CHAPTER V (A sequel to The Battle of Base-ball") BY C. H. CLAUDY THE LITTLE THINGS THAT WIN BALL GAMES IN the Major Leagues, the race is usually so close that it is the little things, rather than the big ones, which tip the scales at the end and crown one side with final victory while the other goes down to defeat. The batting averages and fielding percentages of teams as a whole do not differ in magnitude as much as the winning and losing percentages. In 1911, the Philadelphia Athletics finished the race with a winning percentage of .669, while the St. Louis Browns, the "cellar champions," or tailVOL. XXXIX.-138. 1097 enders, doubtless looked with disgust at their mark of .248 for the season. Yet Philadelphia's fielding percentage, as a club, was .964 against St. Louis' .945, and Philadelphia's batting average, as a club, was .297 against St. Louis' .248. That it is not the batting alone which wins games is easily seen by a comparison of the batting averages of a number of clubs as a whole with their winning percentages. At the end of the 1911 season, the standing of the American League clubs, with their percentages and the positions of the clubs according to their batting and fielding percentages, differed in a remarkable way, as the following table shows: PERCENTAGE CLUB BATTING CLUB FIELDING .964 (1) Detroit .578 .291 (2) .960 (2) .949 (6) .948 (7) Washington .416 .259 (7) .296 .248 (8) St. Louis in the number of sacrifices;-in the ability to "come through" with the sacrifice fly, or the sac.953 (4 or 5) rifice bunt, when a man was on the bases and .955 (3) needing advancement. Philadelphia had less assists than any other club, showing a greater number of individual put-outs. More men were struck out by their pitchers; more men were put out on grounders fielded by the man who made the putout; more men were retired by a caught fly or foul; in other words, Philadelphia was a lightning-fast team. .953 (4 or 5) .945 (8) Both Boston and New York outbatted Chicago, yet finished below the White Sox. Washington fielded exactly as well as Detroit, yet finished seventh to Detroit's second. Philadelphia made not quite five more hits per hundred chances than St. Louis, and St. Louis missed but fifty-five fielding chances out of every thousand, while Philadelphia was missing thirty-six chances out of every thousand. Yet one finished first and the other last! The statistics of the National League race give even more surprising comparisons. Consider these figures, if any further proof be needed that it is the small things in base-ball which decide the close race, rather than the big things. Here we have the remarkable fact, graphically presented, that the championship winner had a fielding percentage worse than five other teams; that Boston, which finished last, batted better than Chicago, which finished second; and that exactly twelve points in both batting and fielding separated the leader and the last contestant in this race, while in the American League the Browns finished forty-seven points behind the leaders in batting, and nineteen behind them in fielding! But it is also remarkable how closely the records of the two winners bore out their performance in the World Series-Philadelphia had won its race by a larger margin, batting and fielding better than had New York in its race, and the Athletics won in the World's Series by both outhitting and outfielding the Giants. What, then, did win these pennants, if it cannot be laid always to batting and fielding superiority? "Little things" is the answer-little bits of strategy, of keenness, of being able to take instant advantage of the opportunity, of speed when speed was essential, of being able to do the right thing at the right time. For instance, Philadelphia, in the American League, led the League You don't have to look very far to find out what made New York win the pennant, other than its general batting performance. It was stolen bases! New York stole 347 bases during the season-or two and a quarter bases per game! Here it was speed and the instant taking advantage of opportunity which won; and at the present writing, New York is off to such a flying start of hitting and base-running and run-getting, that there looks to be little chance of any team overtaking it for the 1912 pennant. Yet, as the records show, in batting and fielding there is little to choose between New York and several other teams which that team beat out decidedly. Now, the little things which win ball games and the ability to take advantage of the openings are characteristics of the keen base-ball general. Wherefore the stranger to the game might be led to inquire whether the leaders of the leading teams are recognized as great base-ball generals, and, if so, are they so recognized whether they. win or not? And the answer is most emphatically, "Yes!" John McGraw is generally conceded to have no rival as a leader, as a planner, as a strategist, as a possessor of the ability to find the opening and take advantage of it for a gain at every opportunity. And although McGraw does not always win pennants, his team is almost always in the race, and, win or lose, every team fears him, and his uncanny ability to lead, to stem defeat, to find talent and develop it, and to get the most from his men. At the present writing, "Rube" Marquard, the great left-hander, has won only