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The Redheaded Outfield, and Other Baseball Stories

by Zane Grey · English · Gutenberg #385 · 317,589 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Redheaded Outfield, and Other Baseball Stories

Author: Zane Grey


        
Release date: January 1, 1996 [eBook #385]
                Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/385

Credits: Produced by Charles Keller.  HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE REDHEADED OUTFIELD, AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES ***




Produced by Charles Keller.  HTML version by Al Haines.









THE REDHEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES


by

ZANE GREY



CONTENTS

  THE REDHEADED OUTFIELD
  THE RUBE
  THE RUBE'S PENNANT
  THE RUBE'S HONEYMOON
  THE RUBE'S WATERLOO
  BREAKING INTO FAST COMPANY
  THE KNOCKER
  THE WINNING BALL
  FALSE COLORS
  THE MANAGER OF MADDEN'S HILL
  OLD WELL-WELL




THE REDHEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES



There was Delaney's red-haired trio--Red Gilbat, left fielder; Reddy
Clammer, right fielder, and Reddie Ray, center fielder, composing the
most remarkable outfield ever developed in minor league baseball.  It
was Delaney's pride, as it was also his trouble.

Red Gilbat was nutty--and his batting average was .371.  Any student of
baseball could weigh these two facts against each other and understand
something of Delaney's trouble.  It was not possible to camp on Red
Gilbat's trail.  The man was a jack-o'-lantern, a will-o'-the-wisp, a
weird, long-legged, long-armed, red-haired illusive phantom. When the
gong rang at the ball grounds there were ten chances to one that Red
would not be present.  He had been discovered with small boys peeping
through knotholes at the vacant left field he was supposed to inhabit
during play.

Of course what Red did off the ball grounds was not so important as
what he did on.  And there was absolutely no telling what under the sun
he might do then except once out of every three times at bat he could
be counted on to knock the cover off the ball.

Reddy Clammer was a grand-stand player--the kind all managers
hated--and he was hitting .305. He made circus catches, circus stops,
circus throws, circus steals--but particularly circus catches.  That is
to say, he made easy plays appear difficult.  He was always strutting,
posing, talking, arguing, quarreling--when he was not engaged in making
a grand-stand play.  Reddy Clammer used every possible incident and
artifice to bring himself into the limelight.

Reddie Ray had been the intercollegiate champion in the sprints and a
famous college ball player.  After a few months of professional ball he
was hitting over .400 and leading the league both at bat and on the
bases.  It was a beautiful and a thrilling sight to see him run.  He
was so quick to start, so marvelously swift, so keen of judgment, that
neither Delaney nor any player could ever tell the hit that he was not
going to get.  That was why Reddie Ray was a whole game in himself.

Delaney's Rochester Stars and the Providence Grays were tied for first
place.  Of the present series each team had won a game.  Rivalry had
always been keen, and as the teams were about to enter the long
homestretch for the pennant there was battle in the New England air.

The September day was perfect.  The stands were half full and the
bleachers packed with a white-sleeved mass.  And the field was
beautifully level and green.  The Grays were practicing and the Stars
were on their bench.

"We're up against it," Delaney was saying. "This new umpire, Fuller,
hasn't got it in for us. Oh, no, not at all!  Believe me, he's a
robber. But Scott is pitchin' well.  Won his last three games.  He'll
bother 'em.  And the three Reds have broken loose.  They're on the
rampage. They'll burn up this place today."

Somebody noted the absence of Gilbat.

Delaney gave a sudden start.  "Why, Gil was here," he said slowly.
"Lord!--he's about due for a nutty stunt."

Whereupon Delaney sent boys and players scurrying about to find Gilbat,
and Delaney went himself to ask the Providence manager to hold back the
gong for a few minutes.

Presently somebody brought Delaney a telephone message that Red Gilbat
was playing ball with some boys in a lot four blocks down the street.
When at length a couple of players marched up to the bench with Red in
tow Delaney uttered an immense sigh of relief and then, after a close
scrutiny of Red's face, he whispered, "Lock the gates!"

Then the gong rang.  The Grays trooped in. The Stars ran out, except
Gilbat, who ambled like a giraffe.  The hum of conversation in the
grand stand quickened for a moment with the scraping of chairs, and
then grew quiet.  The bleachers sent up the rollicking cry of
expectancy.  The umpire threw out a white ball with his stentorian
"Play!" and Blake of the Grays strode to the plate.

Hitting safely, he started the game with a rush. With Dorr up, the Star
infield played for a bunt. Like clockwork Dorr dumped the first ball as
Blake got his flying start for second base.  Morrissey tore in for the
ball, got it on the run and snapped it underhand to Healy, beating the
runner by an inch.  The fast Blake, with a long slide, made third base.
The stands stamped.  The bleachers howled.  White, next man up, batted
a high fly to left field.  This was a sun field and the hardest to play
in the league.  Red Gilbat was the only man who ever played it well.
He judged the fly, waited under it, took a step hack, then forward, and
deliberately caught the ball in his gloved hand.  A throw-in to catch
the runner scoring from third base would have been futile, but it was
not like Red Gilbat to fail to try.  He tossed the ball to O'Brien.
And Blake scored amid applause.

"What do you know about that?" ejaculated Delaney, wiping his moist
face.  "I never before saw our nutty Redhead pull off a play like that."

Some of the players yelled at Red, "This is a two-handed league, you
bat!"

The first five players on the list for the Grays were left-handed
batters, and against a right-handed pitcher whose most effective ball
for them was a high fast one over the outer corner they would naturally
hit toward left field.  It was no surprise to see Hanley bat a
skyscraper out to left. Red had to run to get under it.  He braced
himself rather unusually for a fielder.  He tried to catch the ball in
his bare right hand and muffed it, Hanley got to second on the play
while the audience roared.  When they got through there was some
roaring among the Rochester players.  Scott and Captain Healy roared at
Red, and Red roared back at them.

"It's all off.  Red never did that before," cried Delaney in despair.
"He's gone clean bughouse now."

Babcock was the next man up and he likewise hit to left.  It was a low,
twisting ball--half fly, half liner--and a difficult one to field.
Gilbat ran with great bounds, and though he might have got two hands on
the ball he did not try, but this time caught it in his right, retiring
the side.

The Stars trotted in, Scott and Healy and Kane, all veterans, looking
like thunderclouds.  Red ambled in the last and he seemed very
nonchalant.

"By Gosh, I'd 'a' ketched that one I muffed if I'd had time to change
hands," he said with a grin, and he exposed a handful of peanuts.  He
had refused to drop the peanuts to make the catch with two hands.  That
explained the mystery.  It was funny, yet nobody laughed.  There was
that run chalked up against the Stars, and this game had to be won.

"Red, I--I want to take the team home in the lead," said Delaney, and
it was plain that he suppressed strong feeling.  "You didn't play the
game, you know."

Red appeared mightily ashamed.

"Del, I'll git that run back," he said.

Then he strode to the plate, swinging his wagon-tongue bat.  For all
his awkward position in the box he looked what he was--a formidable
hitter. He seemed to tower over the pitcher--Red was six feet one--and
he scowled and shook his bat at Wehying and called, "Put one over--you
wienerwurst!"  Wehying was anything but red-headed, and he wasted so
many balls on Red that it looked as if he might pass him.  He would
have passed him, too, if Red had not stepped over on the fourth ball
and swung on it.  White at second base leaped high for the stinging
hit, and failed to reach it.  The ball struck and bounded for the
fence.  When Babcock fielded it in,  Red was standing on third base,
and the bleachers groaned.

Whereupon Chesty Reddy Clammer proceeded to draw attention to himself,
and incidentally delay the game, by assorting the bats as if the
audience and the game might gladly wait years to see him make a choice.

"Git in the game!" yelled Delaney.

"Aw, take my bat, Duke of the Abrubsky!" sarcastically said Dump Kane.
When the grouchy Kane offered to lend his bat matters were critical in
the Star camp.

Other retorts followed, which Reddy Clammer deigned not to notice.  At
last he got a bat that suited him--and then, importantly, dramatically,
with his cap jauntily riding his red locks, he marched to the plate.

Some wag in the bleachers yelled into the silence, "Oh, Maggie, your
lover has come!"

Not improbably Clammer was thinking first of his presence before the
multitude, secondly of his batting average and thirdly of the run to be
scored.  In this instance he waited and feinted at balls and fouled
strikes at length to work his base. When he got to first base suddenly
he bolted for second, and in the surprise of the unlooked-for play he
made it by a spread-eagle slide.  It was a circus steal.

Delaney snorted.  Then the look of profound disgust vanished in a flash
of light.  His huge face beamed.

Reddie Ray was striding to the plate.

There was something about Reddie Ray that pleased all the senses.  His
lithe form seemed instinct with life; any sudden movement was
suggestive of stored lightning.  His position at the plate was on the
left side, and he stood perfectly motionless, with just a hint of tense
waiting alertness.  Dorr, Blake and Babcock, the outfielders for the
Grays, trotted round to the right of their usual position.  Delaney
smiled derisively, as if he knew how futile it was to tell what field
Reddie Ray might hit into.  Wehying, the old fox, warily eyed the
youngster, and threw him a high curve, close in.  It grazed Reddie's
shirt, but he never moved a hair.  Then Wehying, after the manner of
many veteran pitchers when trying out a new and menacing batter, drove
a straight fast ball at Reddie's head.  Reddie ducked, neither too slow
nor too quick, just right to show what an eye he had, how hard it was
to pitch to.  The next was a strike.  And on the next he appeared to
step and swing in one action.  There was a ringing rap, and the ball
shot toward right, curving down, a vicious, headed hit.  Mallory, at
first base, snatched at it and found only the air.  Babcock had only
time to take a few sharp steps, and then he plunged down, blocked the
hit and fought the twisting ball.  Reddie turned first base, flitted on
toward second, went headlong in the dust, and shot to the base before
White got the throw-in from Babcock.  Then, as White wheeled and lined
the ball home to catch the scoring Clammer, Reddie Ray leaped up, got
his sprinter's start and, like a rocket, was off for third.  This time
he dove behind the base, sliding in a half circle, and as Hanley caught
Strickland's perfect throw and whirled with the ball, Reddie's hand
slid to the bag.

Reddie got to his feet amid a rather breathless silence.  Even the
coachers were quiet.  There was a moment of relaxation, then Wehying
received the ball from Hanley and faced the batter.

This was Dump Kane.  There was a sign of some kind, almost
imperceptible, between Kane and Reddie.  As Wehying half turned in his
swing to pitch, Reddie Ray bounded homeward.  It was not so much the
boldness of his action as the amazing swiftness of it that held the
audience spellbound.  Like a thunderbolt Reddie came down the line,
almost beating Wehying's pitch to the plate.  But Kane's bat
intercepted the ball, laying it down, and Reddie scored without
sliding. Dorr, by sharp work, just managed to throw Kane out.

Three runs so quick it was hard to tell how they had come.  Not in the
major league could there have been faster work.  And the ball had been
fielded perfectly and thrown perfectly.

"There you are," said Delaney, hoarsely. "Can you beat it?  If you've
been wonderin' how the cripped Stars won so many games just put what
you've seen in your pipe and smoke it.  Red Gilbat gets on--Reddy
Clammer gets on--and then Reddie Ray drives them home or chases them
home."

The game went on, and though it did not exactly drag it slowed down
considerably.  Morrissey and Healy were retired on infield plays.  And
the sides changed.  For the Grays, O'Brien made a scratch hit, went to
second on Strickland's sacrifice, stole third and scored on Mallory's
infield out.  Wehying missed three strikes.  In the Stars' turn the
three end players on the batting list were easily disposed of.  In the
third inning the clever Blake, aided by a base on balls and a hit
following, tied the score, and once more struck fire and brimstone from
the impatient bleachers.  Providence was a town that had to have its
team win.

"Git at 'em, Reds!" said Delaney gruffly.

"Batter up!" called Umpire Fuller, sharply.

"Where's Red?  Where's the bug?  Where's the nut?  Delaney, did you
lock the gates?  Look under the bench!"  These and other remarks, not
exactly elegant, attested to the mental processes of some of the Stars.
Red Gilbat did not appear to be forthcoming.  There was an anxious
delay Capt. Healy searched for the missing player. Delaney did not say
any more.

Suddenly a door under the grand stand opened and Red Gilbat appeared.
He hurried for his bat and then up to the plate.  And he never offered
to hit one of the balls Wehying shot over.  When Fuller had called the
third strike Red hurried back to the door and disappeared.

"Somethin' doin'," whispered Delaney.

Lord Chesterfield Clammer paraded to the batter's box and, after
gradually surveying the field, as if picking out the exact place he
meant to drive the ball, he stepped to the plate.  Then a roar from the
bleachers surprised him.

"Well, I'll be dog-goned!" exclaimed Delaney. "Red stole that sure as
shootin'."

Red Gilbat was pushing a brand-new baby carriage toward the batter's
box.  There was a tittering in the grand stand; another roar from the
bleachers.  Clammer's face turned as red as his hair.  Gilbat shoved
the baby carriage upon the plate, spread wide his long arms, made a
short presentation speech and an elaborate bow, then backed away.

All eyes were centered on Clammer.  If he had taken it right the
incident might have passed without undue hilarity.  But Clammer became
absolutely wild with rage.  It was well known that he was unmarried.
Equally well was it seen that Gilbat had executed one of his famous
tricks. Ball players were inclined to be dignified about the
presentation of gifts upon the field, and Clammer, the dude, the swell,
the lady's man, the favorite of the baseball gods--in his own
estimation--so far lost control of himself that he threw his bat at his
retreating tormentor.  Red jumped high and the bat skipped along the
ground toward the bench.  The players sidestepped and leaped and, of
course, the bat cracked one of Delaney's big shins.  His eyes popped
with pain, but he could not stop laughing.  One by one the players lay
down and rolled over and yelled.  The superior Clammer was not
overliked by his co-players.

From the grand stand floated the laughter of ladies and gentlemen.  And
from the bleachers--that throne of the biting, ironic, scornful
fans--pealed up a howl of delight.  It lasted for a full minute.  Then,
as quiet ensued, some boy blew a blast of one of those infernal little
instruments of pipe and rubber balloon, and over the field wailed out a
shrill, high-keyed cry, an excellent imitation of a baby.  Whereupon
the whole audience roared, and in discomfiture Reddy Clammer went in
search of his bat.

To make his chagrin all the worse he ingloriously struck out.  And then
he strode away under the lea of the grand-stand wall toward right field.

Reddie Ray went to bat and, with the infield playing deep and the
outfield swung still farther round to the right, he bunted a little
teasing ball down the third-base line.  Like a flash of light he had
crossed first base before Hanley got his hands on the ball.  Then Kane
hit into second base, forcing Reddie out.

Again the game assumed less spectacular and more ordinary play.  Both
Scott and Wehying held the batters safely and allowed no runs.  But in
the fifth inning, with the Stars at bat and two out, Red Gilbat again
electrified the field.  He sprang up from somewhere and walked to the
plate, his long shape enfolded in a full-length linen duster.  The
color and style of this garment might not have been especially
striking, but upon Red it had a weird and wonderful effect. Evidently
Red intended to bat while arrayed in his long coat, for he stepped into
the box and faced the pitcher.  Capt. Healy yelled for him to take the
duster off.  Likewise did the Grays yell.

The bleachers shrieked their disapproval.  To say the least, Red
Gilbat's crazy assurance was dampening to the ardor of the most blindly
confident fans.  At length Umpire Fuller waved his hand, enjoining
silence and calling time.

"Take it off or I'll fine you."

From his lofty height Gilbat gazed down upon the little umpire, and it
was plain what he thought.

"What do I care for money!" replied Red.

"That costs you twenty-five," said Fuller.

"Cigarette change!" yelled Red.

"Costs you fifty."

"Bah!  Go to an eye doctor," roared Red.

"Seventy-five," added Fuller, imperturbably.

"Make it a hundred!"

"It's two hundred."

"ROB-B-BER!" bawled Red.

Fuller showed willingness to overlook Red's back talk as well as
costume, and he called, "Play!"

There was a mounting sensation of prophetic certainty.  Old fox Wehying
appeared nervous. He wasted two balls on Red; then he put one over the
plate, and then he wasted another.  Three balls and one strike!  That
was a bad place for a pitcher, and with Red Gilbat up it was worse.
Wehying swung longer and harder to get all his left behind the throw
and let drive.  Red lunged and cracked the ball.  It went up and up and
kept going up and farther out, and as the murmuring audience was slowly
transfixed into late realization the ball soared to its height and
dropped beyond the left-field fence.  A home run!

Red Gilbat gathered up the tails of his duster, after the manner of a
neat woman crossing a muddy street, and ambled down to first base and
on to second, making prodigious jumps upon the bags, and round third,
to come down the home-stretch wagging his red head.  Then he stood on
the plate, and, as if to exact revenge from the audience for the fun
they made of him, he threw back his shoulders and bellowed:  "HAW!
HAW! HAW!"

Not a handclap greeted him, but some mindless, exceedingly adventurous
fan yelled:  "Redhead! Redhead!  Redhead!"

That was the one thing calculated to rouse Red Gilbat.  He seemed to
flare, to bristle, and he paced for the bleachers.

Delaney looked as if he might have a stroke. "Grab him!  Soak him with
a bat!  Somebody grab him!"

But none of the Stars was risking so much, and Gilbat, to the howling
derision of the gleeful fans, reached the bleachers.  He stretched his
long arms up to the fence and prepared to vault over. "Where's the guy
who called me redhead?" he yelled.

That was heaping fuel on the fire.  From all over the bleachers, from
everywhere, came the obnoxious word.  Red heaved himself over the fence
and piled into the fans.  Then followed the roar of many voices, the
tramping of many feet, the pressing forward of line after line of
shirt-sleeved men and boys.  That bleacher stand suddenly assumed the
maelstrom appearance of a surging mob round an agitated center.  In a
moment all the players rushed down the field, and confusion reigned.

"Oh!  Oh!  Oh!" moaned Delaney.

However, the game had to go on.  Delaney, no doubt, felt all was over.
Nevertheless there were games occasionally that seemed an unending
series of unprecedented events.  This one had begun admirably to break
a record.  And the Providence fans, like all other fans, had cultivated
an appetite as the game proceeded.  They were wild to put the other
redheads out of the field or at least out for the inning, wild to tie
the score, wild to win and wilder than all for more excitement. Clammer
hit safely.  But when Reddie Ray lined to the second baseman, Clammer,
having taken a lead, was doubled up in the play.

Of course, the sixth inning opened with the Stars playing only eight
men.  There was another delay.  Probably everybody except Delaney and
perhaps Healy had forgotten the Stars were short a man.  Fuller called
time.  The impatient bleachers barked for action.

Capt. White came over to Delaney and courteously offered to lend a
player for the remaining innings.  Then a pompous individual came out
of the door leading from the press boxes--he was a director Delaney
disliked.

"Guess you'd better let Fuller call the game," he said brusquely.

"If you want to--as the score stands now in our favor," replied Delaney.

"Not on your life!  It'll be ours or else we'll play it out and beat
you to death."

