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Playing the Game from the Bench
Behind Every Big League Ball Game there Is a Master Mind which Directs the Moves of the Players—How McGraw Won Two Pennants for the Giants from the “Bench” and Lost One by Giving the Players Too Much Liberty—The Methods of “Connie” Mack and Other Great Leaders
The bench! To many fans who see a hundred Big League ball games each season, this is a long, hooded structure from which the next batter emerges and where the players sit while their club is at bat. It is also the resort of the substitutes, manager, mascot and water cooler.
But to the ball player it is the headquarters. It is the place from which the orders come, and it is here that the battle is planned and from here the moves are executed. The manager sits here and pulls the wires, and his players obey him as if they were manikins.
“The batteries for to-day’s game,” says the umpire, “will be Sallee and Bresnahan for St. Louis; Wiltse and Meyers for New York.”
“Bunt,” says McGraw as his players scatter to take their positions on the field. He repeats the order when they come to the bat for the first inning, because he knows that Sallee has two weaknesses, one being that he cannot field bunts and the other that a great deal of activity in the box tires him out so that he weakens. A bunting game hits at both these flaws. As soon as Bresnahan observes the plan of battle, he arranges his players to meet the attack; draws in his third baseman, shifts the shortstop more down the line toward third base, and is on the alert himself to gather in slow rollers just in front of the plate. The idea is to give Sallee the minimum opportunity to get at the ball and reduce his fielding responsibilities to nothing or less. There is one thing about Sallee’s style known to every Big League manager. He is not half as effective with men on the bases, for he depends largely on his deceptive motion to fool the batters, and when he has to cut this down because runners are on the bases, his pitching ability evaporates.
After the old Polo Grounds had been burned down in the spring of 1911, we were playing St. Louis at American League Park one Saturday afternoon, and the final returns of the game were about 19 to 5 in our favor, as near as I can remember. We made thirteen runs in the first inning. Many spectators went away from the park talking about a slaughter and a runaway score and so on. That game was won in the very first inning when Sallee went into the box to pitch, and McGraw had murmured that mystic word “Bunt!”
The first batters bunted, bunted, bunted in monotonous succession. Sallee not yet in very good physical condition because it was early in the season, was stood upon his head by this form of attack. Bresnahan redraped his infield to try to stop this onslaught, and then McGraw switched.
“Hit it,” he directed the next batter.