down to tie his shoe. When he removes his sun-glasses that is
a sign for a pitcher to warm up in a hurry, and "Babe" Adams sprinted to
the outfield with a catcher and began to heat up. Clarke took all of five
minutes to tie that shoe, McGraw violently protesting against the delay in
the meantime. Fred Clarke has been known to wear out a pair of shoe laces
in one game tying and untying them. After the shoe was fixed up, he jogged
slowly to the bench and took Leifield out of the box. In the interim,
Adams had had an opportunity to warm up, and Clarke raised his arm and
ordered him into the box. He fanned the next two men, and the last batter
hit an easy roller to Wagner. We were still two runs to the bad after that
promising start in the sixth, and Clarke, for the time being, had saved
the game by a shoe string.

McGraw, who had been on the coaching lines up to this point, retired to
the bench after that, and I heard one of those wise spectators, sitting
just behind our coop, who could tell Mr. Rockefeller how to run his
business but who spends his life working as a clerk at $18 a week, remark
to a friend:

"It's all off now. McGraw has laid down."

Watching the game through eyes half shut and drawn to a focus, McGraw
waited. In the seventh inning Clarke came to bat with two men on the
bases. A hit would have won the game beyond any doubt. In a flash McGraw
was on his feet and ran out to Meyers, catching. He stopped the game, and,
with a wave of his arm, drew Harry McCormick, playing left field, in close
to third base. The game went on, and Wiltse twisted a slow curve over the
outside corner of the plate to Clarke, a left-handed hitter. He timed his
swing and sent a low hit singing over third base. McCormick dashed in and
caught the ball off his shoe tops. That made three outs. McGraw had saved
our chances of victory right there, for had McCormick been playing where
he originally intended before McGraw stopped the contest, the ball would
have landed in unguarded territory and two runs would have been scored.

But McGraw had yet the game to win. As his team came to the bat for the
seventh, he said:

"This fellow Adams is a youngster and liable to be nervous and wild.
Wait."

The batters waited with the patience of Job. Each man let the first two
balls pass him and made Adams pitch himself to the limit to every batter.
It got on Adams's nerves. In the ninth he passed a couple of men, and a
hit tied the score. Clarke