He departed in high dudgeon.

"Tell Reddie to swing over a little toward left," was Delaney's order
to Healy.  Fire gleamed in the manager's eye.

Fuller called play then, with Reddy Clammer and Reddie Ray composing
the Star outfield.  And the Grays evidently prepared to do great
execution through the wide lanes thus opened up.  At that stage it
would not have been like matured ball players to try to crop hits down
into the infield.

White sent a long fly back of Clammer.  Reddy had no time to loaf on
this hit.  It was all he could do to reach it and he made a splendid
catch, for which the crowd roundly applauded him.  That applause was
wine to Reddy Clammer.  He began to prance on his toes and sing out to
Scott:  "Make 'em hit to me, old man!  Make 'em hit to me!" Whether
Scott desired that or not was scarcely possible to say; at any rate,
Hanley pounded a hit through the infield.  And Clammer, prancing high
in the air like a check-reined horse, ran to intercept the ball.  He
could have received it in his hands, but that would never have served
Reddy Clammer.  He timed the hit to a nicety, went down with his old
grand-stand play and blocked the ball with his anatomy.  Delaney swore.
And the bleachers, now warm toward the gallant outfielder, lustily
cheered him.  Babcock hit down the right-field foul line, giving
Clammer a long run.  Hanley was scoring and Babcock was sprinting for
third base when Reddy got the ball. He had a fine arm and he made a
hard and accurate throw, catching his man in a close play.

Perhaps even Delaney could not have found any fault with that play.
But the aftermath spoiled the thing.  Clammer now rode the air; he
soared; he was in the clouds; it was his inning and he had utterly
forgotten his team mates, except inasmuch as they were performing mere
little automatic movements to direct the great machinery in his
direction for his sole achievement and glory.

There is fate in baseball as well as in other walks of life.  O'Brien
was a strapping fellow and he lifted another ball into Clammer's wide
territory.  The hit was of the high and far-away variety.  Clammer
started to run with it, not like a grim outfielder, but like one
thinking of himself, his style, his opportunity, his inevitable
success.  Certain it was that in thinking of himself the outfielder
forgot his surroundings.  He ran across the foul line, head up, hair
flying, unheeding the warning cry from Healy.  And, reaching up to make
his crowning circus play, he smashed face forward into the bleachers
fence.  Then, limp as a rag, he dropped.  The audience sent forth a
long groan of sympathy.

"That wasn't one of his stage falls," said Delaney.  "I'll bet he's
dead....  Poor Reddy! And I want him to bust his face!"

Clammer was carried off the field into the dressing room and a
physician was summoned out of the audience.

"Cap., what'd it--do to him?" asked Delaney.

"Aw, spoiled his pretty mug, that's all," replied Healy, scornfully.
"Mebee he'll listen to me now."

Delaney's change was characteristic of the man. "Well, if it didn't
kill him I'm blamed glad he got it....  Cap, we can trim 'em yet.
Reddie Ray'll play the whole outfield.  Give Reddie a chance to run!
Tell the boy to cut loose.  And all of you git in the game.  Win or
lose, I won't forget it.  I've a hunch.  Once in a while I can tell
what's comin' off.  Some queer game this!  And we're goin' to win.
Gilbat lost the game; Clammer throwed it away again, and now Reddie
Ray's due to win it....  I'm all in, but I wouldn't miss the finish
to save my life."

Delaney's deep presaging sense of baseball events was never put to a
greater test.  And the seven Stars, with the score tied, exhibited the
temper and timber of a championship team in the last ditch.  It was so
splendid that almost instantly it caught the antagonistic bleachers.

Wherever the tired Scott found renewed strength and speed was a
mystery.  But he struck out the hard-hitting Providence catcher and
that made the third out.  The Stars could not score in their half of
the inning.  Likewise the seventh inning passed without a run for
either side; only the infield work of the Stars was something superb.
When the eighth inning ended, without a tally for either team, the
excitement grew tense. There was Reddy Ray playing outfield alone, and
the Grays with all their desperate endeavors had not lifted the ball
out of the infield.

But in the ninth, Blake, the first man up, lined low toward right
center.  The hit was safe and looked good for three bases.  No one
looking, however, had calculated on Reddie's Ray's fleetness. He
covered ground and dove for the bounding ball and knocked it down.
Blake did not get beyond first base.  The crowd cheered the play
equally with the prospect of a run.  Dorr bunted and beat the throw.
White hit one of the high fast balls Scott was serving and sent it
close to the left-field foul line.  The running Reddie Ray made on that
play held White at second base.  But two runs had scored with no one
out.

Hanley, the fourth left-handed hitter, came up and Scott pitched to him
as he had to the others--high fast balls over the inside corner of the
plate.  Reddy Ray's position was some fifty yards behind deep short,
and a little toward center field. He stood sideways, facing two-thirds
of that vacant outfield.  In spite of Scott's skill, Hanley swung the
ball far round into right field, but he hit it high, and almost before
he actually hit it the great sprinter was speeding across the green.

The suspense grew almost unbearable as the ball soared in its parabolic
flight and the red-haired runner streaked dark across the green. The
ball seemed never to be coming down.  And when it began to descend and
reached a point perhaps fifty feet above the ground there appeared more
distance between where it would alight and where Reddie was than
anything human could cover.  It dropped and dropped, and then dropped
into Reddie Ray's outstretched hands.  He had made the catch look easy.
But the fact that White scored from second base on the play showed what
the catch really was.

There was no movement or restlessness of the audience such as usually
indicated the beginning of the exodus.  Scott struck Babcock out.  The
game still had fire.  The Grays never let up a moment on their
coaching.  And the hoarse voices of the Stars were grimmer than ever.
Reddie Ray was the only one of the seven who kept silent. And he
crouched like a tiger.

The teams changed sides with the Grays three runs in the lead.
Morrissey, for the Stars, opened with a clean drive to right.  Then
Healy slashed a ground ball to Hanley and nearly knocked him down.
When old Burns, by a hard rap to short, advanced the runners a base and
made a desperate, though unsuccessful, effort to reach first the
Providence crowd awoke to a strange and inspiring appreciation.  They
began that most rare feature in baseball audiences--a strong and
trenchant call for the visiting team to win.

The play had gone fast and furious.  Wehying, sweaty and disheveled,
worked violently.  All the Grays were on uneasy tiptoes.  And the Stars
were seven Indians on the warpath.  Halloran fouled down the
right-field line; then he fouled over the left-field fence.  Wehying
tried to make him too anxious, but it was in vain.  Halloran was
implacable.  With two strikes and three balls he hit straight down to
white, and was out.  The ball had been so sharp that neither runner on
base had a chance to advance.

Two men out, two on base, Stars wanting three runs to tie, Scott, a
weak batter, at the plate! The situation was disheartening.  Yet there
sat Delaney, shot through and through with some vital compelling force.
He saw only victory.  And when the very first ball pitched to Scott hit
him on the leg, giving him his base, Delaney got to his feet, unsteady
and hoarse.

Bases full, Reddie Ray up, three runs to tie!

Delaney looked at Reddie.  And Reddie looked at Delaney.  The manager's
face was pale, intent, with a little smile.  The player had eyes of
fire, a lean, bulging jaw and the hands he reached for his bat clutched
like talons.

"Reddie, I knew it was waitin' for you," said Delaney, his voice
ringing.  "Break up the game!"

After all this was only a baseball game, and perhaps from the fans'
viewpoint a poor game at that.  But the moment when that lithe,
redhaired athlete toed the plate was a beautiful one.  The long crash
from the bleachers, the steady cheer from the grand stand, proved that
it was not so much the game that mattered.

Wehying had shot his bolt; he was tired.  Yet he made ready for a final
effort.  It seemed that passing Reddie Ray on balls would have been a
wise play at that juncture.  But no pitcher, probably, would have done
it with the bases crowded and chances, of course, against the batter.

Clean and swift, Reddie leaped at the first pitched ball.  Ping!  For a
second no one saw the hit.  Then it gleamed, a terrific drive, low
along the ground, like a bounding bullet, straight at Babcock in right
field.  It struck his hands and glanced viciously away to roll toward
the fence.

Thunder broke loose from the stands.  Reddie Ray was turning first
base.  Beyond first base he got into his wonderful stride.  Some
runners run with a consistent speed, the best they can make for a given
distance.  But this trained sprinter gathered speed as he ran.  He was
no short-stepping runner.  His strides were long.  They gave an
impression of strength combined with fleetness. He had the speed of a
race horse, but the trimness, the raciness, the delicate legs were not
characteristic of him.  Like the wind he turned second, so powerful
that his turn was short.  All at once there came a difference in his
running.  It was no longer beautiful.  The grace was gone.  It was now
fierce, violent.  His momentum was running him off his legs.  He
whirled around third base and came hurtling down the homestretch. His
face was convulsed, his eyes were wild.  His arms and legs worked in a
marvelous muscular velocity.  He seemed a demon--a flying streak. He
overtook and ran down the laboring Scott, who had almost reached the
plate.

The park seemed full of shrill, piercing strife. It swelled, reached a
highest pitch, sustained that for a long moment, and then declined.

"My Gawd!" exclaimed Delaney, as he fell back.  "Wasn't that a finish?
Didn't I tell you to watch them redheads!"



THE RUBE

It was the most critical time I had yet experienced in my career as a
baseball manager. And there was more than the usual reason why I must
pull the team out.  A chance for a business deal depended upon the
good-will of the stockholders of the Worcester club.  On the outskirts
of the town was a little cottage that I wanted to buy, and this
depended upon the business deal.  My whole future happiness depended
upon the little girl I hoped to install in that cottage.

Coming to the Worcester Eastern League team, I had found a strong
aggregation and an enthusiastic following.  I really had a team with
pennant possibilities.  Providence was a strong rival, but I beat them
three straight in the opening series, set a fast pace, and likewise set
Worcester baseball mad.  The Eastern League clubs were pretty evenly
matched; still I continued to hold the lead until misfortune overtook
me.

Gregg smashed an umpire and had to be laid off.  Mullaney got spiked
while sliding and was out of the game.  Ashwell sprained his ankle and
Hirsch broke a finger.  Radbourne, my great pitcher, hurt his arm on a
cold day and he could not get up his old speed.  Stringer, who had
batted three hundred and seventy-one and led the league the year
before, struck a bad spell and could not hit a barn door handed up to
him.

Then came the slump.  The team suddenly let down; went to pieces;
played ball that would have disgraced an amateur nine.  It was a trying
time. Here was a great team, strong everywhere.  A little hard luck had
dug up a slump--and now! Day by day the team dropped in the race.  When
we reached the second division the newspapers flayed us.  Worcester
would never stand for a second division team.  Baseball admirers,
reporters, fans--especially the fans--are fickle.  The admirers quit,
the reporters grilled us, and the fans, though they stuck to the games
with that barnacle-like tenacity peculiar to them, made life miserable
for all of us.  I saw the pennant slowly fading, and the successful
season, and the business deal, and the cottage, and Milly----

But when I thought of her I just could not see failure.  Something must
be done, but what?  I was at the end of my wits.  When Jersey City beat
us that Saturday, eleven to two, shoving us down to fifth place with
only a few percentage points above the Fall River team, I grew
desperate, and locking my players in the dressing room I went after
them.  They had lain down on me and needed a jar.  I told them so
straight and flat, and being bitter, I did not pick and choose my words.

"And fellows," I concluded, "you've got to brace.  A little more of
this and we can't pull out. I tell you you're a championship team.  We
had that pennant cinched.  A few cuts and sprains and hard luck--and
you all quit!  You lay down! I've been patient.  I've plugged for you.
Never a man have I fined or thrown down.  But now I'm at the end of my
string.  I'm out to fine you now, and I'll release the first man who
shows the least yellow.  I play no more substitutes. Crippled or not,
you guys have got to get in the game."

I waited to catch my breath and expected some such outburst as managers
usually get from criticized players.  But not a word!  Then I addressed
some of them personally.

"Gregg, your lay-off ends today.  You play Monday.  Mullaney, you've
drawn your salary for two weeks with that spiked foot.  If you can't
run on it--well, all right, but I put it up to your good faith.  I've
played the game and I know it's hard to run on a sore foot.  But you
can do it. Ashwell, your ankle is lame, I know--now, can you run?"

"Sure I can.  I'm not a quitter.  I'm ready to go in," replied Ashwell.

"Raddy, how about you?" I said, turning to my star twirler.

"Connelly, I've seen as fast a team in as bad a rut and yet pull out,"
returned Radbourne. "We're about due for the brace.  When it
comes--look out!  As for me, well, my arm isn't right, but it's acting
these warm days in a way that tells me it will be soon.  It's been
worked too hard. Can't you get another pitcher?  I'm not knocking Herne
or Cairns.  They're good for their turn, but we need a new man to help
out.  And he must be a crackerjack if we're to get back to the lead."

"Where on earth can I find such a pitcher?" I shouted, almost
distracted.

"Well, that's up to you," replied Radbourne.

Up to me it certainly was, and I cudgeled my brains for inspiration.
After I had given up in hopelessness it came in the shape of a notice I
read in one of the papers.  It was a brief mention of an amateur
Worcester ball team being shut out in a game with a Rickettsville nine.
Rickettsville played Sunday ball, which gave me an opportunity to look
them over.

It took some train riding and then a journey by coach to get to
Rickettsville.  I mingled with the crowd of talking rustics.  There was
only one little "bleachers" and this was loaded to the danger point
with the feminine adherents of the teams.  Most of the crowd centered
alongside and back of the catcher's box.  I edged in and got a position
just behind the stone that served as home plate.

Hunting up a player in this way was no new thing to me.  I was too wise
to make myself known before I had sized up the merits of my man.  So,
before the players came upon the field I amused myself watching the
rustic fans and listening to them.  Then a roar announced the
appearance of the Rickettsville team and their opponents, who wore the
name of Spatsburg on their Canton flannel shirts.  The uniforms of
these country amateurs would have put a Philadelphia Mummer's parade to
the blush, at least for bright colors.  But after one amused glance I
got down to the stern business of the day, and that was to discover a
pitcher, and failing that, baseball talent of any kind.

Never shall I forget my first glimpse of the Rickettsville twirler.  He
was far over six feet tall and as lean as a fence rail.  He had a great
shock of light hair, a sunburned, sharp-featured face, wide, sloping
shoulders, and arms enormously long.  He was about as graceful and had
about as much of a baseball walk as a crippled cow.

"He's a rube!" I ejaculated, in disgust and disappointment.

But when I had seen him throw one ball to his catcher I grew as keen as
a fox on a scent.  What speed he had!  I got round closer to him and
watched him with sharp, eager eyes.  He was a giant.  To be sure, he
was lean, rawboned as a horse, but powerful.  What won me at once was
his natural, easy swing.  He got the ball away with scarcely any
effort.  I wondered what he could do when he brought the motion of his
body into play.

"Bub, what might be the pitcher's name?" I asked of a boy.

"Huh, mister, his name might be Dennis, but it ain't.  Huh!" replied
this country youngster. Evidently my question had thrown some
implication upon this particular player.

"I reckon you be a stranger in these parts," said a pleasant old
fellow.  "His name's Hurtle--Whitaker Hurtle.  Whit fer short.  He
hain't lost a gol-darned game this summer.  No sir-ee! Never pitched
any before, nuther."

Hurtle!  What a remarkably fitting name!

Rickettsville chose the field and the game began. Hurtle swung with his
easy motion.  The ball shot across like a white bullet.  It was a
strike, and so was the next, and the one succeeding.  He could not
throw anything but strikes, and it seemed the Spatsburg players could
not make even a foul.

Outside of Hurtle's work the game meant little to me.  And I was so
fascinated by what I saw in him that I could hardly contain myself.
After the first few innings I no longer tried to.  I yelled with the
Rickettsville rooters.  The man was a wonder.  A blind baseball manager
could have seen that.  He had a straight ball, shoulder high, level as
a stretched string, and fast.  He had a jump ball, which he evidently
worked by putting on a little more steam, and it was the speediest
thing I ever saw in the way of a shoot.  He had a wide-sweeping
outcurve, wide as the blade of a mowing scythe.  And he had a drop--an
unhittable drop.  He did not use it often, for it made his catcher dig
too hard into the dirt.  But whenever he did I glowed all over.  Once
or twice he used an underhand motion and sent in a ball that fairly
swooped up.  It could not have been hit with a board.  And best of all,
dearest to the manager's heart, he had control.  Every ball he threw
went over the plate.  He could not miss it.  To him that plate was as
big as a house.

What a find!  Already I had visions of the long-looked-for brace of my
team, and of the pennant, and the little cottage, and the happy light
of a pair of blue eyes.  What he meant to me, that country pitcher
Hurtle!  He shut out the Spatsburg team without a run or a hit or even
a scratch. Then I went after him.  I collared him and his manager, and
there, surrounded by the gaping players, I bought him and signed him
before any of them knew exactly what I was about.  I did not haggle.  I
asked the manager what he wanted and produced the cash; I asked Hurtle
what he wanted, doubled his ridiculously modest demand, paid him in
advance, and got his name to the contract.  Then I breathed a long,
deep breath; the first one for weeks.  Something told me that with
Hurtle's signature in my pocket I had the Eastern League pennant.  Then
I invited all concerned down to the Rickettsville hotel.

We made connections at the railroad junction and reached Worcester at
midnight in time for a good sleep.  I took the silent and backward
pitcher to my hotel.  In the morning we had breakfast together.  I
showed him about Worcester and then carried him off to the ball grounds.

I had ordered morning practice, and as morning practice is not
conducive to the cheerfulness of ball players, I wanted to reach the
dressing room a little late.  When we arrived, all the players had
dressed and were out on the field.  I had some difficulty in fitting
Hurtle with a uniform, and when I did get him dressed he resembled a
two-legged giraffe decked out in white shirt, gray trousers and maroon
stockings.

Spears, my veteran first baseman and captain of the team, was the first
to see us.

"Sufferin' umpires!" yelled Spears.  "Here, you Micks!  Look at this
Con's got with him!"

What a yell burst from that sore and disgruntled bunch of ball tossers!
My players were a grouchy set in practice anyway, and today they were
in their meanest mood.

"Hey, beanpole!"

"Get on to the stilts!"

"Con, where did you find that?"

I cut short their chaffing with a sharp order for batting practice.

"Regular line-up, now no monkey biz," I went on.  "Take two cracks and
a bunt.  Here, Hurtle," I said, drawing him toward the pitcher's box,
"don't pay any attention to their talk.  That's only the fun of ball
players.  Go in now and practice a little.  Lam a few over."

Hurtle's big freckled hands closed nervously over the ball.  I thought
it best not to say more to him, for he had a rather wild look.  I
remembered my own stage fright upon my first appearance in fast
company.  Besides I knew what my amiable players would say to him.  I
had a secret hope and belief that presently they would yell upon the
other side of the fence.

McCall, my speedy little left fielder, led off at bat.  He was full of
ginger, chipper as a squirrel, sarcastic as only a tried ball player
can be.

"Put 'em over, Slats, put 'em over," he called, viciously swinging his
ash.

