y ear,
and zip, with a twist of the wrist at first base, and you've got him!

"I got so I could throw 'em harder to the bag with that wrist wriggle than
I could to the batter, and I had them stickin' closer to the base for two
years than a sixteen-year-old fellow does to his gal when they've just
decided they would do for each other."

As a rule McGraw takes charge of the batters and general team work at
spring practice, and he is one of the busiest little persons in seven
counties, for he says a lot depends on the start a club gets in a league
race. He always wants the first jump because it is lots easier falling
back than catching up.

After a week or so of practice, the team is divided up into two squads,
and one goes to San Antonio and the other to Houston each Saturday and
Sunday to play games. One of the older men takes charge of the younger
players, and there is a lot of rivalry between the two teams to see which
one will make the better record, I remember one year I was handling the
youngsters, and we went to Houston to play the team there and just managed
to nose out a victory. McGraw thought that for the next Saturday he had
better strengthen the Yannigans up a bit, so he sent Roger Bresnahan along
to play third base instead of Henderson, the young fellow we had the week
before. Playing third base could not exactly have been called a habit with
"Rog" at that time. He was still pretty fat, and bending over quick after
grounders was not his regular line. He booted two or three and finally
managed to lose the game for us. We sent McGraw the following telegram
that night:

"John McGraw, manager of the Giants, San Antonio, Texas:

"Will trade Bresnahan for Henderson. Rush answer."

McGraw does not like to have any of his clubs beaten by the minor
leaguers, because the bushers are inclined to imitate pouter pigeons right
away after beating the Big Leaguers.

The social side of a training trip consists of kicking about the grub,
singing songs at night, and listening to the same old stories that creep
out of the bushes on crutches year after year. Last spring the food got so
bad that some of the newspaper men fixed up a fake story they said they
were going to send to New York, displayed it to the proprietor, and he
came through with beefsteak for three nights in succession, thus
establishing a record and proving the power of the press. The trouble with
the diet schedule on a spring trip is that almost invariabl