But you know I wouldn’t lie to you, Jake, and you know I don’t care nothin’ about the honor or that bunk.
The little old World’s Serious check is honor enough for me. So let ’em say that it was Red’s managin’ and them two guys’ pitchin’ that won for us, and let it go at that. I’m just tellin’ you this to get it offen my chest.
Well, you must of read about Lefty Smith last fall, after we’d grabbed him. He’s a wop and Smith ain’t his real name, but it’s the one he’s went under ever since he started pitchin’. I heard his right name oncet, but I ain’t got time to tell it to you today. It’s longer’n Eppa Rixey. Anyway, the papers was full o’ what him and Fogarty had did at Fort Wayne; how they’d worked a hundred games between ’em and copped the Central League pennant, and how all the scouts had went after ’em.
Pat had stopped off there when we was goin’ West one trip and had saw ’em both work, and they’d looked so good to him that he’d advised Red to buy the both o’ them. Well, Red told the big boss and he bought Smitty; paid five thousand for him, they say. They wanted even more for Fogarty; so we just put in a draft for him. But pretty near all the other clubs done the same and the Cubs got him.
Red thought Smitty’d fit in nice with our bunch. We needed all the pitchers we could get after what the Feds done to us. Most o’ these guys with all the toutin’ turns out to be dubs; but Smitty had a whale of a record, full o’ no-hit games and shutouts. He’d whiffed more guys than Rube Waddell or Johnson, and had tooken part in fifty games. Besides, he had some pitchin’ sense, which is more’n you can say for most o’ them bushers. Fogarty’s record was just as good as Smitty’s; but, o’ course we wasn’t so much interested in him. We figured from what Smitty’d did and from what Pat said about him that he’d come right through from the jump and show enough to make Red stick him in there in his reg’lar turn.
Well, we got down South and had a chancet to look him over. You could spot him right off the reel for a wop, but he was a handsome devil, big as a house, and with black eyes and black hair.
He didn’t show nothin’ for a couple o’ weeks, but nobody lost no sleep over that; we thought he was takin’ it easy and was one o’ them careful birds that comes slow. Along in the third week we had some practice games between ourselves and Red starts Smitty agin the second club in one o’ them. Say, he had a fast one like Waddell’s and a cross fire like Sallee’s! But he seemed to be afraid he’d show too much. He’d begin an innin’ by puttin’ more stuff on the ball than I ever seen, but after he’d threw two or three he’d ease up and lob ’em over. Them goofs couldn’t see ’em when he was tryin’; but, say, they hit ’em acrost the state line when he let up. That didn’t bother us none, neither, for we figured that he had the stuff when he wanted to use it, and when he got in shape he’d burn up the league.
We played a few games with them Southern clubs and Smitty kept on the same way. Maybe he’d pitch hard to one guy in a innin’, but then he’d quit workin’ and just float ’em up there like a balloon. Red told him one day to cut loose and see if he could go the route. He might just as well of told him to shave himself with a dish o’ prunes. He went right along the way he’d been doin’, pitchin’ like a bear cat oncet in a while and sloppin’ ’em over the rest o’ the time. We was playin’ the Richmond Club and they scored eleven runs, but Red wouldn’t take him out.
After the game Red give him a bawlin’ and ast him what was the matter. He said, Nothin’; he was doin’ the best he knowed how. Red says: “You ain’t doin’ no such a thing. You’ve got the stuff, but you won’t let go of it. Are you lazy or what?” Smitty didn’t say a word. Then Red ast him if he wasn’t in shape, and he said, Yes, he guessed he was. “Well,” says Red, “you’ll have to cut out the monkey business or I’ll put the rollers under you!”
We stopped off in Washin’ton for a couple of exhibition games and broke even with ’em. Then we went home and tackled the Athaletics in the spring serious. Alexander trimmed ’em and they licked Mayer. Red sent Smitty at ’em in the third game and he was worse’n ever. I thought he’d be massacreed.
For two innin’s they couldn’t touch him and then he pulled the old stuff. Cy Young could of run to the plate as fast as the balls this bird throwed. It was just like hittin’ fungoes for them Athaletics. A slow ball’s all right in its place, but it’s got to be mixed up with somethin’ else. The way Smitty mixed ’em up was to throw one slow, and then one slower, and then one slower yet. Along in the fourth, before Red took him out, you could of went on one o’ them street cars from the hotel to the ball park in St. Louis between the time he let go o’ the pill and when one o’ them Mackmen kissed it. Pat was crazy. He says:
“I’d give my glove to know what’s the matter with him. He was the best pitcher in the world when I looked him over,