Hurtle stood stiff and awkward in the box and seemed to be rolling
something in his mouth. Then he moved his arm.  We all saw the ball
dart down straight--that is, all of us except McCall, because if he had
seen it he might have jumped out of the way.  Crack!  The ball hit him
on the shin.

McCall shrieked.  We all groaned.  That crack hurt all of us.  Any
baseball player knows how it hurts to be hit on the shinbone.  McCall
waved his bat madly.

"Rube!  Rube!  Rube!" he yelled.

Then and there Hurtle got the name that was to cling to him all his
baseball days.

McCall went back to the plate, red in the face, mad as a hornet, and he
sidestepped every time Rube pitched a ball.  He never even ticked one
and retired in disgust, limping and swearing. Ashwell was next.  He did
not show much alacrity. On Rube's first pitch down went Ashwell flat in
the dust.  The ball whipped the hair of his head.  Rube was wild and I
began to get worried. Ashwell hit a couple of measly punks, but when he
assayed a bunt the gang yelled derisively at him.

"What's he got?"  The old familiar cry of batters when facing a new
pitcher!

Stringer went up, bold and formidable.  That was what made him the
great hitter he was.  He loved to bat; he would have faced anybody; he
would have faced even a cannon.  New curves were a fascination to him.
And speed for him, in his own words, was "apple pie."  In this
instance, surprise was in store for Stringer.  Rube shot up the
straight one, then the wide curve, then the drop.  Stringer missed them
all, struck out, fell down ignominiously.  It was the first time he had
fanned that season and he looked dazed. We had to haul him away.

I called off the practice, somewhat worried about Rube's showing, and
undecided whether or not to try him in the game that day.  So I went to
Radbourne, who had quietly watched Rube while on the field.  Raddy was
an old pitcher and had seen the rise of a hundred stars.  I told him
about the game at Rickettsville and what I thought of Rube, and frankly
asked his opinion.

"Con, you've made the find of your life," said Raddy, quietly and
deliberately.

This from Radbourne was not only comforting; it was relief, hope,
assurance.  I avoided Spears, for it would hardly be possible for him
to regard the Rube favorably, and I kept under cover until time to show
up at the grounds.

Buffalo was on the ticket for that afternoon, and the Bisons were
leading the race and playing in topnotch form.  I went into the
dressing room while the players were changing suits, because there was
a little unpleasantness that I wanted to spring on them before we got
on the field.

"Boys," I said, curtly, "Hurtle works today. Cut loose, now, and back
him up."

I had to grab a bat and pound on the wall to stop the uproar.

"Did you mutts hear what I said?  Well, it goes. Not a word, now.  I'm
handling this team.  We're in bad, I know, but it's my judgment to
pitch Hurtle, rube or no rube, and it's up to you to back us.  That's
the baseball of it."

Grumbling and muttering, they passed out of the dressing room.  I knew
ball players.  If Hurtle should happen to show good form they would
turn in a flash.  Rube tagged reluctantly in their rear.  He looked
like a man in a trance.  I wanted to speak encouragingly to him, but
Raddy told me to keep quiet.

It was inspiring to see my team practice that afternoon.  There had
come a subtle change.  I foresaw one of those baseball climaxes that
can be felt and seen, but not explained.  Whether it was a hint of the
hoped-for brace, or only another flash of form before the final
let-down, I had no means to tell.  But I was on edge.

Carter, the umpire, called out the batteries, and I sent my team into
the field.  When that long, lanky, awkward rustic started for the
pitcher's box, I thought the bleachers would make him drop in his
tracks.  The fans were sore on any one those days, and a new pitcher
was bound to hear from them.

"Where!  Oh, where!  Oh, where!"

"Connelly's found another dead one!"

"Scarecrow!"

"Look at his pants!"

"Pad his legs!"

Then the inning began, and things happened. Rube had marvelous speed,
but he could not find the plate.  He threw the ball the second he got
it; he hit men, walked men, and fell all over himself trying to field
bunts.  The crowd stormed and railed and hissed.  The Bisons pranced
round the bases and yelled like Indians.  Finally they retired with
eight runs.

Eight runs!  Enough to win two games!  I could not have told how it
happened.  I was sick and all but crushed.  Still I had a blind, dogged
faith in the big rustic.  I believed he had not got started right.  It
was a trying situation.  I called Spears and Raddy to my side and
talked fast.

"It's all off now.  Let the dinged rube take his medicine," growled
Spears.

"Don't take him out," said Raddy.  "He's not shown at all what's in
him.  The blamed hayseed is up in the air.  He's crazy.  He doesn't
know what he's doing.  I tell you, Con, he may be scared to death, but
he's dead in earnest."

Suddenly I recalled the advice of the pleasant old fellow at
Rickettsville.

"Spears, you're the captain," I said, sharply. "Go after the rube.
Wake him up.  Tell him he can't pitch.  Call him 'Pogie!'  That's a
name that stirs him up."

"Well, I'll be dinged!  He looks it," replied Spears.  "Here, Rube, get
off the bench.  Come here."

Rube lurched toward us.  He seemed to be walking in his sleep.  His
breast was laboring and he was dripping with sweat.

"Who ever told you that you could pitch?" asked Spears genially.  He
was master at baseball ridicule.  I had never yet seen the youngster
who could stand his badinage.  He said a few things, then wound up
with:  "Come now, you cross between a hayrack and a wagon tongue, get
sore and do something.  Pitch if you can.  Show us!  Do you hear, you
tow-headed Pogie!"

Rube jumped as if he had been struck.  His face flamed red and his
little eyes turned black.  He shoved his big fist under Capt. Spears'
nose.

"Mister, I'll lick you fer thet--after the game! And I'll show you
dog-goned well how I can pitch."

"Good!" exclaimed Raddy; and I echoed his word.  Then I went to the
bench and turned my attention to the game.  Some one told me that
McCall had made a couple of fouls, and after waiting for two strikes
and three balls had struck out.  Ashwell had beat out a bunt in his old
swift style, and Stringer was walking up to the plate on the moment.
It was interesting, even in a losing game, to see Stringer go to bat.
We all watched him, as we had been watching him for weeks, expecting
him to break his slump with one of the drives that had made him famous.
Stringer stood to the left side of the plate, and I could see the bulge
of his closely locked jaw.  He swung on the first pitched ball.  With
the solid rap we all rose to watch that hit.  The ball lined first,
then soared and did not begin to drop till it was far beyond the
right-field fence.  For an instant we were all still, so were the
bleachers.  Stringer had broken his slump with the longest drive ever
made on the grounds.  The crowd cheered as he trotted around the bases
behind Ashwell.  Two runs.

"Con, how'd you like that drive?" he asked me, with a bright gleam in
his eyes.

"O-h-!--a beaut!" I replied, incoherently.  The players on the bench
were all as glad as I was. Henley flew out to left.  Mullaney smashed a
two-bagger to right.  Then Gregg hit safely, but Mullaney, in trying to
score on the play, was out at the plate.

"Four hits!  I tell you fellows, something's coming off," said Raddy.
"Now, if only Rube----"

What a difference there was in that long rustic! He stalked into the
box, unmindful of the hooting crowd and grimly faced Schultz, the first
batter up for the Bisons.  This time Rube was deliberate. And where he
had not swung before he now got his body and arm into full motion.  The
ball came in like a glint of light.  Schultz looked surprised.  The
umpire called "Strike!"

"Wow!" yelled the Buffalo coacher.  Rube sped up the sidewheeler and
Schultz reached wide to meet it and failed.  The third was the
lightning drop, straight over the plate.  The batter poked weakly at
it.  Then Carl struck out and Manning following, did likewise.  Three
of the best hitters in the Eastern retired on nine strikes!  That was
no fluke.  I knew what it meant, and I sat there hugging myself with
the hum of something joyous in my ears.

Gregg had a glow on his sweaty face.  "Oh, but say, boys, take a tip
from me!  The Rube's a world beater!  Raddy knew it; he sized up that
swing, and now I know it.  Get wise, you its!"

When old Spears pasted a single through shortstop, the Buffalo manager
took Clary out of the box and put in Vane, their best pitcher.  Bogart
advanced the runner to second, but was thrown out on the play.  Then
Rube came up.  He swung a huge bat and loomed over the Bison's twirler.
Rube had the look of a hitter.  He seemed to be holding himself back
from walking right into the ball.  And he hit one high and far away.
The fast Carl could not get under it, though he made a valiant effort.
Spears scored and Rube's long strides carried him to third.  The cold
crowd in the stands came to life; even the sore bleachers opened up.
McCall dumped a slow teaser down the line, a hit that would easily have
scored Rube, but he ran a little way, then stopped, tried to get back,
and was easily touched out.  Ashwell's hard chance gave the Bison's
shortstop an error, and Stringer came up with two men on bases.
Stringer hit a foul over the right-field fence and the crowd howled.
Then he hit a hard long drive straight into the centerfielder's hands.

"Con, I don't know what to think, but ding me if we ain't hittin' the
ball," said Spears.  Then to his players:  "A little more of that and
we're back in our old shape.  All in a minute--at 'em now!  Rube, you
dinged old Pogie, pitch!"

Rube toed the rubber, wrapped his long brown fingers round the ball,
stepped out as he swung and--zing!  That inning he unloosed a few more
kinks in his arm and he tried some new balls upon the Bisons.  But
whatever he used and wherever he put them the result was the same--they
cut the plate and the Bisons were powerless.

That inning marked the change in my team. They had come hack.  The
hoodoo had vanished. The championship Worcester team was itself again.

The Bisons were fighting, too, but Rube had them helpless.  When they
did hit a ball one of my infielders snapped it up.  No chances went to
the outfield.  I sat there listening to my men, and reveled in a moment
that I had long prayed for.

"Now you're pitching some, Rube.  Another strike!  Get him a board!"
called Ashwell.

"Ding 'em, Rube, ding 'em!" came from Capt. Spears.

"Speed?  Oh-no!" yelled Bogart at third base.

"It's all off, Rube!  It's all off--all off!"

So, with the wonderful pitching of an angry rube, the Worcester team
came into its own again.  I sat through it all without another word;
without giving a signal.  In a way I realized the awakening of the
bleachers, and heard the pound of feet and the crash, but it was the
spirit of my team that thrilled me.  Next to that the work of my new
find absorbed me.  I gloated over his easy, deceiving swing.  I rose
out of my seat when he threw that straight fast ball, swift as a
bullet, true as a plumb line.  And when those hard-hitting, sure
bunting Bisons chopped in vain at the wonderful drop, I choked back a
wild yell.  For Rube meant the world to me that day.

In the eighth the score was 8 to 6.  The Bisons had one scratch hit to
their credit, but not a runner had got beyond first base.  Again Rube
held them safely, one man striking out, another fouling out, and the
third going out on a little fly.

Crash!  Crash!  Crash!  Crash!  The bleachers were making up for many
games in which they could not express their riotous feelings.

"It's a cinch we'll win!" yelled a fan with a voice.  Rube was the
first man up in our half of the ninth and his big bat lammed the first
ball safe over second base.  The crowd, hungry for victory, got to
their feet and stayed upon their feet, calling, cheering for runs.  It
was the moment for me to get in the game, and I leaped up, strung like
a wire, and white hot with inspiration. I sent Spears to the coaching
box with orders to make Rube run on the first ball.  I gripped McCall
with hands that made him wince.

Then I dropped back on the bench spent and panting.  It was only a
game, yet it meant so much!  Little McCall was dark as a thunder cloud,
and his fiery eyes snapped.  He was the fastest man in the league, and
could have bunted an arrow from a bow.  The foxy Bison third baseman
edged in.  Mac feinted to bunt toward him then turned his bat inward
and dumped a teasing curving ball down the first base line.  Rube ran
as if in seven-league boots.  Mac's short legs twinkled; he went like
the wind; he leaped into first base with his long slide, and beat the
throw.

The stands and bleachers seemed to be tumbling down.  For a moment the
air was full of deafening sound.  Then came the pause, the dying away
of clatter and roar, the close waiting, suspended quiet.  Spears' clear
voice, as he coached Rube, in its keen note seemed inevitable of
another run.

Ashwell took his stand.  He was another left-hand hitter, and against a
right-hand pitcher, in such circumstances as these, the most dangerous
of men.  Vane knew it.  Ellis, the Bison captain knew it, as showed
plainly in his signal to catch Rube at second.  But Spears' warning
held or frightened Rube on the bag.

Vane wasted a ball, then another.  Ashwell could not be coaxed.
Wearily Vane swung; the shortstop raced out to get in line for a
possible hit through the wide space to his right, and the second
baseman got on his toes as both base runners started.

Crack!  The old story of the hit and run game! Ashwell's hit crossed
sharply where a moment before the shortstop had been standing.  With
gigantic strides Rube rounded the corner and scored.  McCall flitted
through second, and diving into third with a cloud of dust, got the
umpire's decision.  When Stringer hurried up with Mac on third and Ash
on first the whole field seemed racked in a deafening storm.  Again it
subsided quickly.  The hopes of the Worcester fans had been crushed too
often of late for them to be fearless.

But I had no fear.  I only wanted the suspense ended.  I was like a man
clamped in a vise. Stringer stood motionless.  Mac bent low with the
sprinters' stoop; Ash watched the pitcher's arm and slowly edged off
first.  Stringer waited for one strike and two balls, then he hit the
next.  It hugged the first base line, bounced fiercely past the bag and
skipped over the grass to bump hard into the fence.  McCall romped
home, and lame Ashwell beat any run he ever made to the plate. Rolling,
swelling, crashing roar of frenzied feet could not down the high
piercing sustained yell of the fans.  It was great.  Three weeks of
submerged bottled baseball joy exploded in one mad outburst!  The fans,
too, had come into their own again.

We scored no more.  But the Bisons were beaten.  Their spirit was
broken.  This did not make the Rube let up in their last half inning.
Grim and pale he faced them.  At every long step and swing he tossed
his shock of light hair.  At the end he was even stronger than at the
beginning. He still had the glancing, floating airy quality that
baseball players call speed.  And he struck out the last three batters.

In the tumult that burst over my ears I sat staring at the dots on my
score card.  Fourteen strike outs! one scratch hit!  No base on balls
since the first inning!  That told the story which deadened senses
doubted.  There was a roar in my ears.  Some one was pounding me.  As I
struggled to get into the dressing room the crowd mobbed me.  But I did
not hear what they yelled. I had a kind of misty veil before my eyes,
in which I saw that lanky Rube magnified into a glorious figure.  I saw
the pennant waving, and the gleam of a white cottage through the trees,
and a trim figure waiting at the gate.  Then I rolled into the dressing
room.

Somehow it seemed strange to me.  Most of the players were stretched
out in peculiar convulsions. Old Spears sat with drooping head.  Then a
wild flaming-eyed giant swooped upon me.  With a voice of thunder he
announced:

"I'm a-goin' to lick you, too!"

After that we never called him any name except Rube.



THE RUBE'S PENNANT

"Fellows, it's this way.  You've got to win today's game.  It's the
last of the season and means the pennant for Worcester.  One more hard
scrap and we're done!  Of all the up-hill fights any bunch ever made to
land the flag, our has been the best.  You're the best team I ever
managed, the gamest gang of ball players that ever stepped in spikes.
We've played in the hardest kind of luck all season, except that short
trip we called the Rube's Honeymoon.  We got a bad start, and sore arms
and busted fingers, all kinds of injuries, every accident calculated to
hurt a team's chances, came our way.  But in spite of it all we got the
lead and we've held it, and today we're still a few points ahead of
Buffalo."

I paused to catch my breath, and looked round on the grim, tired faces
of my players.  They made a stern group.  The close of the season found
them almost played out.  What a hard chance it was, after their
extraordinary efforts, to bring the issue of the pennant down to this
last game!

"If we lose today, Buffalo, with three games more to play at home, will
pull the bunting," I went on.  "But they're not going to win!  I'm
putting it up to you that way.  I know Spears is all in; Raddy's arm is
gone; Ash is playing on one leg; you're all crippled.  But you've got
one more game in you, I know.  These last few weeks the Rube has been
pitching out of turn and he's about all in, too.  He's kept us in the
lead.  If he wins today it'll be Rube's Pennant.  But that might apply
to all of you.  Now, shall we talk over the play today?  Any tricks to
pull off?  Any inside work?"

"Con, you're pretty much upset an' nervous," replied Spears, soberly.
"It ain't no wonder. This has been one corker of a season.  I want to
suggest that you let me run the team today.  I've talked over the play
with the fellers.  We ain't goin' to lose this game, Con.  Buffalo has
been comin' with a rush lately, an' they're confident. But we've been
holdin' in, restin' up as much as we dared an' still keep our lead.
Mebbee it'll surprise you to know we've bet every dollar we could get
hold of on this game.  Why, Buffalo money is everywhere."

"All right, Spears, I'll turn the team over to you.  We've got the
banner crowd of the year out there right now, a great crowd to play
before. I'm more fussed up over this game than any I remember.  But I
have a sort of blind faith in my team....  I guess that's all I want
to say."

Spears led the silent players out of the dressing room and I followed;
and while they began to toss balls to and fro, to limber up cold, dead
arms, I sat on the bench.

The Bisons were prancing about the diamond, and their swaggering
assurance was not conducive to hope for the Worcesters.  I wondered how
many of that vast, noisy audience, intent on the day's sport, even had
a thought of what pain and toil it meant to my players.  The Buffalo
men were in good shape; they had been lucky; they were at the top of
their stride, and that made all the difference.

At any rate, there were a few faithful little women in the grand
stand--Milly and Nan and Rose Stringer and Kate Bogart--who sat with
compressed lips and hoped and prayed for that game to begin and end.

The gong called off the practice, and Spears, taking the field, yelled
gruff encouragement to his men.  Umpire Carter brushed off the plate
and tossed a white ball to Rube and called:  "Play!" The bleachers set
up an exultant, satisfied shout and sat down to wait.

Schultz toed the plate and watched the Rube pitch a couple.  There
seemed to be no diminution of the great pitcher's speed and both balls
cut the plate.  Schultz clipped the next one down the third-base Line.
Bogart trapped it close to the bag, and got it away underhand, beating
the speedy runner by a nose.  It was a pretty play to start with, and
the spectators were not close-mouthed in appreciation.  The short,
stocky Carl ambled up to bat, and I heard him call the Rube something.
It was not a friendly contest, this deciding game between Buffalo and
Worcester.

"Bing one close to his swelled nut!" growled Spears to the Rube.

Carl chopped a bouncing grounder through short and Ash was after it
like a tiger, but it was a hit.  The Buffalo contingent opened up.
Then Manning faced the Rube, and he, too, vented sarcasm.  It might not
have been heard by the slow, imperturbable pitcher for all the notice
he took. Carl edged off first, slid back twice, got a third start, and
on the Rube's pitch was off for second base with the lead that always
made him dangerous. Manning swung vainly, and Gregg snapped a throw to
Mullaney.  Ball and runner got to the bag apparently simultaneously;
the umpire called Carl out, and the crowd uttered a quick roar of
delight.

