Publisher's Synopsis
I have often been asked to which batters I have found it hardest to pitch. It is the general impression among baseball fans that Joseph Faversham Tinker, the short-stop of the Chicago Cubs, is the worst man that I have to face in the National League. Few realize that during his first two years in the big show Joe Tinker looked like a cripple at the plate when I was pitching. His "groove" was a slow curve over the outside corner, and I fed him slow curves over that very outside corner with great regularity. Then suddenly, overnight, he became from my point of view the most dangerous batter in the League. Tinker is a clever ball-player, and one day I struck him out three times in succession with low curves over the outside corner. Instead of getting disgusted with himself, he began to think and reason. He knew that I was feeding him that low curve over the outside corner, and he started to look for an antidote. He had always taken a short, choppy swing at the ball. When he went to the clubhouse after the game in which he struck out three times, he was very quiet, so I have been told. He was just putting on his last sock when he clapped his hand to his leg and exclaimed:
