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Show PHILS ARE PLAYING ON THEIR NERVE, SAYS PAT Leaders' Chief Declares His Reserve Strength Has Saved Club; Positively Will Not Discuss Pennant Chances Until It's Cinched. ST. LOUIS. Sept. 19. "I'll not pick the Phillies to win the pennant until un-til It is a mathematical Impossibility to beat us, and what is more. I won't stand for any of my players talking pennant when I am around. I , know some of the boys teel 'sure we are j soinR to win, but I won't put a 'jinx' on the team by claiming the flag.'' This wns Manager Pat Moran's answer when asked If he had not become convinced con-vinced that the Phils would surely win. That Moran in convinced that the Phils will win Is evident, but the crafty Irishman Irish-man is' evidently superstitious, although it Is said that he laughed at the whims of George Stallings! If Moran is not superstitious, he is taking a strange way of convincing the fans that he is not. "Why won't you talk about the pennant?" pen-nant?" Moran was asked. Pat Is Cautious. "I'll tell you why. Tt Is not only bad judgment, but it is poor taste as well. My men know they have a great chance If they keep fighting and work for every game, but why should 1 let them become too con fldfen t ? Overeon tldence is the one thing we must fight against now, and I would be showing poor 'sense to encourage that. "We have a good lead, but we are not in very good shape. The fans sitting up in the stand think that we have been a lucky ball team to go alone without serious injuries, but thev are tooled. We arc at the present time in a badly crippled crip-pled condition, and if it was not for the fighting spirit that prevails, several members mem-bers of the team would now be on the bench. "I would not think of allowing Cravath to play if it were riot for the closeness of the race. He has a Charley -h or Se that is worse than some that have kept players play-ers on the bench for the whole season, i but he insists on playing, and we need him. Bert Niehoff has a badly strained I tendon hi the back of his left, leg, and I this has caused him to slow down a great deal. Bert has missed balls in the field for the last two weeks that would have been easy ordinarily, but he cannot stoop quickly while on the run. "Niehoff is one of the sieatest hustlers I ever saw. and you can bet that he Is playing on his nerve when he reaches the stage where he comes to m and asks me to take him out, as he did the other day when we had a game with the Giants clinched. "Killifer Is now out. of the game, while Byrne has been out for some time- Whltted broke a bone In Ms ankle early in the year, and was out for severa 1 weeks; Chalmers hurt his arm and could not pitch for a month; Paskert has been troubled with a bad leg, and Dave Bancroft Ban-croft has two 'gliding sores,' one on each hip. "Still they call us lucky. The only reason why we have seemed lucky Is that our reserve strength has performed so well that the club has not slumped at any time through the absence of a regular. I might have my own views as to where we would be If we had the good breaks in the way of Injuries, etc.. that several championship clubs have had, , but I won't discuss that until the race is decided. Then I might talk a lot. "You never saw a championship team that people did not say was lucky. If we do win the pennant, they will say we were lucky, but I know different. I am not going to say anything about the pennant or our chances for winning it until October 7, and then you will know just as much about it as I do. Look at the 'jinx' they put on us jthe other day. "I came out to the park after lunch and found Jim Foster, the man who built the stands, going around with a tape measure and a paper, figuring out the seating capacity for a world's series. Now that wasn't right, and he should not have been allowed to do that while the team was at home. Moran Is Vexed. "Why didn't he wait another day or two, until we were on the road? T keep after my players all the time to prevent them from thinking about the pennant, and they come out to the park and see Foster going about with a tape measure, figuring out where a few extra people can be put for the world's series. I was good and sore, and I put a stop to it. "I am like everyone else. In that I want to win, and nothing in the world would please me better than having the Phillies In the world s series and making money for my employers, who have treated me royally, but T am not going to have our chances spoiled by meddlers. 'iAs I said before, we are in anything but good shape for this trip through the west, but we will fight for every game, and that is all that any team can do. No club is going to beat us unless they outplay us at all stages. The team spirit coulcj not bp improved upon, and we will be fighting for each individual game until we have won the pennant, or somebody else, has clinched the flag. Tf we lose It won't be because the boys did not fight, and it will take a great club to beat a fighting team in a race like this." |