The next pitch to Manning was a strike.  Rube was not wasting any
balls, a point I noted with mingled fear and satisfaction.  For he
might have felt that he had no strength to spare that day and so could
not try to work the batters.  Again he swung, and Manning rapped a long
line fly over McCall.  As the little left fielder turned at the sound
of the hit and sprinted out, his lameness was certainly not in
evidence.  He was the swiftest runner in the league and always when he
got going the crowd rose in wild clamor to watch him. Mac took that fly
right off the foul flag in deep left, and the bleachers dinned their
pleasure.

The teams changed positions.  "Fellers," said Spears, savagely, "we may
be a bunged-up lot of stiffs, but, say!  We can hit!  If you love your
old captain--sting the ball!"

Vane, the Bison pitcher, surely had his work cut out for him.  For one
sympathetic moment I saw his part through his eyes.  My Worcester
veterans, long used to being under fire, were relentlessly bent on
taking that game.  It showed in many ways, particularly in their
silence, because they were seldom a silent team.  McCall hesitated a
moment over his bats.  Then, as he picked up the lightest one, I saw
his jaw set, and I knew he intended to bunt.  He was lame, yet he meant
to beat out an infield hit.  He went up scowling.

Vane had an old head, and he had a varied assortment of balls.  For Mac
he used an under hand curve, rising at the plate and curving in to the
left-hander.  Mac stepped back and let it go.

"That's the place, Bo," cried the Buffalo infielders.  "Keep 'em close
on the Crab."  Eager and fierce as McCall was, he let pitch after pitch
go by till he had three balls and two strikes.  Still the heady Vane
sent up another pitch similar to the others.  Mac stepped forward in
the box, dropped his bat on the ball, and leaped down the line toward
first base.  Vane came rushing in for the bunt, got it and threw.  But
as the speeding ball neared the baseman, Mac stretched out into the air
and shot for the bag.  By a fraction of a second he beat the ball.  It
was one of his demon-slides.  He knew that the chances favored his
being crippled; we all knew that some day Mac would slide recklessly
once too often.  But that, too, is all in the game and in the spirit of
a great player.

"We're on," said Spears; "now keep with him."

By that the captain meant that Mac would go down, and Ashwell would hit
with the run.

When Vane pitched, little McCall was flitting toward second.  The Bison
shortstop started for the bag, and Ash hit square through his tracks. A
rolling cheer burst from the bleachers, and swelled till McCall overran
third base and was thrown back by the coacher.  Stringer hurried
forward with his big bat.

"Oh!  My!" yelled a fan, and he voiced my sentiments exactly.  Here we
would score, and be one run closer to that dearly bought pennant.

How well my men worked together!  As the pitcher let the ball go, Ash
was digging for second and Mac was shooting plateward.  They played on
the chance of Stringer's hitting. Stringer swung, the bat cracked, we
heard a thud somewhere, and then Manning, half knocked over, was
fumbling for the ball.  He had knocked down a terrific drive with his
mitt, and he got the ball in time to put Stringer out.  But Mac scored
and Ash drew a throw to third base and beat it.  He had a bad ankle,
but no one noticed it in that daring run.

"Watch me paste one!" said Captain Spears, as he spat several yards.
He batted out a fly so long and high and far that, slow as he was, he
had nearly run to second base when Carl made the catch.  Ash easily
scored on the throw-in.  Then Bogart sent one skipping over second, and
Treadwell, scooping it on the run, completed a play that showed why he
was considered the star of the Bison infield.

"Two runs, fellers!" said Spears.  "That's some!  Push 'em over, Rube."

The second inning somewhat quickened the pace.  Even the Rube worked a
little faster.  Ellis lined to Cairns in right; Treadwell fouled two
balls and had a called strike, and was out; McKnight hit a low fly over
short, then Bud Wiler sent one between Spears and Mullaney.  Spears
went for it while the Rube with giant strides ran to cover first base.
Between them they got Bud, but it was only because he was heavy and
slow on his feet.

In our half of that inning Mullaney, Gregg and Cairns went out in one,
two, three order.

With Pannell up, I saw that the Rube held in on his speed, or else he
was tiring.  Pannell hit the second slow ball for two bases.  Vane
sacrificed, and then the redoubtable Schultz came up. He appeared to be
in no hurry to bat.  Then I saw that the foxy Buffalo players were
working to tire the Rube.  They had the situation figured. But they
were no wiser than old Spears.

"Make 'em hit, Rube.  Push 'em straight over. Never mind the corners.
We don't care for a few runs.  We'll hit this game out."

Shultz flied to Mac, who made a beautiful throw to the plate too late
to catch Pannell.  Carl deliberately bunted to the right of the Rube
and it cost the big pitcher strenuous effort to catch his man.

"We got the Rube waggin'!" yelled a Buffalo player.

Manning tripled down the left foul line--a hit the bleachers called a
screamer.  When Ellis came up, it looked like a tie score, and when the
Rube pitched it was plain that he was tired.  The Bisons yelled their
assurance of this and the audience settled into quiet.  Ellis batted a
scorcher that looked good for a hit.  But the fast Ashwell was moving
with the ball, and he plunged lengthwise to get it square in his glove.
The hit had been so sharp that he had time to get up and make the throw
to beat the runner.  The bleachers thundered at the play.

"You're up, Rube," called Spears.  "Lam one out of the lot!"

The Rube was an uncertain batter.  There was never any telling what he
might do, for he had spells of good and bad hitting.  But when he did
get his bat on the ball it meant a chase for some fielder.  He went up
swinging his huge club, and he hit a fly that would have been an easy
home run for a fast man.  But the best Rube could do was to reach third
base.  This was certainly good enough, as the bleachers loudly
proclaimed, and another tally for us seemed sure.

McCall bunted toward third, another of his teasers.  The Rube would
surely have scored had he started with the ball, but he did not try and
missed a chance.  Wiler, of course, held the ball, and Mac got to first
without special effort.  He went down on the first pitch.  Then Ash
lined to Carl.  The Rube waited till the ball was caught and started
for home.  The crowd screamed, the Rube ran for all he was worth and
Carl's throw to the plate shot in low and true.  Ellis blocked the Rube
and tagged him out.

It looked to the bleachers as if Ellis had been unnecessarily rough,
and they hissed and stormed disapproval.  As for me, I knew the Bisons
were losing no chance to wear out my pitcher.  Stringer fouled out with
Mac on third, and it made him so angry that he threw his bat toward the
bench, making some of the boys skip lively.

The next three innings, as far as scoring was concerned, were all for
Buffalo.  But the Worcester infield played magnificent ball, holding
their opponents to one run each inning.

That made the score 4 to 2 in favor of Buffalo.

In the last half of the sixth, with Ash on first base and two men out,
old Spears hit another of his lofty flies, and this one went over the
fence and tied the score.  How the bleachers roared! It was full two
minutes before they quieted down. To make it all the more exciting,
Bogart hit safely, ran like a deer to third on Mullaney's grounder,
which Wiler knocked down, and scored on a passed ball.  Gregg ended the
inning by striking out.

"Get at the Rube!" boomed Ellis, the Bison captain.  "We'll have him up
in the air soon.  Get in the game now, you stickers!"

Before I knew what had happened, the Bisons had again tied the score.
They were indomitable. They grew stronger all the time.  A stroke of
good luck now would clinch the game for them. The Rube was beginning to
labor in the box; Ashwell was limping; Spears looked as if he would
drop any moment; McCall could scarcely walk. But if the ball came his
way he could still run. Nevertheless, I never saw any finer fielding
than these cripped players executed that inning.

"Ash--Mac--can you hold out?" I asked, when they limped in.  I received
glances of scorn for my question.  Spears, however, was not sanguine.

"I'll stick pretty much if somethin' doesn't happen," he said; "but I'm
all in.  I'll need a runner if I get to first this time."

Spears lumbered down to first base on an infield hit and the heavy
Manning gave him the hip. Old Spears went down, and I for one knew he
was out in more ways than that signified by Carter's sharp:  "Out!"

The old war-horse gathered himself up slowly and painfully, and with
his arms folded and his jaw protruding, he limped toward the umpire.

"Did you call me out?" he asked, in a voice plainly audible to any one
on the field.

"Yes," snapped Carter.

"What for?  I beat the ball, an' Mannin' played dirty with me--gave me
the hip."

"I called you out."

"But I wasn't out!"

"Shut up now!  Get off the diamond!" ordered Carter, peremptorily.

"What?  Me?  Say, I'm captain of this team. Can't I question a
decision?"

"Not mine.  Spears, you're delaying the game."

"I tell you it was a rotten decision," yelled Spears.  The bleachers
agreed with him.

Carter grew red in the face.  He and Spears had before then met in
field squabbles, and he showed it.

"Fifty dollars!"

"More!  You cheap-skate you piker!  More!"

"It's a hundred!"

"Put me out of the game!" roared Spears.

"You bet!  Hurry now--skedaddle!"

"Rob-b-ber!" bawled Spears.

Then he labored slowly toward the bench, all red, and yet with
perspiration, his demeanor one of outraged dignity.  The great crowd,
as one man, stood up and yelled hoarsely at Carter, and hissed and
railed at him.  When Spears got to the bench he sat down beside me as
if in pain, but he was smiling.

"Con, I was all in, an' knowin' I couldn't play any longer, thought I'd
try to scare Carter.  Say, he was white in the face.  If we play into a
close decision now, he'll give it to us."

Bogart and Mullaney batted out in short order, and once more the
aggressive Bisons hurried in for their turn.  Spears sent Cairns to
first base and Jones to right.  The Rube lobbed up his slow ball.  In
that tight pinch he showed his splendid nerve.  Two Buffalo players,
over-anxious, popped up flies.  The Rube kept on pitching the slow
curve until it was hit safely.  Then heaving his shoulders with all his
might he got all the motion possible into his swing and let drive. He
had almost all of his old speed, but it hurt me to see him work with
such desperate effort. He struck Wiler out.

He came stooping into the bench, apparently deaf to the stunning round
of applause.  Every player on the team had a word for the Rube. There
was no quitting in that bunch, and if I ever saw victory on the stern
faces of ball players it was in that moment.

"We haven't opened up yet.  Mebbee this is the innin'.  If it ain't,
the next is," said Spears.

With the weak end of the batting list up, there seemed little hope of
getting a run on Vane that inning.  He had so much confidence that he
put the ball over for Gregg, who hit out of the reach of the infield.
Again Vane sent up his straight ball, no doubt expecting Cairns to hit
into a double play.  But Cairns surprised Vane and everybody else by
poking a safety past first base. The fans began to howl and pound and
whistle.

The Rube strode to bat.  The infield closed in for a bunt, but the Rube
had no orders for that style of play.  Spears had said nothing to him.
Vane lost his nonchalance and settled down.  He cut loose with all his
speed.  Rube stepped out, suddenly whirled, then tried to dodge, but
the ball hit him fair in the back.  Rube sagged in his tracks, then
straightened up, and walked slowly to first base.  Score 5 to 5, bases
full, no outs, McCall at bat.  I sat dumb on the bench, thrilling and
shivering.  McCall!  Ashwell!  Stringer to bat!

"Play it safe!  Hold the bags!" yelled the coacher.

McCall fairly spouted defiance as he faced Vane.

"Pitch!  It's all off!  An' you know it!"

If Vane knew that, he showed no evidence of it.  His face was cold,
unsmiling, rigid.  He had to pitch to McCall, the fastest man in the
league; to Ashwell, the best bunter; to Stringer, the champion batter.
It was a supreme test for a great pitcher.  There was only one kind of
a ball that McCall was not sure to hit, and that was a high curve, in
close.  Vane threw it with all his power. Carter called it a strike.
Again Vane swung and his arm fairly cracked.  Mac fouled the ball.  The
third was wide.  Slowly, with lifting breast, Vane got ready, whirled
savagely and shot up the ball. McCall struck out.

As the Buffalo players crowed and the audience groaned it was worthy of
note that little McCall showed no temper.  Yet he had failed to grasp a
great opportunity.

"Ash, I couldn't see 'em," he said, as he passed to the bench.  "Speed,
whew! look out for it. He's been savin' up.  Hit quick, an' you'll get
him."

Ashwell bent over the plate and glowered at Vane.

"Pitch!  It's all off!  An' you know it!" he hissed, using Mac's words.

Ashwell, too, was left-handed; he, too, was extremely hard to pitch to;
and if he had a weakness that any of us ever discovered, it was a slow
curve and change of pace.  But I doubted if Vane would dare to use slow
balls to Ash at that critical moment.  I had yet to learn something of
Vane. He gave Ash a slow, wide-sweeping sidewheeler, that curved round
over the plate.  Ash always took a strike, so this did not matter.
Then Vane used his deceptive change of pace, sending up a curve that
just missed Ash's bat as he swung.

"Oh!  A-h-h! hit!" wailed the bleachers.

Vane doubled up like a contortionist, and shot up a lightning-swift
drop that fooled Ash completely.  Again the crowd groaned.  Score tied,
bases full, two out, Stringer at bat!

"It's up to you, String," called Ash, stepping aside.

Stringer did not call out to Vane.  That was not his way.  He stood
tense and alert, bat on his shoulder, his powerful form braced, and he
waited.  The outfielders trotted over toward right field, and the
infielders played deep, calling out warnings and encouragement to the
pitcher. Stringer had no weakness, and Vane knew this. Nevertheless he
did not manifest any uneasiness, and pitched the first ball without any
extra motion.  Carter called it a strike.  I saw Stringer sink down
slightly and grow tenser all over.  I believe that moment was longer
for me than for either the pitcher or the batter.  Vane took his time,
watched the base runners, feinted to throw to catch them, and then
delivered the ball toward the plate with the limit of his power.

Stringer hit the ball.  As long as I live, I will see that glancing low
liner.  Shultz, by a wonderful play in deep center, blocked the ball
and thereby saved it from being a home run.  But when Stringer stopped
on second base, all the runners had scored.

A shrill, shrieking, high-pitched yell!  The bleachers threatened to
destroy the stands and also their throats in one long revel of baseball
madness.

Jones, batting in place of Spears, had gone up and fouled out before
the uproar had subsided.

"Fellers, I reckon I feel easier," said the Rube. It was the only time
I had ever heard him speak to the players at such a stage.

"Only six batters, Rube," called out Spears. "Boys, it's a grand game,
an' it's our'n!"

The Rube had enough that inning to dispose of the lower half of the
Buffalo list without any alarming bids for a run.  And in our half,
Bogart and Mullaney hit vicious ground balls that gave Treadwell and
Wiler opportunities for superb plays.  Carl, likewise, made a beautiful
running catch of Gregg's line fly.  The Bisons were still in the game,
still capable of pulling it out at the last moment.

When Shultz stalked up to the plate I shut my eyes a moment, and so
still was it that the field and stands might have been empty.  Yet,
though I tried, I could not keep my eyes closed.  I opened them to
watch the Rube.  I knew Spears felt the same as I, for he was blowing
like a porpoise and muttering to himself:  "Mebee the Rube won't last
an' I've no one to put in!"

The Rube pitched with heavy, violent effort. He had still enough speed
to be dangerous.  But after the manner of ball players Shultz and the
coachers mocked him.

"Take all you can," called Ellis to Shultz.

Every pitch lessened the Rube's strength and these wise opponents knew
it.  Likewise the Rube himself knew, and never had he shown better head
work than in this inning.  If he were to win, he must be quick.  So he
wasted not a ball.  The first pitch and the second, delivered breast
high and fairly over the plate, beautiful balls to hit, Shultz watched
speed by.  He swung hard on the third and the crippled Ashwell dove for
it in a cloud of dust, got a hand in front of it, but uselessly, for
the hit was safe.  The crowd cheered that splendid effort.

Carl marched to bat, and he swung his club over the plate as if he knew
what to expect.  "Come on, Rube!" he shouted.  Wearily, doggedly, the
Rube whirled, and whipped his arm.  The ball had all his old glancing
speed and it was a strike. The Rube was making a tremendous effort.
Again he got his body in convulsive motion--two strikes!  Shultz had
made no move to run, nor had Carl made any move to hit.  These veterans
were waiting.  The Rube had pitched five strikes--could he last?

"Now, Carl!" yelled Ellis, with startling suddenness, as the Rube
pitched again.

Crack!  Carl placed that hit as safely through short as if he had
thrown it.  McCall's little legs twinkled as he dashed over the grass.
He had to head off that hit and he ran like a streak.  Down and forward
he pitched, as if in one of his fierce slides, and he got his body in
front of the ball, blocking it, and then he rolled over and over.  But
he jumped up and lined the ball to Bogart, almost catching Shultz at
third-base.  Then, as Mac tried to walk, his lame leg buckled under
him, and down he went, and out.

"Call time," I called to Carter.  "McCall is done....  Myers, you go
to left an' for Lord's sake play ball!"

Stringer and Bogart hurried to Mac and, lifting him up and supporting
him between them with his arms around their shoulders, they led him off
amid cheers from the stands.  Mac was white with pain.

"Naw, I won't go off the field.  Leave me on the bench," he said.
"Fight 'em now.  It's our game.  Never mind a couple of runs."

The boys ran back to their positions and Carter called play.  Perhaps a
little delay had been helpful to the Rube.  Slowly he stepped into the
box and watched Shultz at third and Carl at second. There was not much
probability of his throwing to catch them off the base, but enough of a
possibility to make them careful, so he held them close.

The Rube pitched a strike to Manning, then another.  That made eight
strikes square over the plate that inning.  What magnificent control!
It was equaled by the implacable patience of those veteran Bisons.
Manning hit the next ball as hard as Carl had hit his.  But Mullaney
plunged down, came up with the ball, feinted to fool Carl, then let
drive to Gregg to catch the fleeting Shultz. The throw went wide, but
Gregg got it, and, leaping lengthwise, tagged Shultz out a yard from
the plate.

One out.  Two runners on bases.  The bleachers rose and split their
throats.  Would the inning never end?

Spears kept telling himself:  "They'll score, but we'll win.  It's our
game!"

I had a sickening fear that the strange confidence that obsessed the
Worcester players had been blind, unreasoning vanity.

"Carl will steal," muttered Spears.  "He can't be stopped."

Spears had called the play.  The Rube tried to hold the little
base-stealer close to second, but, after one attempt, wisely turned to
his hard task of making the Bisons hit and hit quickly.  Ellis let the
ball pass; Gregg made a perfect throw to third; Bogart caught the ball
and moved like a flash, but Carl slid under his hands to the bag.
Manning ran down to second.  The Rube pitched again, and this was his
tenth ball over the plate. Even the Buffalo players evinced eloquent
appreciation of the Rube's defence at this last stand.

Then Ellis sent a clean hit to right, scoring both Carl and Manning.  I
breathed easier, for it seemed with those two runners in, the Rube had
a better chance.  Treadwell also took those two runners in, the Rube
had a way those Bisons waited.  They had their reward, for the Rube's
speed left him.  When he pitched again the ball had control, but no
shoot.  Treadwell hit it with all his strength.  Like a huge cat
Ashwell pounced upon it, ran over second base, forcing Ellis, and his
speedy snap to first almost caught Treadwell.

Score 8 to 7.  Two out.  Runner on first.  One run to tie.

