'
"'Where did you say he put it?' asked McGraw.
"'Right in my gut,' Murray says again.
"'Well,' said McGraw, I'm fining you a hundred dollars, and you can try
putting that right in your gut, too!' And off he went.
"Oh, God! I never laughed so much in my life! Murray never did live that
down. Years later something would happen and we'd yell to Murray, 'Hey
Red, is that right in your gut?'
"There were a lot of grand guys on that club: Christy Mathewson and
Chief Meyers, Larry Doyle and Fred Snodgrass, Al Bridwell and Bugs
Raymond. Bugs Raymond! Ah, yes! What a terrific spitball pitcher he was.
Bugs drank a lot, you know, and sometimes it seemed like the more he
drank the better he pitched. They used to say that he didn't spit on the
ball: he blew his breath on it, and the ball would come up drunk.
"Actually, there was very little drinking in baseball in those days.
It's a shame that drinking will become more and more commonplace in
American sports with the passage of time. I have seen it, and it is sad.
Myself, I've never smoked or took a drink in my life. I always said you
can't burn the candle at both ends. You want to be a ballplayer, be a
ballplayer. If you want to go out and carouse and chase around, do that.
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