GARRITY TO GET OUT.WILL DISPOSE OF HIS INTERESTS IN THE ROCKETS AND ABANDON BASEBALL. HINTS OF A CONSPIRACY TO WRECK THE BLUE STOCKINGS.
GARRITY TO GET OUT.
WILL DISPOSE OF HIS INTERESTS IN THE ROCKETS AND ABANDON BASEBALL. HINTS OF A CONSPIRACY TO WRECK THE BLUE STOCKINGS.
Garrity’s eyes glared. His breath whistled through his nostrils. His wrath was volcanic. “Somebody’ll pay for that!” he shouted, swinging his ponderous fist above his head like a sledge hammer. “What’s it mean?”
“It means,” answered Stillman, “that more will follow, giving complete details of the conspiracy–unless you decide to quit baseball for the good of the game.”
“I’ll institute a suit for libel!”
“No, you won’t. You won’t dare. We’ve got the goods on you. Let me tell you how it happened.” He did so with unrepressed satisfaction, and the man’s air of bluster gradually evaporated as he listened. But he gave Weegman a murderous look.
The door swung open again, and a sharp-faced little man entered briskly.
“Here’s Mr. Collier’s attorney,” said Lefty. “Now we can get down to real business.”
The unscrupulous Garrity had long been a menace to organized baseball, but such efforts as had been made to jar him loose from it had failed. At last, however, like a remorseless hunter, he was caught in a trap of his own setting. Twist and squirm as he might, the jaws of that trap held him fast. Even when the representatives of a syndicate met him by agreement to take the team over at a liberal price, he showed a disposition to balk. Stillman was there. He handed Garrity a carbon copy of a special article giving a complete and accurate statement of the conspiracy.
“If you own the Rockets to-morrow morning,” said the reporter, “that will appear, word for word, in theBlade. Criminal action against you will be begun at the same time.”
Upon the following day Garrity was no longer interested in the Rockets.
TheBladehad put over a scoop by being the first paper to announce that Garrity would retire. It could have created a tremendous sensation bypublishing the inside facts relative to the method by which he had been forced out. But organized baseball was under fire, and already the suspicious public was beginning to regard it askance. The menacing Federals were making no end of trouble. The cry of “rottenness” was in the air. Through the publication of the story thousands of hasty, unthinking patrons could be led to believe that, square and honest though it seemed to be on the field, the game was really rotten at the core. Stillman knew how that would hurt, and he loved the game. He was tempted to the limit, but he resisted. Not even his editor ever found out just how much he knew and suppressed.
On the usual date the Blue Stockings went South for spring training. Old Jack Kennedy was among the very first to arrive at the camp. He had been engaged as coach and trainer.
The newspapers had a great deal to say about how the Federals had taken the heart out of the once great machine Collier controlled. Few of them seemed to think that Locke, the new manager, could repair the damages in less than a year or two. He would do well, they declared, if he could keep the club well up in the second division. For it was said that Lefty himself would pitch no more, and the rest of his staff, filled out with new men and youngsters, must necessarily be weak andwabbly. Occasionally a new deaf-mute pitcher, Jones, was mentioned as showing great speed, but who had ever heard of Jones? Of course he would lack the experience and steadiness a pitcher must possess to make good in fast company.
Behind the bat the Stockings seemed all right, for Brick King would be there. Still, it was strange that Frazer had let King go. Old Ben was wise as the serpent, and he certainly had his reasons. The Stockings were trying out a young fellow named Sheridan in center field, but surely Herman Brock was worth a dozen ordinary youngsters. Some of the papers had a habit of speaking of all youngsters as “ordinary.”
Jack Keeper, who seemed slated to hold down the far cushion for the Stockings, was also a youngster Frazer had not seen fit to retain. In the few games he had played with the Wolves Keeper had made a good showing, but the general impression was that the manager had not considered him quite up to Big League caliber. Various other youngsters who had been farmed out to the minors were being used at second and short, and two of them, Blount and Armstrong, from the Cotton States League, seemed to be the most promising. But what an infield it would be, with three-fourths of the players “unripened”! The interest of the fans who read this sort of “dope” turnedto the Wolves, who were almost universally picked as probable pennant winners.
