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.
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.
Manytimes 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 theypilfered, 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 theleading, 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 requiredfive 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 caughthim. 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 thetelephonethat 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’sreputation 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 consolationto 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:
“The first time I get on, I bet I canmake that fellow fumble and pick up an extra base.”
“Theatre tickets for the crowd on Saturday night?” inquired McGraw.
“You’ve said it,” answered Murray.
Along about the second or third inning John walked, and started for second on the first ball pitched. The busher came in to cover the base, and Murray leaped clear of the ground and yelled:
“Look out!”
The newcomer evidently thought that Murray had lost control of his legs, got one look at those spikes, and bent all his energies toward dodging them, paying no attention whatever to the ball, which continued its unmolested journey to centre field. The new man proved to be one of the best little dodgers I ever saw. John was in a perfect position to start and went along to third at his leisure.
“Didn’t I call the turn?” Murray yelled at McGraw as he came to the bench.
“What show do you want to see?” asked McGraw.
But on an old campaigner this show of spikes has no effect whatever. The capable basemenin the League know how to cover the bag so as to get the runner out and still give him room to come in without hurting any one. In spite of an impression that prevails to the contrary, ball-players never spike a man on purpose. At present, I don’t believe there is a runner in the National League who would cut down another man if he had the opportunity. If one man does spike another accidentally, he is heartily sorry, and often such an event affects his own playing and his base running ability.
The feet-first slide is now more in vogue in the Big Leagues than the old head-first coast, and I attribute this to two causes. One is that the show of the spikes is a sort of assurance the base runner is going to have room to come into the bag, and the second is that the great amount of armor which a catcher wears in these latter days makes some such formidable slide necessary when coming into the plate.
If a base runner hits a catcher squarely with his shin guards on, he is likely to be badly injured, and he must be sure that the catcher is going to give him a clear path. Some catchers block off the plate so that a man has got to shoot his spikesat them to get through, and I’m not saying that it’s bad catching, because that is the way to keep a man from scoring. Make him go around if possible.
But the game has changed in the last few years as far as intentional spiking goes. Many a time, when I first started with the Giants, I heard a base runner shout at a fielder:
“Get out of the way there or I’ll cut you in two!”
And he would not have hesitated to do it, either. That was part of the game. But nowadays, if a player got the reputation of cutting men down and putting star players out of the game intentionally, he would soon be driven out of the League, probably on a stretcher.
When John Hummel of the Brooklyn club spiked Doyle in 1908, and greatly lessened the Giants’ chances of winning the pennant, which the club ultimately lost, he came around to our clubhouse after the game and inquired for Larry. When he found how badly Doyle was cut, he was as broken up as any member of our team.
“If I’d known I was goin’ to cut you, Larry, I wouldn’t have slid,” he said.
“That’s all right,” answered Doyle. “I guess I was blockin’ you.”
Ball-players don’t say much in a situation of that kind. But each one who witnessed the incident knew that when Doyle doubled down, spiked, most of our chances of the pennant went down with him, for it broke up the infield of the team at a most important moment. It takes some time for a new part to work into a clock so that it keeps perfect time again, no matter how delicate is the workmanship of the new part. So the best infielder takes time to fit into the infield of a Big League club and have it hit on all four cylinders again.
Fred Merkle is one of the few ball-players who still prefers the head-first slide, and he sticks to it only on certain occasions. He is the best man to steal third base playing ball to-day. He declares that, when he is going into the bag, he can see better by shooting his head first and that he can swing his body away from the base and just hook it with one finger nail, leaving just that to touch. And he keeps his nails clipped short in the season, so that there is very little exposed to which the ball can be applied. If he sees that the thirdbaseman is playing inside the bag, he goes behind it and hooks it with his finger, and if the man is playing back, he cuts through in front, pulling his body away from the play. But the common or garden variety of player will take the hook slide, feet first, because he can catch the bag with one leg, and the feet aren’t as tender a portion of the anatomy to be roughly touched as the head and shoulders.
A club of base runners will do more to help a pitcher win than a batting order of hard hitters, I believe. Speed is the great thing in the baseball of to-day. By speed I do not mean that good men must be sprinters alone. They must be fast starters, fast runners and fast thinkers. Remember that last one—fast thinkers.
Harry McCormick, formerly the left-fielder on the Giants, when he joined the club before his legs began to go bad, was a sprinter, one of the fastest men who ever broke into the League. Before he took up baseball as a profession, he had been a runner in college. But McCormick was never a brilliant base stealer because he could not get the start.
