HERZOG-FOR

MERLY THIRD BASEMAN OF

THE GIANTS. AS MANAGER OF THE CINCIN NATI REDS HE TEMPORARILY PUT THAT CITY BACK ON THE BASEBALL MAP.

DEVORE, OUTFIELDER, FORMERLY OF THE
GIANTS, NOW WITH THE BRAVES.

"When I booted that one, I said to myself, 'There goes that new auto I was going to buy.""

That's the way it went; they all thought of anything but the execution of the play of the moment. They thought instead what it meant in dollars and cents. That has done more to lose us three World's Championships than all the Bakers and Tris Speakers.

As I look back upon the 1912 series, when we lost to the Boston Red Sox, I see it was the same. Pitchers, outfielders, the whole team collapsed under the strain. As I watched the way they played behind Tesreau in the first game, I confess that hidden deep in my mind was a doubt that it would turn out just as it had against Philadelphia the year before. With only a one-run lead, Tesreau was pitching frantically. He was cautioned not to worry. I felt he would

Photographe by Brown Brothers.

beat himself; but the strain of wanting to stay ahead-and there was only that onerun margin to keep him ahead-was too much. Let me show you how this worked out:

In the seventh inning he had faced Stahl and disposed of him. Now after Stahl on the Red Sox batting order came Wagner and Cady. They were both supposed to be very ordinary batsmen. Thinking to save himself so as better to face the top of the Boston batting order that would be up in the next inning, Tesreau did not exert himself. For Wagner and Cady he put the ball over, and let his fielders take care of it. If he hadn't been worrying about holding that one-run lead, and about his strength holding out, he would have pitched as usual against these men. As it was, due to Tesreau's letting up they both got on base. Then came an avalanche of hits from the head of the batting order and the game was lost.

It was also in that game that teamwork -we always lose that in a World's Seriesbegan to go. Once Speaker got a three-base hit because Devore and Snodgrass were each too anxious to catch the ball. Devore could have caught it easily, but Snodgrass felt he must do it and came charging in. As a result nobody got it. It was the old sign of over-anxiety, showing early, that worried me most of all.

In the second game the disintegration spread to the infield. Fletcher, usually reliable, blew up.

In the third game it was Merkle. He began by crossing into Doyle's territory and taking a weak little hit from Yerkes's bat. In this way, first base was left unguarded and Yerkes was safe. Subsequently Gardner drove out a two-base hit, and Yerkes scored. You see it traces right back to overanxiety in each case. Yerkes should never have been in a position to score; he should have been out, Doyle to Merkle. Besides, Gardner's two-base hit also put the "tying run" on second base. A few minutes later Merkle muffed a ball squarely in his hands, this in the ninth inning of a game.

I am not saying this in a spirit of criticism. I am merely showing how the Giants blow up in a World Series.

It is never dissension that beats the Giants. Only recently I heard a little story in connection with the Boston series-a story of those dissensions that sometimes do wreck championship nines. The Athletics suffered from it in 1912. After our defeat on the eleventh of October, the Red Sox were confident that another game would end it. No one was more positive than "Smoky Joe" Wood that we would lose. Wood had been given to understand would pitch the next game. He had beaten us before, and accordingly he gave $500 to a friend and had him bet on Boston to win the

next game.

he

To Wood's chagrin, not he, but O'Brien, was sent to the pitcher's box. Well, McGraw got after O'Brien. He took the thirdbase coaching-line and Robinson, now manager of Brooklyn, took the first. We all knew O'Brien was inclined to be wild.

Back

SNODGRASS-GIANTS'

UTILITY PLAYER. PLAYS RIGHT FIELD AGAINST LFFT-HANDED PITCHERS AND FIRST BASE WHEN MERKLE IS OUT.

and forth across the diamond the coachers began getting in their work.

"Make him keep his foot on the rubber!" yelled McGraw.

"Get on the bases. He can't pitch without a wind-up," chanted Robinson.

Pretty soon they had O'Brien angry. He was observing the pitching rules and keeping within the bounds prescribed by the rubber plate that marked the pitcher's box. But the yells of the coachers kept up and, finally flustered, O'Brien made a balk and forced in That balk beat him. For with two out, Meyers, Herzog, and Merkle hammered the ball all over the field. The Red Sox lost, and Joe Wood lost his $500.

a run.

The sequel comes on a train going to Boston that night. Strolling into a car where O'Brien was sitting, Wood walked up to him and announced:

"Well, you're a fine joke of a pitcher! Put the game on a platter and handed it to the Giants, didn't you?"

