Coveleski did. He absorbed nineteen hits and seventeen runs at the hands of the Giants, this man who had taken a championship of the National League away from us. That night Griffith asked for waivers on him, and he left the Big Leagues for good. He was a good twirler, except for that one flaw, which cost him his place in the big show. There is little mercy among professional ball players when a game is at stake, especially if the man has taken a championship away from a team by insisting upon working out of his turn, so he can win games that will benefit his club not a scintilla. Mordecai Brown, the great pitcher of the Chicago Cubs and the man who did more than any other one player to bring four National League pennants and two world's championships to that club, has a physical deformity which has turned out to be an advantage. Many years ago, Brown lost most of the first finger of his right hand in an argument with a feed cutter, said finger being amputated at the second joint; while his third finger is shorter than it should be, because a hot grounder carried part of it away one day. In some strange way, Brown has achieved wonders with this crippled hand. It is on account of the missing finger that he is called "Three Fingered" Brown, and he is better known by that appellation than by his real name. Brown beat the Giants a hard game one day in 1911, pitching against me. He had a big curve, lots of speed, and absolute control. The Giants could not touch him. Next day McGraw was out warming up with Arthur Wilson, the young catcher on the club. "Wonder if he gets any new curve with that short first finger?" said McGraw, and thereupon crooked his own initial digit and began trying to throw the ball in different ways off it to see what the result would be. Finally he decided: "No, I guess he doesn't get anything extra with the abbreviated finger, but that's lucky for you fellows, because, if I thought he did, I'd have a surgeon out here to-morrow operating on the first fingers of each of you pitchers." Brown is my idea of the almost perfect pitcher He is always ready to work. It is customary for most managers in the Big Leagues to say to a man on the day he is slated to pitch: "Well, how do you feel to-day? Want to work?" Then if the twirler is not right, he has a chance to say so. But Brown always replies: "Yes, I'm ready." He likes to pitch and is in chronic condition. It will usually be found at the end of a season that he has taken part in more games than any other pitcher in the country. He held the Chicago pitching staff together in 1911.