In my hazy, dimmed vision I saw the Rube's pennant waving from the
flag-pole.

"It's our game!" howled Spears in my ear, for the noise from the stands
was deafening. "It's our pennant!"

The formidable batting strength of the Bisons had been met, not without
disaster, but without defeat.  McKnight came up for Buffalo and the
Rube took his weary swing.  The batter made a terrific lunge and hit
the ball with a solid crack It lined for center.

Suddenly electrified into action, I leaped up. That hit!  It froze me
with horror.  It was a home-run.  I saw Stringer fly toward left
center. He ran like something wild.  I saw the heavy Treadwell
lumbering round the bases.  I saw Ashwell run out into center field.

"Ah-h!"  The whole audience relieved its terror in that expulsion of
suspended breath. Stringer had leaped high to knock down the ball,
saving a sure home-run and the game.  He recovered himself, dashed back
for the ball and shot it to Ash.

When Ash turned toward the plate, Treadwell was rounding third base.  A
tie score appeared inevitable.  I saw Ash's arm whip and the ball shoot
forward, leveled, glancing, beautiful in its flight.  The crowd saw it,
and the silence broke to a yell that rose and rose as the ball sped in.
That yell swelled to a splitting shriek, and Treadwell slid in the
dust, and the ball shot into Gregg's hands all at the same instant.

Carter waved both arms upwards.  It was the umpire's action when his
decision went against the base-runner.  The audience rolled up one
great stentorian cry.

"Out!"

I collapsed and sank back upon the bench.  My confused senses received
a dull roar of pounding feet and dinning voices as the herald of
victory. I felt myself thinking how pleased Milly would be. I had a
distinct picture in my mind of a white cottage on a hill, no longer a
dream, but a reality, made possible for me by the Rube's winning of the
pennant.



THE RUBE'S HONEYMOON

"He's got a new manager.  Watch him pitch now!"  That was what Nan
Brown said to me about Rube Hurtle, my great pitcher, and I took it as
her way of announcing her engagement.

My baseball career held some proud moments, but this one, wherein I
realized the success of my matchmaking plans, was certainly the
proudest one.  So, entirely outside of the honest pleasure I got out of
the Rube's happiness, there was reason for me to congratulate myself.
He was a transformed man, so absolutely renewed, so wild with joy, that
on the strength of it, I decided the pennant for Worcester was a
foregone conclusion, and, sure of the money promised me by the
directors, Milly and I began to make plans for the cottage upon the
hill.

The Rube insisted on pitching Monday's game against the Torontos, and
although poor fielding gave them a couple of runs, they never had a
chance.  They could not see the ball.  The Rube wrapped it around their
necks and between their wrists and straight over the plate with such
incredible speed that they might just as well have tried to bat rifle
bullets.

That night I was happy.  Spears, my veteran captain, was one huge
smile; Radbourne quietly assured me that all was over now but the
shouting; all the boys were happy.

And the Rube was the happiest of all.  At the hotel he burst out with
his exceeding good fortune.  He and Nan were to be married upon the
Fourth of July!

After the noisy congratulations were over and the Rube had gone, Spears
looked at me and I looked at him.

"Con," said he soberly, "we just can't let him get married on the
Fourth."

"Why not?  Sure we can.  We'll help him get married.  I tell you it'll
save the pennant for us. Look how he pitched today!  Nan Brown is our
salvation!"

"See here, Con, you've got softenin' of the brain, too.  Where's your
baseball sense?  We've got a pennant to win.  By July Fourth we'll be
close to the lead again, an' there's that three weeks' trip on the
road, the longest an' hardest of the season.  We've just got to break
even on that trip.  You know what that means.  If the Rube marries
Nan--what are we goin' to do?  We can't leave him behind.  If he takes
Nan with us--why it'll be a honeymoon!  An' half the gang is stuck on
Nan Brown!  An' Nan Brown would flirt in her bridal veil! ...  Why
Con, we're up against a worse proposition than ever."

"Good Heavens! Cap.  You're right," I groaned.  "I never thought of
that.  We've got to postpone the wedding....  How on earth can we?
I've heard her tell Milly that.  She'll never consent to it.  Say,
this'll drive me to drink."

"All I got to say is this, Con.  If the Rube takes his wife on that
trip it's goin' to be an all-fired hummer.  Don't you forget that."

"I'm not likely to.  But, Spears, the point is this--will the Rube win
his games?"

"Figurin' from his work today, I'd gamble he'll never lose another
game.  It ain't that.  I'm thinkin' of what the gang will do to him an'
Nan on the cars an' at the hotels.  Oh! Lord, Con, it ain't possible to
stand for that honeymoon trip! Just think!"

"If the worst comes to the worst, Cap, I don't care for anything but
the games.  If we get in the lead and stay there I'll stand for
anything.... Couldn't the gang be coaxed or bought off to let the
Rube and Nan alone?"

"Not on your life!  There ain't enough love or money on earth to stop
them.  It'll be awful. Mind, I'm not responsible.  Don't you go holdin'
me responsible.  In all my years of baseball I never went on a trip
with a bride in the game. That's new on me, an' I never heard of it.
I'd be bad enough if he wasn't a rube an' if she wasn't a crazy
girl-fan an' a flirt to boot, an' with half the boys in love with her,
but as it is----"

Spears gave up and, gravely shaking his head, he left me.  I spent a
little while in sober reflection, and finally came to the conclusion
that, in my desperate ambition to win the pennant, I would have taken
half a dozen rube pitchers and their baseball-made brides on the trip,
if by so doing I could increase the percentage of games won.
Nevertheless, I wanted to postpone the Rube's wedding if it was
possible, and I went out to see Milly and asked her to help us.  But
for once in her life Milly turned traitor.

"Connie, you don't want to postpone it.  Why, how perfectly lovely! ...
Mrs. Stringer will go on that trip and Mrs. Bogart....  Connie,
I'm going too!"

She actually jumped up and down in glee.  That was the woman in her.
It takes a wedding to get a woman.  I remonstrated and pleaded and
commanded, all to no purpose.  Milly intended to go on that trip to see
the games, and the fun, and the honeymoon.

She coaxed so hard that I yielded.  Thereupon she called up Mrs.
Stringer on the telephone, and of course found that young woman just as
eager as she was.  For my part, I threw anxiety and care to the four
winds, and decided to be as happy as any of them.  The pennant was
mine!  Something kept ringing that in my ears.  With the Rube working
his iron arm for the edification of his proud Nancy Brown, there was
extreme likelihood of divers shut-outs and humiliating defeats for some
Eastern League teams.

How well I calculated became a matter of baseball history during that
last week of June.  We won six straight games, three of which fell to
the Rube's credit.  His opponents scored four runs in the three games,
against the nineteen we made. Upon July 1, Radbourne beat Providence
and Cairns won the second game.  We now had a string of eight
victories.  Sunday we rested, and Monday was the Fourth, with morning
and afternoon games with Buffalo.

Upon the morning of the Fourth, I looked for the Rube at the hotel, but
could not find him.  He did not show up at the grounds when the other
boys did, and I began to worry.  It was the Rube's turn to pitch and we
were neck and neck with Buffalo for first place.  If we won both games
we would go ahead of our rivals.  So I was all on edge, and kept going
to the dressing-room to see if the Rube had arrived.  He came, finally,
when all the boys were dressed, and about to go out for practice.  He
had on a new suit, a tailor-made suit at that, and he looked fine.
There was about him a kind of strange radiance.  He stated simply that
he had arrived late because he had just been married.  Before
congratulations were out of our mouths, he turned to me.

"Con, I want to pitch both games today," he said.

"What!  Say, Whit, Buffalo is on the card today and we are only three
points behind them. If we win both we'll be leading the league once
more.  I don't know about pitching you both games."

"I reckon we'll be in the lead tonight then," he replied, "for I'll win
them both."

I was about to reply when Dave, the ground-keeper, called me to the
door, saying there was a man to see me.  I went out, and there stood
Morrisey, manager of the Chicago American League team.  We knew each
other well and exchanged greetings.

"Con, I dropped off to see you about this new pitcher of yours, the one
they call the Rube.  I want to see him work.  I've heard he's pretty
fast.  How about it?"

"Wait--till you see him pitch," I replied.  I could scarcely get that
much out, for Morrisey's presence meant a great deal and I did not want
to betray my elation.

"Any strings on him?" queried the big league manager, sharply.

"Well, Morrisey, not exactly.  I can give you the first call.  You'll
have to bid high, though. Just wait till you see him work."

"I'm glad to hear that.  My scout was over here watching him pitch and
says he's a wonder."

What luck it was that Morrisey should have come upon this day!  I could
hardly contain myself. Almost I began to spend the money I would get
for selling the Rube to the big league manager. We took seats in the
grand stand, as Morrisey did not want to be seen by any players, and I
stayed there with him until the gong sounded. There was a big
attendance.  I looked all over the stand for Nan, but she was lost in
the gay crowd.  But when I went down to the bench I saw her up in my
private box with Milly.  It took no second glance to see that Nan Brown
was a bride and glorying in the fact.

Then, in the absorption of the game, I became oblivious to Milly and
Nan; the noisy crowd; the giant fire-crackers and the smoke; to the
presence of Morrisey; to all except the Rube and my team and their
opponents.  Fortunately for my hopes, the game opened with
characteristic Worcester dash.  Little McCall doubled, Ashwell drew his
base on four wide pitches, and Stringer drove the ball over the
right-field fence--three runs!

Three runs were enough to win that game.  Of all the exhibitions of
pitching with which the Rube had favored us, this one was the finest.
It was perhaps not so much his marvelous speed and unhittable curves
that made the game one memorable in the annals of pitching; it was his
perfect control in the placing of balls, in the cutting of corners; in
his absolute implacable mastery of the situation.  Buffalo was unable
to find him at all.  The game was swift short, decisive, with the score
5 to 0 in our favor.  But the score did not tell all of the Rube's work
that morning.  He shut out Buffalo without a hit, or a scratch, the
first no-hit, no-run game of the year.  He gave no base on balls; not a
Buffalo player got to first base; only one fly went to the outfield.

For once I forgot Milly after a game, and I hurried to find Morrisey,
and carried him off to have dinner with me.

"Your rube is a wonder, and that's a fact," he said to me several
times.  "Where on earth did you get him?  Connelly, he's my meat.  Do
you understand?  Can you let me have him right now?"

"No, Morrisey, I've got the pennant to win first.  Then I'll sell him."

"How much?  Do you hear?  How much?" Morrisey hammered the table with
his fist and his eyes gleamed.

Carried away as I was by his vehemence, I was yet able to calculate
shrewdly, and I decided to name a very high price, from which I could
come down and still make a splendid deal.

"How much?" demanded Morrisey.

"Five thousand dollars," I replied, and gulped when I got the words out.

Morrisey never batted an eye.

"Waiter, quick, pen and ink and paper!"

Presently my hand, none too firm, was signing my name to a contract
whereby I was to sell my pitcher for five thousand dollars at the close
of the current season.  I never saw a man look so pleased as Morrisey
when he folded that contract and put it in his pocket.  He bade me
good-bye and hurried off to catch a train, and he never knew the Rube
had pitched the great game on his wedding day.

That afternoon before a crowd that had to be roped off the diamond, I
put the Rube against the Bisons.  How well he showed the baseball
knowledge he had assimilated!  He changed his style in that second
game.  He used a slow ball and wide curves and took things easy.  He
made Buffalo hit the ball and when runners got on bases once more let
out his speed and held them down.  He relied upon the players behind
him and they were equal to the occasion.

It was a totally different game from that of the morning, and perhaps
one more suited to the pleasure of the audience.  There was plenty of
hard hitting, sharp fielding and good base running, and the game was
close and exciting up to the eighth, when Mullaney's triple gave us two
runs, and a lead that was not headed.  To the deafening roar of the
bleachers the Rube walked off the field, having pitched Worcester into
first place in the pennant race.

That night the boys planned their first job on the Rube.  We had
ordered a special Pullman for travel to Toronto, and when I got to the
depot in the morning, the Pullman was a white fluttering mass of satin
ribbons.  Also, there was a brass band, and thousands of baseball fans,
and barrels of old foot-gear.  The Rube and Nan arrived in a cab and
were immediately mobbed. The crowd roared, the band played, the engine
whistled, the bell clanged; and the air was full of confetti and
slippers, and showers of rice like hail pattered everywhere.  A
somewhat dishevelled bride and groom boarded the Pullman and
breathlessly hid in a state room.  The train started, and the crowd
gave one last rousing cheer.  Old Spears yelled from the back platform:

"Fellers, an' fans, you needn't worry none about leavin' the Rube an'
his bride to the tender mercies of the gang.  A hundred years from now
people will talk about this honeymoon baseball trip.  Wait till we come
back--an' say, jest to put you wise, no matter what else happens, we're
comin' back in first place!"

It was surely a merry party in that Pullman. The bridal couple emerged
from their hiding place and held a sort of reception in which the Rube
appeared shy and frightened, and Nan resembled a joyous, fluttering
bird in gray.  I did not see if she kissed every man on the team, but
she kissed me as if she had been wanting to do it for ages. Milly
kissed the Rube, and so did the other women, to his infinite
embarrassment.  Nan's effect upon that crowd was most singular.  She
was sweetness and caprice and joy personified.

We settled down presently to something approaching order, and I, for
one, with very keen ears and alert eyes, because I did not want to miss
anything.

"I see the lambs a-gambolin'," observed McCall, in a voice louder than
was necessary to convey his meaning to Mullaney, his partner in the
seat.

"Yes, it do seem as if there was joy aboundin' hereabouts," replied Mul
with fervor.

"It's more spring-time than summer," said Ashwell, "an' everything in
nature is runnin' in pairs.  There are the sheep an' the cattle an' the
birds.  I see two kingfishers fishin' over here. An' there's a couple
of honey-bees makin' honey. Oh, honey, an' by George, if there ain't
two butterflies foldin' their wings round each other.  See the
dandelions kissin' in the field!"

Then the staid Captain Spears spoke up with an appearance of sincerity
and a tone that was nothing short of remarkable.

"Reggie, see the sunshine asleep upon yon bank.  Ain't it lovely?  An'
that white cloud sailin' thither amid the blue--how spontaneous! Joy is
a-broad o'er all this boo-tiful land today--Oh, yes!  An' love's wings
hover o 'er the little lambs an' the bullfrogs in the pond an' the
dicky birds in the trees.  What sweetness to lie in the grass, the lap
of bounteous earth, eatin' apples in the Garden of Eden, an' chasin'
away the snakes an' dreamin' of Thee, Sweet-h-e-a-r-t----"

Spears was singing when he got so far and there was no telling what he
might have done if Mullaney, unable to stand the agony, had not jabbed
a pin in him.  But that only made way for the efforts of the other
boys, each of whom tried to outdo the other in poking fun at the Rube
and Nan.  The big pitcher was too gloriously happy to note much of what
went on around him, but when it dawned upon him he grew red and white
by turns.

Nan, however, was more than equal to the occasion.  Presently she
smiled at Spears, such a smile!  The captain looked as if he had just
partaken of an intoxicating wine.  With a heightened color in her
cheeks and a dangerous flash in her roguish eyes, Nan favored McCall
with a look, which was as much as to say that she remembered him with a
dear sadness.  She made eyes at every fellow in the car, and then
bringing back her gaze to the Rube, as if glorying in comparison, she
nestled her curly black head on his shoulder.  He gently tried to move
her; but it was not possible. Nan knew how to meet the ridicule of half
a dozen old lovers.  One by one they buried themselves in newspapers,
and finally McCall, for once utterly beaten, showed a white feather,
and sank back out of sight behind his seat.

The boys did not recover from that shock until late in the afternoon.
As it was a physical impossibility for Nan to rest her head all day
upon her husband's broad shoulder, the boys toward dinner time came out
of their jealous trance.  I heard them plotting something.  When dinner
was called, about half of my party, including the bride and groom, went
at once into the dining-car. Time there flew by swiftly.  And later,
when we were once more in our Pullman, and I had gotten interested in a
game of cards with Milly and Stringer and his wife, the Rube came
marching up to me with a very red face.

"Con, I reckon some of the boys have stolen my--our grips," said he.

"What?" I asked, blankly.

He explained that during his absence in the dining-car someone had
entered his stateroom and stolen his grip and Nan's.  I hastened at
once to aid the Rube in his search.  The boys swore by everything under
and beyond the sun they had not seen the grips; they appeared very much
grieved at the loss and pretended to help in searching the Pullman.  At
last, with the assistance of a porter, we discovered the missing grips
in an upper berth.  The Rube carried them off to his stateroom and we
knew soon from his uncomplimentary remarks that the contents of the
suitcases had been mixed and manhandled.  But he did not hunt for the
jokers.

We arrived at Toronto before daylight next morning, and remained in the
Pullman until seven o'clock.  When we got out, it was discovered that
the Rube and Nan had stolen a march upon us. We traced them to the
hotel, and found them at breakfast.  After breakfast we formed a merry
sight-seeing party and rode all over the city.

That afternoon, when Raddy let Toronto down with three hits and the
boys played a magnificent game behind him, and we won 7 to 2, I knew at
last and for certain that the Worcester team had come into its own
again.  Then next day Cairns won a close, exciting game, and following
that, on the third day, the matchless Rube toyed with the Torontos.
Eleven straight games won!  I was in the clouds, and never had I seen
so beautiful a light as shone in Milly's eyes.

From that day The Honeymoon Trip of the Worcester Baseball Club, as the
newspapers heralded it--was a triumphant march.  We won two out of
three games at Montreal, broke even with the hard-fighting Bisons, took
three straight from Rochester, and won one and tied one out of three
with Hartford.  It would have been wonderful ball playing for a team to
play on home grounds and we were doing the full circuit of the league.

Spears had called the turn when he said the trip would be a hummer.
Nan Hurtle had brought us wonderful luck.

But the tricks they played on Whit and his girl-fan bride!

Ashwell, who was a capital actor, disguised himself as a conductor and
pretended to try to eject Whit and Nan from the train, urging that
love-making was not permitted.  Some of the team hired a clever young
woman to hunt the Rube up at the hotel, and claim old acquaintance with
him.  Poor Whit almost collapsed when the young woman threw her arms
about his neck just as Nan entered the parlor.  Upon the instant Nan
became wild as a little tigress, and it took much explanation and
eloquence to reinstate Whit in her affections.

Another time Spears, the wily old fox, succeeded in detaining Nan on
the way to the station, and the two missed the train.  At first the
Rube laughed with the others, but when Stringer remarked that he had
noticed a growing attachment between Nan and Spears, my great pitcher
experienced the first pangs of the green-eyed monster.  We had to hold
him to keep him from jumping from the train, and it took Milly and Mrs.
Stringer to soothe him.  I had to wire back to Rochester for a special
train for Spears and Nan, and even then we had to play half a game
without the services of our captain.

So far upon our trip I had been fortunate in securing comfortable rooms
and the best of transportation for my party.  At Hartford, however, I
encountered difficulties.  I could not get a special Pullman, and the
sleeper we entered already had a number of occupants.  After the ladies
of my party had been assigned to berths, it was necessary for some of
the boys to sleep double in upper berths.

