The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-02
Muggsy Has Won Enough Remnants
 ToCIothe aTe cam
By WESTBROoK PEGLER .cnsed Wire To The ARe-Herald

Leased Wire To The Age-Herald)
 NEW YORK, Oct. John J. McGraw has won enough pennants to clothe a whole ball club and the usual reserve list in the royal purple muslin which betokens these cham pionships of the organized baseball business.
 But, until last season, 1t was a question whether the Giants who won the pennnants would not have won the same same sacred dry goods with a stuffed shirt sitting on the bench in McGraw's place, that good were they in their own right. Last season, however, the Giants had no great crops of pitchers and when they beat the field for the pennant and the Yankees for the so-called world championship, many of the autumnal welkin were cheers for John McGraw, in person. It was held that McGraw's canny guessing as he lurked in the shade of the dug out, wearing a business suit and a balck derby, was more largely re- sponsible for these achievements than were the physical efforts of his players on the field. McGraw has since written an imperishable tome relating 30 years of experience in the baseball business and in one chapter he tells how he outguessed Babe INulll anu lcl0 lhS odOS lO d Ddl- ting average about the size of a speck on a gnat's vest.
 Again, McGraw has won the Ma tional league pennant and again 1t appears that the winning was due as much to the impatient genius of the scawling skipper on the bench as to the honest precipitation of the men who call him plenty when out of earshot. McGraws pitchers have not been any better in 1923 than they were last year and, to brighten the polish of his prestige, he has done whot he was done with an in field which limped all through the summer. The Giants infield is rated in the air baseball way at a million dollar value. Normally it consists of George Kelly at first base; Frank Frisch at second; Beauty Bancroft, the field captain, at shortstop, and Heinie Groth at third.
 These factors are not co-eoual in value, and it isn't just clear how they foot up to what Is known in the language of the cauliflowers as a thousand grand. But assuming. that Heinie Groth Is worth $250,00O at the baseball rate of exchange. then the Giants infield was depressed to about SO cents op the dollar much Of the time this summer. Groh was out because of injuries and the others were wrenched from their ac- customed positions, losing cash value In the switch. Frisch played third and McGraw was forced to use Travis Jackson, 20-year-old boy from the south, at shortstop, while Bancroft played second.
 Jack Bentley reported for worl as a regular pitcher with 2 fatty bulge in the middle and some of the pitchers who chanced to prosper by McGraw's management last year fn uynTk fhfz |, fatty appreciation of themselves. Il took time to get Bentley into condi- tion. Then Jack Scott, the mildewed relic from the Reds, was injured and put out of the game for a long time. Art Nef, one of the best pitchers McGraw had, began to slip this sea- son and has not been effective in his old way. Mule Watson. obtained from the Boston Braves, reported without his skid chains and after go- Ing along well for a time. began to skid on the glassy going of the pleasure palaces. McGraw suspend ed and fined him. That strategy had just the proper effect on Watson who pleaded for reinstatement and won two games when that boon was granted.
 The Giants have had much more serious opposition this year than the Yankees had. The next team behind them, the Cincinnati Reds, have won 91 games and lost only so. The In- dians, the next team behind the Yan- kees, did not crowd the Tanks at all, for they won only 76 and have lost 68.
 Twice in the successive years the Yankees were favorites in the world series and twice McGraw and his players beat them in the field and In the heavy thinking department. New York, however, Is accustomed to pun ishment and will back the Tanks again this year. With Babe Ruth in shape again and playing with the frenzied zeal of a snare drummer and with the whole Yankee team i'm bued with the same spirit, it does not appear on paper that the Giants can do 1t again.