CHAPTER II

Baseball like a battle—Two big divisions, offense and defense—What they are—Old-fashioned defensive play—The shift to modern offensive baseball—Great defensive teams of history—Some pitching marvels—Pitching the keystone of defensive play—Offensive stars of today.

You know a game of baseball is like a battle. One outfit digs in behind the barb wire of good pitching and great fielding and the other side tries to shell them loose with a barrage of base hits. Just like war, it’s a battle of defense against offense and the best organization wins.

If you happen to be a baseball fan who reads the newspapers you’ve probably noticed that before a world series or any other big series the writers always print long stories of comparisons between individual players. They point out that Lou Gehrig, for instance, will hit a ball further and harder than Joe Harris, but that Pie Traynor can go farther to his left than Joe Dugan. That’s interesting—but so far as doping out the winner of the series is concerned, its bunk. And it always gives the ball players a laugh.

For ball players know that it isn’t individuals who count. It’s the way a team plays as a whole, that determines its offensive power or its defensive strength. Smart ball players and smart managers consider offense and defense as units knowing that it takes nine men to do the fielding and nine hitters to make up a batting order that will score runs.

That’s where Miller Huggins is a smart guy. Hug doesn’t worry about the other fellow, and he won’t let his players worry. Before we went into the world series last fall the boys were sitting around the clubhouse punching the bag and “barbering” a little about what we might expect in the series.

Shawkey and Shocker and Pennock had been discussing the Pirate hitters and how to pitch to them when Mark Koenig broke into the conversation. Mark is a nervous, high strung fellow who takes his baseball mighty seriously.

“I guess this Wright is quite a whiz,” he remarked. “They tell me he can go a lot further after a ball than I can. And Traynor is getting a lot of play too at third. I wonder if Joe and I will be able to hold our own with them.” Hug overheard him.

“Listen,” Hug said, and it was one of the smartest remarks I ever heard. “You fellows don’t need to worry about the Pirates. In baseball all a fellow has to do to win is to drive in a few runs and then field well enough to keep the other fellow from scoring as many. I’m not a darn bit interested in whether Wright is a better shortstop than you are, Mark, or whether Lou or Tony are better men than they have. We’ve got just nine men to play the nine positions. Good or bad, they’re the ones who have to do the job and all the worry about the other fellow don’t help a bit. Our job is to make the most of what we have and the Pirates be durned.”

Now, if you know a better philosophy for baseball than that, go to it! I don’t.

The ideal baseball team, of course, would be one that was equally good on defense and offense and perfect in both departments. But teams like that don’t exist. And my experience has been that the team which is particularly strong offensively is apt to be a little weak on defense and vice versa. It’s up to the manager or the Captain to make the most of what he has in the way of material, and he naturally builds up the department in which he is strongest even if he has to weaken the other department a bit to do it.

Baseball has changed a lot in the last ten or fifteen years. I haven’t been sticking around the big leagues as long as Ty Cobb and Eddie Collins and some of those fellows, but I’ve been around long enough to notice the change. And it hasn’t been in one club or two clubs either, but in the whole game.

When I first broke in baseball was a defensive game. The pitchers and fielders had all the best of the argument, and a two run lead could be cashed in most any time.

What an array of pitchers there was in those days! Walter Johnson was in his prime then, and Alexander, and Rube Marquard and Eddie Plank. And those boys could pitch, believe me. They had everything it takes to make a great pitcher, and in addition they were permitted to rough the ball, use trick deliveries and do anything else they could think of to make a hitter’s life miserable. And besides that the ball they used in those days was dead into the bargain.

I guess that period is what you would call baseball’s defensive age.

And naturally with the big leagues playing defensive ball the sand lotters and the amateurs took it up too. Kids in those days dreamed of becoming great pitchers and hitting was just a matter of course. Even hitters like Wagner and Lajoie had to play second fiddle to the Mattys and the Browns, and though a fellow like Cobb might be a marvel, folks kept their eyes on the pitchers.

Even now before a world series you find a lot of the experts predicting that “pitching will win the series.” And, all other things being equal it will. But the fact is that the statement is a throw back to the old defensive age when pitching was the big thing in baseball and everything else could run for Sweeney.

The change from defensive to offensive play came gradually. John McGraw was one of the men who was most responsible. There’s one cagey hombre, that McGraw. He’s always just a couple of jumps ahead of the other fellow when it comes to thinking, and he’s always looking for something new and unusual to pull. I’ve had my run-ins with John and once or twice when we were playing the Giants in the world series I’ve wanted to sock him in the nose, but he’s a baseball wizard just the same.

And while all the other managers were going nutty over defensive play and making themselves bald trying to dope out ways to develop and aid their pitchers, John took counsel with himself and decided that what baseball needed was more action. So he went in for hitting and base-stealing, and the first thing the rest of the managers knew John was stealing a pennant right out of their laps.

While other fellows were content to string along with the old fashioned sacrifice with a man on base, John took a gambling chance with the hit and run, and the steal. Instead of sending hitters up to the plate with orders to “Wait ’em out,” John would pat a fellow on the back and say: “Go up there and lay on that onion. Knock it a mile. You’re better than he is.”

And how the fans liked it!

They had been watching pitching perfection for so long that they craved a change, and given a taste, they began to yell for more hitting and more action.

Other managers began to copy McGraw’s style, too, and it wasn’t long before they passed rules limiting pitchers on trick stuff. They did away with the spit ball and the emery ball and the other freaks. They built a little more life into the ball and they ordered umpires to use new and clean balls as much as possible.

