CHAPTER XIII.THE FALL OF THE GIANTS.

CHAPTER XIII.THE FALL OF THE GIANTS.On a fine Saturday afternoon late in June the wonderful Outcasts met the redoubtable colored baseball team known as the Cuban Giants. The game was played in Newark. The baseball cranks of Newark, Elizabeth, Jersey City, and New York were interested in the game, and a great crowd turned out to witness it.The colored boys knew they were up against the “real thing,” and they played like fiends from the start, hoping to be the first to break the winning streak of the new stars. The Giants had a great team, every man of them being a rattling good ballplayer, and they started off like winners, getting two runs in the first inning, one in the third, and shutting out their opponents for five straight innings from the start.Bill Brackett had opened the game as twirler for the Outcasts, but in the midst of the third inning, after the colored players had made their third run, with the bases filled and only one man out, Bill was sent to the stable and Mat O’Neill took his place on the slab.O’Neill promptly stopped the run-getting of the Giants by striking out the first batter to face him and causing the next one to put up an easy infield fly.“Should have put him in before, McGann,” wheezed Bob Gowan, who was sitting on the bleachers back of first base, in company with Melvin McGann and several acquaintances.“Oh, it’s all right,” assured the manager of the Outcasts. “Hurley knows his business. I let him run the team on the field. We’ll fall on that coon pitcher pretty soon and hammer him all over the lot.”“I don’t know about that. He’s a corker. These colored gents may change your luck.”“That’s right,” put in “Reliable Mike” Grafter, who was present. “Your streak is busted, Gowan. The dinks done it.”Bob Gowan’s confidence in his team was colossal. There was now no wavering uncertainty about him.“Bet you a hundred we win this game, Grafter,” he promptly wheezed, producing his money.“Go you,” said the Tammany man, diving into his pocket.A stakeholder was agreed upon, and the money placed in his hands.“Just because you happened to beat the New York Nationals you seem to think you can’t be downed,” grunted Grafter.“I know something about baseball, Mike,” retorted Gowan, with unusual animation. “I know we have the team to beat anything in the country.”“That’s right,” nodded McGann. “Every year the big leagues throw over enough clever youngsters to make another league. Out of the discards a champion team can be selected by any man who knows his business. I give Hugh Hurley the credit of knowing his business. He knows a baseball player by instinct. He picked up this team. If we were in either of the big leagues we would be pennant winners. Look how ourboys work together. They are like the individual parts of a perfect machine. Every man seems to have brains, and brains count in this game. We didn’t get all the good men discarded. We tried for Josslyn, the young wizard twirler that Collins of the Bostons was chump enough to hand over to Providence. If we’d landed him, we’d had two of the greatest youngsters in the business. You know what Josslyn has been doing. He shut out Newark six to nothing in the first game he pitched for Providence, and he’s been making batters blink and fan ever since. Still Collins is called one of the shrewdest managers in the American League. They all make mistakes of this sort. He hung onto a certain old-stager on account of his reputation, when Josslyn could pitch right round the old boy any day in the week. I’d like to get against the great bean-eating champs. Oh, say! we wouldn’t do a thing to ’em!”Grafter grinned.“You have a bad case of it,” he said. “Better have your head clamped before it gets any bigger.”“Results count,” retorted McGann. “This will make our fifteenth victory, without a defeat.”“You seem to be one of those chaps who count chickens before they are hatched. Everything is against you to-day. You’ve made one clean hit off the coon pitcher.”