We've stayed busy at practice because of the teams we knew we'd be playing. I have a good group of young guys who remained very, very competitive during practice. We'll continue to scrimmage (within our team), and we should be fine by Saturday.

We've seen McKeesport play, and they present different problems than Mt. Lebanon. They are very, very quick. They are very athletic.

We're used to playing close ball games. We're a team who, no one expected to be good this year or last year. A lot of people overlooked us, and our guys have taken that as motivation.

Captain Huston and myself have spent over $200,000 in strengthening the Yankees since we purchased the club. We paid $37,500 for Frank Baker; we paid $25,000 for Lee Magee, and we have got rid of a young fortune on other players who couldn't deliver the goods. And we have had some of the most frightful luck I ever heard of.

It was in the open market that we found Joe DiMaggio with the San Francisco Seals. A bad knee had scared everybody else off DiMaggio. But we risked $25,000 in cash and five players, and landed a star whom I would not sell for $250,000.

When I was a boy, I had a baseball team of my own. We played on a vacant lot between Ninetieth and Ninety-second streets. I had a little menagerie of my own, some pigeons, guinea pigs, and so on. On Saturday mornings, I had to take my music lesson. Then the members of my team used to come see my menagerie.