O'Brien growled something. Then one thing led to another and an altercation ensued.

This was one of the causes that engendered friction in the Red Sox; and such friction could not help but interfere with the team-work. Reduced efficiency is the inevitable consequence of internal dissension.

In fact, next year we saw a world's-champion transformed into a second-division team.

I am happy to say there have never of recent years been any such incidents in the ranks of the Giants. Even after that last game in Boston when Snodgrass made his now famous "muff," the team did not nurse bitterness about it. As a matter of fact, I blamed Snodgrass and Fletcher for their mix-up and failure to catch Stahl's easy fly over second base in the seventh inning of that game far more than I did "Snow" for his muff of Engle's easy ball in the tenth. I also blame Merkle and Meyers for failing to catch Speaker's foul in that same inning far more than I do Snodgrass for his error. Hans Wagner might have dropped the ball that Snodgrass dropped. Anybody might have erred. But when a minute later

and mild brown sailors clad in scarlet waist-cloth and knife, went flying by upon the barest surface of the sea. Then came the changeless blue once more; the empty, peaceful dawns; the cloudless carnation sunsets over an unbroken sea.

Early in the long voyage the passengers had used to play games upon the afterdeck; count the ship's bells, and translate them into ordinary time; get up concerts and dances. Now they were rather tired of these things and very content to take life easy. There was a good library and a good bar; cards, chat, flirtation. And they had crossed the line into Oceania, and it was now the Land-of-Lots-of-Time, forever and evermore. Yes, there would

be a jetty and a port some day, even customs officers-tickets-trains. They knew these things, but they did not believe them. So they were happy.

It is a dangerous thing to be happy; the world knew that long before Polycrates marked his appreciation of the fact by throwing jewelry into the sea. But there is one thing more dangerous yet, and that is to be happy and say so. If you are happy, do not be ashamed to be superstitious. Neither you nor I know how much there may be in what men call superstition -at present. Cheat the dark gods; feel your happiness, but never let it escape your lips. The Blue Bird is safe only in the nest.

But the passengers on the liner were very happy, and said so. They told one another that they had never had a voyage like this not a thing wrong from the sixties to the equator; nobody quarreling; no bad weather, even where it was to be expected; a perfect ship, and all the marvels of all the world widening out before her as she went on, with more and more yet to come. Yes, they were happy; they said it often.

One of the crew-a South Sea Islander from Manatonga, where every native has at least three white religions stowed away in the hold of his (presumable) soul, with a layer of genuine heathen ballast underneath the lot-heard two saloon voyagers congratulating themselves, and promptly crossed himself, afterward making the heathen sign for the averting of bad luck. Moreover, he sacrificed a cock in the forecastle (to the confusion of the deck steward, who was accused of the theft) and made an unholy mess with its blood. But all this, as you

have to hear, made no difference to what happened after.

They were seven days out from the last port when Fortune turned and smote them. Agnes took ill with pneumonia. Agnes was aged sixteen, a girl like a lily-if one can imagine a lily possessed of a strong sense of humor and a taste for deck sports. Some of you who knew Agnes will smile, even though she is dead. You will understand how she would have enjoyed the absurd comparison.

When she became ill, no one thought that it was very much just at first. All the young people were fond of sitting out upon the forecastle-head after dark, to enjoy the cool river of wind that pounded over the ship's bow; colds had been caught in that way; other things besides colds, without doubt, for these evening winds were best enjoyed, and most sought after, in pairs.

Agnes and an American boy, of not much more than her own age, had been especially fond of sitting out there after dinner, the girl in evening dress, displaying her thin but pretty neck and shoulders. It was not considered dangerous in those latitudes; at least, it had not been till now. When Agnes took ill, the forecastle-head was desertedto the entire satisfaction of the officers, who had long maintained that passengers were better in their own part of the ship-and wraps that had lain untouched in cabin trunks since the Mediterranean came suddenly forth again.

In Cabin 21, occupied by the girl alone (she was traveling with her father), the stewardess had hard work to keep her little patient as quiet as the nature of the illness demanded. All day long steps passed up and down, and voices inquired at the door. The cold storage was ransacked for fruit; eau-de-cologne descended in a deluge. Agnes was so young and childish, and such a universal favorite, that nobody minded her friends, men as well as women, coming in from time to time. It happened that there were extremely few women on the boat, and that two of them, just at this time, went down with some small tropical ailment and were confined to their cabins; however, the two others, Mrs. Arthurs and Mrs. Waite, also at least a dozen of the men passengers, kept coming in and out, until the stewardess put down her foot and declared they were making the young lady worse and must stay away.