It was late when we got aboard, the berths were already made up, and
soon we had all retired. In the morning very early I was awakened by a
disturbance.  It sounded like a squeal.  I heard an astonished
exclamation, another squeal, the pattering of little feet, then hoarse
uproar of laughter from the ball players in the upper berths. Following
that came low, excited conversation between the porter and somebody,
then an angry snort from the Rube and the thud of his heavy feet in the
aisle.  What took place after that was guess-work for me.  But I
gathered from the roars and bawls that the Rube was after some of the
boys.  I poked my head between the curtains and saw him digging into
the berths.

"Where's McCall?" he yelled.

Mac was nowhere in that sleeper, judging from the vehement denials.
But the Rube kept on digging and prodding in the upper berths.

"I'm a-goin' to lick you, Mac, so I reckon you'd better show up,"
shouted the Rube.

The big fellow was mad as a hornet.  When he got to me he grasped me
with his great fence-rail splitting hands and I cried out with pain.

"Say!  Whit, let up!  Mac's not here.... What's wrong?"

"I'll show you when I find him."  And the Rube stalked on down the
aisle, a tragically comic figure in his pajamas.  In his search for Mac
he pried into several upper berths that contained occupants who were
not ball players, and these protested in affright.  Then the Rube began
to investigate the lower berths.  A row of heads protruded in a bobbing
line from between the curtains of the upper berths.

"Here, you Indian!  Don't you look in there! That's my wife's berth!"
yelled Stringer.

Bogart, too, evinced great excitement.

"Hurtle, keep out of lower eight or I'll kill you," he shouted.

What the Rube might have done there was no telling, but as he grasped a
curtain, he was interrupted by a shriek from some woman assuredly not
of our party.

"Get out! you horrid wretch!  Help!  Porter! Help!  Conductor!"

Instantly there was a deafening tumult in the car.  When it had
subsided somewhat, and I considered I would be safe, I descended from
my berth and made my way to the dressing room. Sprawled over the
leather seat was the Rube pommelling McCall with hearty good will.  I
would have interfered, had it not been for Mac's demeanor.  He was half
frightened, half angry, and utterly unable to defend himself or even
resist, because he was laughing, too.

"Dog-gone it!  Whit--I didn't--do it!  I swear it was Spears!  Stop
thumpin' me now--or I'll get sore....  You hear me!  It wasn't me, I
tell you.  Cheese it!"

For all his protesting Mac received a good thumping, and I doubted not
in the least that he deserved it.  The wonder of the affair, however,
was the fact that no one appeared to know what had made the Rube so
furious.  The porter would not tell, and Mac was strangely reticent,
though his smile was one to make a fellow exceedingly sure something
out of the ordinary had befallen. It was not until I was having
breakfast in Providence that I learned the true cause of Rube's
conduct, and Milly confided it to me, insisting on strict confidence.

"I promised not to tell," she said.  "Now you promise you'll never
tell."

"Well, Connie," went on Milly, when I had promised, "it was the
funniest thing yet, but it was horrid of McCall.  You see, the Rube had
upper seven and Nan had lower seven.  Early this morning, about
daylight, Nan awoke very thirsty and got up to get a drink.  During her
absence, probably, but any way some time last night, McCall changed the
number on her curtain, and when Nan came back to number seven of course
she almost got in the wrong berth."

"No wonder the Rube punched him!" I declared. "I wish we were safe
home.  Something'll happen yet on this trip."

I was faithful to my promise to Milly, but the secret leaked out
somewhere; perhaps Mac told it, and before the game that day all the
players knew it.  The Rube, having recovered his good humor, minded it
not in the least.  He could not have felt ill-will for any length of
time.  Everything seemed to get back into smooth running order, and the
Honeymoon Trip bade fair to wind up beautifully.

But, somehow or other, and about something unknown to the rest of us,
the Rube and Nan quarreled.  It was their first quarrel.  Milly and I
tried to patch it up but failed.

We lost the first game to Providence and won the second.  The next day,
a Saturday, was the last game of the trip, and it was Rube's turn to
pitch.  Several times during the first two days the Rube and Nan about
half made up their quarrel, only in the end to fall deeper into it.
Then the last straw came in a foolish move on the part of wilful Nan.
She happened to meet Henderson, her former admirer, and in a flash she
took up her flirtation with him where she had left off.

"Don't go to the game with him, Nan," I pleaded.  "It's a silly thing
for you to do.  Of course you don't mean anything, except to torment
Whit.  But cut it out.  The gang will make him miserable and we'll lose
the game.  There's no telling what might happen."

"I'm supremely indifferent to what happens," she replied, with a
rebellious toss of her black head.  "I hope Whit gets beaten."

She went to the game with Henderson and sat in the grand stand, and the
boys spied them out and told the Rube.  He did not believe it at first,
but finally saw them, looked deeply hurt and offended, and then grew
angry.  But the gong, sounding at that moment, drew his attention to
his business of the day, to pitch.

His work that day reminded me of the first game he ever pitched for me,
upon which occasion Captain Spears got the best out of him by making
him angry.  For several innings Providence was helpless before his
delivery.  Then something happened that showed me a crisis was near.  A
wag of a fan yelled from the bleachers.

"Honeymoon Rube!"

This cry was taken up by the delighted fans and it rolled around the
field.  But the Rube pitched on, harder than ever.  Then the knowing
bleacherite who had started the cry changed it somewhat.

"Nanny's Rube!" he yelled.

This, too, went the rounds, and still the Rube, though red in the face,
preserved his temper and his pitching control.  All would have been
well if Bud Wiler, comedian of the Providence team, had not hit upon a
way to rattle Rube.

"Nanny's Goat!" he shouted from the coaching lines.  Every Providence
player took it up.

The Rube was not proof against that.  He yelled so fiercely at them,
and glared so furiously, and towered so formidably, that they ceased
for the moment.  Then he let drive with his fast straight ball and hit
the first Providence batter in the ribs.  His comrades had to help him
to the bench.  The Rube hit the next batter on the leg, and judging
from the crack of the ball, I fancied that player would walk lame for
several days. The Rube tried to hit the next batter and sent him to
first on balls.  Thereafter it became a dodging contest with honors
about equal between pitcher and batters.  The Providence players
stormed and the bleachers roared.  But I would not take the Rube out
and the game went on with the Rube forcing in runs.

With the score a tie, and three men on bases one of the players on the
bench again yelled "Nanny's Goat!"

Straight as a string the Rube shot the ball at this fellow and bounded
after it.  The crowd rose in an uproar.  The base runners began to
score. I left my bench and ran across the space, but not in time to
catch the Rube.  I saw him hit two or three of the Providence men.
Then the policemen got to him, and a real fight brought the big
audience into the stamping melee.  Before the Rube was collared I saw
at least four blue-coats on the grass.

The game broke up, and the crowd spilled itself in streams over the
field.  Excitement ran high.  I tried to force my way into the mass to
get at the Rube and the officers, but this was impossible.  I feared
the Rube would be taken from the officers and treated with violence, so
I waited with the surging crowd, endeavoring to get nearer.  Soon we
were in the street, and it seemed as if all the stands had emptied
their yelling occupants.

A trolley car came along down the street, splitting the mass of people
and driving them back. A dozen policemen summarily bundled the Rube
upon the rear end of the car.  Some of these officers boarded the car,
and some remained in the street to beat off the vengeful fans.

I saw some one thrust forward a frantic young woman.  The officers
stopped her, then suddenly helped her on the car, just as I started.  I
recognized Nan.  She gripped the Rube with both hands and turned a
white, fearful face upon the angry crowd.

The Rube stood in the grasp of his wife and the policemen, and he
looked like a ruffled lion. He shook his big fist and bawled in
far-reaching voice:

"I can lick you all!"

To my infinite relief, the trolley gathered momentum and safely passed
out of danger.  The last thing I made out was Nan pressing close to the
Rube's side.  That moment saw their reconciliation and my joy that it
was the end of the Rube's Honeymoon.



THE RUBE'S WATERLOO

It was about the sixth inning that I suspected the Rube of weakening.
For that matter he had not pitched anything resembling his usual brand
of baseball.  But the Rube had developed into such a wonder in the box
that it took time for his let-down to dawn upon me.  Also it took a tip
from Raddy, who sat with me on the bench.

"Con, the Rube isn't himself today," said Radbourne.  "His mind's not
on the game.  He seems hurried and flustered, too.  If he doesn't
explode presently, I'm a dub at callin' the turn."

Raddy was the best judge of a pitcher's condition, physical or mental,
in the Eastern League. It was a Saturday and we were on the road and
finishing up a series with the Rochesters.  Each team had won and lost
a game, and, as I was climbing close to the leaders in the pennant
race, I wanted the third and deciding game of that Rochester series.
The usual big Saturday crowd was in attendance, noisy, demonstrative
and exacting.

In this sixth inning the first man up for Rochester had flied to
McCall.  Then had come the two plays significant of Rube's weakening.
He had hit one batter and walked another.  This was sufficient,
considering the score was three to one in our favor, to bring the
audience to its feet with a howling, stamping demand for runs.

"Spears is wise all right," said Raddy.

I watched the foxy old captain walk over to the Rube and talk to him
while he rested, a reassuring hand on the pitcher's shoulder.  The
crowd yelled its disapproval and Umpire Bates called out sharply:

"Spears, get back to the bag!"

"Now, Mister Umpire, ain't I hurrin' all I can?" queried Spears as he
leisurely ambled back to first.

The Rube tossed a long, damp welt of hair back from his big brow and
nervously toed the rubber. I noted that he seemed to forget the runners
on bases and delivered the ball without glancing at either bag.  Of
course this resulted in a double steal.  The ball went wild--almost a
wild pitch.

"Steady up, old man," called Gregg between the yells of the bleachers.
He held his mitt square over the plate for the Rube to pitch to.  Again
the long twirler took his swing, and again the ball went wild.  Clancy
had the Rube in the hole now and the situation began to grow serious.
The Rube did not take half his usual deliberation, and of the next two
pitches one of them was a ball and the other a strike by grace of the
umpire's generosity.  Clancy rapped the next one, an absurdly slow
pitch for the Rube to use, and both runners scored to the shrill tune
of the happy bleachers.

I saw Spears shake his head and look toward the bench.  It was plain
what that meant.

"Raddy, I ought to take the Rube out," I said, "but whom can I put in?
You worked yesterday--Cairns' arm is sore.  It's got to be nursed. And
Henderson, that ladies' man I just signed, is not in uniform."

"I'll go in," replied Raddy, instantly.

"Not on your life."  I had as hard a time keeping Radbourne from
overworking as I had in getting enough work out of some other players.
"I guess I'll let the Rube take his medicine.  I hate to lose this
game, but if we have to, we can stand it.  I'm curious, anyway, to see
what's the matter with the Rube.  Maybe he'll settle down presently."

I made no sign that I had noticed Spears' appeal to the bench.  And my
aggressive players, no doubt seeing the situation as I saw it, sang out
their various calls of cheer to the Rube and of defiance to their
antagonists.  Clancy stole off first base so far that the Rube,
catching somebody's warning too late, made a balk and the umpire sent
the runner on to second.  The Rube now plainly showed painful evidences
of being rattled.

He could not locate the plate without slowing up and when he did that a
Rochester player walloped the ball.  Pretty soon he pitched as if he
did not care, and but for the fast fielding of the team behind him the
Rochesters would have scored more than the eight runs it got.  When the
Rube came in to the bench I asked him if he was sick and at first he
said he was and then that he was not.  So I let him pitch the remaining
innings, as the game was lost anyhow, and we walked off the field a
badly beaten team.

That night we had to hurry from the hotel to catch a train for
Worcester and we had dinner in the dining-car.  Several of my players'
wives had come over from Worcester to meet us, and were in the
dining-car when I entered.  I observed a pretty girl sitting at one of
the tables with my new pitcher, Henderson.

"Say, Mac," I said to McCall, who was with me, "is Henderson married?"

"Naw, but he looks like he wanted to be.  He was in the grand stand
today with that girl."

"Who is she?  Oh! a little peach!"

A second glance at Henderson's companion brought this compliment from
me involuntarily.

"Con, you'll get it as bad as the rest of this mushy bunch of ball
players.  We're all stuck on that kid.  But since Henderson came she's
been a frost to all of us.  An' it's put the Rube in the dumps."

"Who's the girl?"

"That's Nan Brown.  She lives in Worcester an' is the craziest girl fan
I ever seen.  Flirt! Well, she's got them all beat.  Somebody
introduced the Rube to her.  He has been mooney ever since."

That was enough to whet my curiosity, and I favored Miss Brown with
more than one glance during dinner.  When we returned to the parlor car
I took advantage of the opportunity and remarked to Henderson that he
might introduce his manager.  He complied, but not with amiable grace.

So I chatted with Nan Brown, and studied her. She was a pretty,
laughing, coquettish little minx and quite baseball mad.  I had met
many girl fans, but none so enthusiastic as Nan.  But she was wholesome
and sincere, and I liked her.

Before turning in I sat down beside the Rube. He was very quiet and his
face did not encourage company.  But that did not stop me.

"Hello, Whit; have a smoke before you go to bed?" I asked cheerfully.

He scarcely heard me and made no move to take the proffered cigar.  All
at once it struck me that the rustic simplicity which had characterized
him had vanished.

"Whit, old fellow, what was wrong today?" I asked, quietly, with my
hand on his arm.

"Mr. Connelly, I want my release, I want to go back to Rickettsville,"
he replied hurriedly.

For the space of a few seconds I did some tall thinking.  The situation
suddenly became grave. I saw the pennant for the Worcesters fading,
dimming.

"You want to go home?" I began slowly. "Why, Whit, I can't keep you.  I
wouldn't try if you didn't want to stay.  But I'll tell you
confidentially, if you leave me at this stage I'm ruined."

"How's that?" he inquired, keenly looking at me.

"Well, I can't win the pennant without you.  If I do win it there's a
big bonus for me.  I can buy the house I want and get married this fall
if I capture the flag.  You've met Milly.  You can imagine what your
pitching means to me this year.  That's all."

He averted his face and looked out of the window. His big jaw quivered.

"If it's that--why, I'll stay, I reckon," he said huskily.

That moment bound Whit Hurtle and Frank Connelly into a far closer
relation than the one between player and manager.  I sat silent for a
while, listening to the drowsy talk of the other players and the rush
and roar of the train as it sped on into the night.

"Thank you, old chap," I replied.  "It wouldn't have been like you to
throw me down at this stage.  Whit, you're in trouble?"

"Yes."

"Can I help you--in any way?"'

"I reckon not."

"Don't be too sure of that.  I'm a pretty wise guy, if I do say it
myself.  I might be able to do as much for you as you're going to do
for me."

The sight of his face convinced me that I had taken a wrong tack.  It
also showed me how deep Whit's trouble really was.  I bade him good
night and went to my berth, where sleep did not soon visit me.  A
saucy, sparkling-eyed woman barred Whit Hurtle's baseball career at its
threshold.

Women are just as fatal to ball players as to men in any other walk of
life.  I had seen a strong athlete grow palsied just at a scornful
slight.  It's a great world, and the women run it.  So I lay awake
racking my brains to outwit a pretty disorganizer; and I plotted for
her sake.  Married, she would be out of mischief.  For Whit's sake, for
Milly's sake, for mine, all of which collectively meant for the sake of
the pennant, this would be the solution of the problem.

I decided to take Milly into my confidence, and finally on the strength
of that I got to sleep.  In the morning I went to my hotel, had
breakfast, attended to my mail, and then boarded a car to go out to
Milly's house.  She was waiting for me on the porch, dressed as I liked
to see her, in blue and white, and she wore violets that matched the
color of her eyes.

"Hello, Connie.  I haven't seen a morning paper, but I know from your
face that you lost the Rochester series," said Milly, with a gay laugh.

"I guess yes.  The Rube blew up, and if we don't play a pretty smooth
game, young lady, he'll never come down."

Then I told her.

"Why, Connie, I knew long ago.  Haven't you seen the change in him
before this?"

"What change?" I asked blankly.

"You are a man.  Well, he was a gawky, slouchy, shy farmer boy when he
came to us.  Of course the city life and popularity began to influence
him.  Then he met Nan.  She made the Rube a worshipper.  I first
noticed a change in his clothes.  He blossomed out in a new suit, white
negligee, neat tie and a stylish straw hat. Then it was evident he was
making heroic struggles to overcome his awkwardness.  It was plain he
was studying and copying the other boys. He's wonderfully improved, but
still shy.  He'll always be shy.  Connie, Whit's a fine fellow, too
good for Nan Brown."

"But, Milly," I interrupted, "the Rube's hard hit.  Why is he too good
for her?"

"Nan is a natural-born flirt," Milly replied. "She can't help it.  I'm
afraid Whit has a slim chance.  Nan may not see deep enough to learn
his fine qualities.  I fancy Nan tired quickly of him, though the one
time I saw them together she appeared to like him very well.  This new
pitcher of yours, Henderson, is a handsome fellow and smooth.  Whit is
losing to him.  Nan likes flash, flattery, excitement."

"McCall told me the Rube had been down in the mouth ever since
Henderson joined the team. Milly, I don't like Henderson a whole lot.
He's not in the Rube's class as a pitcher.  What am I going to do?
Lose the pennant and a big slice of purse money just for a pretty
little flirt?"

"Oh, Connie, it's not so bad as that.  Whit will come around all right."

"He won't unless we can pull some wires.  I've got to help him win Nan
Brown.  What do you think of that for a manager's job?  I guess maybe
winning pennants doesn't call for diplomatic genius and cunning!  But
I'll hand them a few tricks before I lose.  My first move will be to
give Henderson his release."

I left Milly, as always, once more able to make light of
discouragements and difficulties.

Monday I gave Henderson his unconditional release.  He celebrated the
occasion by verifying certain rumors I had heard from other managers.
He got drunk.  But he did not leave town, and I heard that he was
negotiating with Providence for a place on that team.

Radbourne pitched one of his gilt-edged games that afternoon against
Hartford and we won. And Milly sat in the grand stand, having contrived
by cleverness to get a seat next to Nan Brown.  Milly and I were
playing a vastly deeper game than baseball--a game with hearts.  But we
were playing it with honest motive, for the good of all concerned, we
believed, and on the square. I sneaked a look now and then up into the
grand stand.  Milly and Nan appeared to be getting on famously.  It was
certain that Nan was flushed and excited, no doubt consciously proud of
being seen with my affianced.  After the game I chanced to meet them on
their way out.  Milly winked at me, which was her sign that all was
working beautifully.

I hunted up the Rube and bundled him off to the hotel to take dinner
with me.  At first he was glum, but after a while he brightened up
somewhat to my persistent cheer and friendliness. Then we went out on
the hotel balcony to smoke, and there I made my play.

"Whit, I'm pulling a stroke for you.  Now listen and don't be offended.
I know what's put you off your feed, because I was the same way when
Milly had me guessing.  You've lost your head over Nan Brown.  That's
not so terrible, though I daresay you think it's a catastrophe.
Because you've quit.  You've shown a yellow streak. You've lain down.

