"Joe" Kelley, formerly manager of the Reds, was coaching in Cincinnati one day several years ago, and "Eagle Eye Jake" Beckley, the old first baseman and a chronic three hundred hitter, was at the bat. I had been feeding him low drops and Kelley, on the third base line, thought he was getting the signals that Jack Warner, the Giant catcher in a former cast of characters, was giving. I saw Kelley apparently pass some information to Beckley, and the latter stepped almost across the plate ready for a curve. He encountered a high, fast one, close in, and he encountered it with that part of him between his neck and hat band. "Eagle Eye" was unconscious for two days after that and in the hospital several weeks. When he got back into the game he said to me one day: "Why didn't you throw me that curve, Matty, that 'Joe' tipped me to?" "Were you tipped off?" I asked. "Then it was 'Joe's' error, not mine." "Say," he answered, "if I ever take another sign from a coacher I hope the ball kills me." "It probably will," I replied. "That one nearly did." It is one of the risks of signal stealing. Beckley had received the wrong information and I felt no qualms at hitting him, for it was not a wild pitch but a misinterpreted signal which had put him out of the game. His manager, not I, was to blame. For this reason many nervous players refuse to accept any information from a coacher, even if the coacher thinks he knows what is going to be pitched, because they do not dare take the risk of getting hit by a fast one, against which they have little protection if set for a curve. On this account few National League clubs attempt to steal signs as a part of the regular team work, but many individuals make a practice of it for their own benefit and for the benefit of the batter, if he is not of the timid type. As soon as a runner gets on second base he is in an excellent position to see the hands of the catcher, and it is then that the man behind the bat is doing all that he can cover up. Jack Warner, the old Giant, used sometimes to give his signals with his mouth in this emergency, because they were visible from the pitcher's box, but not from second base. The thieves were looking at his hands for them. In the National League, Leach, Clarke, Wagner, Bresnahan, Evers, Tinker and a few more of the sort are dangerous to have on second. Wagner will get on the middle sack and watch the catcher until he thinks that he has discovered the pitchout sign, which means a ball is to be wasted in the hope that a base runner can be caught. Wagner takes a big lead, and the catcher, tempted, gives the "office" to waste one, thinking to nail "Hans" off second. The Dutchman sees it, and instead of running back to second dashes for third. He starts as the catcher lets go of the ball to throw to second and can usually make the extra base.