CHAPTER XIII

Hits are valuable only in so far as they score runs—Levsen pitches two hit game and loses—Real test of hitting is ability to smack ball when hits mean runs—The danger of “tightening up”—Hitting slumps and how to overcome them—Bunting, its value and use—Great bunters and how they operated—The bunt attack and how it is put over.

Base hits look fine in the batting averages, but they pay off on runs scored.

All the base hits in the world are wasted if the hitter doesn’t complete his journey and check in at the home plate with a run. Funny things happen in baseball, proving that hits are just as valuable as you make them.

Back in 1926 in a game against the Cleveland club the Yankees got just two hits off Emil Levsen, the Cleveland pitcher. Only two men got to first base—but both of them scored, and we won the game 2 to 1. A little later in the season, with Tom Zachary of the Browns pitching against us, we accumulated the healthy total of 11 hits together with five bases on balls. Yet we didn’t score a single run and were shut out for the first time that season. Every one of those men were left on base.

Look at the left-on-bases figures and you can get a pretty good line on the offensive strength of a club. For men left on bases are the tip off on poor batting. Every man left on base is an opportunity lost and anytime a club has eight or ten or more men left it’s a pretty sure sign that something’s wrong with the team’s attacking power.

The real test of hitting greatness is the ability to step up there and hit when a hit will mean runs. “Hitting in the pinches” we call it—and it’s the most important part of the batting game. Lou Gehrig, during the 1927 season, drove in 175 runs for a new record. In other words Lou came through when there were men on bases. He did his best hitting when we had runners in scoring position.

I’ve heard a lot of pitchers say, and they’ve told me to my face, that they’d rather pitch to me in a pinch than to Gehrig.

“You either knock the cover off the ball or strike out,” they say. “We’ve got a fifty-fifty chance with you. But this Gehrig is dangerous when there are runners on the bases.”

Tony Lazzeri is another one who can pound that ball, when hits count. Tony had an odd record during the 1926 season. He hit only .280 for the year, and he struck out more times than any other player in the league. Yet he drove in 147 runs that year and rated second in the league in that department. In other words, he did this hitting when hits counted. He was a much better and more dangerous hitter than his batting average showed.

One of the chaps I’ll remember longest is Eddie Foster, the old Washington third baseman. Eddie never rated as a real star, and there were scores of other players in the league who were considered more dangerous and better men with the stick. But Eddie certainly was my personal poison. He hit everything I ever pitched—and hit it plenty. And when it came to a pinch, with runners on bases and a ball game hanging in the balance, I would rather pitch to Cobb, Speaker and Crawford in a row than throw to Eddie. He ruined many a ball game for me over the period of three or four seasons.

I don’t know why it is, but it’s an established fact that some fellows are at their best in a pinch, while others seem to go to pieces at such a time. Take Joe Dugan for instance. Joe isn’t what you’d call a heavy hitter. He seldom hits for extra bases and I suppose most clubs look on him as one of the weaker men in the Yankee batting order. But put Joe in a crucial series, or turn him loose in a world series and he’s deadly poison. Joe has played in three world series with the Yankees and he has never yet failed to star out in the field and at bat. He’s just a natural born “money player” as the boys say—and plays his best when the going is toughest.

Joe Judge is another hitter of that type. Goose Goslin will outhit Joe in the averages by 20 to 50 points. But with runners on bases and a hit needed to win the ball game most pitchers would rather pitch to Goose a dozen times over. Earl Combs is a good hitter in a pinch. Rogers Hornsby is a corker. Joey Sewell is another mighty tough one.

Theoretically hitting in a pinch is no different than going up there with nobody on and two out. Actually there’s a lot of difference. With nobody on the base, the hitter has a clear and easy mind. He doesn’t have to worry about protecting the runner. He doesn’t have to keep his eye peeled for signs and signals. And more important than that, he doesn’t have anybody to worry about but himself. He can give his whole and undivided attention to hitting.

With runners in scoring position it’s very different. There are a dozen things to watch—but more important than all these is the sense of responsibility. The average hitter “tightens up,” he stands stiff at the plate, his muscles tighten and his whole motion is jerky. When he does that he’s gone. The batter who stiffens up and loses his easy, free swing is an easy victim for a pitcher.

The same thing happens when a hitter goes into a batting slump. And every hitter has them. No matter how great a hitter he may be there will come times when, to use a common baseball expression, “he can’t hit a barn door with a bull fiddle.”

And ability to get out of a slump is another test of the real hitter. Some fellows claim that a slump doesn’t bother them. That they take it as a matter of course, knowing that they will work out of it sooner or later. That’s bunk. There never was a ball player lived who could go through a batting slump without worrying. It’s simply a question of how much you worry, and whether or not your worry is about the slump or over methods of overcoming it.

