CHAPTER IXSKIRTING THE EDGE
The game was won, won at the last moment by the mighty hit that rounded out Joe’s marvelous exhibition of pitching skill. The Giants had got the jump by capturing the first game of the season.
The instant Joe rose to his feet he made for the clubhouse, intent upon evading the rush of the excited fans who were already beginning to swarm over the field to surround him and hoist him upon their shoulders.
Before he could reach that haven of refuge he had fairly to fight his way through the mob of admirers that blocked his path, eager to touch their idol.
But he was inside at last and could draw a free breath as he hastily stripped for the shower. Jim was close behind him, and soon the place was filled with hilarious Giants, jubilant over the game that had been plucked from the fire.
McRae and Robbie were there, too, their faces beaming with gratification.
“Wonderful work, Joe,” congratulated McRae, as he slapped the captain of the team on the shoulder. “That old wing of yours was never in better shape. And that homer was a beauty.”
“And here we were worrying our hearts out about that arm of yours,” grinned Robbie, happy beyond expression. “Sure, that fire down in the training camp has done you good rather than harm. Some of the other boys ought to get a dose of it.”
“That left-handed batting stunt of yours was a peach,” laughed McRae. “I’ll admit I was startled when I saw you take up that position. It looked for a minute like suicide. Then I tumbled.”
“It sure had Rance up in the air for a minute,” replied Joe. “When he pitched the next one he hardly knew what he was doing.”
“Always something new every minute,” chuckled McRae. “If I could put a head like yours on every member of this team we’d simply walk in.”
“Well,” said Joe, “we’ve got off to a flying start anyway. The Brooklyns have used up their best pitcher, and we ought to get three out of four at least in this series.”
“I wish I’d had a stop watch to-day,” remarked Jim, as in the cool of the early evening they walked toward their rooms.
“What for?” asked Joe in some surprise.
“To time you as you went around those bases,” replied Jim. “Gee, Joe, you were like lightning. Honestly, I don’t think it took you more than eleven seconds. I never saw you run so fast.”
“I had to,” laughed Joe. “There was no time for loafing when a thrower like Maley had hold of the ball.”
“It came in on a line right into Tighe’s hands,” declared Jim. “I never saw a prettier throw. My heart was in my mouth. It would have surely nipped any other runner in the league. And that slide of yours was a dandy. Remember what you said to me the other day about winning the base-stealing championship of the league? Well, after what I saw to-day I believe you’ll cop it. You’ll have the catchers standing on their heads.”
“That’s yet to be proved,” deprecated Joe. “But I’m going to make a try at it anyway.”
The newspapers the next day devoted a vast deal of their space to the game, dwelling especially upon Joe’s brilliant work in the box and at the bat. It could be seen between the lines what a universal sense of relief the metropolis felt at the demonstration that their favorite, despite the accident of the training season, was in superb shape, and predictions were confidently made that the Giants were in for another championship.
Joe would not have been human if he had nottaken pleasure in the praise that had been so honestly earned. But far more gratifying than the plaudits of the press and public was the telegram that came from Mabel, telling him how proud she was of him and how relieved she was to know that he suffered no bad effects from the rescue at the fire.
His own heart sang with exultation for the same reason. For deep down had been the lurking fear that when it came to the real test the doctors’ verdict might prove erroneous. And what that would have meant to him he scarcely dared to think.
The Giants repeated the next day with Jim in the box. Grimm opposed him and pitched a rattling game. But Jim pitched a still better one and the Giants won by a score of 6 to 2. And when Young Merton turned in another victory the next day it began to look as though the Giants would make a clean sweep of the series. But Markwith was unsteady in the fourth game and the Giants had to be resigned to taking the short end of the 7 to 4 score.
Still, three out of four from the most formidable of the eastern competitors was a thing not to be despised and formed an auspicious beginning for the season, and when they swept the boards with the Phillies, taking four games in a row, Giant stock took a further bound upward.