When a man is pitching for a club of baserunners he knows that every time a player with a stealing reputation gets on and there is an outside chance of his scoring, the run is going to be hung up. The tallies give a pitcher confidence to proceed. Then, when the club has the reputation of possessing a great bunch of base runners, the other pitcher is worried all the time and has to devote about half his energies to watching the bases. This makes him easier to hit.
But put a hard hitter who is a slow base runner on the club, and he does little good. There used to be a man on the Giants, named “Charley” Hickman, who played third base and then the outfield. He was one of the best natural hitters who ever wormed his way into baseball, but when he got on, the bases were blocked. He could not run, and it took a hit to advance him a base. Get a fast man on behind him and, because the rules of the game do not permit one runner to pass another, it was like having a freight train preceding the Twentieth Century Limited on a single track road. Hickman was not so slow when he first started, but after a while his legs went bad and his weight increased, so that he was built like a box car, to carry out the railroad figure.
Hickman finally dropped back into the minor leagues and continued to bat three hundred, but he had to lose the ball to make the journey clear around the bases on one wallop. Once he hit the old flag pole in centre field at the Polo Grounds on the fly, and just did nose the ball out at the plate. It was a record hit for distance. At last, while still maintaining the three-hundred pace, Hickman was dropped by the Toledo club of the American Association.
“Why did you let Charley Hickman go?” I asked the manager one day.
“Because he was tyin’ up traffic on the bases,” he replied.
Merkle is not a particularly fast runner, but he is a great base stealer because he has acquired the knack of “getting away.” He never tries to steal until he has his start. He is also a good arriver, as I have pointed out. It was like getting a steamroller in motion to start Hickman.
Clever ball-players and managers are always trying to evolve new base-running tactics that will puzzle the other team, but “there ain’t no new stuff.” It is a case of digging up the old ones. Pitchers are also earnest in their endeavors todiscover improved ways to stop base running. Merkle and I worked out a play during the spring training season in 1911 which caught perhaps a dozen men off first base before the other teams began to watch for the trick. And it was not original with me. I got the idea from “Patsy” Flaherty, a Boston pitcher who has his salary wing fastened to his left side.
Flaherty would pitch over to first base quickly, and the fielder would shoot the ball back. Then Flaherty would pop one through to the batter, often catching him off his guard, and sneaking a strike over besides leaving the runner flat on the ground in the position in which he had been when he slid back to the bag. If the batter hit the ball, the runner was in no attitude to get a start, and, on an infield tap, it was easy to make a double play.
The next time that the man got on base, Flaherty would shoot the ball over to first as before, and the runner would be up on his feet and away from the bag, expecting him to throw it to the plate. But as the first baseman whipped it back quickly Flaherty returned the ball and the runner was caught flat footed and made to look foolish. Ball-players do certainly hate to appear ridiculous, andthe laugh from the crowd upsets a Big Leaguer more than anything else, even a call from McGraw, because the crowd cannot hear that and does not know the man is looking foolish.
It was almost impossible to steal bases on “Patsy” Flaherty because he had the men hugging the bag all the time, and if he had had other essentials of a pitcher, he would have been a great one. He even lived in the Big League for some time with this quick throw as his only asset. I adopted the Flaherty movement, but it is harder for a right-hander to use, as he is not in such a good position to whip the ball to the bag. Merkle and I rehearsed it in spring practice. As soon as a man got on first base, I popped the ball over to Merkle, and without even making a stab at the runner, he shot it to me. Then back again, just as the runner had let go of the bag and was getting up. The theoretical result: He was caught flat-footed. Sometimes it worked. Then they began to play for me.
Another play on which the changes have often been rung is the double steal with men on first and third bases. That is McGraw’s favorite situation in a crisis.
“Somebody’s got to look foolish on the play,” says “Mac,” “and I don’t want to furnish any laughs.”
The old way to work it was to have the man on first start for second, as if he were going to make a straight steal. Then as soon as the catcher drew his arm back to throw, the runner on third started home. No Big League club can have a look into the pennant set without trying to interrupt the journey of that man going to second in a tight place, because if no play is made for him and a hit follows, it nets the club two runs instead of one.
Most teams try to stop this play by having the shortstop or second baseman come in and take a short throw, and if the man on third breaks for home, the receiver of the ball whips it back. If both throws are perfect, the runner is caught at the plate.
