“The result was that the leader asked for waivers on old Coveleski very promptly, and the girl was not long in following suit. That snare drum incident has been the sore point in his makeup ever since.”
“I wish I’d known it last fall about the first of September,” declared McGraw.
But the real snapper came later when the Cincinnati club was whipsawed on the information. In a trade with Philadelphia, Griffith got Coveleski for Cincinnati along with several other players. Each game he started against us he got the old “rat-a-tat-tat.” Griffith protested to the umpires, but it is impossible to stop a thing of that sort even though the judges of play did try.
The Pole did not finish another game against the Giants until his last in the Big League. One day we were hitting him near and far, and the “rat-a-tat-tat” chorus was only interrupted by the rattle of the bats against the ball, when he looked in at the bench to see if Griffith wanted to take him out, for it was about his usual leaving time.
“Stay in there and get it,” shouted back Griff.
Coveleski did. He absorbed nineteen hits and seventeen runs at the hands of the Giants, this man who had taken a championship of the National League away from us.
That night Griffith asked for waivers on him, and he left the Big Leagues for good. He was a good twirler, except for that one flaw, which cost him his place in the big show. There is little mercy among professional ball players when a game is at stake, especially if the man has taken a championship away from a team by insisting upon working out of his turn, so he can win games that will benefit his club not a scintilla.
Mordecai Brown, the great pitcher of the Chicago Cubs and the man who did more than any other one player to bring four National League pennants and two world’s championships to that club, has a physical deformity which has turned out to be an advantage. Many years ago, Brown lost most of the first finger of his right hand in an argument with a feed cutter, said finger being amputated at the second joint; while his third finger is shorter than it should be, because a hot grounder carried part of it away one day. In some strange way, Brown has achieved wonders with this crippled hand. It is on account of the missing finger that he is called “Three Fingered” Brown, and he is better known by that appellation than by his real name.
Brown beat the Giants a hard game one day in 1911, pitching against me. He had a big curve, lots of speed, and absolute control. The Giants could not touch him. Next day McGraw was out warming up with Arthur Wilson, the young catcher on the club.
“Wonder if he gets any new curve with that short first finger?” said McGraw, and thereupon crooked his own initial digit and began trying to throw the ball in different ways off it to see what the result would be. Finally he decided: