I was very much down in the mouth over the defeat, after I had the game apparently won, and George Davis, then the manager of the Giants, noticed it in the clubhouse. "Never mind, Matty," he said, "it was worth it. The game ought to teach you not to pitch your head off when you don't need to." It did. I have never forgotten that lesson. Many spectators wonder why a pitcher does not work as hard as he can all through the game, instead of just in the pinches. If he did, they argue, there would be no pinches. But there would be, and, if the pitcher did not conserve his energy, the pinches would usually go against him. Sometimes bawling at a man in a pinch has the opposite effect from that desired. Clarke Griffith, recently of Cincinnati, has a reputation in the Big Leagues for being a bad man to upset a pitcher from the coacher's box. Off the field he is one of the decentest fellows in the game, but, when talking to a pitcher, he is very irritating. I was working in a game against the Reds in Cincinnati one day, just after he had been made manager of the club, and Griffith spent the afternoon and a lot of breath trying to get me going. The Giants were ahead, 5 to 1, at the beginning of the seventh. In the Cincinnati half of that inning, "Mike" Mitchell tripled with the bases full and later tallied on an outfield fly which tied the score. The effect this had on Griffith was much the same as that of a lighted match on gasolene. "Now, you big blond," he shouted at me, "we've got you at last." I expected McGraw to take me out, as it looked in that inning as if I was not right, but he did not, and I pitched along up to the ninth with the score still tied and with Griffith, the carping critic, on the side lines. We failed to count in our half, but the first Cincinnati batter got on the bases, stole second, and went to third on a sacrifice. He was there with one out. "Here's where we get you," chortled Griffith. "This is the point at which you receive a terrible showing up." I tried to get the next batter to hit at bad balls, and he refused, so that I lost him. I was afraid to lay the ball over the plate in this crisis, as a hit or an outfield fly meant the game. Hoblitzell and Mitchell, two of Griffith's heaviest batters, were scheduled to arrive at the plate next. "You ought to be up, Mike," yelled the Cincinnati manager at Mitchell, who was swinging a couple of sticks preparatory to his turn at the bat. "Too bad you won't get a lick, old man, because Hobby's going to break it up right here." Something he said irritated me, but, instead of worrying me, it made me feel more like pitching. I seldom talk to a coacher, but I turned to Griffith and said: "I'll bring Mike up, and we'll see what he can do."