But the catchers found that certain clubs were making this play in routine fashion, the runner on first starting with the pitch, and the one on third making his break just as soon as the catcher drew back his arm. Then the backstops began making a bluff throw to second and whipping the ball to third, often getting the runner by several feet,as he had already definitely started for the plate.
“Tommy” Leach of the Pittsburg club was probably caught oftener on this bluff throw than any other man in baseball. For some time he had been making the play against clubs which used the short throw, and starting as the catcher drew back his arm, as that was the only chance he had to score. One day in the season of 1908, when the Pirates were playing against the Giants, Clarke was on first and Leach on third, with one run required to balance the game. McGraw knew the double steal was to be expected, as two were out. Bresnahan was aware of this, too.
McGinnity was pitching, and with his motion, Clarke got his start. Bresnahan drew back his arm as if to throw to second, and true to form, Leach was on his way to the plate. But Bresnahan had not let go of the ball, and he shot it to Devlin, Leach being run down in the base line and the Pittsburg club eventually losing the game.
Again and again Leach fell for this bluff throw, until the news spread around the circuit that once a catcher drew back his arm with a man on first base and “Tommy” Leach on third, there wouldbe no holding him on the bag. He was caught time and again—indeed as frequently as the play came up. It was his “groove.” He could not be stopped from making his break. At last Clarke had to order him to abandon the play until he could cure himself of this self-starting habit.
“What you want to do on that play is cross ’em,” is McGraw’s theory, and he proceeded to develop the delayed steal with this intent.
Put the men back on first and third bases. Thank you. The pitcher has the ball. The runner on first intentionally takes too large a lead. The pitcher throws over, and he moves a few steps toward second. Then a few more. All that time the man on third is edging off an inch, two inches, a foot. The first baseman turns to throw to second to stop that man. The runner on third plunges for the plate, and usually gets there. It’s a hard one to stop, but that’s its purpose.
Then, again, it can be worked after the catcher gets the ball. The runner starts from first slowly and the catcher hesitates, not knowing whether to throw to first or second. Since the runner did not start with the pitch, theoretically no one has come in to take a short throw, and the play cannotbe made back to the plate if the ball is thrown to second. This form of the play is usually successful. Miller Huggins is one of the hardest second basemen in the League to work it against successfully. With men on first and third, he always comes in for the short throw on the chance, and covers himself up.
After we had stolen our way to a pennant in the National League in the season of 1911, and after our five leading base runners had been “mugged” by the police in St. Louis so that the catchers would know them, many fans expected to see us steal a world’s championship, and we half expected it ourselves.
But so did “Connie” Mack, and there lies the answer. He knew our strong point, and his players had discussed and rehearsed ways and means to break up our game. Mack had been watching the Giants for weeks previous to the series and had had his spies taking notes.
“We’ve got to stop them running bases,” he told his men before the first game, I have learned since. And they did. Guess the St. Louis police must have sent Thomas and Lapp copies of those pictures.
Mack’s pitchers cut their motions down to nothing with men on the bases, microscopic motions, and they watched the runners like hawks. Thomas had been practising to get the men. The first time that Devore made a break to steal, he was caught several feet from the bag.
“And you call yourself fast!” commented Collins as he threw the ball back to the pitcher and jogged to his job. “You remind me of a cop on a fixed post,” he flung over his shoulder.
Pitchers have a great deal to do with the defensive efficiency of the club. If they do not hold the runners up, the best catcher in the world cannot stop them at their destination. That is the reason why so many high-class catchers have been developed by the Chicago Cubs. The team has always had a good pitching staff, and men like Overall, Brown and Reulbach force the runners to stick to the oases of safety.
The Giants stole their way to a pennant in 1911, and it wasn’t on account of the speedy material, but because McGraw had spent days teaching his men to slide and emphasizing the necessity of getting the jump. Then he picked the stages ofthe game when the attempts to steal were to be made. But McGraw, with his all-star cast of thieves, was stopped in the world’s series by one Cornelius McGillicuddy.
The “Inside” Game is of Little Avail when a Batter Knocks a Home Run with the Bases Full—Many Times the Strategies of Managers have Failed because Opposing Clubs “Doctored” their Grounds—“Rube” Waddell Once Cost the Athletics a Game by Failing to Show up after the Pitcher’s Box had been Fixed for Him—But, although the “Inside” Game Sometimes Fails, no Manager Wants a Player who will Steal Second with the Bases Full.