All this was natural enough. The Wolves had held together before the Federal raids better than any team in the league. Certainly no one who knew much about baseball would have chosen the Blue Stockings in advance for a come-back. But in baseball, and nearly everything else, there is no fixed rule of reckoning that can’t be smashed. Plenty of old-timers will say this is not so, just as men assert that there is nothing like luck in the game. The Stockings continued to attract little attention during their tour North, although they won exhibition games regularly and with ease. Jones pitched in some of these games. Locke did not.
All the same, no day passed that Lefty failed to get out and warm up with his pitchers. Dillon, Reilley, Lumley, and Savage were the old flingers left with the staff. The “Glass Arm Brigade,” it was called. Savage was regarded as the only one of the quartet who possessed the stamina to work through nine hard innings. Counting him out, the team would have to depend on young twirlers. Of course, Locke warmed up merely from habit and as an example for the others. Otherwise he would try to pitch sometimes in a game.
The season opened with the Blue Stockings playingagainst the Dodgers, away from home. Mysterious Jones pitched and shut the Dodgers out, his team making five runs behind him. Even that created no more than a slight flurry, for the Dodgers were chronic subcellar champions. Jones had speed, and it had dazzled them. But wait until he went up against real batters!
Reilley and Lumley, taking turns on the mound, succeeded in handing the Dodgers the second game by a one-sided score. Savage went in and captured the third contest, but Pink Dillon dropped the fourth after making a fight for it up to the eighth inning. If that was the best the Blue Stockings could get, an even break, when facing the habitual tailenders, what would happen to them when they tackled the Wolves in the series to follow?
The crowd turned out loyally to witness the opening game on the home grounds, but even the most hopeful among the fans permitted their courage to be tinged with pessimism. They were in that state of mind that would lead their sympathies easily to turn to the opposition. True, they hailed Lefty cheerfully and encouragingly from the stands and bleachers, but they could not have the faith in him as a manager that they had had as a pitcher. They were stirred, however, by the sight of old Jack Kennedy, and they gave him a rousingcheer. It warmed the cockles of the veteran’s heart. He doffed his cap to them.
Frazer came over from the visitors’ bench and shook hands with Locke and Kennedy.
“I hope,” said Ben, “that you’re going to give us a crack at that dummy speed merchant to-day, Lefty. We want to see if he is a real pitcher.”
Coming forth from the home team’s dugout, a swarthy small man, who wore knickerbockers and a wrist watch, overheard these words.
“Bo-lieve me, Frazy,” said Cap’n Wiley, “you’ll never ask for him again with any great avidity after you face him once. I hope you’ll excuse me for butting in and making that statement without the polite formality of an introduction to you, but I am so impetuous! I’m the proud party who sold Jonesy to Lefty. Shortly after that little transaction I was unnecessarily worried lest he should decide to abandon baseball, but he has just informed me that, having succeeded in giving away the last of an infinitesimal fortune of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, he is now excruciatingly happy and ready to follow pitching as a profession.”
Frazer looked the odd character over tolerantly. “So you’re the party who bunkoed Lefty, are you?” He laughed. “You’re very much in evidence before the game begins, but I fancy it’ll bedifficult to find you with a microscope when it’s finished–if Locke has the nerve to pitch your dummy wonder.”
“I think I’ll start him on the hill, at any rate,” said the manager of the Blue Stockings.
Apparently Wiley started to cheer, but checked himself abruptly. “I’ll conserve my vocal cords,” he tittered. “I doubt not that my voice will be frazzled to a husky whisper before the contest terminates. Take a tip from me, Mr. Frazer, and send your premier twirler on to the firing line. Smoke Jordan’s the only pitcher you have who can make the game interesting with Jones pastiming for the Stockings.”
“Jordan has asked to pitch,” returned Ben, “but I have half a dozen others who would do just as well.”
Locke was passing in front of the section occupied by the newspaper men when Stillman called to him. “I don’t see your wife here, nor Miss Collier,” said the reporter. “I looked for both to be on hand for the opening game on the home grounds.”
“Unfortunately neither was able to get here, although they planned to do so,” explained Lefty. “You know they have been spending the past eight weeks in Southern California with Virginia’s aunt, who invited them to accompany her and would nottake no for an answer. They’ll be on hand to-morrow, however.”
