Lester Chadwick

“ At the end of the sixth the score stood as Joe had made it: 3 to 1 in favor of Boston. In various innings there had been men on first and second and, at one time, on all three, but, somehow, they fell just short of scoring.
“It’s just what I tell you, Joe,” growled Robbie. “You have to carry the whole team. You give them an opening and they don’t even see it.”
“That was great work, Joe,” Jim told him a few moments later. “I’d give anything to be able to bat as you do. It sure is a privilege to see you knock out one of those home runs.” ”

“ He thought of the team waiting for him and counting on him for the game the following day, and a feeling of hot resentment and rage against his captors welled up in him. Following this came a resolve to outwit his enemies and escape, and with this idea in mind he made a careful exploration of the place in which he was confined.
The walls were of stone or cement, and were clammy and dripping with water. The air was cold and damp, and although in the world outside it was a lovely summer evening, Joe shivered in the dark atmosphere of his prison. ”

“ To Joe it seemed as though he had been separated from his young wife for years instead of weeks, and he drove the machine through the traffic with a speed and recklessness that caused many a burly policeman to frown disapprovingly.
“It’s them young speeders that makes all the trouble,” muttered one of them as Joe, barely waiting for the wave of his hand, rushed by with a warning roar of the exhaust. “It’s long been a mystery to me why they must always be in such a terrible hurry.” How could he know, poor man, that Joe was on his way to meet the most adorable girl in all the world? ”

“ McRae was all smiles, while Robbie, as Robson was usually called, fairly hugged him in his delight.
“Man, you’re a wizard in the box and at the bat!” Robbie cried. “Sure, it’s magic that you use. You’ve put a come-hither on the ball. You’ve got it bewitched. You go into the box and you put two men out with only one ball pitched. You whack the ball and it starts for Kingdom Come.” ”

“ His fadeaway, too, had all the deceptive qualities that had made it a terror, and his other curves and slants were working with magical efficiency.
Many elements combined to make him by far the finest pitcher in either league. One was the fact that he kept himself in perfect condition. He had no bad habits to sap his strength, no surreptitious drinking, no “jazzing it up” at all night dancing and card parties, such as too often have proved the ruin of promising players. He started every day with a clear head, a rested body, and with strength and vigor pulsing through his veins. ”

“ With many clubs it is the custom of the catcher to signal the pitcher just what kind of ball to throw next. It was a tribute to Joe that Mylert had long since given this up, as he had learned to trust Joe’s judgment rather than his own.
But apart from his natural pitching ability, there was a special reason for the wonderful record that Joe was making this season. The very fact that he felt himself the object of a conspiracy to discredit him roused all the resistance in his nature and made him determine that he would not be discredited. ”

“ McCarthy came next, swinging three bats of which he flung away two as he toed the line.
“Put it over, kid, and see me kill it,” he called to Markwith, shaking his bat at him.
Red grinned and floated up a slow one that looked as big as a balloon as it approached the plate but small as a pea when it reached it. McCarthy nearly broke his back reaching for it.
“Strike one,” called the umpire.
“Not so much of a killer after all, are you?” taunted Markwith, as the catcher returned the ball to him. ”

“ Understand?”
“I get you, old boy,” returned Jim. “If they succeed in their dirty work, they’ll be the first that ever turned the trick on Baseball Joe. Count on me to stand right by you.”
“I can always do that,” replied Joe warmly. “You’re always there when it comes to the showdown. But let’s put the matter out of our mind for the present. Here we are at the hotel. Let’s go out into the lot at the back and have a little pitching practice. I want to try out the hop on the ball that I’ve been developing this last week or two.” ”

“ And if anything happened to that wing of yours the Giants would be in the soup.”
“They’d get out of it again,” countered Joe. “The Giants are too great a team to be dependent on one man. McRae would simply have to look around for another pitcher.”
“Sure!” said Larry sarcastically. “Just as simple as that! Look around for another pitcher! There are plenty of pitchers such as they are, but there’s only one Matson.”
“And that’s no lie,” broke in Curry, the star left fielder of the team. “Many’s the time, old boy, that you’ve carried the whole team on your back. ”

“ Joe esteemed himself the happiest and luckiest of men.
Joe had as his closest friend, Jim Barclay, a Princeton graduate who had entered the ranks of organized baseball and joined the Giants as a “rookie.” Joe had taken to him at once and they were speedily on the best of terms. Jim had a great deal of pitching ability, and under the careful tutelage of Joe he had blossomed out into a regular member of the pitching staff. At the present time he stood only second to Joe himself as a twirler, and bade fair to become one of the great stars of the game. ”

“ The time had now come for the Giants’ invasion of the West, and they started out in fine fettle, although they knew they had hard work ahead of them.
This year there was to be no runaway race for the pennant. All the Western teams were up on their toes to bring the flag to their own section. Since Joe had come to the Giants that team had won the championship for several years in succession, and from the Western point of view that would never do. Each team, of course, wanted it for themselves, but at any rate if they could not win it they wanted it to go to some other Western team. ”

“ Are you crazy, Jim?” he cried. “And while we’re talking it over, Mabel may be—dying! For the love of Pete, Jim, get out of my way.”
“Not till you calm down and use your head a bit,” retorted Jim determinedly. “Three minutes won’t make any difference one way or another, and that’s all it will take me to say——”
“Oh, for the love of Pete, say it then and have it over!” exploded Joe, taking out his watch. Jim saw that his hand was shaking as he opened it. “I’ll give you just three minutes.”
“Listen,” cried Jim, an imperative hand on Joe’s arm. “There’s something phony about that telegram, Joe. ”

