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Show MANAGER MUST KNOW PLAYERS LIKE A BOOK Successful Baseball Leaders Required to Be Keen Students of Human Nature; Flattery Often an Invaluable Aid. NBy FBA1TK G-. ME NICE. BW YOJIK, Feb. 31. "The job of trj'inpr out a minor leaguer is ono of tho .ost difficult that a big league managor has to tac-Itlo," tac-Itlo," is tho opinion of Charlie Doom, the catcher-manager of tho Phillies. "Von- ten a managor s unskillful, undiplomatic handling of a recruit will nun him, so far as his big lcaguo usefulness use-fulness 18 concerned, eveu though tho recruit may havo enough natural ability abil-ity to land him at tho top of the big league heap. ' bltf league manager must not only know bnscball; he must havo a thorough knowledge of human nature. Where one. method will win with one player, it will fail utterly with another. Each man is different, each has certain peculiarities. Find them, then humor them and you bring out tho best in tho man. "Somo yeaTs ago a. voung pitcher came to mo in midseason. llo was hor-aldocl hor-aldocl as a real find. I had him work out for a week or so, saw that ho had curves and speed, but he struck me as being a little shy in gameness. I was airaid he might falter in a tight hole. But, in my little talks with him I learned that one thing that he hated almost as much a poison was to havo anyone chargo him with boing 'yellow, 'yel-low, ' "We bumped into a series of double headers just about that timo and. I found that T had used up all my regular pitchers and would have to use my rookie in one of the games. Just be-foro be-foro he went into the box T called him over for a final word. "'These other fellows think vou 're yellow,' T told him. 'Thoy think'you'll quit cold if they get ono or two hits off you early in tho game. Now vou go in and show them that you arcn 't yellow. See?' "'They think TJm yellow, hey?' ho snapped. 'Well, I'll show 'em I'll show 'em.' "And ho did. That kid went in and pitched liko a veteran pitched his heart out. almost. And wc won. After the game ho rushed up to me. aud grinning grin-ning liko a child, said: 'Well, I guess 1 showed 'em T wasn't yellow, hey?' "Und T tried that same trick on some other fellow, with a different nature, the chances are he'd havo brooded over the idea that the other fellows thought him a quitter and would have gone to pieces in consequence." Cole Likes Flattery. "King" Cole, tho pitcher, who was rescued from the minors by the Yau-kces, Yau-kces, who jumped to the Federals and then back to the Yankees, is the type of player who thrives on flatten'. To chargo Cole with boing a quitter takes the heart out of him; to lot him believe you think he is a wonderful pitcher is to transform him into a real wonder. When Colo joined the Cubs foiiio years ago, Frank Chance, then manager of tho team, soon learned that Colo was susceptible to flattery. Chance quickly quick-ly "tipped off" the veterans on the team to his discovery, with excellent results. Whenever it waH Cole's turn to pitch, some of tho Cub regulars would manage to got within earshot of Cole and. there edge in a few remarks about: "Say, isn't that Colo a wouder?" "Tie's a pitcher a real pitcher one of the best since Tfusio's time." "Tho fellow uho nicknamed him 'Iving' 1 new what he was about. That boy certainly is a king among pitch-ere." pitch-ere." Colo would overhear thia and it.. i made him bulge with pride. It mado invpit,ch kself into tho leadorship of the league in that year 1010 aud his thirty-three victories materially aided in landing tho Cubs at the top of the National lcaguo heap. Giving King Courage. In somo of hi3 games Cole at times would show signs of weakening. This alwayB was a signal for his loainmates, while sitting ou the bench between innings, in-nings, to carry on a conversation among S themselvos but for Colo's bonofiL fi something on this order: v "Those other guys think the King is wobbling but the joko is on them. ' ' "f Bhould say it is," another would 5 chimo in. "They don't know the J 'Iviug.' Why, that boy simply let 'em ' get a few hits and runs that last in- ' mug so they would 'nfc be altogether ashamed to show their faces tomor-j tomor-j row. I "Eight you arc," would bo the re- J mark from another. "Watch tho Kiug next inning he'll stand 'em on their heads." All this would reach Colo's cars 5 aud. all this would cause an instant stiffening of Colo's backbone it would stop the oozing of Cole's courage and send him back into the box a new man aud an unbeatable pitcher. f Cole had good curves and speed j when he signed with the Cubs, but it was the flattery of his teammates that subtle, indirect flattery that caused him to make the wonderful showing he did. Ho figured that his teammates thought" him one of tho p greatest pitchers of tho age and ho . determined to show them that ho was. ij Marquard Likes Himself. j -Harn;y Persos are of tho opinion that if Marquard 's conceit had boon humored hu-mored in his first few years as a Giant, ho would havo bloomed much sooner as ' one of the rare flowers in tho twirling j garden. Marquard always had a very nice opinion of himself even back in his sand-lot days iu Cleveland. The opinion was strengthened as ho advanced ad-vanced from one rank to another in baseball, and it -reached the crest when ho was sold by Tndianupolis to tho Now York Giants for $11,000. At j tho time that was the record price for a ,nIaJcr' ancl Marquard connected ' with tho idea that ho was tho greatest pitcher in tho world. With this idea embedded in his sys- tern, ho went to New York and in a very short timo that idea mado him 3 quite unpopular with his teammates, j when Marquard lost soin of tho earlv ! games he pitched, he couldn't see it j was his wildness caused it it seemed I that it was poor support by his team- 3 and poor offonsive work by his team- S mates that caused tho defeat. How I else could ho lose? Wasn't ho the greatest, the most valuable pitcher in ; the world? j Reduced Rube's Conceit. McGraw seemed to figuro tho best I way to hnudle Marquard was to devel- I op him slowly as a major leaguer, and 9 by this process take tho conceit out of 1 him. Tt was mighty galling to the 1 "Rube,;' he tho highest priced ball player in the world to sit on tho bench day after dav with no chance to display his wares. But it did him good becnuso it robbed him of some of his vanitv and brought him bnck to earth. Yet it seems that McGraw deprived himself of the regular services of a star pitcher for three carn became ho chose to lessen that pitchers con- B ceitj instead of catering to- it. Outfiidiu." of the fact that ho had separated himself him-self from his streaks of wildness, Marquard Mar-quard had no moro natural pitching ability in 1012 when ho won ninoteon straight games than ho did tho day he sauntered into tho Giants' fold. Perhaps Per-haps if McGraw had lot Marquard think that he was really tho greatest pitcher in the world right at the outset, it would have cV.ted ou the "Rube" in much the same way as flattery acted on "King" Cole. And then again perhaps per-haps it wouldn't. |