in this way is to distract his attention from batting, and once this is
accomplished he is gone. A favorite trick of a catcher is to say to a new
batter:

"Look out for this fellow. He's got a mean 'bean' ball, and he hasn't any
influence over it. There's a poor 'boob' in the hospital now that stopped
one with his head."

Then the catcher signs for the pitcher to throw the next one at the young
batter's head. If he pulls away, an unpardonable sin in baseball, the dose
is repeated.

"Yer almost had your foot in the water-pail over by the bench that time,"
says the catcher.

Bing! Up comes another "beaner." Then, after the catcher has sized the new
man up, he makes his report.

"He won't do. He's yellow."

And the players keep mercilessly after this shortcoming, this ingrained
fault which, unlike a mechanical error, cannot be corrected until the new
player is driven out of the League. Perhaps the catcher says:

"He's game, that guy. No scare to him."

After that he is let alone. It's the psychology of batting.

Once, when I first broke into the League, Jack Chesbro, then with
Pittsburg, threw a fast one up, and it went behind my head, although I
tried to dodge back. He had lots of speed in those days, too. It set me
wondering what would have happened if the ball had hit me. The more I
thought, the more it struck me that it would have greatly altered my face
had it gotten into the course of the ball. Ever afterwards, he had it on
me, and, for months, a fast one at the head had me backing away from the
plate.

In contrast to this experience of mine was the curing of "Josh" Devore,
the leftfielder of the Giants, of being bat shy against left-handers.
Devore has always been very weak at the bat with a southpaw in the box,
dragging his right foot away from the plate. This was particularly the
case against "Slim" Sallee, the tenuous southpaw of the St. Louis
Nationals. Finally McGraw, exasperated after "Josh" had struck out twice
in one day, said:

"That fellow hasn't got speed enough to bend a pane of glass at the home
plate throwing from the box, and you're pullin' away as if he was shooting
them out of a gun. It's a crime to let him beat you. Go up there the next
time and get hit, and see if he can hurt you. If you don't get hit,
you're fined $10."

Devore, who is as fond of $10 as the next one, went to the bat and took
one of Sallee's slants in a place where it would do the least damage. He
trotted to first