The “Inside” Game is of Little Avail when a Batter Knocks a Home Run with the Bases Full—Many Times the Strategies of Managers have Failed because Opposing Clubs “Doctored” their Grounds—“Rube” Waddell Once Cost the Athletics a Game by Failing to Show up after the Pitcher’s Box had been Fixed for Him—But, although the “Inside” Game Sometimes Fails, no Manager Wants a Player who will Steal Second with the Bases Full.
Thereis an old story about an altercation which took place during a wedding ceremony in the backwoods of the Virginia mountains. The discussion started over the propriety of the best man holding the ring, and by the time that it had been finally settled the bride gazed around on adead bridegroom, a dead father, and a dead best man, not to mention three or four very dead ushers and a clergyman.
“Them new fangled self-cockin’ automatic guns has sure raised hell with my prospects,” she sighed.
That’s the way I felt when John Franklin Baker popped that home run into the right-field stand in the ninth inning of the third game of the 1911 world’s series with one man already out. For eight and one-thirdinningsthe Giants had played “inside” ball, and I had carefully nursed along every batter who came to the plate, studying his weakness and pitching at it. It looked as if we were going to win the game, and then zing! And also zowie! The ball went into the stand on a line and I looked around at my fielders who had had the game almost within their grasp a minute before. Instantly, I realized that I had been pitching myself out, expecting the end to come in nine innings. My arm felt like so much lead hanging to my side after that hit. I wanted to go and get some crape and hang it on my salary whip. Then that old story about the wedding popped into my head, and I said to myself:
“He has sure raised hell with your prospects.”
“Sam” Strang, the official pinch hitter of the Giants a few seasons ago, was one of the best in the business. McGraw sent him to the bat in the ninth inning of a game the Giants were playing in Brooklyn. We were two runs behind and two were already out, with one runner on the bases, and he was only as far as second. “Doc” Scanlon was pitching for Brooklyn, and, evidently intimidated by Sam’s pinch-hitting reputation or something, suddenly became wild and gave the Giant batter three balls. With the count three and nothing, McGraw shouted from the bench:
“Wait it out, Sam!”
But Sam did not hear him, and he took a nice masculine, virile, full-armed swing at the ball and fouled it out of the reach of all the local guardians of the soil.
“Are you deaf?” barked McGraw. “Wait it out, I tell you.”
As a matter of fact, Strang was a little deaf and did not hear the shouted instructions the second time. But “Doc” Scanlon was sensitive as to hearing and, feeling sure Strang would obey the orders of McGraw, thought he would be taking no chances in putting the next ball over the centre ofthe plate. It came up the “groove,” and Strang admired it as it approached. Then he took his swing, and the next place the ball touched was in the Italian district just over the right field fence. The hit tied the score.
McGraw met Strang at the plate, and instead of greeting him with shouts of approbation, exclaimed:
“I ought to fine you $25, and would, except for those two runs and the few points’ difference the game will make in the percentage. Come on now, boys. Let’s win this one.” And we did in the eleventh inning.
That was a case of the “inside” game failing. Any Big League pitcher with brains would have laid the ball over after hearing McGraw shout earnest and direct orders at the batter to “wait it out.” Scanlon was playing the game and Strang was not, but it broke for Sam. It was the first time in his life that he ever hit the ball over the right field fence in Brooklyn, and he has never done it since. If he had not been lucky in connecting with that ball and lifting it where it did the most good, his pay envelope would have been lighter by $25 at the end of the month, and hewould have obtained an accurate idea of McGraw’s opinion of his intellectuality.
In the clubhouse after the victory, McGraw said:
“Honest, Sam, why did you swing at that ball after I had told you not to?”
“I didn’t hear you,” replied Strang.
“Well, it’s lucky you hit it where they weren’t,” answered McGraw, “because if any fielder had connected with the ball, there would have been a rough greeting waiting for you on the bench. And as a tip, Sam, direct from me: You got away with it once, but don’t try it again. It was bad baseball.”
“But that straight one looked awful good to me coming up the ‘groove,’” argued Sam.
“Don’t fall for all the good lookers, Sam,” suggested McGraw, the philosopher.
Strang is now abroad having his voice cultivated and he intends to enter the grand-opera field as soon as he can finish the spring training in Paris and get his throat into shape for the big league music circuit. But I will give any orchestra leader who faces Sam a tip. If he doesn’t want him to come in strong where the music is marked “rest,”don’t put one in the “groove,” because Strang just naturally can’t help swinging at it. He is a poor waiter.