Stillman leaned toward the wire netting and lowered his voice. “Has Collier ever caught on to the fact that the sister with whom he had quarreled furnished the capital to save him from going to smash?” he questioned.
“Not yet. It’s still a mystery to him how I was able to come forward at the psychological moment with that loan.”
The newspaper man laughed softly. “He came near passing away from heart failure that day. He was shocked almost as much as Garrity, but in a different way.” His manner changed to one of concern. “You’re going to use Jones to-day, aren’t you? Think you have any chance to win?”
“Unless I’ve made a mistake in estimating that man,” replied Locke, “it won’t be his fault if we lose. But it’ll be a test for the whole team as well as Jones.”
It was truly a test. A pitcher who was merely a “speed merchant” could not have lasted three innings against the Wolves, who “ate speed.” It was not long, however, before the anxious crowd, and the visiting team as well, began to realize that the mute twirler had something more than speed. Now and then he mixed in a sharp-breaking curve, and his hopper was something to wonder at, somethingthat made the batters mutter and growl as they slashed at it fruitlessly. But, best of all, besides coolness and judgment, he had that prime essential of all pitchers, control. With never-failing and almost monotonous regularity, he seemed to put the sphere precisely where he tried to put it.
In Brick King, Jones had a valuable aid. King knew his old associates; if any one of them had a batting weakness, he was aware of it. And not once during the game did Jones question a signal given him by King. What Brick called for he pitched, and put it just where it should be put. With such rifle accuracy, the work of the man behind the bat seemed easy, save for the fact that occasionally Jones’ smokers appeared almost to lift the backstop off his feet. But King held them as if his big mitt had been smeared with paste.
Smoke Jordan was also in fine fettle. It was a pitcher’s battle, with the crowd watching and gasping and waiting for “the break.” It must not be imagined that the Wolves did not hit the ball at all, but for a long time they could not seem to hit it safely, and for four innings they could not get a runner on. In the first of the fifth, however, a cracking single and two errors permitted them to score an unearned run.
“If I know what I’m talking about,” said Ben Frazer, “we had no license to get that tally. Now,Smoke, you’ve got to hold ’em. If that dummy don’t crack, I’ll acknowledge that he’s a real pitcher.”
“I’ll hold ’em,” promised Jordan.
But he couldn’t keep his promise. In the sixth, with one down, King beat out an infield hit, reaching the initial sack safely by an eyelash. He stole second on the catcher for whom he had been discarded, to the disgust of Frazer. The crowd seemed to forget that Jones was deaf and dumb, for it entreated him to smash one out, and Cap’n Wiley, from his place in a box, howled louder than any ten others combined. Jones drove a long fly into left, but the fielder was there, and King was held at second.
Hyland followed. Jordan, a bit unsteady, bored him in the ribs.
Then Keeper, another Wolf discard, came up and singled to right field. Covering ground like a hundred yards’ sprinter, King registered from second on that hit, tying the score up.
The crowd went wild. The Blue Stockings and Mysterious Jones had the fans with them after that. Constantly that great gathering rooted for another run–just one more. Hyland perished on third when Spider Grant popped weakly.
If possible, the Wolves were fiercer than ever. In the first of the eighth they got Jones into ahole again through another hit and errors which peopled the corners, with not a man down. Then Jones won a roaring ovation from the standing multitude by striking out three men in succession.
The game was settled in the last of the ninth, and again Jack Keeper figured in the play. He had reached second, with one out, when Grant hit into the diamond. The ball took an amazingly high bound. The shortstop went for it, at the same time seeing Keeper scudding for third, and realizing that it would be impossible to get him at that sack. The moment he got the ball, the shortstop whipped it to first, catching Grant by a foot.
There was a shout of warning. Keeper had not stopped at third. Over the sack at full speed he had flashed, and on toward home. The first baseman lined the sphere to the catcher, who had leaped into position. Keeper hit the dirt, twisting his body away from the catcher, who got the ball and jabbed at him–a fraction of a second too late.
Keeper had accomplished a feat that is the desire of every base runner’s heart. He had scored from second on an infield out. And that performance gave the Blue Stockings the game.
While the crowd was still shouting its rejoicing, Cap’n Wiley found Frazer shaking hands with Lefty.