The worst part of a batting slump is that it affects a man’s play to the field too. As long as the basehits are coming regularly the average ball player is sitting on top of the world. He has pepper and enthusiasm. Everything is fine. But when the old slump comes along everything is upside down.

Smart managers realize that. One of the best lines I ever heard pulled came from Miller Huggins a couple of years ago. We had a kid infielder in camp who looked as though he would burn up the league. He was pounding the cover off the ball—and digging everything out of the dirt that came his way.

All the newspaper writers were enthusiastic and wrote red hot stories about this latest find who would show up any infielder in the league.

“That kid is the best I ever saw,” one of them said to Huggins one day, “why you’re all set now. You don’t have to worry any more.”

Hug grinned, that slow, funny little grin that he has.

“Maybe so,” he said. “I hope you’re right. But before I commit myself I want to see how he acts after he has gone through seven or eight games without a base hit.”

The kid who was going to burn up the league, is back in the minors now. No one ever hears anything about him. The slump that Huggins spoke about came, and he went all to pieces. He was one of those nervous sort of fellows who just worried himself out of the league over base hits that didn’t go safe.

The worst part of a hitting slump is that a fellow will hit the ball all right—but always at somebody. When you’re in a hitting streak it seems that everything you hit falls safe. When you’re in a slump nothing goes right. You hit ’em on the nose and the ball goes right into some outfielder’s hands. You lay down a grounder that nine times out of ten would be a basehit, and some infielder does a Houdini and comes up with the ball for a putout.

I get many letters from amateur players each year, asking what to do to get out of a batting slump.

That’s a problem. I guess no two fellows use the same methods.

Personally I change my batting style. I experiment. I change my swing and my stance. I try stepping forward a bit in the batting box. I change to bats of different weight.

With me, I’ve found that the best method of overcoming a slump is to choke my bat and start “choke hitting” for a while. I reduce my stride to a minimum and stand as flatfooted as possible. Naturally that shortens my stride, and I “push” instead of “pull” the ball. And most of all, I try to worry as little as possible about it.

Sometimes when I’m in a slump I’ll catch myself tightening up with the pitch. When I do that I simply call for time, and step out of the box, until I can get squared around and loosened up again. Here’s another thing you’ve got to watch when you’re in a hitting slump. The longer you go without a basehit the more anxious you are to get one. As a result of the anxiety you’re more than apt to swing at bad balls, simply because you’re too anxious to hit.

When I’m in a batting slump one of the first things I do, is start taking that first one. It isn’t always easy. When a chap wants a base hit badly it’s tough to stand up there and watch one go shooting across the corner and not swing. But it’s a wise move—for it curbs that over-anxiety and keeps you from hitting at bad ones. Once a fellow starts swinging wild he’s sunk—and his slump will come to an end somewhere in Oshkosh or Cedar Falls.

The business of getting runners around the bases is one of the most scientific departments of the game. And there’s no set rule for attack. When I first broke into baseball most of the clubs were using the old-fashioned sacrifice and steal game. In recent years play has switched, and the steal has more or less disappeared. Clubs today depend more on the hit-and-run.

But as I said before there’s no set rule you can follow. It depends on the sort of club you have. Miller Huggins for instance has always favored what he likes to call “smart baseball.” He likes the sacrifice attack. He likes the steal. But he doesn’t use it because he knows such an attack wouldn’t work so well with a club like the Yankees. We’re sluggers for the most part—and have to score our runs by hitting power. We haven’t any great base runners. Meusel and Combs can steal with the best in the business but they’re only two.

We have few fellows on our club, too, who can handle the sacrifice properly. The Yankees, for the most part, are “swing hitters” and hitters of that type never will shine at the sacrifice game. Knowing these things Huggins forgets his “smart baseball” ideas and makes the most of the type hitters he has. Which is good baseball. George Moriarity, over in Detroit, on the other hand, uses the steal a lot. He has a bunch of fast, speedy, youngsters who know how to run bases and the steal with them is the best form of attack.

The Washington Senators are long on the sacrifice. Most of the men on their club can “lay them down” to perfection, and do it. John McGraw has always favored the “hit and run” as a means of advancing his runners and bringing in scores. But just the same that didn’t keep John from changing his tactics to a base-stealing game when he had that team of speed boys back in 1912 to 1916. Even yet they talk of the way the Giants “stole the pennant” during those years.

After all it comes back to the same proposition. The method of attack depends on the club—and the smart manager uses the form that is best for his individual group of players.

There’s no play in baseball any prettier than the bunt when it’s properly executed. But not all ball players can do it. Watching from the stands it looks easy. But it isn’t. In the first place smart pitchers have all the good bunters card catalogued. And nine times out of ten when a fellow starts to bunt he finds the ♦pitches coming through high, fast and inside, which is the toughest spot in the world for a bunter.

