“Well, I think the fellow who had the highest development of playing ball by instinct,” said Pop Anderson, who was staying around with the boys, “was Walter Brodie. He seemed to know from the sound made by the bat, when the ball was hit, exactly where it was going. Many a time I have seen him start to run for a hard-hit fly ball without even looking, run fifty or seventy-five feet even, and then turn around for the first time in exactly the right spot to make the catch. He often used to give exhibitions before the games of turning his back to the ball almost as soon as it was hit, taking a run outward and making the catch with his hands behind his back and his back to the ball. It may have been practice, but how he knew where the ball would fall will always be a great mystery to all who saw him do it.” “I’ll tell you, Ty,” said Captain Larke, “of a fielder whose record you can look up and when you get to be as good as he was, you will be pretty near the top. I mean Tom McCarthy. It was he who introduced the trapped ball on outfield flies. If you can learn to trap a ball as well as he did you will have learned something which almost every outfielder has tried but failed to do. “To ‘trap’ a fly ball is to make a pick up out of it, as you know. In one Lowell game years ago with Biltmore, Tom worked his ‘trap’ for two double plays. Once there were men on first and second. The batter sent a short fly to Tom. Of course the runners held to the bases. Instead of making the catch which would have been easy, Tom scooped it off the ground. The man on first was, of course, forced and the man on second was caught on his way to third. Later in the same game on the same kind of a fly ball, Tom made believe he was going to trap the ball again, so the man on second took a big lead. Tom, however, made a fly catch out of it and throwing to second made a double play once more.” “You’ll never be able to catch a Jefferson player again like you did last year,” said Frank Church to Everson. “How’s that,” said Talkington. “Well, I won’t mention the name of the boy he caught, because he is present and he doesn’t like the story, but this same brilliant player was on first in one of the games and had started to steal second. The batter made a beautiful line hit to center on a line about fifteen feet high. Everson, there, stood at second, looked up and pretended to be getting ready to catch a nice little pop fly. Seeing this, our good Mr. Player having failed to keep his eye on the ball hustled back to first, but by the time he had got back and taken a second look he saw the center fielder picking up the ball. Before he could get to second, the ball had been thrown to Johnny, here, who touched the bag for a force out. Johnny only laughed but our good player said to him then, ‘Grin, you little shrimp, grin. You had me good, but I’ll get you some day for it.’”