“We’ll find him before we’re through. Just keep watch.”In the sixth inning the Outcasts resorted to a new trick. The first batter bunted and beat the ball to first.The next man bunted toward third, laying down a “dead one” just inside the line. In the confusion that followed the batter reached first in safety.Bob Gowan laughed.“Now you see how they do it!” he exclaimed.“I don’t see that they’ve done anything yet,” said Grafter.When the next batter tried to bunt and popped up a little fly that was taken by the third baseman on the run and shot across to first for a double play, Grafter held onto his sides and roared.“No use,” he said. “The coons have you. You can’t get away from them to-day.”Gowan looked somewhat disappointed, yet pretended to be not a whit less confident in regard to the result.The next batter electrified every one by lacing the ball to deep centre for three bags and bringing in a run.“I knew it!” wheezed Gowan. “It was bound to come.”“That’s one run,” grinned Grafter. “You’ll get no more this inning.”“We have a man on third.”“Can’t help it. Two out.”Grafter was right. The clever colored twirler caused the next batter to fan.The Giants whooped joyously as they capered in to the bench.In the seventh inning, however, the Outcasts fell onthe pitcher and hammered out five handsome singles, which gave them two runs and tied the score.In the first of the eighth the Giants made a desperate bid for a run, succeeding in pushing a man round to third, but he died there, O’Neill showing what he could do in a pinch and striking out two of the heaviest and surest batters who faced him.The last of the eighth delighted the admirers of the Outcasts, for they got after the colored pitcher in earnest and “sent him on an aërial voyage.” The result was three more runs.“I told you, Grafter!” wheezed Gowan. “I knew what would happen! Why, our boys have been fooling with the nigs! They can’t be beaten by anything outside the big leagues, and we know they can more than hold their own with the big fellows. There isn’t an independent team in the country that can take a game off this bunch.”A young, healthy-looking, smooth-faced fellow had approached just in time to hear this remark.“What do you think about that, boy?” asked Grafter. “Gentlemen, this is my son, Wallace.”“I think the gentleman is mistaken,” said Wallace Grafter quietly. “I am confident that I know an independent baseball team that can wallop the Outcasts to a whisper.”“You have another think due you!” exclaimed McGann warmly.“Two more,” said Gowan.“Are you in earnest, son?” inquired old Grafter.“You bet,” nodded Wallace.“I’ve been betting,” admitted his father, with a grin. “Bet Gowan a hundred his team would lose. It’s plain I’m a hundred short.”“You can make it up and some more with it, if Mr. Gowan has the nerve to back his team against an independent team I’ll name,” said the politician’s son.“I’ll back the Outcasts against any independent team in the country for a hundred—or a thousand,” rasped Gowan.Grafter and his son exchanged glances; the young man nodded.“I kinder think I’ll have to take you on that,” said Mike Grafter deliberately.The roaring of the spectators drowned his voice. O’Neill had just struck out the third Giant in the ninth, ending the game, the Outcasts winning by the score of six to three.“What’d you say?” asked Gowan, as the shouting subsided and the great crowd, having risen, was beginning to move to leave the grounds.“I said I’d take you—for a thousand,” answered Grafter.“Got it with you?”“Always have that much loose change.”“Same stakeholder do?”“Sure.”“Put up.”“All right. Cover.”Right there, before leaving the bleachers, the bet was made, Gowan backing the Outcasts against any independent team Wallace Grafter should name.Not until the wager had been made did Bob Gowan ask:“What team is this you’re betting on, Grafter?”“I don’t know,” answered the politician. “What team is it, son?”“It’s Frank Merriwell’s team,” said Wallace. “I think there will be no trouble about arranging the game on any kind of reasonable terms.”