The Boston club lost eighteen straight games in the season of 1910, and as the team was leaving the Polo Grounds after having dropped four in a row, making the eighteen, I said to Tenney:
“How does it seem, Fred, to be on a club that has lost eighteen straight?”
“It’s what General Sherman said war is,” replied Tenney, who seldom swears. “But for all-around entertainment I would like to see John McGraw on a team which had dropped fifteen or sixteen in a row.”
As if Tenney had put the curse on us, the Giants hit a losing streak the next day that totalled six games straight. Everything that we tried broke against us. McGraw would attempt the double steal, and both throws would be accurate, and the runner caught at the plate. A hit and a run sign would be given, and the batter would run up against a pitch-out.
McGraw was slowly going crazy. All his pet “inside” tricks were worthless. He, the king ofbaseball clairvoyants, could not guess right. It began to look to me as if Tenney would get his entertainment. After the sixth one had gone against us and McGraw had not spoken a friendly word to any one for a week, he called the players around him in the clubhouse.
“I ought to let you all out and get a gang of high-school boys in here to defend the civic honor of this great and growing city whose municipal pride rests on your shoulders,” he said. “But I’m not going to do it. Hereafter we will cut out all ‘inside’ stuff and play straight baseball. Every man will go up there and hit the ball just as you see it done on the lots.”
Into this oration was mixed a judicious amount of sulphur. The Cubs had just taken the first three of a four-game series from us without any trouble at all. The next day we went out and resorted to the wallop, plain, untrimmed slugging tactics, and beat Chicago 17 to 1. Later we returned to the hand-raised, cultivated hot-house form of baseball, but for a week we played the old-fashioned game with a great deal of success. It changed our luck.
Another method which has upset the “inside”game of many visiting teams is “doping” the grounds.
The first time in my baseball career that I ever encountered this was in Brooklyn when Hanlon was the manager. Every time he thought I was going to pitch there, he would have the diamond doctored for me in the morning. The ground-keeper sank the pitcher’s box down so that it was below the level of all the bases instead of slightly elevated as it should be.
Hanlon knew that I used a lot of speed when I first broke into the League, getting some of it from my elevation on the diamond. He had a team of fast men who depended largely on a bunting game and their speed in getting to first base to win. With me fielding bunts out of the hollow, they had a better chance of making their goal. Then pitching from the lower level would naturally result in the batters getting low balls, because I would be more apt to misjudge the elevation of the plate. Low ones were made to bunt. Finally, Hanlon always put into the box to work against me a little pitcher who was not affected as much as I by the topographical changes.
“Why,” I said to George Davis, the Giants’manager, the first time I pitched out of the cellar which in Brooklyn was regarded as the pitcher’s box, “I’m throwing from a hollow instead of off a mound.”
“Sure,” replied Davis. “They ‘doped’ the grounds for you. But never mind. When we are entertaining, the box at the Polo Grounds will be built up the days you are going to pitch against Brooklyn, and you can burn them over and at their heads if you like.”
The thing that worried the Athletics most before the last world’s series was the reputation of the Giants as base stealers. When we went to Philadelphia for the first game, I was surprised at the heavy condition of the base lines.
“Did it rain here last night?” I inquired from a native.
“No,” he answered.
Then I knew that the lines had been wet down to slow up our fast runners and make it harder for them to steal. As things developed, this precaution was unnecessary, but it was an effort to break up what was known to be our strongest “inside” play.
Baseball men maintain that the acme of doctoringgrounds was the work of the old Baltimore Orioles. The team was composed of fast men who were brilliant bunters and hard base runners. The soil of the infield was mixed with a form of clay which, when wet and then rolled, was almost as hard as concrete. The ground outside the first and third base lines was built up slightly to keep well placed bunts from rolling foul, while toward first base there was a distinct down grade to aid the runner in reaching that station with all possible expedition. Toward second there was a gentle slope, and it was down hill to third. But coming home from third was up-hill work. A player had to be a mountain climber to make it. This all benefited fast men like Keeler, McGraw, Kelley and Jennings whose most dangerous form of attack was the bunt.
