CHAPTER III

Pitching the keynote of defense—The pitcher’s job—Why young pitchers fail—Control as a pitching factor—How to obtain control—Alexander the old master—Shocker gets by on “nothing”—Shawkey gives a few words of advice to “rookies”—Practice counts most.

Pitching is the most important single item in the defensive play of any ball club. But I mean real pitching, not just throwing. I guess there isn’t a kid in the country but at some time or another dreams of being a great pitcher. And here’s the first thing for him to remember.

Pitchers—real pitchers—learn early that their job isn’t so much to keep opposing batsmen from hitting as it is to make them hit at someone. The trouble with most kid pitchers is that they forget there are eight other men on the team to help them. They just blunder ahead, putting everything they have on every pitch, and trying to carry the weight of the whole game on their shoulders. The result is that they tire out and go bad along in the middle of the game, and then the wise old heads have to hurry out and rescue them.

I’ve seen a lot of young fellows come up, and they all had the same trouble. Take Lefty Grove over at Philadelphia, for instance. There isn’t a pitcher in the league who has more speed or more stuff than Lefty. He can do things with a baseball that make you dizzy. But when he first came into the league he seemed to think that he had to strike every batter out as he came up. The result was that he’d go along great for five or six innings, and then blow. And he’s just now learning to conserve his strength. In other words, he’s learning that a little exercise of the noodle will save a lot of wear and tear on his arm.

Owen Carroll, the Holy Cross star, who went to the Tigers, is another of the same type. Ownie was a whiz in college, but when he got up into the big show he found out that there was something more to pitching than just breezing that fast one past. It took him a whole season to get wise, and he is just now beginning to develop as a real pitcher. He’s getting smart.

You see when a kid pitcher starts out he tries to carry the game himself. Then when he finds out that he’s being hit a little he tries to bear down harder and harder. And the more he bears down the worse he gets.

I broke in as a pitcher and I was like all the rest of the beginners. And I couldn’t understand why that fast ball didn’t fool the big league hitters like it had the kids back at school. I had another bad fault, too. I wouldn’t accept advice and how I managed to blunder along is more than I can understand.

The boys are still telling a story about me that always gets a laugh even if it isn’t very complimentary. In the 1918 world series we (the Boston Red Sox) were playing the Chicago Cubs, and they had Leslie Mann and Max Flack alternating in the outfield.

I was slated to pitch one game and the first time up Mann socked me for a base hit. When I went back to the bench Bill Carrigan, our manager, called me over to give me some advice.

“That fellow Mann is a tough hitter against left handed pitching,” Bill said. “The only thing to do is loosen him up a bit. The next time he comes up to hit dust him off! Drop him in the dirt! Maybe that will stop him!”

I promised Bill I would do it, and went on about my business.

Meantime the Cubs had sent Flack in to replace Mann, and when Max came up to hit I promptly turned loose a fast one that flattened him.

When I went back to the bench I was feeling pretty proud of myself.

“Well,” I said, “I guess I showed that guy Mann a thing or two, didn’t I?”

I thought Carrigan would explode. He cussed me up one side and down the other. And I don’t blame him. Can you imagine a pitcher not even knowing the difference between hitters and hitting Max Flack in the ribs thinking all the time that he was making Leslie Mann a victim?

But it just goes to show how careless young pitchers can be, and it’s typical too of the thousand and one things which inexperienced pitchers will do to get in bad.

The first thing any pitcher has got to develop—the biggest single item in his whole stock of trade—is control! Don’t let anyone kid you about it. The curve and the fast one are important; the change of pace and the other trick deliveries are great—but they’re not worth a plugged nickle unless you have control to go with them.

And by control I don’t mean the ability to put the ball over the plate somewhere between the shoulders and the knees, either. I mean the ability to hit a three inch target nine throws out of ten. I mean the sort of control that lets you put that ball in the exact spot you want it, and to play a corner to the split fraction of an inch.

I’ve seen a lot of good pitchers in my day. That gang I broke in with up in Boston was a pretty fair outfit. And there wasn’t a man in the lot who didn’t spend hours on end getting control. Ernie Shore could just about drive a nail at sixty feet and Dutch Leonard was just as good. When they pitched they didn’t guess where that ball was going. They knew.

In the 1926 world series when Alexander struck out Tony Lazzeri in that crucial inning and won a championship a lot of fellows raved about Alex’s great curves. Let me tell you a little secret. Alex threw Tony just one curve ball in all those pitches. And the ball that Tony fanned on wasn’t a curve at all. It wasn’t even a fast one. It was a half-speed ball that cut the corner of the plate within a half inch of the spot Bob O’Farrell called for.

No sir, the thing that fanned Tony Lazzeri that day and the thing that cost the Yankees a world championship was Grover Alexander’s uncanny control. He was putting that ball right where he wanted it, on every pitch. And the fellow who was up there at the plate with a bat on his shoulder felt like a sucker. For he knew that the balls were so bad he couldn’t hit them squarely, yet they were good enough that they were sure to be called strikes if he let them go.

I know. I stood up there. And I felt like a sucker along with the rest of the boys.

Of course there aren’t many pitchers who have the control that Alex has. Alex is a tall, loose-jointed easy-going chap who refuses to become excited. Just to see Old Pete out there on the mound with that cocky little, undersized cap pulled down over one ear, chewing away at his tobacco and pitching baseballs as easy as pitching hay, is enough to take the heart out of a fellow. I’ve got a hunch that if Alex suddenly found himself on the moon, he’d just grin, pull his cap over his ear, and keep on chewing. He’s that kind of a chap. Nothing rattles him.