CHAPTER XIII.THE FALL OF THE GIANTS.On a fine Saturday afternoon late in June the wonderful Outcasts met the redoubtable colored baseball team known as the Cuban Giants. The game was played in Newark. The baseball cranks of Newark, Elizabeth, Jersey City, and New York were interested in the game, and a great crowd turned out to witness it.The colored boys knew they were up against the “real thing,” and they played like fiends from the start, hoping to be the first to break the winning streak of the new stars. The Giants had a great team, every man of them being a rattling good ballplayer, and they started off like winners, getting two runs in the first inning, one in the third, and shutting out their opponents for five straight innings from the start.Bill Brackett had opened the game as twirler for the Outcasts, but in the midst of the third inning, after the colored players had made their third run, with the bases filled and only one man out, Bill was sent to the stable and Mat O’Neill took his place on the slab.O’Neill promptly stopped the run-getting of the Giants by striking out the first batter to face him and causing the next one to put up an easy infield fly.“Should have put him in before, McGann,” wheezed Bob Gowan, who was sitting on the bleachers back of first base, in company with Melvin McGann and several acquaintances.“Oh, it’s all right,” assured the manager of the Outcasts. “Hurley knows his business. I let him run the team on the field. We’ll fall on that coon pitcher pretty soon and hammer him all over the lot.”“I don’t know about that. He’s a corker. These colored gents may change your luck.”“That’s right,” put in “Reliable Mike” Grafter, who was present. “Your streak is busted, Gowan. The dinks done it.”Bob Gowan’s confidence in his team was colossal. There was now no wavering uncertainty about him.“Bet you a hundred we win this game, Grafter,” he promptly wheezed, producing his money.“Go you,” said the Tammany man, diving into his pocket.A stakeholder was agreed upon, and the money placed in his hands.“Just because you happened to beat the New York Nationals you seem to think you can’t be downed,” grunted Grafter.“I know something about baseball, Mike,” retorted Gowan, with unusual animation. “I know we have the team to beat anything in the country.”“That’s right,” nodded McGann. “Every year the big leagues throw over enough clever youngsters to make another league. Out of the discards a champion team can be selected by any man who knows his business. I give Hugh Hurley the credit of knowing his business. He knows a baseball player by instinct. He picked up this team. If we were in either of the big leagues we would be pennant winners. Look how ourboys work together. They are like the individual parts of a perfect machine. Every man seems to have brains, and brains count in this game. We didn’t get all the good men discarded. We tried for Josslyn, the young wizard twirler that Collins of the Bostons was chump enough to hand over to Providence. If we’d landed him, we’d had two of the greatest youngsters in the business. You know what Josslyn has been doing. He shut out Newark six to nothing in the first game he pitched for Providence, and he’s been making batters blink and fan ever since. Still Collins is called one of the shrewdest managers in the American League. They all make mistakes of this sort. He hung onto a certain old-stager on account of his reputation, when Josslyn could pitch right round the old boy any day in the week. I’d like to get against the great bean-eating champs. Oh, say! we wouldn’t do a thing to ’em!”Grafter grinned.“You have a bad case of it,” he said. “Better have your head clamped before it gets any bigger.”“Results count,” retorted McGann. “This will make our fifteenth victory, without a defeat.”“You seem to be one of those chaps who count chickens before they are hatched. Everything is against you to-day. You’ve made one clean hit off the coon pitcher.”“We’ll find him before we’re through. Just keep watch.”In the sixth inning the Outcasts resorted to a new trick. The first batter bunted and beat the ball to first.The next man bunted toward third, laying down a “dead one” just inside the line. In the confusion that followed the batter reached first in safety.Bob Gowan laughed.“Now you see how they do it!” he exclaimed.“I don’t see that they’ve done anything yet,” said Grafter.When the next batter tried to bunt and popped up a little fly that was taken by the third baseman on the run and shot across to first for a double play, Grafter held onto his sides and roared.“No use,” he said. “The coons have you. You can’t get away from them to-day.”Gowan looked somewhat disappointed, yet pretended to be not a whit less confident in regard to the result.The next batter electrified every one by lacing the ball to deep centre for three bags and bringing in a run.“I knew it!” wheezed Gowan. “It was bound to come.”“That’s one run,” grinned Grafter. “You’ll get no more this inning.”“We have a man on third.”“Can’t help it. Two out.”Grafter was right. The clever colored twirler caused the next batter to fan.The Giants whooped joyously as they capered in to the bench.In the seventh inning, however, the Outcasts fell onthe pitcher and hammered out five handsome singles, which gave them two runs and tied the score.In the first of the eighth the Giants made a desperate bid for a run, succeeding in pushing a man round to third, but he died there, O’Neill showing what he could do in a pinch and striking out two of the heaviest and surest batters who faced him.The last of the eighth delighted the admirers of the Outcasts, for they got after the colored pitcher in earnest and “sent him on an aërial voyage.” The result was three more runs.“I told you, Grafter!” wheezed Gowan. “I knew what would happen! Why, our boys have been fooling with the nigs! They can’t be beaten by anything outside the big leagues, and we know they can more than hold their own with the big fellows. There isn’t an independent team in the country that can take a game off this bunch.”A young, healthy-looking, smooth-faced fellow had approached just in time to hear this remark.“What do you think about that, boy?” asked Grafter. “Gentlemen, this is my son, Wallace.”“I think the gentleman is mistaken,” said Wallace Grafter quietly. “I am confident that I know an independent baseball team that can wallop the Outcasts to a whisper.”“You have another think due you!” exclaimed McGann warmly.“Two more,” said Gowan.“Are you in earnest, son?” inquired old Grafter.“You bet,” nodded Wallace.“I’ve been betting,” admitted his father, with a grin. “Bet Gowan a hundred his team would lose. It’s plain I’m a hundred short.”“You can make it up and some more with it, if Mr. Gowan has the nerve to back his team against an independent team I’ll name,” said the politician’s son.“I’ll back the Outcasts against any independent team in the country for a hundred—or a thousand,” rasped Gowan.Grafter and his son exchanged glances; the young man nodded.“I kinder think I’ll have to take you on that,” said Mike Grafter deliberately.The roaring of the spectators drowned his voice. O’Neill had just struck out the third Giant in the ninth, ending the game, the Outcasts winning by the score of six to three.“What’d you say?” asked Gowan, as the shouting subsided and the great crowd, having risen, was beginning to move to leave the grounds.“I said I’d take you—for a thousand,” answered Grafter.“Got it with you?”“Always have that much loose change.”“Same stakeholder do?”“Sure.”“Put up.”“All right. Cover.”Right there, before leaving the bleachers, the bet was made, Gowan backing the Outcasts against any independent team Wallace Grafter should name.Not until the wager had been made did Bob Gowan ask:“What team is this you’re betting on, Grafter?”“I don’t know,” answered the politician. “What team is it, son?”“It’s Frank Merriwell’s team,” said Wallace. “I think there will be no trouble about arranging the game on any kind of reasonable terms.”