“I demand an apology!” croaked Wiley, barely able to speak.
“I apologize,” said Frazer. “Your dummycanpitch! But a team with one real pitcher is scarcely equipped to cut much figure in the race. Who’ll you use to-morrow, Locke?”
“I am thinking of trying out another one of our uncertainties,” answered the southpaw, with an enigmatical smile.
The work of patching up his team and whipping it into shape had kept Lefty Locke busy pretty nearly every minute of his time while awake, since the beginning of the training season. With that task before him, and knowing how little attention he could spare for Janet, he had raised no objections when she had asked to accompany Mrs. Vanderpool and Virginia on the California trip. While he was not foolish enough to believe that the reconstructed team could become a pennant contender that season, he did have hopes of finishing in the first division, which, under the circumstances, would be a triumph indeed.
He had found Janet’s letters interesting enough, but his concentration on other matters had prevented him from giving them much thought once they were read through. She had told him of the rumor that Bailey Weegman, having been lucky in escaping prosecution for his part in the conspiracy, had started some sort of mail-orderbusiness and was said to be taking in money “hand over fist.”
Far more interesting, however, although almost as quickly forgotten, was the gossip about Virginia and Franklin Parlmee. Having returned from his hasty and fruitless voyage across the pond, Parlmee had felt not only injured but outraged by the treatment he had received. It was impossible for Virginia honestly to deny that she had been led to distrust him–and by Weegman! That cut the deepest. She had kept him ignorant of the fact that she had returned home, thus allowing him to go rushing off to Europe in an attempt to find her. That had been his sole purpose; he had been in no way concerned with Garrity in a scheme to wrest the control of the Blue Stockings from Collier. It was true that, having come into a limited inheritance, he had purchased two or three small lots of the club’s stock. His judgment had told him that the price to which it had dropped made it a good investment. Garrity had been anxious to get hold of that stock. He had pursued Parlmee and endeavored to buy the certificates at a price that would have permitted the holder of them to realize a good profit. But what Garrity had wanted so badly Parlmee had considered still more valuable, and he had refused to part with a single share.
A sense of injury on one side and shame and false pride on the other had prevented complete reconciliation between Parlmee and Virginia. But Janet wrote that Miss Collier was not happy, although she made a brave pretense of being so. Once or twice Janet had detected her alone, crying.
Lefty had practically forgotten about these things until, on that second day of battle with the Wolves, only a few minutes before the game was to begin, he looked toward the club owner’s box, occupied as he knew by Virginia and Janet, and made the discovery that Franklin Parlmee was likewise there. The southpaw stood still in his tracks, and stared, smiling; for he saw that Parlmee and Virginia were chatting and laughing, while Janet watched them with an expression of complete satisfaction and pleasure.
“Patched it up at last, thank goodness!” muttered Locke. “I think I’ll keep away until after this game is over. Plenty of time to congratulate them then.”
He had been warming up, as usual, but to-day it was observed that he did so alone with Brick King. Many of those who took note of this were led to speculate. Jack Stillman saw it, and smiled wisely to himself.
A crowd, bigger than that of the previous day, had turned out. The Blue Stockings’ unexpectedopening victory over the Wolves was the cause. Perhaps that had been no more than a flash in the pan, but the fans wanted to see for themselves. Deep down in the hearts of most of them was a sprouting hope that it presaged something more.
Practice was over. The home team was spreading out on the field and making ready. Scrappy Betts, first man up for the visitors, was swinging two bats, prepared to drop one of them and advance to the plate. The announcer lifted his megaphone, and, sitting forward on the edges of their seats, the crowd strained their ears to catch the names of the battery men. “Who’s going to pitch forus?”was the question they had been asking.
Through the megaphone came the usual hoarse bellow. For an instant it seemed to strike the great gathering dumb. Then a wild yell of astonishment and delight went up. Everywhere in the stands and on the bleachers fans turned to their neighbors and shouted:
“Locke! It’s Lefty! Good old Lefty! Yow! Ye-ee!”
They rose as one person and roared at him in a mighty chorus when he walked out to the mound. If he believed in himself, if he had the courage to go in there against Frazer’s hungry Wolves, they believed in him.
