It was evident that Cobb had been filling "Josh" up with misinformation that was working around in Devore's mind when he went to the plate to face Plank, and, instead of being open to impressions, these wrong opinions had already been planted and he was constantly trying to confirm them. Plank was crossing him all the time, and, being naturally weak against left-handers, this additional handicap made Devore look foolish. In the well-worn words of Mr. Dooley, it has been my experience "to trust your friends, but cut the cards." By that, I mean one ball player will often come to another with a tip that he really thinks worth while, but that avails nothing in the end. A man has to be a pretty smart ball player to dispense accurate information about others, because the Big Leaguers know their own "grooves" and are naturally trying to cover them up. Then a batter may be weak against one pitcher on a certain kind of a ball, and may whale the same sort of delivery, with a different twist to it, out of the lot against another. That was the experience I had with "Ed" Delehanty, the famous slugger of the old Philadelphia National League team, who is now dead. During my first year in the League several well-meaning advisers came to me and said: "Don't give 'Del' any high fast ones because, if you do, you will just wear your fielders out worse than a George M. Cohan show does the chorus. They will think they are in a Marathon race instead of a ball game." Being young, I took this advice, and the first time I pitched against Delehanty, I fed him curved balls. He hit these so far the first two times he came to bat that one of the balls was never found, and everybody felt like shaking hands with Van Haltren, the old Giant outfielder, when he returned with the other, as if he had been away on a vacation some place. In fact, I had been warned against giving any of this Philadelphia team of sluggers high fast ones, and I had been delivering a diet of curves to all of them which they were sending to the limits of the park and further, with great regularity. At last, when Delehanty came to the bat for the third time in the game, Van Haltren walked into the box from the outfield and handed the ball to me, after he had just gone to the fence to get it. Elmer Flick had hit it there. "Matty," he pleaded, "for the love of Mike, slip this fellow a base on balls and let me get my wind."