The Orioles did not stop at doctoring the infield. The grass in the outfield was permitted to grow long and was unkempt. Centre and left fields were kept level, but in right field there was a sharp down grade to aid the fast Keeler. He had made an exhaustive study of all the possible angles at which the ball might bound and had certain paths that he followed, but which were not marked outby sign posts for visiting right-fielders. He was sure death on hits to his territory, while usually wallops got past visiting right-fielders. And so great was the grade that “Wee Willie” was barely visible from the batter’s box. A hitting team coming to Baltimore would be forced to fall into the bunting game or be entirely outclassed. And the Orioles did not furnish their guests with topographical maps of the grounds either.
The habit of doctoring grounds is not so much in vogue now as it once was. For a long time it was considered fair to arrange the home field to the best advantage of the team which owned it, for otherwise what was the use in being home? It was on the same principle that a general builds his breastworks to best suit the fighting style of his army, for they are his breastworks.
But lately among the profession, sentiment and baseball legislation have prevailed against the doctoring of grounds, and it is done very little. Occasionally a pitching box is raised or lowered to meet the requirements of a certain man, but they are not altered every day to fit the pitcher, as they once were. Such tactics often hopelessly upset the plan of battle of the visiting club unless thisexactly coincided with the habits of the home team. Many strategic plans have been wasted on carefully arranged grounds, and many “inside” plays have gone by the boards when the field was fixed so that a bunt was bound to roll foul if the ball followed the laws of gravitation, as it usually does, because the visiting team was known to have the bunting habit.
A good story of doctored grounds gone wrong is told of the Philadelphia Athletics. The eccentric “Rube” Waddell had bundles of speed in his early days, and from a slightly elevated pitcher’s box the batter could scarcely identify “Rube’s” delivery from that of a cannon. He was scheduled to pitch one day and showed around at morning practice looking unusually fit for George.
“How are you feeling to-day, George?” asked “Connie” Mack, his boss.
“Never better,” replied the light-hearted “Rube.”
“Well, you work this afternoon.”
“All right,” answered Waddell.
Then the ground-keeper got busy and built the pitcher’s box up about two feet, so that Waddell would have a splendid opportunity to cut looseall his speed. At that time he happened to be the only tall man on the pitching staff of the Philadelphia club, and, as a rule, the box was kept very low. The scheme would probably have worked out as planned, if it had not been that Waddell, in the course of his noon-day wanderings, met several friends in whose society he became so deeply absorbed that he neglected to report at the ball park at all. He also forgot to send word, and here was the pitcher’s box standing up out of the infield like one of the peaks of the Alps.
As the players gathered, and Waddell failed to show up, the manager nervously looked at his watch. At last he sent out scouts to the “Rube’s” known haunts, but no trace of the temperamental artist could be found. The visitors were already on the field, and it was too late to lower the box. A short pitcher had to work in the game from this peak of progress, while the opposing team installed a skyscraper on the mound. The Philadelphia club was badly beaten and Waddell heavily fined for his carelessness in disrupting the “inside” play of his team.
An old and favorite trick used to be to soap the soil around the pitcher’s box, so that when a manwas searching for some place to dry his perspiring hands and grabbed up this soaped earth, it made his palm slippery and he was unable to control the ball.
Of course, the home talent knew where the good ground lay and used it or else carried some unadulterated earth in their trousers’ pockets, as a sort of private stock. But our old friend “Bugs” Raymond hit on a scheme to spoil this idea and make the trick useless. Arthur always perspired profusely when he pitched, and several managers, perceiving this, had made it a habit to soap the dirt liberally whenever it was his turn to work. While he was pitching for St. Louis, he went into the box against the Pirates one day in Pittsburg. His hands were naturally slippery, and several times he had complained that he could not dry them in the dirt, especially in Pittsburg soil.
As Raymond worked in the game in question, he was noticed, particularly by the Pittsburg batters and spectators, to get better as he went along. Frequently, his hand slipped into his back pocket, and then his control was wonderful. Sometimes, he would reach down and apparently pick up a handful of earth, but it did no damage.After the game, he walked over to Fred Clarke, and reached into his back pocket. His face broke into a grin.
“Ever see any of that stuff, Fred?” he asked innocently, showing the Pittsburg manager a handful of a dark brown substance. “That’s rosin. It’s great—lots better than soaped ground. Wish you’d keep a supply out there in the box for me when I’m going to work instead of that slippery stuff you’ve got out there now. Will you, as a favor to me?”
