Pitching in a Pinch; or, Baseball from the Inside

by Christy Mathewson

The Philadelphia players had tossed their bats to break their run of luck, for the score was 1 to 0 against them, when Baker came up in the ninth inning. He cracked his now famous home run into the right-field bleachers, and the men on the bench hurled the bats wildly into the air. In jumping up and reaching for a bat to throw, Jack Barry, the shortstop, hit his head on the concrete roof of the structure and was stunned for a minute. He said that little black specks were floating in front of his eyes, but he gamely insisted on playing the contest out. “Connie” Mack was so worried over his condition that he sent Ira Thomas out on the field to inquire if he were all right, and this interrupted the game in the ninth inning. A lot of the spectators thought that Thomas was out there, bearing some secret message from “Connie” Mack. None knew that he was ascertaining the health of a player who had almost killed himself while killing a jinx.

The Athletics, for two seasons, have carried with them on all their trips a combination bat boy and mascot who is a hunchback, and he outjinxed our champion jinx killer, Charley Faust, in the 1911 world’s series. A hunchback is regarded by ball-players as the best luck in the world. If a man can just touch that hump on the way to the plate, he is sure to get a hit, and any observant spectator will notice the Athletics’ hitters rubbing the hunchback boy before leaving the bench. So attached to this boy have the players become that they voted him half a share of the prize money last year after the world’s series. Lots of ball-players would tell you that he deserved it because he has won two world’s pennants for them.

Another great piece of luck is for a ball-player to rub a colored kid’s head. I’ve walked along the street with ball-players and seen them stop a young negro and take off his hat and run their hands through his kinky hair. Then I’ve seen the same ball-player go out and get two or three hits that afternoon and play the game of his life. Again, it is the confidence inspired, coupled with the ability.

Another old superstition among ball-players is that a load of empty barrels means base hits. If an athlete can just pass a flock of them on the way to the park, he is sure to step right along stride for stride with the three-hundred hitters that afternoon.

McGraw once broke up a batting slump of the Giants with a load of empty barrels. That is why I maintain he is the greatest manager of them all. He takes advantage of the little things, even the superstitions of his men, and turns them to his account. He played this trick in one of the first years that he managed the New York club. The batting of all the players had slumped at the same time. None could hit, and the club was losing game after game as a result, because the easiest pitchers were making the best batters look foolish. One day Bowerman came into the clubhouse with a smile on his face for the first time in a week.

“Saw a big load of empty barrels this afternoon, boys,” he announced, “and just watch me pickle the pill out there to-day.”

Right at that point McGraw got an idea, as he frequently does. Bowerman went out that afternoon and made four hits out of a possible five. The next day three or four more of the players came into the park, carrying smiles and the announcement that fortunately they, too, had met a load of empty barrels. They, then, all went out and regained their old batting strides, and we won that afternoon for the first time in a week. More saw a load of barrels the next day and started to bat. At last all the members of the team had met the barrels, and men with averages of .119 were threatening to chisel into the three-hundred set. With remarkable regularity the players were meeting loads of empty barrels on their way to the park, and, with remarkable regularity and a great deal of expedition, the pitchers of opposing clubs were being driven to the shower bath.

“Say,” asked “Billy” Gilbert, the old second baseman, of “Bill” Lauder, formerly the protector of the third corner, one day, “is one of that team of horses sorrel and the other white?”

“Sure,” answered “Bill.”

“Sure,” echoed McGraw. “I hired that load of empty barrels by the week to drive around and meet you fellows on the way to the park, and you don’t think I can afford to have them change horses every day, do you?”