eighteen victories for New York. Still, as he has pitched only eighteen games, this may be considered quite a fair record! A few years ago, Marquard was regarded by all New York as a failure. He could not win. And the fans in the stands, both unreasoning and without knowledge, implored McGraw to get rid of Marquard. But McGraw knew ability when he saw it. He held on. He pitched Marquard. He taught him, encouraged him, had confidence in him. Last year, Marquard led his League as the best pitcher of them all. This year he is, so far, beating all records as a pitching the principal items of which are the times at bat wonder. and the hits to get the batting average-and the chances and the errors-to get the fielding percentage. Connie Mack, of Philadelphia, does not always win pennants, either. But he is always planning to win pennants, and, following the collapse of the great Philadelphia team of 1905, he built up a new one to win in 1910 and 1911. No one knows, yet, whether it is to repeat in 1912, or not, but it looks very much as if the bad start was to end in a good finish. Connie Mack is known as a leader whose greatest strong point-among a great many strong ones-is the ability to "size up" a player before he has developed, and then get hold of him and develop him. His present great infield-McInnis, Collins, Barry, and Baker --all young men, all recent acquisitions in the Big League, are cases in point, since none of them had any reputation at all before they "made good" in the present World's Championship team. But Connie Mack also knows the game, knows when to take advantage of an opportunity, knows the opportunity when he sees it, and sees that his players know it, too. So the answer to the question, "How can we win ball games?" which every player and every manager is always asking himself, is contained in the answer: "Have a leader who can lead; obey that leader; take advantage of every chance; be speedy, and 'play the ball' "; just as much as it is in the obvious advice to outhit and outrun the other team. As the statistics have shown, the outhitting team does not always win! The same advice which serves for Major Leaguers must also be the guide for the team of lads none of whom has reached his full strength or speed. Of course, if you can outhit, outrun, and outfield all your opponents, you do not need to be told how to win games. But if, in your junior league, the race is close; if the other teams are hitting and fielding as well as you are, then it will be with you, as with the Big Leaguers -that team which knows the most "inside ball," and takes best advantage of the little things, will win the game. It is obvious that you cannot know with certainty just where you stand with relation to the other clubs you play, if you don't keep score and records. Boys are willing to practise hard and work faithfully to be worthy of the position they play. So it is no longer an unheard-of thing for a boy to keep his own record, if his team has no official scorer to do it for him. Sometimes the boys' team does have an "official scorer," and there are usually some lads who, for one reason or another, cannot play, and the gentle art of scoring a game, if well learned, is a real art. And from the score the record sheets are to be made up, If no one keeps score of your games, keep your own individual record. It is not hard to remember the number of chances you have and the number of errors you make; putting these down every evening at home, together with the number of times legally at bat and the number of hits, will give you an excellent basis to find out what you really do, and where you really need to work hardest for improvement. "Too much to remember!" Oh, no! You don't really do so many things in a ball game as you may, perhaps, think. A first baseman in the American League averaged, in sixty-three games, 615 put-outs-just a little less than ten put-outs per game. He had not quite forty assists, or a trifle over six assists in every ten games. He only made ten errors, or one every six games. Now, you don't have to remember the number of games, because you build that up, one by one, at night. You have, then, to remember only the put-outs, the assists, and the errors. But any other position figures out about the same from the memory standpoint. A short-stop in the American League averaged, in eighty-eight games, 203 put-outs, mostly at second base, or less than three per game. He had 295 assists, or less than four per game, and made thirty-four errors for the season, or three in every ten games. That would not be so much to remember on the average, would it? Now the matter of errors is one of judgment— put-outs and assists are matters of rule. There is not the least use in the world in trying to carry a record of your performance if you "favor yourself." Don't keep the record for any one else to look at. Keep it for yourself. And don't call a muffed ball a hit just because it hit you on the shins and bounced over your head. Note your errors, too, and list them separately under "Fumbles," "Boots," "Bad throws," and "Dropped balls," and it will not take you long to find out just where you really stand as a fielder, and what you need to practise on. One lad did this all last year. This year I found him, evening after evening, bouncing a ball against a wall at an angle and patiently diying after