But Baseball Joe was too wary a campaigner to draw unjustified conclusions from a good beginning. He knew that a team could play like champions one week and like “bushers” the next. Seven games out of eight sounded good, to be sure. But the season was young and he knew that no such percentage could be maintained throughout the hundred and fifty-four games that the schedule called for.
“The real test is yet to come,” he remarked to Jim as they were discussing the prospects. “I’ll feel a good deal clearer in my mind after we’ve tried out the western teams. That’s where the real strength of the league lies. Take the Pittsburgh, the Chicagos, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds. Those birds are the ones that will keep us hustling. Any of them is liable to take the bit in its teeth and run wild. If we can swing around the western circle and do a little better than break even on the trip, we can fatten up our percentages on the eastern clubs.”
“Let’s hope our first trip West won’t be such a frost as it was last year,” observed Jim. “Gee, how they tied the can to us! Soaked us right and left, knocked us down and then picked us up and knocked us down again. Made doormats of us. Walked all over us. Remember how wesneaked back into New York at the end of the trip hoping nobody would recognize us?”
“I remember, all right,” grinned Joe. “And the memory of it ought to keep us from being too chesty when we meet those birds again. But we’re a stronger team now than we were then and I don’t believe we’ll be easy meat for anybody on our next trip.”
But in order that his prediction might prove true, Joe worked like a beaver, bending every energy to the improvement of the team. He was determined to make the same success as a captain as he had as a pitcher and batsman.
Not that the young captain nagged or bully-ragged his men. There was nothing of that kind in his nature. The authority with which he had been clothed was nothing to him in itself. All he valued it for was the opportunity it gave him to make the Giants a better team. If any one more fit for the job could have been found, Joe would have relinquished his captaincy gladly and would have done his utmost to make his successor’s work a success.
His men felt this, and because they felt it, yielded readily to the suggestions he preferred to make instead of commands. Not in years had there been so much smoothness and lack of friction in the handling of the Giants. When he pointed out faults he did it without ugliness.When he had occasion to commend a player he did it ungrudgingly and whole-heartedly. So he bound his men to him and welded the team into one harmonious unit whose one purpose was to play the game for all it was worth.
Especially did he get in close, sympathetic touch with the rookies, the younger members of the team. Most of them were of first-class material and many gave promise of becoming stars. But they were naturally nervous at finding themselves in fast company, and their errors were many. He brought them along, encouraged them, gave them their opportunities. This spirit, together with their unbounded respect and admiration of his own ability, enabled him to mold them to his liking.
So very soon he had a lot of reserve material that greatly enhanced the prospects of the Giants. Joe was a profound believer in the old baseball adage that the strength of a team lay in its substitutes. He worked on this theory and before long was in a position where if half of the regular team should be disabled by accident or sickness he could put men in their positions who could play them admirably.
What helped Joe immensely in this developing work was the full confidence and backing of McRae. That shrewd baseball general believed in putting faith in his lieutenants. When hefound a good man he gave him a free hand and backed him to the limit. What he looked for were results. As long as these were forthcoming he asked no more.
“It was a mighty lucky day when I took Iredell out and made Joe captain of the team,” he confided to Robbie.
“Ye had a rabbit’s foot in your pocket sure enough that day, John,” agreed Robbie. “He’s the best captain in the league, bar none.”
“I never doubted that he would be, as far as his ability was concerned,” observed the manager. “But I was a little doubtful whether the burden of responsibility wouldn’t affect his pitching and batting. It was a new experiment making a captain out of a pitcher.”
“Sure, that boy has eyes in the back of his head,” asseverated Robbie. “There isn’t a move of his own men or of the fellows on the other side that he doesn’t see in a second. He thinks as fast as chain lightning.”
“And he’s thinking all the time,” declared McRae emphatically.
