There is a real reason for his going to the bench when the team gets behind. It is because this increases the club's chances of winning. From the bench he can see the whole field, can note where his fielders are playing, can get a peek at the other bench, and perhaps pick up a tip as to what to expect. He can watch his own pitcher, or observe whether the opposing twirler drops his throwing arm as if weary. He is at the helm when "on the bench," and, noting any flaw in the opposition, he is in a position to take advantage of it at a moment's notice, or, catching some sign of faltering among his own men, he is immediately there to strengthen the weakness. Many a game he has pulled out of the fire by going back to the bench and watching. So the idea obtained by many spectators that he is quitting is the wrong one. He is only fighting harder. The Giants were playing Pittsburg one day in the season of 1909, and Clarke and McGraw had been having a great guessing match. It was one of those give-and-take games with plenty of batting, with one club forging ahead and then the other. Clarke had saved the game for Pittsburg in the sixth inning by a shoe-string. Leifield had been pitching up to this point, and he wasn't there or even in the neighborhood. But still the Pirates were leading by two runs, having previously knocked Ames out of the box. Doyle and McCormick made hits with no one out in our half of the sixth. It looked like the "break," and McGraw was urging his players on to even up the score, when Clarke suddenly took off his sun glasses in left field and stooped down to tie his shoe. When he removes his sun-glasses that is a sign for a pitcher to warm up in a hurry, and "Babe" Adams sprinted to the outfield with a catcher and began to heat up. Clarke took all of five minutes to tie that shoe, McGraw violently protesting against the delay in the meantime. Fred Clarke has been known to wear out a pair of shoe laces in one game tying and untying them. After the shoe was fixed up, he jogged slowly to the bench and took Leifield out of the box. In the interim, Adams had had an opportunity to warm up, and Clarke raised his arm and ordered him into the box. He fanned the next two men, and the last batter hit an easy roller to Wagner. We were still two runs to the bad after that promising start in the sixth, and Clarke, for the time being, had saved the game by a shoe string. McGraw, who had been on the coaching lines up to this point, retired to the bench after that, and I heard one of those wise spectators, sitting just behind our coop, who could tell Mr. Rockefeller how to run his business but who spends his life working as a clerk at $18 a week, remark to a friend: "It's all off now. McGraw has laid down."