it, fielding it, and throwing it instantly at a mark on the wall. Then he would pick up the ball, go back again to his position, pitch the ball against the wall, field it, and again throw it. "What in the world are you doing, Jack?" I asked. "Fielding balls to my left," he answered. "Last FIG. I. 2 ers' column. Another keeps a score so complete in every detail that he can tell you just how many balls were pitched to each batter, just which ones were balls and which strikes; and of the strikes, which were actual strikes and which "called"; and of batted balls, just how many times each ball bounded on the turf, and, if it was a hit, which player it went nearest to. In fact, such people score so interestedly that the game to them is merely an intricate puzzle of base-ball shorthand, paper, and pencil; and they are so busy writing down the plays, they never have time to cheer. The best system for the average player to use, and for the average spectator as well, is one which fills out the score card sufficiently but does not try to trace the path of every ball all over the diamond. At least, that is the system most used, and while every one invents his own symbols for special plays, all have certain fundamental principles which are alike. In the first place, all systems number the players. Probably the most common one is that which follows the diamond, as in Fig. 1. The list, which is easily memorized according to the diagram, calls pitcher 1, catcher 2, first baseman 3, second baseman 4, third baseman 5, short-stop 6, left-fielder 7, center-fielder 8, right-fielder 9. In scoring any play by means of these numbers, the order of the numbers indicates the order in which the ball was handled. Therefore 4-3 in the little space where the play at first base is indicated, shows that the batter hit the ball, that the second baseman fielded it, and that the first baseman received it and made the put-out. The hyphen can readily be omitted and 43 mean the play. PLAYERS NUMBERED FOR SCORING PURPOSES. The dotted line shows the memory path by which the order is to be recalled, and the fact that the line goes continuously about the diamond and outfield. Of course, every boy knows how a game is scored, but how to do it himself is another matter. Yet keeping a score is not a difficult matter, if you have a system and follow it. The trouble with so many amateur attempts to keep a score is caused by three things: first, not having a complete system and inventing new symbols as the play comes up, and then forgetting what they stand for; second, trying to keep more complete scores than you need to keep; and, third, getting so excited over the game that you forget to put things down as they happen! There are almost as many ways of keeping score as there are people who do the scoring: One spectator contents himself with keeping the runs. Another keeps the runs, hits, and errors. A third keeps a record of every play, but pays no attention to put-outs and assists under the field Letters form the symbols for many things. Thus "L" is foul, the figure after it showing who caught it, "K" is struck out, "S," in the center diamond, is sacrifice hit or fly-which one it is, is shown by the symbol and figure in the first base space-"S" in second, third, or home square shows a steal, "E" is error, and FC anywhere shows that the runner reached that station on a fielder's choice. In addition to the numbers and letters there are certain symbols which have arbitrary meanings-these the scorer can invent for himself, or he can use those that custom has sanctioned. Fig. 2 shows a number of these and gives their meaning. They are used on the score sheet in certain places, and much is to be read from their position. Thus, if we find the symbol E I in the lower right-hand corner of the square in which is a diamond, opposite a player's name, we judge that he hit the ball to the pitcher, and that the pitcher threw so wildly to the first baseman that he was pulled off the bag, and so the batter got safely to the first sack. But if this square were blank and EI appeared on the upper right-hand corner, we should know that the batter hit to the pitcher, who threw far over the first baseman's head, the base-runner thus getting two bases on the error. And if E I appeared in the lower right-hand corner, and 34 appeared in the upper right-hand corner, and a I, a 2, or a 3 in the central square, and there was no FC in the lower right-hand corner of the batter immediately following, then we should know that the batter hit to the pitcher, who threw over the first baseman's head, who, nevertheless, recovered the ball in time to throw the base-runner out at second base. Personally, I like to know whether a hit is clean or scratchy, hence the variations in the symbols of the hit. Sometimes a hit is clean, and is stretched into extra bases by fast running. In such a case it is interesting, in reading the score, to know whether it was, for instance, an easy. two-base hit or one so close that a play was made at second base in the endeavor to throw the runner out, in which case, of course (if he is thrown out), he can be credited only with a one-base hit. But often the play is made and is not successful. In such cases, what is simpler than to stretch one arm of the base-hit symbol up to second base and put a ring about it, signifying that a play was |