"My boy, that isn't the way to win a girl. You've got to scrap.  Milly
told me yesterday how she had watched your love affairs with Nan, and
how she thought you had given up just when things might have come your
way.  Nan is a little flirt, but she's all right.  What's more, she was
getting fond of you.  Nan is meanest to the man she likes best.  The
way to handle her, Whit, is to master her.  Play high and mighty.  Get
tragical.  Then grab her up in your arms.  I tell you, Whit, it'll all
come your way if you only keep your nerve.  I'm your friend and so is
Milly. We're going out to her house presently--and Nan will be there."

The Rube drew a long, deep breath and held out his hand.  I sensed
another stage in the evolution of Whit Hurtle.

"I reckon I've taken baseball coachin'," he said presently, "an' I
don't see why I can't take some other kind.  I'm only a rube, an'
things come hard for me, but I'm a-learnin'."

It was about dark when we arrived at the house.

"Hello, Connie.  You're late.  Good evening, Mr. Hurtle.  Come right
in.  You've met Miss Nan Brown?  Oh, of course; how stupid of me!"

It was a trying moment for Milly and me.  A little pallor showed under
the Rube's tan, but he was more composed than I had expected.  Nan got
up from the piano.  She was all in white and deliciously pretty.  She
gave a quick, glad start of surprise.  What a relief that was to my
troubled mind!  Everything had depended upon a real honest liking for
Whit, and she had it.

More than once I had been proud of Milly's cleverness, but this night
as hostess and an accomplice she won my everlasting admiration. She
contrived to give the impression that Whit was a frequent visitor at
her home and very welcome.  She brought out his best points, and in her
skillful hands he lost embarrassment and awkwardness. Before the
evening was over Nan regarded Whit with different eyes, and she never
dreamed that everything had not come about naturally.  Then Milly
somehow got me out on the porch, leaving Nan and Whit together.

"Milly, you're a marvel, the best and sweetest ever," I whispered.
"We're going to win.  It's a cinch."

"Well, Connie, not that--exactly," she whispered back demurely.  "But
it looks hopeful."

I could not help hearing what was said in the parlor.

"Now I can roast you," Nan was saying, archly. She had switched back to
her favorite baseball vernacular.  "You pitched a swell game last
Saturday in Rochester, didn't you?  Not!  You had no steam, no control,
and you couldn't have curved a saucer."

"Nan, what could you expect?" was the cool reply.  "You sat up in the
stand with your handsome friend.  I reckon I couldn't pitch.  I just
gave the game away."

"Whit!--Whit!----"

Then I whispered to Milly that it might be discreet for us to move a
little way from the vicinity.

It was on the second day afterward that I got a chance to talk to Nan.
She reached the grounds early, before Milly arrived, and I found her in
the grand stand.  The Rube was down on the card to pitch and when he
started to warm up Nan said confidently that he would shut out Hartford
that afternoon.

"I'm sorry, Nan, but you're way off.  We'd do well to win at all, let
alone get a shutout."

"You're a fine manager!" she retorted, hotly. "Why won't we win?"

"Well, the Rube's not in good form.  The Rube----"

"Stop calling him that horrid name."

"Whit's not in shape.  He's not right.  He's ill or something is wrong.
I'm worried sick about him."

"Why--Mr. Connelly!" exclaimed Nan.  She turned quickly toward me.

I crowded on full canvas of gloom to my already long face.

"I'm serious, Nan.  The lad's off, somehow. He's in magnificent
physical trim, but he can't keep his mind on the game.  He has lost his
head. I've talked with him, reasoned with him, all to no good.  He only
goes down deeper in the dumps. Something is terribly wrong with him,
and if he doesn't brace, I'll have to release----"

Miss Nan Brown suddenly lost a little of her rich bloom.  "Oh! you
wouldn't--you couldn't release him!"

"I'll have to if he doesn't brace.  It means a lot to me, Nan, for of
course I can't win the pennant this year without Whit being in shape.
But I believe I wouldn't mind the loss of that any more than to see him
fall down.  The boy is a magnificent pitcher.  If he can only be
brought around he'll go to the big league next year and develop into
one of the greatest pitchers the game has ever produced.  But somehow
or other he has lost heart.  He's quit.  And I've done my best for him.
He's beyond me now.  What a shame it is!  For he's the making of such a
splendid man outside of baseball.  Milly thinks the world of him.
Well, well; there are disappointments--we can't help them.  There goes
the gong.  I must leave you.  Nan, I'll bet you a box of candy Whit
loses today.  Is it a go?"

"It is," replied Nan, with fire in her eyes. "You go to Whit Hurtle and
tell him I said if he wins today's game I'll kiss him!"

I nearly broke my neck over benches and bats getting to Whit with that
message.  He gulped once.

Then he tightened his belt and shut out Hartford with two scratch
singles.  It was a great exhibition of pitching.  I had no means to
tell whether or not the Rube got his reward that night, but I was so
happy that I hugged Milly within an inch of her life.

But it turned out that I had been a little premature in my elation.  In
two days the Rube went down into the depths again, this time clear to
China, and Nan was sitting in the grand stand with Henderson.  The Rube
lost his next game, pitching like a schoolboy scared out of his wits.
Henderson followed Nan like a shadow, so that I had no chance to talk
to her.  The Rube lost his next game and then another.  We were pushed
out of second place.

If we kept up that losing streak a little longer, our hopes for the
pennant were gone.  I had begun to despair of the Rube.  For some
occult reason he scarcely spoke to me.  Nan flirted worse than ever.
It seemed to me she flaunted her conquest of Henderson in poor Whit's
face.

The Providence ball team came to town and promptly signed Henderson and
announced him for Saturday's game.  Cairns won the first of the series
and Radbourne lost the second.  It was Rube's turn to pitch the
Saturday game and I resolved to make one more effort to put the
love-sick swain in something like his old fettle.  So I called upon Nan.

She was surprised to see me, but received me graciously.  I fancied her
face was not quite so glowing as usual.  I came bluntly out with my
mission.  She tried to freeze me but I would not freeze.  I was out to
win or lose and not to be lightly laughed aside or coldly denied.  I
played to make her angry, knowing the real truth of her feelings would
show under stress.

For once in my life I became a knocker and said some unpleasant
things--albeit they were true--about Henderson.  She championed
Henderson royally, and when, as a last card, I compared Whit's fine
record with Henderson's, not only as a ball player, but as a man,
particularly in his reverence for women, she flashed at me:

"What do you know about it?  Mr. Henderson asked me to marry him.  Can
a man do more to show his respect?  Your friend never so much as hinted
such honorable intentions.  What's more--he insulted me!"  The blaze in
Nan's black eyes softened with a film of tears.  She looked hurt.  Her
pride had encountered a fall.

"Oh, no, Nan, Whit couldn't insult a lady," I protested.

"Couldn't he?  That's all you know about him. You know I--I promised to
kiss him if he beat Hartford that day.  So when he came I--I did. Then
the big savage began to rave and he grabbed me up in his arms.  He
smothered me; almost crushed the life out of me.  He frightened me
terribly.  When I got away from him--the monster stood there and coolly
said I belonged to him.  I ran out of the room and wouldn't see him any
more.  At first I might have forgiven him if he had apologized--said he
was sorry, but never a word.  Now I never will forgive him."

I had to make a strenuous effort to conceal my agitation.  The Rube had
most carefully taken my fool advice in the matter of wooing a woman.

When I had got a hold upon myself, I turned to Nan white-hot with
eloquence.  Now I was talking not wholly for myself or the pennant, but
for this boy and girl who were at odds in that strangest game of
life--love.

What I said I never knew, but Nan lost her resentment, and then her
scorn and indifference. Slowly she thawed and warmed to my reason,
praise, whatever it was, and when I stopped she was again the radiant
bewildering Nan of old.

"Take another message to Whit for me," she said, audaciously.  "Tell
him I adore ball players, especially pitchers.  Tell him I'm going to
the game today to choose the best one.  If he loses the game----"

She left the sentence unfinished.  In my state of mind I doubted not in
the least that she meant to marry the pitcher who won the game, and so
I told the Rube.  He made one wild upheaval of his arms and shoulders,
like an erupting volcano, which proved to me that he believed it, too.

When I got to the bench that afternoon I was tired.  There was a big
crowd to see the game; the weather was perfect; Milly sat up in the box
and waved her score card at me; Raddy and Spears declared we had the
game; the Rube stalked to and fro like an implacable Indian chief--but
I was not happy in mind.  Calamity breathed in the very air.

The game began.  McCall beat out a bunt; Ashwell sacrificed and
Stringer laced one of his beautiful triples against the fence.  Then he
scored on a high fly.  Two runs!  Worcester trotted out into the field.
The Rube was white with determination; he had the speed of a bullet and
perfect control of his jump ball and drop.  But Providence hit and had
the luck.  Ashwell fumbled, Gregg threw wild.  Providence tied the
score.

The game progressed, growing more and more of a nightmare to me.  It
was not Worcester's day.  The umpire could not see straight; the boys
grumbled and fought among themselves; Spears roasted the umpire and was
sent to the bench; Bogart tripped, hurting his sore ankle, and had to
be taken out.  Henderson's slow, easy ball baffled my players, and when
he used speed they lined it straight at a Providence fielder.

In the sixth, after a desperate rally, we crowded the bases with only
one out.  Then Mullaney's hard rap to left, seemingly good for three
bases, was pulled down by Stone with one hand.  It was a wonderful
catch and he doubled up a runner at second.  Again in the seventh we
had a chance to score, only to fail on another double play, this time
by the infield.

When the Providence players were at bat their luck not only held good
but trebled and quadrupled.  The little Texas-league hits dropped
safely just out of reach of the infielders.  My boys had an off day in
fielding.  What horror that of all days in a season this should be the
one for them to make errors!

But they were game, and the Rube was the gamest of all.  He did not
seem to know what hard luck was, or discouragement, or poor support. He
kept everlastingly hammering the ball at those lucky Providence
hitters.  What speed he had!  The ball streaked in, and somebody would
shut his eyes and make a safety.  But the Rube pitched, on, tireless,
irresistibly, hopeful, not forgetting to call a word of cheer to his
fielders.

It was one of those strange games that could not be bettered by any
labor or daring or skill. I saw it was lost from the second inning, yet
so deeply was I concerned, so tantalizingly did the plays reel
themselves off, that I groveled there on the bench unable to abide by
my baseball sense.

The ninth inning proved beyond a shadow of doubt how baseball fate, in
common with other fates, loved to balance the chances, to lift up one,
then the other, to lend a deceitful hope only to dash it away.

Providence had almost three times enough to win.  The team let up in
that inning or grew over-confident or careless, and before we knew what
had happened some scratch hits, and bases on balls, and errors, gave us
three runs and left two runners on bases.  The disgusted bleachers came
out of their gloom and began to whistle and thump.  The Rube hit
safely, sending another run over the plate.  McCall worked his old
trick, beating out a slow bunt.

Bases full, three runs to tie!  With Ashwell up and one out, the noise
in the bleachers mounted to a high-pitched, shrill, continuous sound.
I got up and yelled with all my might and could not hear my voice.
Ashwell was a dangerous man in a pinch.  The game was not lost yet.  A
hit, anything to get Ash to first--and then Stringer!

Ash laughed at Henderson, taunted him, shook his bat at him and dared
him to put one over. Henderson did not stand under fire.  The ball he
pitched had no steam.  Ash cracked it--square on the line into the
shortstop's hands.  The bleachers ceased yelling.

Then Stringer strode grimly to the plate.  It was a hundred to one, in
that instance, that he would lose the ball.  The bleachers let out one
deafening roar, then hushed.  I would rather have had Stringer at the
bat than any other player in the world, and I thought of the Rube and
Nan and Milly--and hope would not die.

Stringer swung mightily on the first pitch and struck the ball with a
sharp, solid bing!  It shot toward center, low, level, exceedingly
swift, and like a dark streak went straight into the fielder's hands.
A rod to right or left would have made it a home run.  The crowd
strangled a victorious yell.  I came out of my trance, for the game was
over and lost.  It was the Rube's Waterloo.

I hurried him into the dressing room and kept close to him.  He looked
like a man who had lost the one thing worth while in his life.  I
turned a deaf ear to my players, to everybody, and hustled the Rube out
and to the hotel.  I wanted to be near him that night.

To my amaze we met Milly and Nan as we entered the lobby.  Milly wore a
sweet, sympathetic smile.  Nan shone more radiant than ever. I simply
stared.  It was Milly who got us all through the corridor into the
parlor.  I heard Nan talking.

"Whit, you pitched a bad game but--" there was the old teasing, arch,
coquettishness--"but you are the best pitcher!"

"Nan!"

"Yes!"



BREAKING INTO FAST COMPANY

They may say baseball is the same in the minor leagues that it is in
the big leagues, but any old ball player or manager knows better.
Where the difference comes in, however, is in the greater excellence
and unity of the major players, a speed, a daring, a finish that can be
acquired only in competition with one another.

I thought of this when I led my party into Morrisey's private box in
the grand stand of the Chicago American League grounds.  We had come to
see the Rube's break into fast company. My great pitcher, Whittaker
Hurtle, the Rube, as we called him, had won the Eastern League Pennant
for me that season, and Morrisey, the Chicago magnate, had bought him.
Milly, my affianced, was with me, looking as happy as she was pretty,
and she was chaperoned by her mother, Mrs. Nelson.

With me, also, were two veterans of my team, McCall and Spears, who
lived in Chicago, and who would have traveled a few miles to see the
Rube pitch.  And the other member of my party was Mrs. Hurtle, the
Rube's wife, as saucy and as sparkling-eyed as when she had been Nan
Brown.  Today she wore a new tailor-made gown, new bonnet, new
gloves--she said she had decorated herself in a manner befitting the
wife of a major league pitcher.

Morrisey's box was very comfortable, and, as I was pleased to note, so
situated that we had a fine view of the field and stands, and yet were
comparatively secluded.  The bleachers were filling. Some of the
Chicago players were on the field tossing and batting balls; the Rube,
however, had not yet appeared.

A moment later a metallic sound was heard on the stairs leading up into
the box.  I knew it for baseball spiked shoes clanking on the wood.

The Rube, looking enormous in his uniform, stalked into the box,
knocking over two chairs as he entered.  He carried a fielder's glove
in one huge freckled hand, and a big black bat in the other.

Nan, with much dignity and a very manifest pride, introduced him to
Mrs. Nelson.

There was a little chatting, and then, upon the arrival of Manager
Morrisey, we men retired to the back of the box to talk baseball.

Chicago was in fourth place in the league race, and had a fighting
chance to beat Detroit out for the third position.  Philadelphia was
scheduled for that day, and Philadelphia had a great team. It was
leading the race, and almost beyond all question would land the flag.
In truth, only one more victory was needed to clinch the pennant. The
team had three games to play in Chicago and it was to wind up the
season with three in Washington.  Six games to play and only one
imperatively important to win!  But baseball is uncertain, and until
the Philadelphians won that game they would be a band of fiends.

"Well, Whit, this is where you break in," I said.  "Now, tip us
straight.  You've had more than a week's rest.  How's that arm?"

"Grand, Con, grand!" replied the Rube with his frank smile.  "I was a
little anxious till I warmed up.  But say!  I've got more up my sleeve
today than I ever had."

"That'll do for me," said Morrisey, rubbing his hands.  "I'll spring
something on these swelled Quakers today.  Now, Connelly, give Hurtle
one of your old talks--the last one--and then I'll ring the gong."

I added some words of encouragement, not forgetting my old ruse to
incite the Rube by rousing his temper.  And then, as the gong rang and
the Rube was departing, Nan stepped forward for her say.  There was a
little white under the tan on her cheek, and her eyes had a darkling
flash.

"Whit, it's a magnificent sight--that beautiful green field and the
stands.  What a crowd of fans!  Why, I never saw a real baseball crowd
before.  There are twenty thousand here.  And there's a difference in
the feeling.  It's sharper--new to me.  It's big league baseball.  Not
a soul in that crowd ever heard of you, but, I believe, tomorrow the
whole baseball world will have heard of you.  Mr. Morrisey knows.  I
saw it in his face.  Captain Spears knows.  Connie knows.  I know."

Then she lifted her face and, pulling him down within reach, she kissed
him.  Nan took her husband's work in dead earnest; she gloried in it,
and perhaps she had as much to do with making him a great pitcher as
any of us.

The Rube left the box, and I found a seat between Nan and Milly.  The
field was a splendid sight.  Those bleachers made me glow with
managerial satisfaction.  On the field both teams pranced and danced
and bounced around in practice.

In spite of the absolutely last degree of egotism manifested by the
Philadelphia players, I could not but admire such a splendid body of
men.

"So these are the champions of last season and of this season, too,"
commented Milly.  "I don't wonder.  How swiftly and cleanly they play!
They appear not to exert themselves, yet they always get the ball in
perfect time.  It all reminds me of--of the rhythm of music.  And that
champion batter and runner--that Lane in center--isn't he just
beautiful?  He walks and runs like a blue-ribbon winner at the horse
show.  I tell you one thing, Connie, these Quakers are on dress parade."

"Oh, these Quakers hate themselves, I don't think!" retorted Nan.
Being a rabid girl-fan it was, of course, impossible for Nan to speak
baseball convictions or gossip without characteristic baseball slang.
"Stuck on themselves!  I never saw the like in my life.  That fellow
Lane is so swelled that he can't get down off his toes.  But he's a
wonder, I must admit that.  They're a bunch of stars.  Easy, fast,
trained--they're machines, and I'll bet they're Indians to fight.  I
can see it sticking out all over them.  This will certainly be some
game with Whit handing up that jump ball of his to this gang of champs.
But, Connie, I'll go you Whit beats them."

I laughed and refused to gamble.

The gong rang; the crowd seemed to hum and rustle softly to quiet
attention; Umpire McClung called the names of the batteries; then the
familiar "Play!"

There was the usual applause from the grand stand and welcome cheers
from the bleachers. The Rube was the last player to go out. Morrisey
was a manager who always played to the stands, and no doubt he held the
Rube back for effect.  If so, he ought to have been gratified. That
moment reminded me of my own team and audience upon the occasion of the
Rube's debut. It was the same only here it happened in the big league,
before a championship team and twenty thousand fans.

The roar that went up from the bleachers might well have scared an
unseasoned pitcher out of his wits.  And the Quakers lined up before
their bench and gazed at this newcomer who had the nerve to walk out
there to the box.  Cogswell stood on the coaching line, looked at the
Rube and then held up both arms and turned toward the Chicago bench as
if to ask Morrisey:  "Where did you get that?"

Nan, quick as a flash to catch a point, leaned over the box-rail and
looked at the champions with fire in her eye.  "Oh, you just wait!
wait!" she bit out between her teeth.

Certain it was that there was no one who knew the Rube as well as I;
and I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the hour before me would
see brightening of a great star pitcher on the big league horizon.  It
was bound to be a full hour for me.  I had much reason to be grateful
to Whit Hurtle.  He had pulled my team out of a rut and won me the
pennant, and the five thousand dollars I got for his release bought the
little cottage on the hill for Milly and me.  Then there was my pride
in having developed him.  And all that I needed to calm me, settle me
down into assurance and keen criticism of the game, was to see the Rube
pitch a few balls with his old incomparable speed and control.

