The Orioles thrived on speed and surprise. Taking the extra base became the rule. (For the season they would hit 150 triples in 128 games and steal 324 bases.) There was nothing they would not try. Everything was game, if no rule stood against it -- or even if one did. Science decreed it: No possibility was to be overlooked.

This made Tom Murphy important. He was the groundskeeper at Union Park, an understated man with dark regular features and the longest, thickest, droopiest moustache at the ballgrounds. Murph knew his business. As a groundskeeper in Indianapolis he had discovered a hard-throwing amateur named Amos Rusie. In Baltimore he made the field to his liking. He built up the ground just outside the third base line so that bunts might stay fair. He packed the path to first base ever so slightly downhill, to help the Orioles' speedsters. He mingled soap flakes with the soil around the pitcher's rubber, to cause the unwary perspiring twirlers to lose their grip. (The Orioles' pitchers carried dirt in their pockets.) The infield dirt was mixed with clay, to formulate a soil almost as hard as concrete. All summer long the infield remained unwatered, as a boon to the baserunners and the Baltimore chop. Willie once chopped down at the ball and made a two-bagger.

The Orioles hit the ball hard and often, and also with judgment. Even when the opposing teams suspected what was coming, often there was little they could do. Defending against the hit-and-run required letting McGraw steal a base or pitching wide to Willie or varying who would cover second base so that Willie guessed wrong in placing the ball. But he usually guessed right. Against the Cleveland Spiders one afternoon in June, Willie punched the ball through the second baseman's spot and, a few innings later, through the shortstop's. He was liable to get four hits in one game and three in the next.

When the League issued the averages for the batsmen a few days later, Joe Kelley, who rammed the ball and raced down the basepaths, ranked third, at .391. Willie Keeler was fifth, at .372. "Batters of the new school," Hanlon called them. "Most of the men have been educated to call for a high or low ball, but these players hit at anything, high or low, equally well, and they keep a pitcher guessing."

That was the key: Keep them guessing. That took teamwork. Get a man on first base and his teammates would bring him home. Hanlon meant to build a machine of interlocking pieces. "In addition to superior physical qualities," one of the Baltimore newspapers noted, "the fin de siecle players must possess a high order of brains, must be of correct habits, have plenty of ambition and be possessed of a certain docility and evenness of temperament such as will insure proper discipline and the frictionless working together of the whole team."

Forget the docility. But the rest was in evidence. The last-place team of 'ninety-two and the eighth-place team of 'ninety-three finished June of 'ninety-four in first place. The League had never seen such an emergence...

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