Thereafter, all the pitchers got to carrying rosin or pumice stone in their pockets, for the story quickly went round the circuit, and it is useless to soap the soil in the box any more. There are many tricks by which the grounds or ball are “fixed,” but for nearly all an antidote has been discovered, and these questionable forms of the “inside” game have failed so often that they have largely been abandoned.
One Big League manager used always to give his men licorice or some other dark and adhesive and juicy substance to chew on a dingy day. The purpose was to dirty the ball so that it was harder for the batters to see when the pitcher used hisfast one. As soon as a new ball was thrown into the game, it was quickly passed around among the fielders, and instead of being the lily-white thing that left the umpire’s hands, when it finally got to the pitcher’s box it was a very pronounced brunette. But some eagle-eyed arbiter detected this, and kept pouring new balls into the game when the non-licorice chewers were at the bat, while he saved the discolored ones for the consumption of the masticators. It was another trick that failed.
Frequently, backgrounds are tampered with if the home club is notably weak at the bat. The best background for a batter is a dull, solid green. Many clubs have painted backgrounds in several contrasting, broken colors so that the sunlight, shining on them, blinds the batter. The Chicago White Sox are said to have done this, and for many years the figures showed that the batting of both the Chicago players and the visitors at their park was very light. The White Sox’s hitting was weak anywhere, so that the poor background was an advantage to them.
Injuries have often upset the “inside” play of a club. Usually a team’s style revolves around oneor two men, and the taking of them out of the game destroys the whole machine. The substitute does not think as quickly; neither does he see and grasp the opportunities as readily. This was true of the Cubs last season. Chance and Evers used to be the “inside” game of the team. Evers was out of the game most of the summer and Chance was struck in the head with a pitched ball and had to quit. The playing of the Chicago team fell down greatly as a result.
Chance is the sort of athlete who is likely to get injured. When he was a catcher he was always banged up because he never got out of the way of anything. He is that kind of player. If he has to choose between accepting a pair of spikes in a vital part of his anatomy and getting a put-out, or dodging the spikes and losing the put-out, he always takes the put-out and usually the spikes. He never dodges away from a ball when at bat that may possibly break over the plate and cost him a strike. That is why he was hit in the head. He lingered too long to ascertain whether the ball was going to curve and found out that it was not, which put him out of the game, the Cubs practically out of thepennant race, and broke up their “inside” play.
Roger Bresnahan is the same kind of a man. He thinks quickly, and is a brilliant player, but he never dodges anything. He is often hurt as a result. Once, when he was with the Giants, he was hit in the face with a pitched ball, and McGraw worried while he was laid up, for fear that it would make him bat shy. After he came back, he was just as friendly with the plate as ever. The injury of men like Chance and Bresnahan, whose services are of such vital importance to the “inside” play of a team, destroys the effectiveness of the club.
Once, in 1908, when we were fighting the Cubs for the pennant at every step, McGraw planned a bunting game against Overall, who is big and not very fast in covering the little rollers. Bresnahan and O’Day had been having a serial argument through two games, and Roger, whose nerves were worn to a frazzle, like those of the rest of us at that time, thought “Hank” had been shading his judgment slightly toward the Cubs. In another story I have pointed out that O’Day, the umpire, was stubborn and that nothing could begained by continually picking on him. When the batteries were announced for that game, McGraw said as the team went to the field:
“We can beat this guy Overall by bunting.”
Bresnahan went out to put on his chest protector and shin guards. O’Day happened to be adjusting his makeup near him. Roger could not resist the temptation.
“Why don’t you put on a Chicago uniform, ‘Hank’, instead of those duds?” he asked. “Is it true, if the Cubs win the pennant, they’ve promised to elect you alderman in Chicago?”
“Get out of the game and off the field,” said O’Day.
Bresnahan had to obey the injunction and Needham, the only other available catcher, went behind the mat. “Tom” Needham never beat out a bunt in his life, and he destroyed all McGraw’s plans because, with him in the game instead of Bresnahan, the style had to be switched. We lost. Bresnahan, a fast man and a good bunter batted third and would have been valuable in the attack best adapted to beat Overall. But his sudden demise and the enforced substitution of the plodding Needham ruined the whole plan ofcampaign. Therefore, frequently umpires upset a team’s “inside” game.
One of McGraw’s schemes back-fired on him when Luderus, the hard-hitting Philadelphia first baseman, broke into the League. Some one had tipped “Mac” off, and tipped him wrong, that this youngster could be disconcerted in a pinch by the catcher discussing signs and what-not with him, thus distracting his attention.