The umpire adjusted his wind pad. Betts dropped one bat and came forward, pausing a moment a few feet from the plate while Locke sent two or three across to get the range. That good left arm swung free and unrestrained, without a single sign to indicate that there had ever been anything the matter with it. Smiling, the southpaw nodded to Betts as King pulled on the wire cage.
“You can patch up crockery, Lefty, old man,” said Scrappy as he stepped into the box, “but you never can make it as good as new.” Then, having tried to work the portsider to the limit, he finally whaled out a safety. “I knew it!” he cried from first. “Bluff won’t mend a busted wing, old boy!”
Whether or not Locke was nervous, he passed the next man.
The cheering of the crowd died away. Disappointment and apprehension brought silence, save for the confident chattering of the Wolf coachers and the attempted encouragement of the players behind the southpaw. Hope began to sicken and wilt.
Cool and unruffled, Brick King smiled. “An accidental hit and a pass won’t count in the result to-day,” he said. “Show Kipper the ball in your hand. He won’t see it again.”
Kipper whiffed three times without making asmuch as a foul tip. The crowd began to wake up again.
Herman Brock sauntered out. Frazer had given him Bob Courtney’s position in the batting order, the “clean-up” place. No man knew Herman better than Lefty, and the efforts of the German were quite as futile as those of Kipper.
The crowd was cheering again as Brock retired disgustedly. Confidence had been restored suddenly.
“Oh, you Lefty!” was the cry. “You’re there!”
Locke easily forced the following batter to pop to the infield. He had settled into his stride. If he could keep it up, the shouting throng knew he had indeed “come back” as strong as ever. Already they were telling one another what that meant. With three first-string pitchers like Lefty and Jones and Savage, the team would have a fighting chance. The principal question was whether the southpaw could “go the distance.”
Not only did Lefty make it, but as the game progressed he seemed to take it more and more easily. The desperate Wolves could not get at him effectively. He certainly had everything he had ever possessed; some claimed that he had more. His arm showed no sign of weakening. But he used his head quite as much as his arm.With the support of a catcher who also had brains, and who worked with him perfectly, he made the snarling, snapping Wolves appear about as dangerous as tame rabbits. Before the ninth inning was reached he knew that in Brick King he had found the one catcher with whom he could do the best work of his career.
The Blue Stockings won by a score of two to nothing. What fortune the season brought them in their fight for the pennant is told in the following volume of the Big League Series, which is entitled, “Guarding the Keystone Sack.”
The moment it was over Locke made a dash for the clubhouse, getting away from the furiously rejoicing fans who came pouring down upon the field. Jones was there ahead of him. As he panted in, Lefty saw the man of mystery standing in a peculiar attitude not far from the closed door of Charles Collier’s office. He seemed to belistening. Involuntarily the southpaw paused and listened himself.
From beyond the door came the sound of voices. He heard a man speaking, and then, suddenly, another man who appeared to be both excited and distressed. Then he saw Jones spring like a panther toward that door and hurl it open. Astonished, Lefty quickly followed Jones into the office.
They burst in upon four persons. Two of them, who looked like plain-clothes officers, seemed to have a third in charge. This man was desperately and wildly appealing to Charles Collier. It was Bailey Weegman.
“It’s an outrage, I tell you!” Weegman was crying. “It’s a lie! I haven’t used the mails to defraud. I learned an hour ago that officers were after me on that charge, and I hurried to you, Mr. Collier. They followed me here. You must help me! I served you–”
“You served me a crooked turn,” interrupted Collier coldly. “You have your nerve to come to me!”
Locke’s eyes were on Jones. The man’s face was aflame with triumph and joy and fathomless satisfaction. He flung out his hand, his finger pointing like a pistol at Weegman.
“Hanson Gilmore!” he cried in a terrible voice.
The mute had spoken! Frozen with amazement, Lefty saw Weegman twist round, saw a light of terror come into his eyes, saw him cower and cringe, pale as death and shaking like an aspen.
“You swore away my liberty, you dog!” the voice of Jones rang through the room. “You were the scoundrel who conceived the Central Yucatan Rubber Company, and profited by it! When the prison doors closed upon me I swore I’dnever speak again until every dollar you had taken from the victims of that concern was paid back–until you were brought to book for your crime. I’ve kept that vow. I’ve searched for you, determined to bring you to justice somehow. Now you have brought justice upon yourself.”