On a fine Saturday afternoon late in June the wonderful Outcasts met the redoubtable colored baseball team known as the Cuban Giants. The game was played in Newark. The baseball cranks of Newark, Elizabeth, Jersey City, and New York were interested in the game, and a great crowd turned out to witness it.

The colored boys knew they were up against the “real thing,” and they played like fiends from the start, hoping to be the first to break the winning streak of the new stars. The Giants had a great team, every man of them being a rattling good ballplayer, and they started off like winners, getting two runs in the first inning, one in the third, and shutting out their opponents for five straight innings from the start.

Bill Brackett had opened the game as twirler for the Outcasts, but in the midst of the third inning, after the colored players had made their third run, with the bases filled and only one man out, Bill was sent to the stable and Mat O’Neill took his place on the slab.

O’Neill promptly stopped the run-getting of the Giants by striking out the first batter to face him and causing the next one to put up an easy infield fly.

“Should have put him in before, McGann,” wheezed Bob Gowan, who was sitting on the bleachers back of first base, in company with Melvin McGann and several acquaintances.

“Oh, it’s all right,” assured the manager of the Outcasts. “Hurley knows his business. I let him run the team on the field. We’ll fall on that coon pitcher pretty soon and hammer him all over the lot.”

“I don’t know about that. He’s a corker. These colored gents may change your luck.”

“That’s right,” put in “Reliable Mike” Grafter, who was present. “Your streak is busted, Gowan. The dinks done it.”

Bob Gowan’s confidence in his team was colossal. There was now no wavering uncertainty about him.

“Bet you a hundred we win this game, Grafter,” he promptly wheezed, producing his money.

“Go you,” said the Tammany man, diving into his pocket.

A stakeholder was agreed upon, and the money placed in his hands.

“Just because you happened to beat the New York Nationals you seem to think you can’t be downed,” grunted Grafter.

“I know something about baseball, Mike,” retorted Gowan, with unusual animation. “I know we have the team to beat anything in the country.”

“That’s right,” nodded McGann. “Every year the big leagues throw over enough clever youngsters to make another league. Out of the discards a champion team can be selected by any man who knows his business. I give Hugh Hurley the credit of knowing his business. He knows a baseball player by instinct. He picked up this team. If we were in either of the big leagues we would be pennant winners. Look how ourboys work together. They are like the individual parts of a perfect machine. Every man seems to have brains, and brains count in this game. We didn’t get all the good men discarded. We tried for Josslyn, the young wizard twirler that Collins of the Bostons was chump enough to hand over to Providence. If we’d landed him, we’d had two of the greatest youngsters in the business. You know what Josslyn has been doing. He shut out Newark six to nothing in the first game he pitched for Providence, and he’s been making batters blink and fan ever since. Still Collins is called one of the shrewdest managers in the American League. They all make mistakes of this sort. He hung onto a certain old-stager on account of his reputation, when Josslyn could pitch right round the old boy any day in the week. I’d like to get against the great bean-eating champs. Oh, say! we wouldn’t do a thing to ’em!”

