 We're going to bring Pat O'Brien in the Great McGraw on the Cavalcade of America sponsored by the DuPont Company. Maker of better things for better living through chemistry. But first, here is Gain Whitman. Yes, house cleaning season is here again. Time to brighten up your home for spring. A new coat of paint will do wonders for your walls. Add sparkle and life to winter drab rooms. When the paint is DuPont's speedy wall finish, you get more beauty for less time and little money. You can apply it over practically any interior wall surface, including wallpaper. Speed easy dries in an hour to a smooth, velvety finish, and it costs less than $3 to do the average room in one color. So for your home decoration, be sure to use speed easy. One of the DuPont Company's better things for better living through chemistry. The DuPont Company presents Pat O'Brien as the Great McGraw on the Cavalcade of America. Soon in Washington, the President of the United States will throw out the first ball to inaugurate the 1946 season of America's national pastime. And once again, old timers will begin talking about the good old days of baseball. When John J. McGraw was managing the New York Giants... You bushes, you call yourself baseball players? Well, I gotta go out on these sand lot in the country and pick up a team to play the pants off it. You're folded like a lot of empty sacks today. Now listen to this. When you play for me, you play baseball as hard and tough as you can. You don't let up for a minute. Some of you got the idea that baseball is only a game. Well, it's not. It's a career. A whole life. The guy who thinks I'm wrong is gonna find himself warm on the bench, but not on my team. That was him. McGraw of the Giants. The man who drove his teams to seven national league pennants and four world championships. And me? Well, I'm the bleacher bug, an old timer. I'll never forget John J. McGraw. He was baseball, and he still is. He started with the Giants back in 1902. Started with a bang on the day he walked into Andrew Freedman's office. Freedman who owned the Giants. McGraw, what the devil have you been doing with the team? Getting rid of deadwood, Mr. Freedman. Nine of the players you've got on your roster. What? Nine players? How'd they go? Hear their names? These men? But they cost me $14,000. You got stung. They're not worth it. I brought some real ball players with me from Baltimore. Field of Jones at Delahaney, George Davis. You won't bring that Davis on my club. I don't like him, and I won't have him. You'll have him and you'll like him. I'm running this ball club, and I'll get the players I want. Well, you may be the manager, but I own the club, and I say that I won't hire that shithead. You may own this club, but I'm the boss. I run the club, or I quit, and I'll take your choice. All right. Go ahead. I'll let you run the team to suit yourself. You bet you will. Stormy, aggressive, yeah. But he knew baseball, and baseball players. He proved that one day when he went to the polo grounds for a practice session. Fogel. Hey, Fogel, get over here. Yeah. What's the matter, Mac? That kid out there playing short. What's he doing there? Doing. He's a short stuff. Short stuff. You're off your trolley. Look at the way he shot the ball. Well, I hit him at first, but he was no good there either. Well, I'll just try him at ground keeper. Now, wait a minute, Mac. I'm trying to find ball players for this club. I go with that kid to me right now. Okay, okay. Hey, kid, you were short. Come over here. All right, Fogel. We'll get back to your phone. Go ahead. Okay, Mac. You want a beam to McGraw? Yeah. You like playing short? Well, I love baseball. I'd play any place. Hey, Roger, present. Yeah. Let this kid throw you a few. Let's say we are. Okay. Fire away, kid. What do you want me to do, Mr. McGraw? You, we've got a ball in your hand, haven't you? Well, where's that double eye where the catcher's met? Throw the ball. Throw the ball. All right. Like that? Yeah. Yeah, like that. Let me stand behind you. All right, toss it back, right? Right. Now, do that again. Do what again? Throw it. Throw it. How was that? What kind of a ball was that? Well, I don't know. I just hold it like this, and then I throw it. All right. You get together with Bresnan. I'll tell him you pitch to him every day for an hour or so. Okay, with me, Mr. McGraw. That's a nice pitching motion you've got. Thanks. I like pitching. So do I when it's good. By the way, what's your name, kid? Matheson. Christie Matheson. All right, McGraw was about Maddie. The Giants finished second the next season, and Maddie won 30 games. Then in 1904, McGraw drove his team to the National League Bennett, and New York went nuts. McGraw repeated in 1905 and beat the athletics in the World Series. In four seasons of scrap and sweating, Yellen McGraw lifted a last-place team and pushed it right to the top. But 1906, something happened. The Cups won the pennant. McGraw thought about it a lot, and it hurt, hurt plenty. But when the season was over, he knew what he had to do. And Maddie, you and I are good friends. Sure, Mac. All right, I'm going to tell you something. You know why we finished second this year? No, we had bad breaks, Mac. Maddie was the last man hitting the head by a pitch ball, Donlan broke his leg, and I had to go