n
irritable, nervous young player often will fall for the conversation, but
most seasoned hitters will not answer back. The Athletics, other than
Bender, will not talk in a game. We tried to get after them in the first
contest in 1911, and we could not get a rise out of one of them, except
when Snodgrass spiked Baker, and I want to say right here that this much
discussed incident was accidental. Baker was blocking Snodgrass out, and
the New York player had a perfect right to the base line.

Sherwood Magee of the Philadelphia National League team is one of the
hardest batters that I ever have had to face, because he has a great eye,
and is of the type of free swingers who take a mad wallop at the ball, and
are always liable to break up a game with a long drive. Just once I talked
to him when he was at the bat, more because we were both worked up than
for any other reason, and he came out second best. It was while the Giants
were playing at American League Park in 1911 after the old Polo Grounds
had burned. Welchonce, who was the centre-fielder for the Phillies at the
time, hit a slow one down the first base line, and I ran over to field the
ball. I picked it up as the runner arrived and had no time to straighten
up to dodge him. So I struck out my shoulder and he ran into it. There was
no other way to make the play, but I guess it looked bad from the stand,
because Welchonce fell down.

Magee came up to bat next, threw his hat on the ground, and started to
call me names. He is bad when irritated--and tolerably easy to irritate,
as shown by the way in which he knocked down Finnegan, the umpire, last
season because their ideas on a strike differed slightly. I replied on
that occasion, but remembered to keep the ball away from the centre of the
plate. That is about all I did do, but he was more wrought up than I and
hit only a slow grounder to the infield. He was out by several feet. He
took a wild slide at the bag, however, feet first, in what looked like an
attempt to spike Merkle. We talked some more after that, but it has all
been forgotten now.

To be a successful pitcher in the Big League, a man must have the head and
the arm. When I first joined the Giants, I had what is known as the "old
round-house curve," which is no more than a big, slow outdrop. I had been
fooling them in the minor leagues with it, and I was somewhat chagrined
when George Davis, then the manager of the club, came to me and told me to
forget th