e took a nice masculine, virile, full-armed
swing at the ball and fouled it out of the reach of all the local
guardians of the soil.

"Are you deaf?" barked McGraw. "Wait it out, I tell you."

As a matter of fact, Strang was a little deaf and did not hear the shouted
instructions the second time. But "Doc" Scanlon was sensitive as to
hearing and, feeling sure Strang would obey the orders of McGraw, thought
he would be taking no chances in putting the next ball over the centre of
the plate. It came up the "groove," and Strang admired it as it
approached. Then he took his swing, and the next place the ball touched
was in the Italian district just over the right field fence. The hit tied
the score.

McGraw met Strang at the plate, and instead of greeting him with shouts of
approbation, exclaimed:

"I ought to fine you $25, and would, except for those two runs and the few
points' difference the game will make in the percentage. Come on now,
boys. Let's win this one." And we did in the eleventh inning.

That was a case of the "inside" game failing. Any Big League pitcher with
brains would have laid the ball over after hearing McGraw shout earnest
and direct orders at the batter to "wait it out." Scanlon was playing the
game and Strang was not, but it broke for Sam. It was the first time in
his life that he ever hit the ball over the right field fence in Brooklyn,
and he has never done it since. If he had not been lucky in connecting
with that ball and lifting it where it did the most good, his pay envelope
would have been lighter by $25 at the end of the month, and he would have
obtained an accurate idea of McGraw's opinion of his intellectuality.

In the clubhouse after the victory, McGraw said:

"Honest, Sam, why did you swing at that ball after I had told you not to?"

"I didn't hear you," replied Strang.

"Well, it's lucky you hit it where they weren't," answered McGraw,
"because if any fielder had connected with the ball, there would have been
a rough greeting waiting for you on the bench. And as a tip, Sam, direct
from me: You got away with it once, but don't try it again. It was bad
baseball."

"But that straight one looked awful good to me coming up the 'groove,'"
argued Sam.

"Don't fall for all the good lookers, Sam," suggested McGraw, the
philosopher.

Strang is now abroad having his voice cultivated and he intends to enter
the grand-opera field as soon as he can finish the spring training in
Paris