The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-11
GRANNAN BET ON LUNCHES
 PHIL BET ON KNOWLEDGE

From the Washington Post.
 T can't understand why so many of the biographers of the late Riley Gran nan coupled him with Pittsburg Phil" said turfman who was on close terms with the plunger who died at RaWhide, Nev., the other day. "The two men were alike in only one thing, and that was tleia eeolness.
 ..sburg Phil was the student and seho.ir of the thoroughbred game. Every. bet that he made was based upon some thing that he knew. Again, he was the great master of the technique of the game.
 He knew what the horse could do. He knew what the jockey could do And he always found out in advance what the horse and jockey were meant to do. He regarded the random player of the horses as a crazy man.
 ''He paid big money for his knowledge. There were times when 1t seemed as if half the owners and trainers on the tracks were on Phils staff. They made Phil their confidant and got their rewa.d for it.
 An owner, for example, would stick horse into spot that looked good to him. Then he'd go to Phil.
 I think I'm going to win with that one, Phil he would say, and Phil would ask him what made him think like that
 They'd get together on the problem. If Phil agreed with his owner friends idea that that horse would get it he would send in the big money, and a con- siderable amount of the bet would go down in the owners interest
 But he'd never send the money in if he himself was not convinced that the horse would do the trick. Often he would say to the owner, You haven't got a chance, old boy, and these owners will tell you today that the student plunger's prediction thus made was nearly always verified.
 Howard the wind-up of his career. when Phil was tired and sick and knew that his days were numbered, he vir- tually gave up his oid-tme close atten- tion to the details of the betting busi- ness and just spread his money around in parcels that were considered small for him for the fun of the thing
 '' Are you in right about that@ a friend would ask him.
 '' No, I'm just gambling now would be the reply.
 '' Well, didn't you always gamble? the friend would ask
 ' I should say not Phil would reply Me gamble? Do you think I'm crazy?'
 .' Well, what were you doing when you were pulling down those bundles day in and day out?
 '' We'll 1 wasn't gambling, and you can take that from me- Phil would re- ply, and that would be the end of the colloquy.
 Riley Grammar was an utterly different sort of a man. He was a gambler, pure and simple, and he never concerned him self with close study or analysis of the game.
 Early in his betting career he took a whack at all of the systems and he ended by declaring them all futile and foolish. He was strictly hunch player and he arrived at an opinion by a mental pro cess that was almost feminine.
 "He was sort of clarvoyant gambler His intuition was marvellous. It used to seem to me that he could close his eyes and have a mental picture of the win ming horse ambling down the stretch to the tape.
 "He would light the most impos- sible betting propositions and get away with them time after time.
 |" Why do you like this thing so much?' I've asked him time and again when the thing he singled out for whopping bet looked like lunatics selection.
 ' Dunno,' he'd come back. Go to it that's all, and get something for your self And I couldn't get anything more out of him.
 Grammar rarely or never considered a field of horses by the process of elmina- tion He'd cast a rapid eye over the entries in a race and then his finger would travel to the name of one of them like the pointer of compass.
 There's the one that sticks out he'd say, when there would seemingly be no reason on earth for him to make such declaration.