Russell Ford, of the New York American League club, has a hard pitching motion because he seems to throw a spit ball with a jerk. He cannot pitch more than one good game in four or five days. McGraw had detected this weakness from watching the Highlanders play before the post-season series in 1910, and took advantage of it. "If Ford pitches to-day," said McGraw to his team in the clubhouse before the first game, "wait everything out to the last minute. Make him pitch every ball you can." McGraw knew that the strain on Ford's arm would get him along toward the end of the game. In the eighth inning the score was tied when Devore came to the bat. No crack in Ford was perceptible to the rest of us, but McGraw must have detected some slight sign of weakening. He stopped "Josh" on the way to the plate and ordered: "Now go ahead and get him." By the time the inning was over, the Giants had made four runs, and eventually won the game by the score of 5 to 1. McGraw just played for this flaw in Ford's pitching, and hung his whole plan of battle on the chance of it showing. "Old Cy" Young has the absolutely perfect pitching motion. When he jumped from the National League to the Boston American League club some years ago, during the war times, many National League players thought that he was through. "What," said Fred Clarke, the manager of the Pittsburg club, "you American Leaguers letting that old boy make good in your set? Why, he was done when he jumped the National. He'd lost his speed." "But you ought to see his curve ball," answered "Bill" Dineen, then pitching for the Boston Americans. "Curve ball," echoed Clarke. "He never had any curve that it didn't take a microscope to find. He depended on his speed." "Well, he's got one now," replied Dineen. Clarke had a chance to look at the curve ball later, for, with Dineen, Young did a lot toward winning the world's championship for Boston from Pittsburg in 1903. The old pitcher was wise enough to realize, when he began to lose his speed, that he would have to develop a curve ball or go back to the minors, and he set to work and produced a peach. He is still pitching--for the National League now--and he will win a lot of games yet. When he came back in 1911, the American Leaguers said: "What, going to let that old man in your show again? He's done." Maybe he will yet figure in another world's championship. One never can tell. Anyway, he has taken a couple of falls out of Pittsburg just for good luck since he came back to the National League. Some pitchers depend largely on their motions to fool batters. "Motion pitchers" they might be called. Such an elaborate wind-up is developed that it is hard for a hitter to tell when and from where the ball is coming. "Slim" Sallee of the St. Louis Nationals hasn't any curve to mention and he lacks speed, but he wins a lot of ball games on his motion.