Collier's Volume 53, PT. 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 Excerpt: ...the flag cf the President, and blessed his persistence in carrying the veterans through another season. SHERE was a touch of the sardonic in Griffith's smile. For three years he had "carried"' the comedians while rival managers and puzzled baseball writers wondered why the Old Fox had included them in his squad to the exclusion of a brace of promising youngsters. Those unimaginative ones knew O'Hara only as the pitching mainstay of the White Sox when the Hitless Wonders wrested the World Series from the mighty Cub machine in 1906; remembered Schaefer only as a brilliant infielder on the Detroit team that all but humbled Fred Clarke's Pirates in 1009. The Old Fox could have told them that Pick O'Hara had no peer in developing recruit pitchers and that under his tutelage Annapolis, after seven years of defeat, had turned on West Point that spring and crushed the soldiers in a dingdong, slashing battle. He could have reminded them that Ty Cobb, the only, had learned the A B C of the big league alphabet from Schaefer. He knew them as crafty coaches whose strategy turned the tide in many games, as cunning baiters of harried pitchers, as a team in themselves with quip and jest when his high-geared machine struck hard going on the road trips. There were times too when the baseball Jinx jujutsued his athletes and put their shoulders on the mat of the hospital list. Then, with the new-found virility of an old fire horse at the clang of a gong, with the dash of a cavalry mount at the unfocgotten bugle note, O'Hara and Schaefer jumped into the gaps and did yeoman work with mitt and hickory until the Jinx had released its victims. THIS day his sardonic smile rested on his Senators, face to face with the critical point of the national fever. Across in the visi...