know, and sometimes it seemed like the more he
drank the better he pitched. They used to say that he didn't spit on the
ball: he blew his breath on it, and the ball would come up drunk.

"Actually, there was very little drinking in baseball in those days.
It's a shame that drinking will become more and more commonplace in
American sports with the passage of time. I have seen it, and it is sad.
Myself, I've never smoked or took a drink in my life. I always said you
can't burn the candle at both ends. You want to be a ballplayer, be a
ballplayer. If you want to go out and carouse and chase around, do that.
But you can't do them both at once.

"Of course," continued Rube Marquard's shadow, 'when we were on the
road, we had a nightly eleven o'clock bed check. At eleven o'clock we
all had to be in our rooms and the trainer would come around and check
us off. We'd usually have a whole floor in a hotel and we'd be two to a
room. I always roomed with Matty all the while I was on the Giants. What
a grand guy he was! The door would be wide open at eleven o'clock and
the trainer would come by with a board with all the names on it. He'd
poke his head in: Mathewson, Marquard, check. And lock the door. Next
room, check, lock the door.

"As far as I was concerned, I never drank a drop even when I was in show
business. In 1912 I made a movie with Alice Joyce and Maurice Costello,
and then I was in vaudeville for three years, Blossom Seeley and I.
That's when she was my wife. It didn't work out, though. I asked her to
quit the stage. I told her I could give her everything she wanted.

"'No,' she told me. 'Show business is show business.'

"'Well,' I said, 'baseball is mine.' So we parted."

"You mentioned that you were with the Giants for seven years, and then
the Dodgers for five, did you not? How did it feel when you were traded
from the Giants to the Dodgers?" asked Elephant.

"Well," said the shadow, "not too bad. See, I traded myself. I didn't
seem to be able to get going in 1915 after I pitched that no-hitter
early in April, and late in the season McGraw started riding me. That
was a very bad year for the Giants, you know. We were favored to win the
pennant, and instead we wound up last. So McGraw wasn't very happy.
After I had taken about as much riding as I could stand, I asked him to
trade me if he thought I was so bad.

"'Who would take you?' he said to me.

"'What do you mean?' I asked. 'I can still lick any club in