Pitching in a Pinch quotes

“What’s his ‘groove,’ Jack?” I asked him.

“A base on balls,” replied Warner, without cracking a smile.

That’s always been Wagner’s “groove.”

But I find that talking to a batter disconcerts me almost as much as it does him, and I seldom do it.

Repartee is not my line anyway.

Bender talked to the Giant players all through that first game in the 1911 world’s series, the one in which he wore the smile, probably because he was a pitcher old in the game and several of the younger men on the New York team …

A pitcher is in a tight game, and the batter makes a hit. Another follows and some fan back in the stand cries in stentorian tones:

It is the dirge of baseball which has broken the hearts of pitchers ever since the game began and will continue to do so as long as it lives.

Another fan takes up the shout, and another, and another, until it is a chorus.

Opposing players, if they are up in the pennant hunt, are hard on a pitcher of this sort and would lose no opportunity to mention the price paid for him and connect it pointedly with his showing, if that showing was a little wobbly.

Charity begins at home, and stays there, in the Big Leagues.

At least, I never saw any of it on the ball fields, especially if the club is in the race, and the only thing that stands between it and a victory is the ruining of a $22,500 pitcher of a rival.

“What’d I tell you?” asked McGraw, coaching. “Could he hurt you?”

“Say,” replied “Josh,” “I’d hire out to let them pitch baseballs at me if none could throw harder than that guy.”

Devore was cured of being bat shy when Sallee was pitching, right then and there, and he has improved greatly against all left-handers ever since, so much so that McGraw leaves him in the game now when a southpaw pitches, instead of placing Beals Becker …

Each veteran does all that he can to help the youngster, realizing that on the younger generation depends the success of the club, and that no one makes any money by being on a loser.

Travelling with a tail-end ball club is the poorest pastime in the world. I would rather ride in the first coach of a funeral procession.

The youngster is treated more courteously now when he first arrives.

No man can have a “yellow streak” and last. He must not pay much attention to his nerves or temperament. He must hide every flaw. It’s all part of the psychology of baseball.

But the saddest words of all to a pitcher are three—“Take Him Out.”

Many Pitchers Are Effective in a Big League Ball Game until that Heart-Breaking Moment Arrives Known as the “Pinch”—It Is then that the Man in the Box is Put to the Severest Test by the Coachers and the Players on the Bench—Victory or Defeat Hangs …

McGraw looked him over twice.

“He’s got a spine like a charlotte russe,” declared “Mac,” after his second peek, and he passed him back to the bushes.

Several other Big League managers, tempted by this man’s brilliant record in the minors, have tried him out since, but he has always gone back. McGraw’s judgment of the man was correct.

“That crowd was making some noise,” I’ve said to Crandall after the inning.

“Was it?” asked Otie. “I didn’t notice it.”

One day in 1911, he started a game in Philadelphia and three men got on the bases with no one out, along about the fourth or fifth inning. He shut them out without a run.

By stalling, I mean that he would tie his shoe or fix his belt, or find any little excuse to delay the game so that he could get a flash at the “bench” for orders.

A shoe lace has played an important role in many a Big League battle, as I will try to show later on in this story.

If it ever became the custom to wear button shoes, the game would have to be revised.

Each time that a man shot out from first base like a catapulted figure and slid into second, he had been ordered by McGraw to try to steal. If players protested against his judgment, his invariable answer was:

“Do what I tell you, and I’ll take the blame for mistakes.”

One of McGraw’s laments is, “I wish I could be in three places at once.”

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:

“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 felt no qualms at hitting him, for it was not a wild pitch but a misinterpreted signal which had put him out of the game.

No scandal can creep in where the umpire is concerned, for the very popularity of baseball depends on its honesty.

“The only good umpire is a dead umpire,” McGraw has declared many times when he has been disgruntled over some decision.

“I think they’re all dead ones in this League,” replied Devore one day, “considering the decisions that they are handing me down there at second base. Why, I had that bag by three feet and he called me out.”

Many baseball fans look upon an umpire as a sort of necessary evil to the luxury of baseball, like the odor that follows an automobile.

“Kill him! He hasn’t got any friends!” is an expression shouted from the stands time and again during a game.