Crouching like a creature stung by the pitiless lashing of a whip, the accused wretch appealed chokingly to the officers who had arrested him: “Don’t let him touch me! Look at his eyes! He’s mad! Keep him off! Take me away!”
“Yes, take him away,” said Jones. “And if he doesn’t get a prison sentence for this last piece of work, I’ll keep after him until he’s punished for his other crimes.”
“Take him away!” said Charles Collier, with a wave of his hand.
Tottering weakly, the rascal who had met retribution at last was led out.
The rejoicing players were stripping for their showers. Locke and Jones appeared among them.
“Boys,” said Lefty, “let me introduce Martin Bowman, whom you have hitherto known as Jones. For reasons of his own, he made a vow never to speak until a certain thing should happen. Happily, events now make it possible for him to talk.”
“For which I am very thankful,” said Martin Bowman quietly.
They stared at him in limitless astonishment. At last Spider Grant said:
“Well, this game to-day was enough to make a deaf-and-dumb man talk!”
Eph, the colored rubber, touched Locke on the arm.
“Yo’ wife and a pahty o’ frien’s am outside, sah,” he said. “Dey said as how dey’d wait fo’ you.”
“Tell them I’ll join them as soon as possible,” directed Lefty.
THE END
The next title in this series is “Guarding the Keystone Sack.”
SEE REVERSE SIDE OF COLORED JACKET FOR LIST OF TITLES IN THIS SERIES AND MANY OTHER SERIES FOR BOYS AND GIRLS OF ALL AGES.
THE BIG LEAGUE SERIES(Trade Mark Registered)By BURT L. STANDISHEndorsed by such stars as Christy Mathewson,Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson.
THE BIG LEAGUE SERIES
(Trade Mark Registered)
By BURT L. STANDISH
Endorsed by such stars as Christy Mathewson,Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson.
An American boy with plenty of grit–baseball at its finest–and the girl in the case–these are the elements which compose the most successful of juvenile fiction. You don’t have to be a “fan” to enjoy these books; all you need to be is really human and alive with plenty of red blood in your veins.
The author managed a “Bush League” team a number of years ago and is thoroughly familiar with the actions of baseball players on and off the field. Every American, young or old, who has enjoyed the thrills and excitement of our national game, is sure to read with delight these splendid stories of baseball and romance.
Cloth Large 12 mo. Illustrated
1. LEFTY O’ THE BUSH.2. LEFTY O’ THE BIG LEAGUE.3. LEFTY O’ THE BLUE STOCKINGS.4. LEFTY O’ THE TRAINING CAMP.5. BRICK KING, BACKSTOP.6. THE MAKING OF A BIG LEAGUER.7. COURTNEY OF THE CENTER GARDEN.8. COVERING THE LOOK-IN CORNER.9. LEFTY LOCKE, PITCHER-MANAGER.10. GUARDING THE KEYSTONE SACK.11. THE MAN ON FIRST.12. LEGO LAMP, SOUTHPAW.13. THE GRIP OF THE GAME.14. LEFTY LOCKE, OWNER.15. LEFTY LOCKE WINS OUT.16. CROSSED SIGNALS.
1. LEFTY O’ THE BUSH.
2. LEFTY O’ THE BIG LEAGUE.
3. LEFTY O’ THE BLUE STOCKINGS.
4. LEFTY O’ THE TRAINING CAMP.
5. BRICK KING, BACKSTOP.
6. THE MAKING OF A BIG LEAGUER.
7. COURTNEY OF THE CENTER GARDEN.
8. COVERING THE LOOK-IN CORNER.
9. LEFTY LOCKE, PITCHER-MANAGER.
10. GUARDING THE KEYSTONE SACK.
11. THE MAN ON FIRST.
12. LEGO LAMP, SOUTHPAW.
13. THE GRIP OF THE GAME.
14. LEFTY LOCKE, OWNER.
15. LEFTY LOCKE WINS OUT.
16. CROSSED SIGNALS.
PublishersBARSE & CO.New York, N. Y. Newark, N. J.
PublishersBARSE & CO.New York, N. Y. Newark, N. J.