rst game. If he had
started him against some club like the Giants, for instance, where he
would have had to face a big crowd and the conversation and spirit of
players who were after a pennant and hot after it, he might have lost and
his heart would have been broken. Successfully breaking into the game an
expensive pitcher, who has cost a club a large price, is one of the
hardest problems which confronts a manager. Now O'Toole is all right if he
has the pitching goods. He has taken his initial plunge, and all he has to
do is to make good next year. The psychology element is eliminated from
now on.

I have been told that Clarke was the most relieved man in seven counties
when O'Toole came through with that victory in Boston.

"I had in mind all the time," said Fred, "what happened to McGraw when he
was trying to introduce Marquard into the smart set, and I was afraid the
same thing would happen to me. I had a lot of confidence in the nerve of
that young fellow though, because he stood up well under fire the first
day he got into Pittsburg. One of those lady reporters was down to the
club offices to meet him the morning he got into town, and they always
kind of have me, an old campaigner, stepping away from the plate. She
pulled her pad and pencil on Marty first thing, before he had had a chance
to knock the dirt out of his cleats, and said:

"'Now tell me about yourself.'

"He stepped right into that one, instead of backing away.

"'What do you want me to tell?' he asks her.

"Then I knew he was all right. He was there with the 'come-back.'"

But the ideal way to break a star into the Big League is that which marked
the entrance of Grover Cleveland Alexander, of the Philadelphia club. The
Cincinnati club had had its eye on Alexander for some time, but "Tacks"
Ashenbach, the scout, now dead, had advised against him, declaring that he
would be no good against "regular batters." Philadelphia got him at the
waiver price and he was among the lot in the newspapers marked "Those who
also joined." He started out in 1911 and won two or three games before
anyone paid any attention to him. Then he kept on winning until one
manager was saying to another:

"That guy, Alexander, is a hard one to beat."

He had won ten or a dozen games before it was fully realized that he was a
star. Then he was so accustomed to the Big League he acted as if he had
been living in it all his life, and there was no getting on his nerves.
When h