“Chief,” said McGraw before the game, “if this Luderus gets up in a tight place, slip him a little talk.”
The situation came, and Meyers obeyed instructions. The game was in Philadelphia, and three men were on the bases with two out. Ames was pitching.
“What are you bringing the bat up with you for?” asked the “Chief” as Luderus arranged himself at the plate.
No answer.
Then Meyers gave Ames his sign. Next he fixed his fingers in a fake signal and addressed the young batter.
“The best hitters steal signs,” said the “Chief.” “Just look down in my glove and see the signals.”
But Luderus was not caught and kept his eyes glued on Ames. He hit the next ball over the right field wall and won the game. As he crossed the plate, he said to the “Chief”:
“It’s too easy. I don’t need your signs. They pulled that one on me in the bushes long ago.”
“After this, when that fellow bats,” said McGraw to Meyers later, “do as exact an imitation of the sphinx as you know how. The tip was no good.”
The trick of talking to the hitter is an old one. The idea is for the catcher to give a wrong sign, for his benefit, after having flashed the right one, induce the batter, usually a youngster, to look down at it, and then have the pitcher shoot one over the plate while he is staring in the glove.
“Steve” Evans, the St. Louis right-fielder, tells a story of a fan who sat in the same box at the Cardinals’ park every day and devoted most of his time to roasting him (S. Evans). His favorite expressions in connection with Evans were “bone dead,” “wooden head,” and so on. He loudly claimed that “Steve” had no knowledge of the game and spoiled every play that Bresnahan tried to put through. One day, when the Giants wereplaying in St. Louis, some one knocked up a high foul which landed in this orator’s box. He saw it coming, tried to dodge, used poor judgment, and, realizing that the ball was going to strike him, snatched his hat off, and took it full on an immodestly bald head. “Steve” Evans was waiting to go to the bat. He shifted his chew to his other cheek and exclaimed in a voice that could not have been heard more than two miles away:
“That’s the ‘gink’ who has been calling me a ‘bone head.’”
“Steve” got a great laugh from the crowd, but right there the St. Louis club lost a patron, for the bald-headed one has never been seen at the grounds since, according to Evans, and his obituary has not been printed yet, either.
“Al” Bridwell, formerly the Giants’ shortstop, was one of the cleverest men at the “inside” game that ever broke into the Big Leagues, and it was this that made him valuable. Then suddenly his legs went bad, and he slowed up. It was his speed and his ability to bunt and his tireless waiting at the plate to make all toilers in the box pitch that had made him a great player. He seldom swung at a bad ball. As soon as he slowedup, McGraw knew he would have to go if the Giants were to win the pennant. He deeply regretted letting the gritty, little shortstop, whose legs had grown stiff in his service, leave the club, but sentiment never won any pennants.
“Al,” he said to Bridwell, “I’m going to let you go to Boston. Your legs will be all right eventually, but I’ve got to have a fast man now while you are getting back your old speed.”
“That’s all right, ‘Mac,’” replied Bridwell. “It’s all part of the game.”
He did not rave and swear that he had been double-crossed, as many players do under the same circumstances. I never heard Bridwell swear, and I never found any one else who did. He had been playing for weeks, when every time he moved it pained him, because he thought he might have a share of the money that winning a pennant would mean. It was a staggering blow to him, this sending him from a pennant possibility to a hopeless tail-ender, but he took it gamely.
“I guess I was ‘gumming’ the inside stuff,” he said.
And he did get some of the prize money. The boys voted him a share.
It will be seen that the “inside” game sometimes fails. Many a time I have passed a catcher or good batter to take a chance on a pitcher, and then have had him make a hit just when hits were not at all welcome. I walked a catcher once and had the pitcher shove the ball over first base for a single, when he closed his eyes and dodged back in an effort to get his head out of the line he thought it was pursuing before it curved. In ducking, he got his bat in front of the ball, a result he had never obtained with his eyes open.
Once I started to pass “Hans” Wagner in a pinch to take a chance on the next batter, and was a little careless in throwing the ball too close to the plate. He reached out and slapped it for a single. Again the “inside” game had failed.
Speaking pretty generally, most managers prefer to use this “inside” game, though, and there are few vacancies in the Big Leagues right now for the man who is liable to steal second with the bases full.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation has been corrected without note.
Other than the corrections noted by hover information, inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.