and get sick. That's not it, Maddie. We'll make it different next year. No, no, we won't. Maddie, I forgot that time goes on in baseball the same as it does in everything else. I got used to a winning combination. I thought it wouldn't wear out, but it did. Maddie, I'm going to tear down the team and start building a new one. That's going to be hard to do, because they're men in the club or my friends. I don't know if I'm going to give the fans the kind of baseball they want to watch. I got to hurt those men. Hurt myself when I'm doing it. McGraw finished fourth the next year, but he did it with a new team. One that showed promise. That was 1907. McGraw was right again. Well, the season of 1908 came up, and it was a honey. Giants and cubs snarling at each other all the way. Then September 23 at the polar ground, score cubs one, Giants one. At half of the ninth, Giants up. McCormick on third with a win-and-run, Merkel on first. Ridwell up with two outs. Fans hanging from the rafters, yelling, screaming. McGraw coaching at third, walking up and down, clapping his hands, punching the air with his fist. Then it happened. Ridwell took a cut at the ball. When suddenly Johnny Evers, the Cubs' second baseman, began screeching like a madman. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but around second baseman was another Giants and cubs. Fans screaming out of the field. Empire Emily going for the clubhouse. Merkel running for the clubhouse, too. In a second base... Then at 10 o'clock that night, played Empire Hank O'Day ruled. Evers is right. Merkel didn't touch second base, and Evers tagged a bag to force him out. McCormick's run doesn't count, so the game's a tie, Mac. What? Listen, if Merkel was forced out at second, he should have called the game a tie right then and there. You should have ordered play resume, but you didn't. So he won the game, and nobody can take it away from us. But McGraw's protest was ruled out. The game declared a tie. And from that day on, every way that Merkel went, the fans wrote him unmercifully. What do you want, Mac? Look, Fred, you're letting those wolves in the stands get you. Oh, no, no, they don't bother me at all, I guess. Run to your skin. Well, I know, but let me tell you something, Fred. I've been fighting those wolves for years now. They're part and parcel of baseball. Right, put them in your end. Let them throw you and you're out. But I... oh, maybe I am a bonehead, Mac. Oh, look, there's the way to handle those wolves. Come over here to the stands, I'll show you. Bob, Bob, up there in the stands, you with the funny face. Me? I didn't know you could understand English. You're tough, heavy-looking. Ah, go soak your fat head, you bum! Ah, you're probably sneaking the park anyhow. Is that it? That's the five. Put you off the field. Bob, the field, I'm gonna climb up. See what I mean, Fred? Get right back at him. Never let him get under your skin. Sure. I see, Mac. Wake that guy's neck if I get hold of him. Well, the end of the season came with the Giants and Cubs tied for first, a playoff was called, and the Giants lost four to two. The Cubs took the flag that year, and everybody blamed Fred and Merkel. But McGraw told everybody in front of Merkel and the rest of the team, it's criminal and stupid to blame Fred for the loss of the game or the pennant. In the first place, he's one of the best and smartest players in the game. In the second place, we lost a dozen games this year that we should have won. Two dozen. Any one of them could have saved the pennant for us. But you picked on something, you called upon, had played, and set that lost the flag for us. Nobody's gonna blame Merkel for that. Besides, we were rough. McGraw never lost a chance to praise Merkel. He lifted Fred's morale when he needed it bad. And a player that might have been hounded out of baseball helped McGraw win pennants in 1911, 12, and 13. McGraw was right again. Well, there's so much about McGraw that, well, you can't tell at all. But there was one thing about him. He never let any of his boys cross him up for disobey orders. No matter if the Giants won or lost, McGraw was boss. Take that day when the Giants were in a close one with Cincinnati. It was the last half of the ninth. Reds won one to the good, then the Giants had Ross Young on third. Now, it wasn't John's style to play for just one run, but this time he figured he crossed the Reds up. Larry was picking up his bat when John said, Larry. Yeah. Let a couple go by. In the third pitch, drag a bump to third. What? Oh, but Mac, you heard me. Drag a bump to third. Okay, Mac. Here he comes. Dale, come here. What did I tell you to do? Oh, but John, he grooved it right to me. When I tell you to bump, I mean bump. Oh, but I won the game with that homer. And that homer will cost you a $50 fine. Oh, wait a minute, John. I thought he was going to give it to me letter high, and I purposely swung low. I meant to miss it, but it took a dip down. Oh, oh, yes. Sure, that's the way it was. It was just a mistake. Uh-huh. Well, for that kind of mistake, the fine is a hundred bucks. You were listening to Pat O'Brien as the great McGraw on the Cavalcade of America, sponsored by the DuPont Company, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. John McGraw was strict, sure. But he also knew how to