The series with the Bostons resulted in an even break. The Braves had been strengthened in the field and the pitcher’s box by the trades and deals they had made in the winter, and they put up an unexpectedly stiff opposition. Joe won one of the games and Jim accounted for another victory,but Bradley was batted out of the box and the Bostons just nosed out Markwith in a hot game that went to twelve innings.
“Well,” remarked Jim at the close of the series, “nine out of twelve isn’t as good of course as seven out of eight, but it isn’t bad.”
“It might be worse,” agreed Joe. “And the encouraging thing is that in all the games our boys played good ball. Even when they were beaten they were not disgraced.”
The fans who attended the games at the Polo Grounds were made up of all classes and conditions of men and boys from the office boys to heads of great business corporations and powers in the financial world.
All of them of course knew Baseball Joe by sight and reputation and many of them were eager to know him more intimately. Men would stop him on the street to congratulate him upon his playing, others were introduced to him in the lobbies of hotels. Some of the acquaintances he made were very pleasant and congenial and he valued them. He was showered with invitations to balls and theaters and social functions.
These he rarely accepted during the playing season because of his rigid adherence to training and his avoidance of late hours. Occasionally, however, he made an exception and dined out, always with the proviso, expressed or understood,that he would eat sparingly and leave early.
At the beginning of the season he had been introduced to two Wall Street men. Their names were Harrish and Tompkinson. They were suave and polished men of the world and entertaining talkers. They were almost daily attendants at the game and took occasion whenever they could to exchange a few words with Joe, for whom they professed an unbounded admiration.
More than once they had invited Joe to dine with them, but he had usually found some way to decline the invitation without offense. One day, however, at the conclusion of the game, they renewed their invitation so pressingly that he hardly saw his way clear to refuse.
“I’ll come,” he said, “if you won’t mind my slipping away shortly after dinner. I’ll have to be like the beggars and eat and run. My men have to be in bed by a certain time and I can’t ask them to do what I don’t do myself.”
“That will be all right,” said Tompkinson, and Harrish acquiesced with a nod of the head. “We’ll leave that absolutely to you. Suppose you meet us then at the Corona grill at eight o’clock. We’ll be waiting for you in the lobby.”
Joe assented and they departed, professing themselves delighted.
“I’d infinitely prefer a quiet evening at home,” Joe confided to Jim as he donned his evening suitlater on. “But they’ve been pestering me so of late that I might as well go now and have it over with.”
“That’s one of the penalties of fame,” laughed Jim. “So long, old man, and don’t take any rubber dimes.”
The hotel was radiant with lights and filled with gay and laughing groups as Joe threaded his way through the lobby. Tompkinson and Harrish spied him at once and made their way toward him.
“So glad you’ve come,” said Tompkinson cordially as he led the way to the elevator which carried them up to a private dining room on the third floor.
He noted Joe’s look of surprise and hastened to explain.
“You see,” he said, “we thought it would be much more pleasant to have a cozy little room to ourselves. In the big dining room downstairs you wouldn’t be there five minutes before the word would be passed around that the famous Joe Matson was there and everybody would be passing our table to get a closer look.”
Joe knew by experience the truth of this and thought nothing more about it.
A beautifully set table was all ready and a soft-stepping and efficient attendant awaited their orders.
The dinner was very choice and well served and the conversation interesting and sparkling. Joe’s hosts exerted themselves to make things pleasant. They had traveled widely and had a fund of jokes and anecdotes that made them excellent table companions.
For a time the talk ran along general lines, but later veered toward baseball.
“The Giants have made a good start this year,” remarked Harrish casually. “Do you think they’re going to win the flag again, Mr. Matson?”
“We hope so,” replied Joe, with a smile. “We’re certainly going to do our very best to land it.”
“As loyal New Yorkers, we hope so, of course,” said Tompkinson, “though I confess that I’ve sometimes wondered whether it’s for the best interest of the game that they should win so frequently.”
Joe pricked up his ears at this.