“‘I guess you’ve got the goods,’ Murphy answered with a laugh, and all the newspapers laughed at it then, too. But the batting averages of the Philadelphia players took an awful slump after that.
“‘Why didn’t they tip me?’ asked Murphy as he put aside his field-glasses and went to the bench and watched the rest of the game from there. And we later won that contest, our first victory of the series, which was no discredit to us, since it was like gamblin’ against loaded dice,” concluded “Arlie.”
The newspapers may have laughed at the incident in those days, but since that time the National Commission has intimated that if there was ever a recurrence of such tactics, the club caught using them would be subjected to a heavy fine and possibly expulsion from the League. So much have baseball standards improved.
The incident is a great illustration of the unfair method of obtaining signs. Since then, there have come from time to time reports of teams taking signals by mechanical devices. The Athletics once declared that the American League team in New York had a man stationed behind the fence in centre field with a pair of glasses and that he shifted a line in the score board slightly, so as to tip off the batters, but this charge was never confirmed. It was said a short time ago that the Athletics themselves had a spy located in a house outside their grounds and that he tipped the batters by raising and lowering an awning a trifle. When the Giants went to Philadelphia in 1911 for the first game of the world’s series in the enemy’s camp, I kept watching the windows of the houses just outside of the park for suspicious movements, but could discover none. Once in Pittsburg I thought that the Pirates were getting the Giants’ signals and I kept my eyes glued to the score board in centre field, throughout one whole series, to see if any of the figures moved or changed positions, as that seemed to be the only place from which a batter could be tipped. But I never discovered anything wrong.
There are many fair ways to steal the signs of the enemy, so many that the smart ball-player is always kept on the alert by them. Baseball geniuses, some almost magicians, are constantly looking for new schemes to find out what the catcher is telling the pitcher, what the batter is tipping the base runner to, or what the coacher’s instructions are. The Athletics have a great reputation as being a club able to get the other team’s signs if they are obtainable. This is their record all around the American League circuit.
Personally I do not believe that Connie Mack’s players steal as much information as they get the credit for, but the reputation itself, if they never get a sign, is valuable. If a prizefighter is supposed to have a haymaking punch in his left hand, the other fellow is going to be constantly looking out for that left. If the players on a club have great reputations as signal stealers, their opponents are going to be on their guard all the time, which gives the team with the reputation just that much advantage. If a pitcher has a reputation, he has the percentage on the batter. Therefore, this gossip about the signal-stealing ability of the Athletics has added to their natural strength.
“Bill,” I said to Dahlen, the Brooklyn manager, one day toward the end of the season of 1911, when the Giants were playing their schedule out after the pennant was sure, “see if you can get the Chief’s signs.”
Dahlen coached on first base and then went to third, always looking for Meyers’s signals. Pretty soon he came to me.
“I can see them a little bit, Matty,” he reported.
“Chief,” I said to Meyers that night as I buttonholed him in the clubhouse, “you’ve got to be careful to cover up your signs in the Big Series. The Athletics have a reputation of being pretty slick at getting them. And to make sure we will arrange a set of signs that I can give if we think they are ‘hep’ to yours.”