♦ “pitchings” replaced with “pitches”

To be a bunter a fellow has to have a keen eye. He has to have speed in getting to first, in order that he may beat the ball. And more important than that he not only has to hit the ball, but he has to hit it to certain limited places. The bunted ball that goes direct to the pitcher is worse than a strikeout. The bunt that is hit too hard and rolls fast down the line to an infielder; or the one that is hit too easily and lands in front of the plate for the catcher to grab—these too are worse than no bunt at all.

If you can’t put the ball where you want to, say eight times out of ten, then you’d better not try any serious bunting where there’s a ball game hanging in the balance.

One of the best bunters I’ve ever seen was Whitey Witt. Whitey had a wonderful way of laying that ball right down the third base line, and being fast getting down to first, he could beat them out. Whitey used to get from twenty-five to thirty-five base hits a year on bunts.

I remember a line Whitey pulled in the clubhouse one afternoon toward the end of the 1923 season. Whitey had about 32 hits on bunts to his credit, and some of the newspaper men were talking to him about it.

“Yet,” he said, “I’m conservative. I believe in saving distance. Those thirty-two hits, laid end to end, would just about equal one of Babe’s shortest home runs. Yet he got only four bases on the distance and I got thirty-two. Science pays, my boy, science pays!”

Poor old Whitey is out of baseball now and raising tomatoes down on his farm in Jersey. We see him every now and then and occasionally he puts on a uniform and works out with the boys when we’re home. And he can still “Lay ’em down,” even though his legs have gone back and he can’t run much any more. I guess it’s a knack, that once acquired, never leaves a fellow.

From what old timers tell me Willie Keeler must have been about the king of the bunters. I never saw him—but I’ve heard plenty of stories about his ability to lay them down in any direction. Miller Huggins, the manager of the Yankees, is another chap who was a wizard at the bunt game during his playing days. Seems as though little fellows always make the best bunters. Usually they’re pretty fast which is a big asset. And the fact that they’re so small makes them hard to pitch to. Pitchers can’t work on them as carefully as they do on a bigger fellow.

In baseball we divide bunts into two classes. There’s the ordinary roller down the third base line which is just a “bunt.” Balls pushed toward first base we call “drag bunts.” And when you can catch the infield playing back the drag bunt is a mighty good weapon for a left hand hitter. Properly placed it pulls the first baseman off the bag, and is out of reach of the pitcher.

Somehow there doesn’t seem to be so many good drag ♦bunters now as there used to be. One of the best of the lot was Ross Young, the old Giant right fielder who died recently in San Antonio. Ross had that drag bunt down to perfection, and could drive a first baseman nutty with it. He used it against us in the world series a lot—and even such a veteran as Wallie Pipp had trouble making a play on it.

♦ “hunters” replaced with “bunters”

Charley Jamieson, of the Cleveland Indians, and Earl Combs of the Yankees are about the best drag bunters in the business today. Combs I think is even better than Jamey, because he’s faster. And speed is a mighty big item in a drag bunt play. Sam Rice, the speedy Washington outfielder, is another batter who can drag the ball down the first base line plenty. But Sam doesn’t use the play as much now as he did a few years ago, when he was batting in leadoff or second position in the batting order.

Of course you’ve got to pick your spots for a bunt attack. A poor fielding pitcher is always a sucker for such a play. I’ve already told how Alan Sothoron was bunted right out of the league. Managers are also quick to use the bunt when they’ve got a new third baseman working against them. Unless a third baseman can come in and handle bunts he’s not much use—and in the big leagues we’re quick to test out a man on that particular job.

Handling bunts is one of the places where Joe Dugan used to shine brightest. Joe is the best third baseman I ever saw at coming in and scooping the ball with one hand, then throwing to first while still off balance. Fellows around the league used to say of Joe that he could throw better and more accurately when he had both feet off the ground than he could when he was all set for a peg.

And that’s about right. Joe makes bad throws occasionally, but nine times out of ten they come when he has plenty of time and gets all set. He very, very seldom throws wild, on one of those quick “scoop and throw” plays.

The bunt has two purposes. First, it’s to upset the infield and get the hitter safely to first. Second, it’s used as a sacrifice, in which case the object is to advance a runner even at the cost of sacrificing the hitter. The two plays are entirely different. The fact that a man is a good bunter, doesn’t always mean that he is a good sacrificer.

On the sacrifice the idea isn’t so much to avoid a play as it is to so place the ball that a play is possible only at first base. If the runner to be advanced is on second, then the bunt must be so placed that the third baseman will have to come in and handle it. If the runner is on first, the best place for the sacrifice bunt is midway down the third base line so the pitcher has to handle the play. Or, in the case of the left handed hitter, a drag bunt that pulls the second baseman in to cover first base, is always good.