n one pennant.

"Joe" Kelley, formerly manager of the Reds, was coaching in Cincinnati one
day several years ago, and "Eagle Eye Jake" Beckley, the old first
baseman and a chronic three hundred hitter, was at the bat. I had been
feeding him low drops and Kelley, on the third base line, thought he was
getting the signals that Jack Warner, the Giant catcher in a former cast
of characters, was giving. I saw Kelley apparently pass some information
to Beckley, and the latter stepped almost across the plate ready for a
curve. He encountered a high, fast one, close in, and he encountered it
with that part of him between his neck and hat band. "Eagle Eye" was
unconscious for two days after that and in the hospital several weeks.
When he got back into the game he said to me one day:

"Why didn't you throw me that curve, Matty, that 'Joe' tipped me to?"

"Were you tipped off?" I asked. "Then it was 'Joe's' error, not mine."

"Say," he answered, "if I ever take another sign from a coacher I hope the
ball kills me."

"It probably will," I replied. "That one nearly did."

It is one of the risks of signal stealing. Beckley had received the wrong
information and I felt no qualms at hitting him, for it was not a wild
pitch but a misinterpreted signal which had put him out of the game. His
manager, not I, was to blame. For this reason many nervous players refuse
to accept any information from a coacher, even if the coacher thinks he
knows what is going to be pitched, because they do not dare take the risk
of getting hit by a fast one, against which they have little protection if
set for a curve. On this account few National League clubs attempt to
steal signs as a part of the regular team work, but many individuals make
a practice of it for their own benefit and for the benefit of the batter,
if he is not of the timid type.

As soon as a runner gets on second base he is in an excellent position to
see the hands of the catcher, and it is then that the man behind the bat
is doing all that he can cover up. Jack Warner, the old Giant, used
sometimes to give his signals with his mouth in this emergency, because
they were visible from the pitcher's box, but not from second base. The
thieves were looking at his hands for them. In the National League, Leach,
Clarke, Wagner, Bresnahan, Evers, Tinker and a few more of the sort are
dangerous to have on second. Wagner will get on the middle sack and watch
the catcher until he thinks that he h