The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-07

r enjoyed so much as I did that day when Keeler and Chase were doing thelr stuff. It was rare fortune for me therefore to not only win my game, but to see the players of the opposite side playing real big league ball such as l have rarely seen before.
 Beats Yankees
 "This is what one of the New York papers had to say about that game which I pitched: Too much Johnson accounted for the downfall of the Yan- kees at American league park in the opening game with Washington. Man ager Cantillon put the promising young ster, who has been pitching well in spots for him, in the box against the local team and 1t proved to be one ot his spotless days. Johnson allowed the Yankees only five hits, and only two came in one session.
 But the enjoyment got out of this victory was shortlived for when the team returned to Washington to play series against the St. Louis team l received my first good drubbing. They hit me all over the lot for 14 hits, which netted 10 runs, and then on Oc- tober 2, when Detroit came back for return engagement, the Tigers got Il hits off my delivery and won the game, 5 to 8. The Tigers must have been fighting mad because on the day before they had to play IT innings against Philadelphia and the best they got was a tie. I was not so fortunate ln my en- counter with Ty Cobb in this game for he made three clean hits, all of which counted in the run column.
 "Detroit won the pennant by a bare six points over Philadelphia. It was a great finish to a great pennant race and I felt happy over the fact that al- though I joined the Washington club late in the season, I nevertheless had the opportunity of facing the most pow erful teams in the league during my first year.
 q remember particularly one game; it was with Philadelphia, which needed four games in order to nose out Detroit. It was on October that I was sent in to oppose the great Eddie Plank. Since my experience in the recent worlds se- ries, know now how badly Eddie want ed to win that game. He pitched great ball that day, but the breaks were against the Athletics. We barely beat them in the ninth when we scored the winning run and the game was ours, to 1. Philadelphia pennant chances for 1907 were gone forever. l met Home-run Baker in that game for the first time. In later years Home-run Baker hit me harder than any other player and in another installment l will relate some of the interesting ex- periences I had with this great hitter.
 q don't know whether or not l had made good that first year, but when the management presented me with contract to sign for the following sea- son I was quick to put my name on the dotted line. It seemed that five vic tories out of fifteen starts had satis- fled the Washington bosses. With the contract in my pocket, l returned to California at the end of the race with the feeling that my future in baseball looked bright. Season after season of play on the Washington team followed. All the time l kept studying the game and my position, and trying to improve my pitching. 1 was there to give Wash ington the best that was in me and I could not give that until I had got ten the best out of me by training and hard work"
 (Copyright, 1924, Thompson Feature
 Service.)
 Do you know that Walter Johnson once pitched three games on three con secutive days and won them all for Washington: Do you know that Wash ington once won 17 straight games and it was the mighty bat of Homerun Bak- CT who broke that winning streak? Walter Johnson tells all about this in next Sundays installment