make his giants believe in themselves when the going was rough. He'd make them believe the other team was a pushover. Like in 1921, when the pirates were leading the league by seven and a half games, they came to the Polar Grounds for a crucial five-game series. See, and they were sitting on top of the world. They were like a roon. They let everybody know it. Grandvillain Kearney. Whoever told Charlie Grimmie could sing ought to be towed out to sea and burned. The target was all over the joint, snapping the muggly pirate mugs. Who do they think they are? Who do they think they are? Those are the guys with the seven and a half game lead. Maybe they got a right to sing. Maybe they got a right to mug for the photography. Yeah, maybe, Mac. Well, let them. Next year will be different. Next year. Next year? I'm talking about this year! What do you mean? I mean, you got a soft touch. They're posing, grinning a bunch of clowns. Why don't you guys wise up? What do you mean, wise up? Listen to them and look at them, that's all. They're right to be pushed over because they think they can't be. They got the big head and they're showing off. They're thinking about how good those mugs have been looking at the sport pages. Not about baseball! Yeah, they seem kind of sure of themselves. They are. Now, listen. We got a five-game series with them. We win all five and they're in front by only two and a half. We get them wobbly. When they go over to Brooklyn, the Dodgers can finish the job. Now, let's get out there and spoil their pretty faces. Which is just what happened. The Giants crashed to the top and won the flag. Then came 1925. That year, well, it took something away from Mack. Then give him something, too. As for the given, it was near the end of September. A thick-legged kid about 16 years old carrying a straw suitcase and looking scared. Went into McGraw's office. Mr. McGraw? Huh? Well, what do you want? Who are you? Well, Harry Williams sent me from Louisiana. Said you might give me a chance to play with the Giants. You did, huh? How old are you? 16th. 16 and you want to play with the Giants? Well, what do you do? I hit pretty good. What makes you think you can touch Major League, bitch? I don't know yet, but I want to try. Well, all right. Climb into a uniform. We'll see what happens. You're going to harm me right now? Well, I'm going to look at you. Harry Williams never gave me a bum steer yet. Well, now, pick up your uniform. We'll show up on the grounds in about half an hour. Mr. McGraw? All right. Grab a bat and see what you can do. Too right, Mr. McGraw. Look at the way that kid's built, Ed. Shoulders, legs. Looks like he knows what it's all about to play, too. Okay, kid. Take a cut at the next one. Yes, sir. Holy mackerel, did you see that? What a cut! He can hit. Hey, a couple of seasons on minors and he'll be all right. Minors. Not for that kid. I'm keeping him right here. Nobody's going to ruin that beautiful batting style. Kid, come here. Come on. Step on it. Was that what you wanted, Mr. McGraw? Exactly. And you got a job, kid. Playing baseball with the Giants. Gee, I want me to hit some more. You will, kid. You will in plenty of time. First, we got work to do. Oh, well, what did you say your name was? It's... Mr. McGraw. Mel Ott. It was 21 years ago. And today, Mel Ott's managing John McGraw's club. But there was something else that happened in 1925, in October. Mac was in Pittsburgh, much in the series between the Pirates and the Senators. Mac? Hey, Mac. Huh? Well, Harry Cross, come on in. Sit down. I was the best sports writer in the... Mac, I... look, Christy Matheson just died. Oh. Oh, no, Harry. He died up in Saranac. I can't believe it. We got the message up in the press coop, John. It came over the ticker. Matty. With me from the first day I came into the Giants. It's more than 20 years. You want me to get a couple seats on the train back, John? I'll bring him in his hometown in Lewisburg. I'm going. Yeah. Yeah, I'd appreciate it, Harry. I never felt so alone in my life, Harry. Matty and I went through together to three pennants. A couple of world championships. It took me to the top. Oh, I'm just wishing I could trade it all ahead and back. All of it. Where are you going now, John? Right now? No. I don't know. I'm just going to take a little walk by myself. McGraw lost Matty, his best friend, and a ball player who'd risen to greatness at the polo grounds with him. When people read about Matty's death, they remembered a lot of other players. Mac had brought along to baseball's Hall of Fame. The list had made a string as long as you're on. Then in 1932, my sports writer, just killing some time at the polo grounds, walking along the corridor, when he happened to look at the bulletin board. Oh, macro. Holy macro! Hello, Jelly. Yeah, that's me again. I'm still at the polo grounds. Listen, hold everything for this and get it good. John McGraw just resigned as manager of the Giants. Huh? Why do I be pulling a gag like that? I'm telling it straight. John McGraw resigned as manager of the Giants. I'll get the details later as soon as I can. Yeah, just that. I noticed on the bulletin board that one of the greatest managers, the game of a new, had resigned after 30 years at the head of a team he'd made one of the greatest in baseball. And