and Sid was able, when he was old enough, to attend Samuel Tilden High school.

Sid was what the game called a "natural" hitter. He needed little coaching to give him the leverage and the smoothness which mark a slugger. Joe Solomon, the astute baseball coach at Tilden, was cautious with Gordon. He taught Sid what he knew but was careful not to tamper with the normal form of the youngster. He knew that no matter how much a coach may be able to impart to a young hopeful he cannot teach him the God-given gift of timing and coordination which differentiates a great hitter from a mediocre hitter.

Like many baseball men he remembered the story of Al Simmons, the temperamental Pole from Milwaukee who came up to the Philadelphia Athletics with a "one-foot-in-the-bucket" stance. This meant that Simmons drew his body away from the ball when he swung, instead of stepping into it. Ordinarily this means a loss of power so great that a potentially good hitter can get too little power to realize his potentialities. But Simmons was a born hitter. He pulled away from the ball, yes; but he drove it a mile when he connected. Within a few years he became one of the most dangerous sluggers in baseball, and this happened because shrewd old Connie Mack never altered his stance. "Anyone who can hit .390 in Milwaukee with this form," Mack said, "can hit for me this way, too."

This is important to remember because many a young fellow is ruined by an over-eager coach who wishes to impose his own ways on a talented player. Solomon let Gordon develop on his own. But they played only two games a week at Tilden and Gordon was anxious to get in more and more practice. So he played semi-professional