Part 7

Offensive coaching, in my opinion, is the most important. For a man to be a good coacher he must be trained for the work. The best coachers are the seasoned players, the veterans of the game. A man must know the throwing ability of each outfielder on the opposing club, he must be familiar with the speed of the base runner whom he is handling, and he must be so closely acquainted with the game as a whole that he knows the stages at which to try a certain play and the circumstances under which the same attempt would be foolish. Above all things, he must be a quick thinker.

Watch McGraw on the coaching lines some day. As he crouches, he picks up a pebble and throws it out of his way, and two base runners start a double steal. "Hughie" Jennings emits his famous "Ee-Yaah!" and the third baseman creeps in, expecting Cobb to bunt with a man on first base and no one out. The hitter pushes the ball on a line past the third baseman. The next time Jennings shrieks his famous war-cry, it has a different intonation, and the batter bunts.

"Bill" Dahlen of the Brooklyn club shouts, "Watch his foot," and the base runner starts while the batter smashes the ball on a hit and run play. Again the pitcher hears that "Watch his foot." He "wastes one," so that the batter will not get a chance at the ball and turns to first base. He is surprised to find the runner anchored there. Nothing has happened. So it will be seen that the offensive coacher controls the situation and directs the plays, usually taking his orders from the manager, if the boss himself is not on the lines.

In 1911 the Giants led the National League by a good margin in stealing bases, and to this speed many critics attributed the fact that the championship was won by the club. I can safely say that every base which was pilfered by a New York runner was stolen by the direct order of McGraw, except in the few games from which he was absent. Then his lieutenants followed his system as closely as any one can pursue the involved and intricate style that he alone understands. If it was the base running of the Giants that won the pennant for the club, then it was the coaching of McGraw, employing the speed of his men and his opportunities, which brought the championship to New York.

The first thing that every manager teaches his players now is to obey absolutely the orders of the coacher, and then he selects able men to give the advice. The brain of McGraw is behind each game the Giants play, and he plans every move, most of the hitters going to the plate with definite instructions from him as to what to try to do. In order to make this system efficient, absolute discipline must be assured. If a player has other ideas than McGraw as to what should be done, "Mac's" invariable answer to him is:

"You do what I tell you, and I'll take the responsibility if we lose."

For two months at the end of 1911, McGraw would not let either "Josh" Devore or John Murray swing at a first ball pitched to them. Murray did this one day, after he had been ordered not to, and he was promptly fined $10 and sat down on the bench, while Becker played right field. Many fans doubtless recall the substitution of Becker, but could not understand the move.

Murray and Devore are what are known in baseball as "first-ball hitters." That is, they invariably hit at the first one delivered. They watch a pitcher wind up and swing their bats involuntarily, as a man blinks his eyes when he sees a blow started. It is probably due to slight nervousness. The result was that the news of this weakness spread rapidly around the circuit by the underground routes of baseball, and every pitcher in the League was handing Devore and Murray a bad ball on the first one. Of course, each would miss it or else make a dinky little hit. They were always "in the hole," which means that the pitcher had the advantage in the count. McGraw became exasperated after Devore had fanned out three times one day by getting bad starts, hitting at the first ball.

"After this," said McGraw to both Murray and Devore in the clubhouse, "if either of you moves his bat off his shoulder at a first ball, even if it cuts the plate, you will be fined $10 and sat down."

Murray forgot the next day, saw the pitcher wind up, and swung his bat at the first one. He spent the rest of the month on the bench. But Devore's hitting improved at once because all the pitchers, expecting him to swing at the first one, were surprised to find him "taking it" and, as it was usually bad, he had the pitcher constantly "in the hole," instead of being at a disadvantage himself. For this reason he was able to guess more accurately what the pitcher was going to throw, and his hitting consequently improved. So did Murray's after he had served his term on the bench. The right-fielder hit well up to the world's series and then he just struck a slump that any player is liable to encounter. But so dependent is McGraw's system on absolute discipline for its success that he dispensed with the services of a good player for a month to preserve his style.

In contrast, "Connie" Mack, the manager of the Athletics, and by many declared to be the greatest leader in the country (although each private, of course, is true to his own general), lets his players use their own judgment largely. He seldom gives a batter a direct order unless the pinch is very stringent.

The most difficult position to fill as a coacher is at third base, the critical corner. There a man's judgment must be lightning fast and always accurate. He encourages runners with his voice, but his orders are given primarily with his hands, because often the noise made by the crowd drowns out the shouted instructions. Last, he must be prepared to handle all sorts of base running.

On nearly every ball club, there are some players who are known in the frank parlance of the profession as "hog wild runners."

The expression means that these players are bitten by a sort of "bug" which causes them to lose their heads when once they get on the bases. They cannot be stopped, oftentimes fighting with a coacher to go on to the next base, when it is easy to see that if the attempt is made, the runner is doomed.

New York fans have often seen McGraw dash out into the line at third base, tackle Murray, and throw him back on the bag. He is a "hog wild" runner, and with him on the bases, the duties of a coacher become more arduous. He will insist on scoring if he is not stopped or does not drop dead.

Some youngster was coaching on third base in a game with Boston in the summer of 1911 and the Giants had a comfortable lead of several runs. Murray was on second when the batter hit clearly and sharply to left field. Murray started, and, with his usual intensity of purpose, rounded third base at top speed, bound to score. The ball was already on the way home when Murray, about ten feet from the bag, tripped and fell. He scrambled safely back to the cushion on all fours. There was nothing else to do.

"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 game from 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."

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 went down 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 was doubled 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 in from 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 as possible, 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.

VII

Honest and Dishonest Sign Stealing

_Everything Fair in Baseball except the Dishonest Stealing of Signals--The National Game More a Contest of the Wits than Most Onlookers Imagine._

When the 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 game for 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 shall divide 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 doubtful whether 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.