later? But, John, why? Yeah, can't you give us any more? Well, put it this way. A long time ago, 25 years ago, to be exact, I tore down a giant team that won two pennants. There was Deadwood on it. Deadwood, that would have slowed us up. Well, maybe I'm Deadwood now. Maybe I've slowed up. You? Oh, not a chance. No, well, I'm stepping down anyhow. Who's going in? I can't tell you that yet, boys. You'll all get it at the same time, though. But I can't tell you this. Whoever steps in is gonna be forced. Not just a front for me. I never let anybody else tell me how to run the team when I was manager. And I don't expect anybody who goes in, who goes in now to take orders from anybody but himself. Huh? Well, thanks, Mac. Oh, well, Mac. Yeah? Uh, what are you going to do now? Me? Oh, I don't know. I'll stick around. The vice president and... And what, Mac? And watch the games from the office window. After 30 years, John McGraw stepped down. And there was a good reason. He was sick. But in 1933, he watched the Giants take another flag in a World Series. Then, on February 25th, 1934, the baseball world was stunned. John J. McGraw, one of the greatest managers in the game, died today at the New Rochelle Hospital. And another baseball season starts tomorrow without John J. McGraw. Without him? No. That's wrong. All the old timers and rookies too remember that short husky figure. Always fighting, always driving, always saying, when you play baseball, play it as hard and as tough as you can. Fill that up for a minute. Some of you got the idea that baseball's only a game. Well, it's not. It's a career. And it's got to be your whole life. Our American poultry men produced the unheard of total of 50 billion eggs a year. No such number of eggs had ever been produced before. But now, the United States is helping to feed people in the devastated countries of Europe. We're sending them, among other things, wheat, out of which to make bread. And this means that because there will be less wheat and other grain for poultry feed, American poultry men will have to be more efficient than ever in producing eggs. To make sure your family gets the eggs needed for food, farmers are going to have to help their hens to do their very best. And here, we're happy to say, chemistry has the know-how and the materials to make an important contribution to the farmer and to you. One thing that helped egg farmers to produce so many eggs during the war, and will help them now, is a chemical development. Deactivated animal sterile, originated and manufactured by DuPont, and supplied to feed manufacturers under the trademark Delsterole. Chickens need vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin. It's one of the most essential ingredients in the poultry ration. Without it, their health suffers. And they lay fewer eggs. Not many years ago, the only source of vitamin D was fish liver oil. But because vitamin D is so important, scientists undertook extensive research to develop other sources. As a result, today there is a plentiful and never-failing source of supply. At the DuPont Company, the raw material flows through tubing of special glass before banks of dazzling blue-white ultraviolet lamps. The ultraviolet rays activate this new material, chemically known as sterols, and which are then processed so that they can be mixed in a powder and put into the poultry mash. Thanks to this scientific source of vitamin D, poultry flocks throughout the country, regardless of climate or location, can have their vitamin D the whole year round. Poultry flocks are more efficient because of Delsterole, deactivated animal sterile, one of the DuPont Company's better things for better living through chemistry. And now our star, Federal Barrier. Okay, okay, but don't call me a mugsy. That's why I'm so close. What are you putting over the plate next week, Gain? Ever hear of Artie Greengroin? Artie Greengroin? That character out of Yank Magazine? Right. The G.I.'s favorite, G.I.'s. Okay, when I was overseas, he was one of the most talked about soldiers in the Army. Brooklyn is more proud of him than anybody, well, except the Dodgers, of course. And we have a favorite son of Brooklyn, playing the part of Artie, William Bending. That's for me. I'll be coaching a thing. Good enough. Just one thing, Gain. Artie Greengroin himself here tonight to remind our audience of some of the things he's seen in Europe. 500 million men, women, and children face starvation this year unless we help them. Now, there's no food available to them unless we share ours. We have enough to go around if we do a job of self-imposed rationing. It's up to each of us to use about 40% less wheat and rice products and about 20% less of edible fats and oil. This is a worldwide emergency. We must remember to share a meal and save a life. Pat O'Brien may soon be seen in the RKO Radio Production crack-up. The music for tonight's DuPont Cablecade was composed and conducted by Robert Ambruster. Our Cablecade play was based on the book McGraw of the Giants by Frank Graham. William Johnstone was narrated. This is Tom Collins inviting you to listen next week to Meet Artie Greengroin starring William Bendix on The Cablecade of America, brought to you by the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware. This is NBC, the national broadcasting company.