The boys began smacking the fences with long drives, outfielders began playing with their backs to the wall and infielders had to move back on the grass or have their legs torn off with hot drives. And that’s the story of how baseball’s era of defensive play passed into history and offensive play became the main factor in the game. At least that’s the way it seems to me—and most of the changes have taken place since I first put on a big league uniform.

Right here, too, let me say that I’ve been a pretty lucky fellow in that respect. In the old days when defense was the big thing, I was a pitcher and a pretty good one if I do say it myself. And when things switched over and hitting became the rage Ed Barrow, then managing the Red Sox, turned me into an outfielder and gave me a chance to “take my cut” with the rest of the sluggers. So I got a break going and coming. You can’t beat that!

A lot of folks, and particularly the older fans, still think that the old style was best, and they sit around and pine for the good old days when “Pitchers were pitchers instead of throwers,” and teams had to fight for one run instead of “getting ’em in clusters.”

Maybe they’re right I’m not arguing the matter one way or another. I’m just trying to point out that baseball, as a game, can be divided into two big departments. One is defensive play. That’s the business of stopping the other fellow, and it includes pitching, fielding, throwing and the inside strategy that makes two putouts where one grew before. The other is offensive play and that’s simply the matter of your own attack—hitting, base-running, stealing, etc.—the business of _scoring runs_.

Both departments are necessary. And baseball strategy, when you come down to it, is simply making the most of your strength in these two departments.

Right now the fans demand emphasis on offensive play. And what the fans want they get. They like plenty of hitting—so modern baseball is built around the slugger. Some day perhaps public sentiment will switch back the other way, back again to the old days of pitching battles and low scores. If it does you’ll see a return to the old style in a hurry and there will be new Mathewsons and new Browns springing up to take the place of the Speakers, the Cobbs, the Gehrigs and the Hornsbys of the present slugging era.

As concerns the fine points of the two styles, there’s plenty of room for argument. Managers build their ball clubs from the material they have available. If they have too much defensive strength, then they have to make defense their specialty. If, on the other hand, they have plenty of offensive power, then they must build such a club and make their defense a secondary thing.

But to get back once more to cases instead of generalities. Take the time to go over the baseball records and you’ll find the great teams of history excelled in one department or the other. They can be classified either as defensive teams or offensive teams.

The greatest defensive team of all time, I guess, was the Chicago White Sox of 1906. Those boys hit so little that whenever a player got a two-bagger he wrote home about it, and if they got more than four hits in a game Commy threw a banquet in their honor. But just the same they won a pennant and a world series, and the reason they won was that they were so good defensively that they managed to hold the other fellows to even fewer runs than they got.

They had great pitching. I never saw them, but the old boys are still talking about Ed Walsh, Frank Smith, Doc White, Nick Altrock and the rest of that famous outfit. And along with their pitching they had wonderful fielding strength plus baseball brains. And brains is one of the biggest assets in defensive play. A fellow can stand up there at the plate and take his cut without any deep thinking, but to play the field properly a fellow has to have something besides curly hair above his shoulders. He’s got to know his onions.

The old Athletics were another great defensive team, too. I’ve played against them and I know. But coming as they did, at the time when baseball was changing—they had real offensive strength too. Just the same it was the fine pitching of fellows like Combs and Bender and Plank, plus the high class work of that million-dollar infield that made them one of the greatest teams of all time. Despite the swatting power of Baker, McInnis, Collins and the rest I still figure that they class as a defensive rather than an offensive team. Among modern teams, the Washington Senators of 1924 rate as one of the best defensive teams, combining fine pitching with some corking work in the infield and outfield. You’ll go far and look plenty before you’ll find a better infield combination than Bucky Harris and Roger Peckinpaugh put up that year, for instance.

When it comes to great offensive teams I’m just cocky enough to believe that the Yankees of 1927 were the best ever. Believe me that outfit of ours could hit and score runs. The records tell the story—and there are mighty few hitting records that we didn’t shatter to bits.

Incidentally there’s another place where I’ve had to argue with my good friend John McGraw. John maintains that the old Baltimore Orioles were one of the great offensive clubs. And he rather has me there. John saw both the Orioles and the 1927 Yankees while I wasn’t taking much interest in baseball at the time the Orioles were good. Under the circumstances I’ll have to take his word for it—but I’ll never admit that the Orioles packed a greater wallop than the Yankees last year. I don’t think it’s possible.

The Detroit Tigers, winners of the American League pennant in 1907, 1908 and 1909, were a great offensive club. They had Cobb and Crawford and McIntyre and Jones and big Schmidt—all of them hitters. And as an offensive club they stood out in an age when defensive play was considered quite the thing. Real hitters those fellows, and they have proved it during the years that have followed, with the now-bald Tyrus still able to stand up there at the plate and hit with the best of them, despite the weight of more than 22 years of baseball activity.

Discussion of great offensive teams would not be complete without some mention of the 1912–1913 Giants—the team that was responsible for the gradual swing from defensive to offensive play. There was a team that was great offensively, not so much on account of its hitting power, but because of its cleverness in base-running. Old-timers still maintain that the Giants team of that era literally “stole” the pennant. They were masters at base running in an age when base running was a real art.

Perhaps I’ve rambled a bit through these pages. The point I want to make and leave strong is simply this. Baseball, as a game, is divided into two great divisions. One is offense, the other is defense. They are equally important, but in building up a ball club it is very seldom, indeed, that you can find men equally proficient in each department. Consequently most managers determine in which department they are best, and they make their playing plans along that line—weakening one department a little perhaps, in order to strengthen the other.

And at the present time baseball is going through an offensive era with hitters holding the edge and the science of steal and sacrifice playing second fiddle to brawn and power and wallop.