he world's championship for the Giants
from the Philadelphia Athletics in 1905, and, six years later, he was
responsible for one of the two victories turned in by New York pitchers in
a world's series again with the Athletics.

At certain periods in his baseball career, he has pitched almost every day
after the rest of the staff had fallen down. When the Giants were making
their determined fight for the championship in 1908, the season that the
race was finally decided by a single game with the Cubs, he worked in nine
out of the last fifteen games in an effort to save his club from defeat.
And he won most of them. That has always been the beauty of his
pitching--his ability to win.

Matty was born in Factoryville, Pa., thirty-one years ago, and, after
going to Bucknell College, he began to play ball with the Norfolk club of
the Virginia League, but was soon bought by the New York Giants, where he
has remained ever since and is likely to stay for some time to come, if he
can continue to make himself as welcome as he has been so far. He was
only nineteen when he joined the club and was a headliner from the start.
Always he has been a student and something of a writer, having done
newspaper work from time to time during the big series. He has made a
careful study of the Big League batters. He has kept a sort of baseball
diary of his career, and, frequently, I have heard him relate unwritten
chapters of baseball history filled with the thrilling incidents of his
personal experience.

"Why don't you write a real book of the Big Leaguers?" I asked him one
day.

And he has done it. In this book he is telling the reader of the game as
it is played in the Big Leagues. As a college man, he is able to put his
impressions of the Big Leagues on paper graphically. It's as good as his
pitching and some exciting things have happened in the Big Leagues,
stories that never found their way into the newspapers. Matty has told
them. This is a true tale of Big Leaguers, their habits and their methods
of playing the game, written by one of them.

JOHN N. WHEELER.

NEW YORK, March, 1912.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I--THE MOST DANGEROUS BATTERS I HAVE MET 1

II--"TAKE HIM OUT!" 21

III--PITCHING IN A PINCH 54

IV--BIG LEAGUE PITCHERS AND THEIR PECULIARITIES