Urban Shocker is another one who makes good control take the place of a lot of other things. Shocker is a mighty smart hombre out there on the mound, believe me. Time was when he used to have a good assortment of “stuff” too—but now, as he gets older, he’s losing a lot of the “swift.” And his “hook” doesn’t break any more, it just bends a little.

But Shocker has got two things that most amateur pitchers lack. He has control—and he’s got a lot of knowledge up there under that old baseball cap of his. And the two get him over many a rough, tough spot, believe me.

As I said, the first thing any pitcher has to get to become something besides a “thrower” is control.

And there’s just one way to get it—that’s by constant practice. Some day when you’re out at the ball park during fielding practice, watch the pitchers warming up. You’ll see them all out there playing toss, old timers and youngsters alike. But if you watch closely you’ll see one big difference.

The young fellows are just throwing—loosening up their arms and getting the kinks out of their muscles. But the old fellows! They’re pitching to a target with every ball they throw! Watch the fellow who is warming them up. You’ll see him hold his glove up as a target on every pitch Sometimes he holds it over one corner of the plate, sometimes over the other. Sometimes he holds it low and sometimes high. But always the pitcher is in there trying to hit the mark—and if he happens to be on form he’ll do it twenty-nine pitches out of thirty. If he can’t, then he’s still a long way from a pitcher.

I’ve seen Shawkey pitch to a target for an hour at a time, perfecting his control. He doesn’t pitch hard, and he doesn’t strain his arm with a lot of “stuff.” He just pitches away at that old mark. And other players on the club do the same thing. Our fellows, most of them, are veterans. They’ve been around. They know what it’s all about. And they know just how important control is.

Walter Johnson is another pitcher who was great on control. He had to be. If Walter had been wild with that fast ball of his, a hitter wouldn’t have dared to stand up there. It would have been murder. But you never heard fellows complain about hitting against Walter.

You might not be able to see them, and he might make you look like a sucker when he sent that fast ball whizzing past your shoulders like a bullet. But always you could dig in there at the plate knowing deep in your gizzard that whatever else happened, he wouldn’t “bean” you. For every time he pitched he knew right where that ball was going. He had to. If he had been inclined to wildness with all that speed, there isn’t a catcher in the business could have caught him.

Believe me the catchers are the fellows who suffer when a pitcher is wild. In one game down South last year, when Hug was trying out his young pitchers, Johnny Grabowski was so bruised and battered that he had to take a four day rest. Those kids had him diving in the dirt and jumping in the air. They had him running to the right and hopping to left and when the game was finished he had big blue bruises up and down both shins, on his arms and in about every other spot on his anatomy that didn’t happen to be covered with pads. Believe me, Johnny is one boy who knows the importance of control all right.

Yet some other pitchers, like Matty or Coombs, or Herb Pennock—fellows who have a lot more “stuff” on the ball than any youngster—are what the catchers call “rocking chair pitchers.” Which means that their control is so good that you could sit in a rocking chair and catch them.

To be a good pitcher you’ve got to have a lot of things. You’ve got to have a fast ball with a “hop.” You’ve got to have a good curve to mix in with the fast one to make it effective. You’ve got to have a change of pace—for it takes a change of pace to throw a batter off balance and keep him from peppering that curve or fast one against the wall.

Then you’ve got to have pitching knowledge—the sort of knowledge that comes from experience, and study and hard work. It takes more than a sturdy pair of shoulders to get by in the big leagues these days.

But first you’ve got to have control, for that’s the A, B, and C in the pitcher’s alphabet. The greatest curve ball in the world isn’t worth a thin dime if you don’t know what to do with it. The “swift” of Walter Johnson would be worthless to a chap who couldn’t get the ball over the plate.

Control, that’s the system.

And control isn’t a gift that is born to a man. It’s the result of hard, hard work and long hours of practice.

And in striving for control there are these things to remember. First of all you’ve got to develop a smooth, easy, pitching motion. Overhand, side arm or underhand it doesn’t make any difference. The best one is the one that is easiest and most natural.

And you can’t afford to strain. The moment a pitcher starts to strain—“bearing down” we call it in baseball—he becomes wild. The first rule of golf which says “make your swing easy and natural, and don’t press,” could well be named as the first rule in pitching, too.

After that one’s mastered there’s time enough to start work on the other details of curve and fast one.

After all, the whole thing can be summed up in a little story of an incident that happened in training camp two years ago. Hug had a lot of young pitchers in camp that year and he appointed Bob Shawkey as a sort of advisory coach.

The kids were all anxious to make good and the minute Bob would show up they’d start calling him to watch their curves or take a look at their trick stuff.

Bob stood it awhile without comment.

Finally he called the gang together.

“Now listen, you fellows,” he said, “I’ve looked at curved balls until I’m cockeyed and I’ve watched fast ones until my eyeballs ache. Now you fellows line up there and try throwing at that backstop. After you’ve learned to hit that we’ll put up a barrel and maybe in a week or two some of you will get good enough to throw a ball over the plate.

“When you get that good, then I’ll be glad to talk to you about pitching. Until then I’m too busy to be bothered.”

Which may sound a little hard boiled, but if you were a baseball man you’d understand. Shawkey wasn’t talking through his hat at all. He just knew his onions, that’s all.