“No, I guess he doesn’t get anything extra with the abbreviated finger, but that’s lucky for you fellows, because, if I thought he did, I’d have a surgeon out here to-morrow operating on the first fingers of each of you pitchers.”
Brown is my idea of the almost perfect pitcher He is always ready to work. It is customary for most managers in the Big Leagues to say to a man on the day he is slated to pitch:
“Well, how do you feel to-day? Want to work?”
Then if the twirler is not right, he has a chance to say so. But Brown always replies:
“Yes, I’m ready.”
He likes to pitch and is in chronic condition. It will usually be found at the end of a season that he has taken part in more games than any other pitcher in the country. He held the Chicago pitching staff together in 1911.
“Three Fingered” Brown is a finished pitcher in all departments of the game. Besides being a great worker, he is a wonderful fielder and sure death on bunts. He spends weeks in the spring preparing himself to field short hits in the infield, and it is fatal to try to bunt against him. He has perfected and used successfully for three years a play invented by “Joe” McGinnity, the former Giant pitcher. This play is with men on first and second bases and no one out or one out. The batter tries to sacrifice, but instead of fielding the ball to first base, which would advance the two base runners as intended, Brown makes the play to third and thus forces out the man nearest the plate. This is usually successful unless the bunt is laid down perfectly along the first base line, so that the ball cannot be thrown to third base.
The Cubs have always claimed it was this play which broke the Detroit club’s heart in the world’s series in 1908, and turned the tide so that the Cubs took the championship. The American League team was leading in the first game, and runners were on first and second bases, “Ty” Cobb being on the middle sack. It was evident that the batter would try to sacrifice. Brown walked over to Steinfeldt, playing third base, pulling out a chew of tobacco as he went.
“No matter what this guy does or where he hits it, stick to your bag,” ordered Brown.
Then he put the chew of tobacco in his mouth, a sign which augurs ill for his opponents, and pitched a low one to the batter, a perfect ball to bunt. He followed the pitch through and was on top of the plate as the batter laid it down. The ball rolled slowly down the third base line until Brown pounced on it. He whirled and drove the ball at Steinfeldt, getting Cobb by a foot. That play carried Detroit off its feet, as a sudden reversal often will a ball club, when things are apparently breaking for it. Cobb, the Tigers’ speed flash, had been caught at third base on an attempted sacrifice, an unheard of play, and, from that point on, the American Leaguers wilted, according to the stories of Chance and his men.