me when younger men
threatened to win their places. Some of the best players ever produced
by baseball had the habit in its most violent form. There were players
of ridiculously poor ability who held their jobs on the strength of
this one trait. It was a mystery how they misled magnates and managers
alike; how for months they held their places, weakening a team, often
keeping a good team down in the race; all from sheer bold suggestion of
their own worth and other players' worthlessness. Strangest of all was
the knockers' power to disorganize; to engender a bad spirit between
management and team and among the players. The team which was without
one of the parasites of the game generally stood well up in the race
for the pennant, though there had been championship teams noted for
great knockers as well as great players.

"It's shure strange, Miss Madge," said Pat in conclusion, shaking his
gray head. "I've played hundreds of knockers, an' released them, too.
Knockers always get it in the end, but they go on foolin' me and
workin' me just the same as if I was a youngster with my first team.
They're part an' parcel of the game."

"Do you like these men off the field--outside of baseball, I mean?"

"No, I shure don't, an' I never seen one yet that wasn't the same off
the field as he was on."

"Thank you, Pat. I think I understand now. And--oh, yes, there's
another thing I want to ask you. What's the matter with Billie
Sheldon? Uncle George said he was falling off in his game. Then I've
read the papers. Billie started out well in the spring."

"Didn't he? I was sure thinkin' I had a find in Billie. Well, he's
lost his nerve. He's in a bad slump. It's worried me for days. I'm
goin' to release Billie. The team needs a shake-up. That's where
Billie gets the worst of it, for he's really the makin' of a star; but
he's slumped, an' now knockin' has made him let down. There, Miss
Madge, that's an example of what I've just been tellin' you. An' you
can see that a manager has his troubles. These hulkin' athletes are a
lot of spoiled babies an' I often get sick of my job."

That afternoon Miss Ellston was in a brown study all the way out to the
baseball park. She arrived rather earlier than usual to find the
grand-stand empty. The Denver team had just come upon the field, and
the Kansas City players were practising batting at the left of the
diamond. Madge walked down the aisle of the grand stand and out along