Evening star., 1935-09-29
Magazine Section


rubber slab, struck me out. Since
tften I've been asked | don't know
how many hundreds OF times if /
wasn't nervous and if that wasn't
one reason why whitfield.
don't think so. After reaching the
park and seeing the crowd and realiz-
ing that this was ball game like all
the Others we had played, that nerv-
business and sense of strain had left
/ me. l don't think | was any more
tensed up as faced Old Alex at the
plate than the other Red Sox - and
most of them were veterans of the
great series with the Giants in 1912,
the one that hinged on Snodgrass'
muff.
The next year, when the Red Sox
played Brooklyn in the Worlds
Series, was a seasoned veteran - at
!. least in my own opinion. And your
own opinion is what counts out there
, on the diamond. That 1916 series
against Brooklyn saw the beginning of
the pitching record that makes me
just little prouder, perhaps, than
any other | hold in baseball - the
record of twenty-nine consecutive
scoreless innings on the mound in
lAWorld's Series games. | started that
record by winning a 14inning game.
Myers hit home run for the Dodgers
in the first inning but after that
BANKED them and the Red Sox won
in the l4th, 2 to l. In 1918. when the
Red Sox played the Cubs, | won a
shut-out game over the regulation nine
innings and then went seven innings of
another game before the Cubs scored.
We won, 3 to g I'm pretty proud OF
that total of twenty-nine goose-eggs,
especially when I'm talking with
people who think that the only thing
ever did was to hit home runs.
And, incidentally. that pitching
record gives you a good answer as to
'rhe manner in which | was reacting
to the Worlds Series thrill after my
first appearance as rookie. Anyway,
the big strain was off. These were ball
games that we certainly wanted to win
but they were not to be worried about.
We all want the long end Of that
Worlds Series money. but in order to
get it we've only got to win some ball
games. SO why worry?
If during the coming series you
we're to live with one of these pennant-
winning clubs locked in the battle,
knowing them as the club officials
md the baseball writers know them, !
think you would find that this is the
attitude of most ball players who are
. good enough and seasoned enough to
deserve to be in there. The good ones
don't tighten up to the point where it
affects their play - unless perhaps
there is some special gag on which
they may be ridden by the opposition.
For instance, I'm pretty sure that
..she riding the Cardinals gave big
Schoolboy Rowe last fall in the series
with Detroit didn't help Rowe's work
at all. The Schoolboy gave those bad
boy Cardinals the opening himself.
Remember that "How'm l doin',
Edna?" story? Perhaps you were
listening in on the radio one evening
short time before the series when the
Schoolboy appeared on commercial
program, answered some questions
about baseball and then in closing
said something about Hello to the
folks down home and how'm doin',
kdna?"
1t developed, of course, that Edna
as the girl down in the Arkansas
Country to whom the Schoolboy was
Engaged to be married - and to
} whom he was married soon after the
Worlds Series. The Cardinals. those
impetuous young men whom the
sports writer's have named the Gas
house Gang" read the newspapers
once in while. Perhaps some of them
even slow up enough off the field to