“ In the very next inning they realized also that they were watching the mightiest slugger that had ever swung a bat, when Joe, with one man on base, caught one of Axander’s fast ones on the end of his bat and sent it screaming over the center-field wall for the longest homer that had ever been clouted on the Chicago grounds. The ice was broken, and the score stood 2 to 0 in favor of the Giants.
“You’re a miracle man to-day, Joe!” exclaimed McRae, beaming on him. “You’re winning your own game with a vengeance. ”

“ Joe and Jim had narrowly watched every move of this game, especially the actions of the players whom they suspected of crooked dealing. When McCarney fumbled the ball in that crucial ninth inning, Joe clenched his fists and muttered various uncomplimentary things about the baseman.
“That settles it!” he exploded at last, when the opposing player crossed the plate with the tying run. “McCarney’s a good actor, Jim, but he was just a bit too clumsy in that play to be natural. He can play good enough ball when he wants to, and it isn’t easy for him to be quite as clumsy as all that. ”

“ Joe went on, while the manager listened with strained attention. “I’ve been up against a lot of things since I’ve been in baseball, but so far have always managed to come out ahead.”
“I know,” put in McRae. “They say that death loves a shining mark, and I’ve noticed that crooks do too. Once let a man come into the limelight as you have, and there’s always a bunch of rascals that begin figuring how they can make something out of him. I know how they’ve tried to dope you, cripple you, and even worse. For the love of Pete, don’t tell me they’ve been at it again.” ”

“ To many of the fans it seemed as though McRae should put [179] in his heaviest slugger at this point, but the manager, with that knowledge of men’s hearts and minds that had made him famous in the game, thought otherwise. He understood Jim’s desire to win this game above all others, and he believed that Jim, backed by that desire, would be more apt to slam out a hit than any other man on the team.
“Go in and win your own game, Jim,” he admonished his young pitcher. “Make the crooks wish that they’d let Joe pitch this game. Show them that dirty work doesn’t pay.” ”

“ Although naturally burdened by the recent run of events, mystified as they were concerning the motives of McCarney and Hupft and of the lob-eared man whom Jim had seen hurrying from the half-finished structure the day the building material had been pushed from the scaffold, the chums stuck to their decisions to keep worry and conjecture as far as possible from their minds. Their job was to play ball, and to play ball with the best that was in them was what they intended to do. ”

“ Every big league player knows that mistakes are unavoidable at times, but McCarney and Hupft had begun to get on their nerves. In almost every game lately it seemed that one or the other was sure to make a bad play at a crucial time.
“We could pick half a dozen fans out of the bleachers who could hold on to a baseball tighter than you can, Mac,” growled Mylert, the burly catcher. “You must have grease on your fingers, the way that ball slides through them. ”

“ No bunch of tin-horn gamblers can play ducks and drakes with my ball team and get away with it. If their dirty plans had gone through, both Joe and Jim would have been out of the game for good, branded as crooks, and the Giant team would be so shot to pieces you’d need a vacuum cleaner to clear up the remains. ”

“ The Pittsburghs were disposed of in the first inning in quick order. Then the Giants came in for their turn with Curry as the first man in the batting order. He was a dependable batter as a rule, but he found himself helpless against the puzzling shoots dished up to him by the star pitcher of the Pittsburghs. He knew that Miles was short on control, and tried to wait him out, but after the pitcher had had three balls chalked against him, he sent over three strikes in succession, and Curry threw down his bat disgustedly and went over to the players’ bench to meet the gibes of his team mates. ”

“ The more there are in any conspiracy, the more likely it is that there will be a leak somewhere. To-day’s happenings have given you three sides of a triangle—Hupft, McCarney and Lemblow. Somewhere within that triangle is the plot that is being hatched. At least we know where to look, and that is something.”
“And whatever that something is we’ll meet it and we’ll beat it,” cried Joe, throwing care to the winds. “Let’s think of something pleasant. The girls will be on for that promised visit soon. In less than a week now I’ll see the dearest girl in all the world—Mabel.”
“Clara,” corrected Jim. ”

“ McRae pondered for a moment, wrinkling his brows.
“I suppose you’re right,” he agreed reluctantly. “But does that mean that we’re going to lie down and let those rascals carry out their plans?”
“Not by a jugful!” answered Joe. “We’re going to have those fellows tripped and hog-tied before they know where they’re at. But we’re going to do it so quietly that the outside world won’t get on to it. Trust me, Mac, to handle this matter myself.”
“There’s no one that could do it better; I’m sure of that,” admitted the manager. ”

“ Two or three of their rookies seemed to have in them the making of stars. With a stronger infield they might well be pennant contenders. But even as it was, they were always dangerous, and could stage a rally at the most unexpected moment. Any club that counted on them as “easy” was likely to have a rude awakening.
[87]
But all clubs looked alike to Joe, who this season was showing the best form of his life. Never had he whipped the ball over the plate with more terrific speed. Many times the ball was in Mylert’s glove while the batsman was making a vain swing for it. ”

“ Joe heard Hupft say. “That fellow has the Indian sign on us. No matter how we try to down him, he wins.”
“He’ll break down soon,” McCarney said confidently. “His luck can’t last forever. You can see he’s throwing his arm out. The harder we make it for him to win games the sooner he’ll have to quit. And think of the melon we’ll split between us when he does.”
“We’ll have to floor him before he quits,” muttered Hupft. “And that’s no easy job either. The fellow has as many lives as a cat. Lemblow thought he had him dead to rights in that timber tumble, but he got away with scarcely a scratch.” ”

“ During the winter they had kept themselves fit and hard, and even at the beginning of practice had shown that they were fit to fight for a man’s life. In both pitching and fielding they had been doing wonders, and when at last the bell rang for the beginning of the regular championship season they had never been in better form. Joe showed that his arm was the same mighty weapon that had struck fear into opposing batsmen the preceding year. ”