Grafter grinned.

“You have a bad case of it,” he said. “Better have your head clamped before it gets any bigger.”

“Results count,” retorted McGann. “This will make our fifteenth victory, without a defeat.”

“You seem to be one of those chaps who count chickens before they are hatched. Everything is against you to-day. You’ve made one clean hit off the coon pitcher.”

“We’ll find him before we’re through. Just keep watch.”

In the sixth inning the Outcasts resorted to a new trick. The first batter bunted and beat the ball to first.

The next man bunted toward third, laying down a “dead one” just inside the line. In the confusion that followed the batter reached first in safety.

Bob Gowan laughed.

“Now you see how they do it!” he exclaimed.

“I don’t see that they’ve done anything yet,” said Grafter.

When the next batter tried to bunt and popped up a little fly that was taken by the third baseman on the run and shot across to first for a double play, Grafter held onto his sides and roared.

“No use,” he said. “The coons have you. You can’t get away from them to-day.”

Gowan looked somewhat disappointed, yet pretended to be not a whit less confident in regard to the result.

The next batter electrified every one by lacing the ball to deep centre for three bags and bringing in a run.

“I knew it!” wheezed Gowan. “It was bound to come.”

“That’s one run,” grinned Grafter. “You’ll get no more this inning.”

“We have a man on third.”

“Can’t help it. Two out.”

Grafter was right. The clever colored twirler caused the next batter to fan.

The Giants whooped joyously as they capered in to the bench.

In the seventh inning, however, the Outcasts fell onthe pitcher and hammered out five handsome singles, which gave them two runs and tied the score.

In the first of the eighth the Giants made a desperate bid for a run, succeeding in pushing a man round to third, but he died there, O’Neill showing what he could do in a pinch and striking out two of the heaviest and surest batters who faced him.

The last of the eighth delighted the admirers of the Outcasts, for they got after the colored pitcher in earnest and “sent him on an aërial voyage.” The result was three more runs.

“I told you, Grafter!” wheezed Gowan. “I knew what would happen! Why, our boys have been fooling with the nigs! They can’t be beaten by anything outside the big leagues, and we know they can more than hold their own with the big fellows. There isn’t an independent team in the country that can take a game off this bunch.”

A young, healthy-looking, smooth-faced fellow had approached just in time to hear this remark.

“What do you think about that, boy?” asked Grafter. “Gentlemen, this is my son, Wallace.”

“I think the gentleman is mistaken,” said Wallace Grafter quietly. “I am confident that I know an independent baseball team that can wallop the Outcasts to a whisper.”

“You have another think due you!” exclaimed McGann warmly.

“Two more,” said Gowan.

“Are you in earnest, son?” inquired old Grafter.

“You bet,” nodded Wallace.

“I’ve been betting,” admitted his father, with a grin. “Bet Gowan a hundred his team would lose. It’s plain I’m a hundred short.”

“You can make it up and some more with it, if Mr. Gowan has the nerve to back his team against an independent team I’ll name,” said the politician’s son.

“I’ll back the Outcasts against any independent team in the country for a hundred—or a thousand,” rasped Gowan.

Grafter and his son exchanged glances; the young man nodded.

“I kinder think I’ll have to take you on that,” said Mike Grafter deliberately.

The roaring of the spectators drowned his voice. O’Neill had just struck out the third Giant in the ninth, ending the game, the Outcasts winning by the score of six to three.

“What’d you say?” asked Gowan, as the shouting subsided and the great crowd, having risen, was beginning to move to leave the grounds.

“I said I’d take you—for a thousand,” answered Grafter.

“Got it with you?”

“Always have that much loose change.”

“Same stakeholder do?”

“Sure.”

“Put up.”

“All right. Cover.”

Right there, before leaving the bleachers, the bet was made, Gowan backing the Outcasts against any independent team Wallace Grafter should name.

Not until the wager had been made did Bob Gowan ask:

“What team is this you’re betting on, Grafter?”

“I don’t know,” answered the politician. “What team is it, son?”

“It’s Frank Merriwell’s team,” said Wallace. “I think there will be no trouble about arranging the game on any kind of reasonable terms.”

Back to IndexNext