run sign. This is a typical situation:
The Giants were playing the Pittsburg club one day in 1911. Byrne was on first base. Fred Clarke was at bat and Byrne started for second while Clarke hit the ball to right field, Byrne reaching third base on the play.
“What did he do?” asked Ames.
“Did you get it, Matty?” inquired Wiltse.
“No,” I answered. “Did you?”
“I think he tapped his bat on the plate,” replied Wiltse. The next time Clarke came up we were all looking to see if he tapped his bat on the plate. Byrne was again on first base. The Pirates’ manager fixed his cap, he stepped back out of the box and knocked the dirt out of his cleats, and he did two or three other natural things before the pitch, but nothing happened. Then he tapped his bat on the plate.
“Make him put them over, Chief,” yelled Wiltse which, translated, meant, “Order a pitch-out, Chief. He just gave Byrne the hit and run sign.”
Meyers signed for a pitchout, and Byrne was caught ten feet from second. Wiltse on the bench had really nailed the base runner. As soon as a sign is discovered it is communicated to the other players, and they are always watching for it, but try to conceal the fact that they recognize it, because, as soon as a batter discovers that his messages are being read, he changes his code.
From these few facts about signals and sign stealing some idea of the battle of wits that is going on between two ball clubs in a game may be obtained. That is why so few men without brains last in the Big Leagues nowadays. A young fellow broke in with the Giants a few years ago and was very anxious to make good. He was playing shortstop.
“Watch for the catcher’s signs and then shift,” McGraw told him one day. It is well known in baseball that a right-handed hitter will naturally push a curve over the outside corner of the plate toward right field and over the inside he will pull it around toward third base. But this youngster was overanxious and would shift before the pitcher started to deliver the ball. Some smart player on another club noticed this and tippedthe batters off to watch the youngster for the signs. When he shifted toward second base the batter set himself for a ball over the outside corner. For a long time McGraw could not understand how the other teams were getting the Giants’ signs, especially as it was on our home grounds. At last he saw the new infielder shift one day and the batter prepare for an inside ball.
“Say,” he said to the player, rushing on the field after he had stopped the pitcher, “do you know you are telegraphing the signs to the batters by moving around before the pitcher throws the ball?”
Bill Dahlen, formerly a shortstop on the Giants, used to shift, but he was clever enough to wait until the pitcher had started his motion, when it was too late for the batter to look at him.
Ball-players are always looking to steal some sign so that they may “cross” the enemy. In the language of the Big Leagues it is “signs,” never “signals.” And in conclusion I reiterate my former sentiments that all is fair in love, war and baseball except stealing signs dishonestly.