But I know differently. I have seen umpires with friends. It is true that most ball-players regard umpires as their natural enemies, as a boy does a school teacher.

There are autocrats and stubborn ones and good fellows and weak-kneed ones, almost as many kinds as there are human beings. The autocrat of the umpire world is “Silk” O’Loughlin, now appearing with a rival show.

“There are no close plays,” says “Silk.” “A man is always out or safe, or it is a ball or a strike, and the umpire, if he is a good man and knows his business, is always right. For instance, I am always right.”

He refuses to let the players discuss a decision with him, maintaining that there is never any room for argument. If a man makes any talk with him, it is quick to the shower bath.

“Say, ‘Bill,’” exploded “Larry,” “that man didn’t touch the bag—didn’t come within six feet of it.”

“Say, Doyle,” replied Klem, “when you talk to me call me ‘Mr. Klem.’”

“But, Mr. Klem—” amended “Larry.”

“What did you do?” I asked him.

“I punched ‘Robbie’ in the ribs, called it a foul and sent the runner back,” replied “Tim.”

The Championship of the National League was Decided in 1908 in One Game between the Giants and Cubs—Few Fans Know that it Was Mr.

“I’m sorry, ‘Orvie,’” said Lobert.

“I would not have made that hit for my year’s salary if I could have helped it.”

“That’s all right, ‘Hans,’” returned Overall. “It’s all part of the game.”

“I’m sorry, ‘Orvie,’” said Lobert. “I would not have made that hit for my year’s salary if I could have helped it.”

“That’s all right, ‘Hans,’” returned Overall. “It’s all part of the game.”

Next came the famous game in Chicago on Sunday between the Cubs and the Pittsburg Pirates, when a victory for the latter club would have meant the pennant and the big game would never have been played.

… for the Big Campaign—How a Ball Club is Whipped into Playing Shape—Trips to the South Not the Picnics they Seem to Be—The Battle of the Bushers to Stay in the Big Show—Making a Pitcher—Some Fun on the Side, including the Adventure of the Turkish Bath.

Spring training! The words probably remind the reader of the sunny South and light exercise and good food and rubs and other luxuries, but the reader perhaps has never been with a Big League ball club when it is getting ready to go into a six months’ campaign.

All I can ever remember after a training trip is taking off and putting on a uniform, and running around the ball park under the inspiration of John McGraw, and he is some inspirer.

By the time that little formality is finished, a man’s tongue is hanging out and he goes to get a drink of water.

The spring training is just one darned drink after another and still the player is always thirsty.

After three hours of practice, McGraw may say:

It is the one time that opportunity has knocked, and most of the bush leaguers do not know the combination to open the door, and, as has been pointed out, opportunity was never charged with picking locks.

Many are called in the spring, but few get past.

Most of them are sincere young fellows, too, trying to make good, and I have seen them work until their tongues were hanging out and the perspiration was starting all over them, only to hear McGraw say:

“Say, ‘Steve,’” said “Mac,” that night, “why didn’t you come, when I called you out on the field there this afternoon?”

“Because I could hear the rattle of the tin can you wanted to tie to me, all over the lot,” replied Evans.

And eventually, by that subtle dodging, he landed in the Big League under Bresnahan and has made good out there.

And besides the common or garden variety of jinxes, many stars have a series of private or pet and trained ones that are more malignant in their forms than those which come out in the open.

A jinx is the child of superstition, and ball-players are among the most superstitious persons in the world

, notwithstanding all this conversation lately about educated men breaking into the game and paying no attention whatever to the good and bad omens.

But what’s a new hat against a losing streak or a batting slump?

Luck is a combination of confidence and getting the breaks.

Ball-players get no breaks without confidence in themselves, and lucky omens inspire this confidence. On the other hand, unlucky signs take it away.

Luck is a combination of confidence and getting the breaks. Ball-players get no breaks without confidence in themselves, and lucky omens inspire this confidence. On the other hand, unlucky signs take it away.

The lucky man is the one who hits the nail on the head and not his fingers, and the ability to swat the nail on its receptive end is a combination of self-confidence and an aptitude for hammering.

Good ball-playing is the combination of self-confidence and the ability to play.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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, and the 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.

“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.