Berne, first batter for the Quakers, walked up to the plate.  He was
another Billy Hamilton, built like a wedge.  I saw him laugh at the
long pitcher.

Whit swayed back, coiled and uncoiled.  Something thin, white,
glancing, shot at Berne.  He ducked, escaping the ball by a smaller
margin than appeared good for his confidence.  He spoke low to the
Rube, and what he said was probably not flavored with the milk of
friendly sweetness.

"Wild!  What'd you look for?" called out Cogswell scornfully.  "He's
from the woods!"

The Rube swung his enormously long arm, took an enormous stride toward
third base, and pitched again.  It was one of his queer deliveries.
The ball cut the plate.

"Ho!  Ho!" yelled the Quakers.

The Rube's next one was his out curve.  It broke toward the corner of
the plate and would have been a strike had not Berne popped it up.

Callopy, the second hitter, faced the Rube, and he, too, after the
manner of ball players, made some remark meant only for the Rube's
ears. Callopy was a famous waiter.  He drove more pitchers mad with his
implacable patience than any hitter in the league.  The first one of
the Rube's he waited on crossed the in-corner; the second crossed the
out-corner and the third was Rube's wide, slow, tantalizing
"stitch-ball," as we call it, for the reason that it came so slow a
batter could count the stitches.  I believe Callopy waited on that
curve, decided to hit it, changed his mind and waited some more, and
finally the ball maddened him and he had to poke at it, the result
being a weak grounder.

Then the graceful, powerful Lane, champion batter, champion base
runner, stepped to the plate.  How a baseball crowd, any crowd,
anywhere, loves the champion batter!  The ovation Lane received made me
wonder, with this impressive reception in a hostile camp, what could be
the manner of it on his home field?  Any boy ball-player from the lots
seeing Lane knock the dirt out of his spikes and step into position
would have known he was a 400 hitter.

I was curious to see what the Rube would pitch Lane.  It must have been
a new and significant moment for Hurtle.  Some pitchers actually wilt
when facing a hitter of Lane's reputation.  But he, on his baseball
side, was peculiarly unemotional. Undoubtedly he could get furious, but
that only increased his effectiveness.  To my amazement the Rube
pitched Lane a little easy ball, not in any sense like his floater or
stitch-ball, but just a little toss that any youngster might have
tossed. Of all possible balls, Lane was not expecting such as that, and
he let it go.  If the nerve of it amazed me, what did it not do to
Lane?  I saw his face go fiery red.  The grand stand murmured; let out
one short yelp of pleasure; the Quaker players chaffed Lane.

The pitch was a strike.  I was gripping my chair now, and for the next
pitch I prophesied the Rube's wonderful jump ball, which he had not yet
used.  He swung long, and at the end of his swing seemed to jerk
tensely.  I scarcely saw the ball. It had marvelous speed.  Lane did
not offer to hit it, and it was a strike.  He looked at the Rube, then
at Cogswell.  That veteran appeared amused. The bleachers, happy and
surprised to be able to yell at Lane, yelled heartily.

Again I took it upon myself to interpret the Rube's pitching mind.  He
had another ball that he had not used, a drop, an unhittable drop.  I
thought he would use that next.  He did, and though Lane reached it
with the bat, the hit was a feeble one.  He had been fooled and the
side was out.

Poole, the best of the Quaker's pitching staff, walked out to the slab.
He was a left-hander, and Chicago, having so many players who batted
left-handed, always found a southpaw a hard nut to crack.  Cogswell,
field manager and captain of the Quakers, kicked up the dust around
first base and yelled to his men:  "Git in the game!"

Staats hit Poole's speed ball into deep short and was out; Mitchell
flew out to Berne; Rand grounded to second.

While the teams again changed sides the fans cheered, and then indulged
in the first stretch of the game.  I calculated that they would be
stretching their necks presently, trying to keep track of the Rube's
work.  Nan leaned on the railing absorbed in her own hope and faith.
Milly chattered about this and that, people in the boxes, and the
chances of the game.

My own interest, while it did not wholly preclude the fortunes of the
Chicago players at the bat, was mostly concerned with the Rube's
fortunes in the field.

In the Rube's half inning he retired Bannister and Blandy on feeble
infield grounders, and worked Cogswell into hitting a wide curve high
in the air.

Poole meant to win for the Quakers if his good arm and cunning did not
fail him, and his pitching was masterly.  McCloskey fanned, Hutchinson
fouled out, Brewster got a short safe fly just out of reach, and
Hoffner hit to second, forcing Brewster.

With Dugan up for the Quakers in the third inning, Cogswell and
Bannister, from the coaching lines, began to talk to the Rube.  My
ears, keen from long practice, caught some of the remarks in spite of
the noisy bleachers.

"Say, busher, you 've lasted longer'n we expected, but you don't know
it!"

"Gol darn you city ball tossers!  Now you jest let me alone!"

"We're comin' through the rye!"

"My top-heavy rustic friend, you'll need an airship presently, when you
go up!"

All the badinage was good-natured, which was sure proof that the
Quakers had not arrived at anything like real appreciation of the Rube.
They were accustomed to observe the trying out of many youngsters, of
whom ninety-nine out of a hundred failed to make good.

Dugan chopped at three strikes and slammed his bat down.  Hucker hit a
slow fly to Hoffer. Three men out on five pitched balls!  Cogswell, old
war horse that he was, stood a full moment and watched the Rube as he
walked in to the bench.  An idea had penetrated Cogswell's brain, and I
would have given something to know what it was.  Cogswell was a great
baseball general, and though he had a preference for matured
ball-players he could, when pressed, see the quality in a youngster.
He picked up his mitt and took his position at first with a gruff word
to his players.

Rand for Chicago opened with a hit, and the bleachers, ready to strike
fire, began to cheer and stamp.  When McCloskey, in an attempt to
sacrifice, beat out his bunt the crowd roared.  Rand, being slow on his
feet, had not attempted to make third on the play.  Hutchinson
sacrificed, neatly advancing the runners.  Then the bleachers played
the long rolling drum of clattering feet with shrill whistling
accompaniment.  Brewster batted a wicked ground ball to Blandy.  He
dove into the dust, came up with the ball, and feinting to throw home
he wheeled and shot the ball to Cogswell, who in turn shot it to the
plate to head Rand.  Runner and ball got there apparently together, but
Umpire McClung's decision went against Rand.  It was fine, fast work,
but how the bleachers stormed at McClung!

"Rob-b-ber!"

Again the head of the Quakers' formidable list was up.  I knew from the
way that Cogswell paced the coaching box that the word had gone out to
look the Rube over seriously.  There were possibilities even in rubes.

Berne carefully stepped into the batter's box, as if he wanted to be
certain to the breadth of a hair how close he was to the plate.  He was
there this time to watch the Rube pitch, to work him out, to see what
was what.  He crouched low, and it would have been extremely hard to
guess what he was up to.  His great play, however, was his ability to
dump the ball and beat out the throw to first.  It developed presently,
that this was now his intention and that the Rube knew it and pitched
him the one ball which is almost impossible to bunt--a high incurve,
over the inside corner. There was no mistaking the Rube's magnificent
control.  True as a plumb line he shot up the ball--once, twice, and
Berne fouled both--two strikes.  Grudgingly he waited on the next, but
it, too, was over the corner, and Berne went out on strikes.  The great
crowd did not, of course, grasp the finesse of the play, but Berne had
struck out--that was enough for them.

Callopy, the famous spiker, who had put many a player out of the game
for weeks at a time, strode into the batter's place, and he, too, was
not at the moment making any funny remarks.  The Rube delivered a ball
that all but hit Callopy fair on the head.  It was the second narrow
escape for him, and the roar he let out showed how he resented being
threatened with a little of his own medicine.  As might have been
expected, and very likely as the Rube intended, Callopy hit the next
ball, a sweeping curve, up over the infield.

I was trying to see all the intricate details of the motive and action
on the field, and it was not easy to watch several players at once.
But while Berne and Callopy were having their troubles with the Rube, I
kept the tail of my eye on Cogswell.  He was prowling up and down the
third-base line.

He was missing no signs, no indications, no probabilities, no
possibilities.  But he was in doubt.  Like a hawk he was watching the
Rube, and, as well, the crafty batters.  The inning might not tell the
truth as to the Rube's luck, though it would test his control.  The
Rube's speed and curves, without any head work, would have made him a
pitcher of no mean ability, but was this remarkable placing of balls
just accident?  That was the question.

When Berne walked to the bench I distinctly heard him say:  "Come out
of it, you dubs.  I say you can't work him or wait him.  He's peggin'
'em out of a gun!"

Several of the Quakers were standing out from the bench, all intent on
the Rube.  He had stirred them up.  First it was humor; then ridicule,
curiosity, suspicion, doubt.  And I knew it would grow to wonder and
certainty, then fierce attack from both tongues and bats, and
lastly--for ball players are generous--unstinted admiration.

Somehow, not only the first climaxes of a game but the decisions, the
convictions, the reputations of pitchers and fielders evolve around the
great hitter.  Plain it was that the vast throng of spectators, eager
to believe in a new find, wild to welcome a new star, yet loath to
trust to their own impulsive judgments, held themselves in check until
once more the great Lane had faced the Rube.

The field grew tolerably quiet just then.  The Rube did not exert
himself.  The critical stage had no concern for him.  He pitched Lane a
high curve, over the plate, but in close, a ball meant to be hit and a
ball hard to hit safely.  Lane knew that as well as any hitter in the
world, so he let two of the curves go by--two strikes.  Again the Rube
relentlessly gave him the same ball; and Lane, hitting viciously,
spitefully, because he did not want to hit that kind of a ball, sent up
a fly that Rand easily captured.

"Oh, I don't know!  Pretty fair, I guess!" yelled a tenor-voiced fan;
and he struck the key-note.  And the bleachers rose to their feet and
gave the Rube the rousing cheer of the brotherhood of fans.

Hoffer walked to first on a base on balls. Sweeney advanced him.  The
Rube sent up a giant fly to Callopy.  Then Staats hit safely, scoring
the first run of the game.  Hoffer crossed the plate amid vociferous
applause.  Mitchell ended the inning with a fly to Blandy.

What a change had come over the spirit of that Quaker aggregation!  It
was something to make a man thrill with admiration and, if he happened
to favor Chicago, to fire all his fighting blood. The players poured
upon the Rube a continuous stream of scathing abuse.  They would have
made a raging devil of a mild-mannered clergyman. Some of them were
skilled in caustic wit, most of them were possessed of forked tongues;
and Cogswell, he of a thousand baseball battles, had a genius for
inflaming anyone he tormented.  This was mostly beyond the ken of the
audience, and behind the back of the umpire, but it was perfectly plain
to me.  The Quakers were trying to rattle the Rube, a trick of the game
as fair for one side as for the other.  I sat there tight in my seat,
grimly glorying in the way the Rube refused to be disturbed.  But the
lion in him was rampant. Fortunately, it was his strange gift to pitch
better the angrier he got; and the more the Quakers flayed him, the
more he let himself out to their crushing humiliation.

The innings swiftly passed to the eighth with Chicago failing to score
again, with Philadelphia failing to score at all.  One scratch hit and
a single, gifts to the weak end of the batting list, were all the lank
pitcher allowed them.  Long since the bleachers had crowned the Rube.
He was theirs and they were his; and their voices had the peculiar
strangled hoarseness due to over-exertion. The grand stand, slower to
understand and approve, arrived later; but it got there about the
seventh, and ladies' gloves and men's hats were sacrificed.

In the eighth the Quakers reluctantly yielded their meed of praise,
showing it by a cessation of their savage wordy attacks on the Rube.
It was a kind of sullen respect, wrung from the bosom of great foes.

Then the ninth inning was at hand.  As the sides changed I remembered
to look at the feminine group in our box.  Milly was in a most
beautiful glow of happiness and excitement.  Nan sat rigid, leaning
over the rail, her face white and drawn, and she kept saying in a low
voice: "Will it never end?  Will it never end?"  Mrs. Nelson stared
wearily.

It was the Quakers' last stand.  They faced it as a team that had won
many a game in the ninth with two men out.  Dugan could do nothing with
the Rube's unhittable drop, for a drop curve was his weakness, and he
struck out.  Hucker hit to Hoffer, who fumbled, making the first error
of the game.  Poole dumped the ball, as evidently the Rube desired, for
he handed up a straight one, but the bunt rolled teasingly and the
Rube, being big and tall, failed to field it in time.

Suddenly the whole field grew quiet.  For the first time Cogswell's
coaching was clearly heard.

"One out!  Take a lead!  Take a lead!  Go through this time.  Go
through!"

Could it be possible, I wondered, that after such a wonderful
exhibition of pitching the Rube would lose out in the ninth?

There were two Quakers on base, one out, and two of the best hitters in
the league on deck, with a chance of Lane getting up.

"Oh!  Oh!  Oh!" moaned Nan.

I put my hand on hers.  "Don't quit, Nan. You'll never forgive yourself
if you quit.  Take it from me, Whit will pull out of this hole!"

What a hole that was for the Rube on the day of his break into fast
company!  I measured it by his remarkable deliberation.  He took a long
time to get ready to pitch to Berne, and when he let drive it was as if
he had been trifling all before in that game.  I could think of no way
to figure it except that when the ball left him there was scarcely any
appreciable interval of time before it cracked in Sweeney's mitt.  It
was the Rube's drop, which I believed unhittable.  Berne let it go by,
shaking his head as McClung called it a strike.  Another followed,
which Berne chopped at vainly.  Then with the same upheaval of his
giant frame, the same flinging of long arms and lunging forward, the
Rube delivered a third drop. And Berne failed to hit it.

The voiceless bleachers stamped on the benches and the grand stand
likewise thundered.

Callopy showed his craft by stepping back and lining Rube's high pitch
to left.  Hoffer leaped across and plunged down, getting his gloved
hand in front of the ball.  The hit was safe, but Hoffer's valiant
effort saved a tie score.

Lane up!  Three men on bases!  Two out!

Not improbably there were many thousand spectators of that thrilling
moment who pitied the Rube for the fate which placed Lane at the bat
then.  But I was not one of them.  Nevertheless my throat was clogged,
my mouth dry, and my ears full of bells.  I could have done something
terrible to Hurtle for his deliberation, yet I knew he was proving
himself what I had always tried to train him to be.

Then he swung, stepped out, and threw his body with the ball.  This was
his rarely used pitch, his last resort, his fast rise ball that jumped
up a little at the plate.  Lane struck under it.  How significant on
the instant to see old Cogswell's hands go up!  Again the Rube pitched,
and this time Lane watched the ball go by.  Two strikes!

That whole audience leaped to its feet, whispering, yelling, screaming,
roaring, bawling.

The Rube received the ball from Sweeney and quick as lightning he sped
it plateward.  The great Lane struck out!  The game was over--Chicago,
1; Philadelphia, 0.

In that whirling moment when the crowd went mad and Milly was hugging
me, and Nan pounding holes in my hat, I had a queer sort of blankness,
a section of time when my sensations were deadlocked.

"Oh!  Connie, look!" cried Nan.  I saw Lane and Cogswell warmly shaking
hands with the Rube.  Then the hungry clamoring fans tumbled upon the
field and swarmed about the players.

Whereupon Nan kissed me and Milly, and then kissed Mrs. Nelson.  In
that radiant moment Nan was all sweetness.

"It is the Rube's break into fast company," she said.



THE KNOCKER

"Yes, Carroll, I got my notice.  Maybe it's no surprise to you.  And
there's one more thing I want to say.  You're 'it' on this team.
You're the topnotch catcher in the Western League and one of the best
ball players in the game--but you're a knocker!"

Madge Ellston heard young Sheldon speak. She saw the flash in his gray
eyes and the heat of his bronzed face as he looked intently at the big
catcher.

"Fade away, sonny.  Back to the bush-league for yours!" replied
Carroll, derisively.  "You're not fast enough for Kansas City.  You
look pretty good in a uniform and you're swift on your feet, but you
can't hit.  You've got a glass arm and you run bases like an ostrich
trying to side.  That notice was coming to you.  Go learn the game!"

Then a crowd of players trooped noisily out of the hotel lobby and
swept Sheldon and Carroll down the porch steps toward the waiting
omnibus.

Madge's uncle owned the Kansas City club. She had lived most of her
nineteen years in a baseball atmosphere, but accustomed as she was to
baseball talk and the peculiar banterings and bickerings of the
players, there were times when it seemed all Greek.  If a player got
his "notice" it meant he would be released in ten days.  A "knocker"
was a ball player who spoke ill of his fellow players.  This scrap of
conversation, however, had an unusual interest because Carroll had paid
court to her for a year, and Sheldon, coming to the team that spring,
had fallen desperately in love with her.  She liked Sheldon pretty
well, but Carroll fascinated her.  She began to wonder if there were
bad feelings between the rivals--to compare them--to get away from
herself and judge them impersonally.

When Pat Donahue, the veteran manager of the team came out, Madge
greeted him with a smile.  She had always gotten on famously with Pat,
notwithstanding her imperious desire to handle the managerial reins
herself upon occasions. Pat beamed all over his round ruddy face.

"Miss Madge, you weren't to the park yesterday an' we lost without our
pretty mascot.  We shure needed you.  Denver's playin' at a fast clip."

"I'm coming out today," replied Miss Ellston, thoughtfully.  "Pat,
what's a knocker?"

"Now, Miss Madge, are you askin' me that after I've been coachin' you
in baseball for years?" questioned Pat, in distress.

"I know what a knocker is, as everybody else does.  But I want to know
the real meaning, the inside-ball of it, to use your favorite saying."

Studying her grave face with shrewd eyes Donahue slowly lost his smile.

"The inside-ball of it, eh?  Come, let's sit over here a bit--the sun's
shure warm today.... Miss Madge, a knocker is the strangest man
known in the game, the hardest to deal with an' what every baseball
manager hates most."

Donahue told her that he believed the term "knocker" came originally
from baseball; that in general it typified the player who strengthened
his own standing by belittling the ability of his team-mates, and by
enlarging upon his own superior qualities.  But there were many phases
of this peculiar type.  Some players were natural born knockers; others
acquired the name in their later years in the game when younger men
threatened to win their places.  Some of the best players ever produced
by baseball had the habit in its most violent form.  There were players
of ridiculously poor ability who held their jobs on the strength of
this one trait.  It was a mystery how they misled magnates and managers
alike; how for months they held their places, weakening a team, often
keeping a good team down in the race; all from sheer bold suggestion of
their own worth and other players' worthlessness. Strangest of all was
the knockers' power to disorganize; to engender a bad spirit between
management and team and among the players. The team which was without
one of the parasites of the game generally stood well up in the race
for the pennant, though there had been championship teams noted for
great knockers as well as great players.

"It's shure strange, Miss Madge," said Pat in conclusion, shaking his
gray head.  "I've played hundreds of knockers, an' released them, too.
Knockers always get it in the end, but they go on foolin' me and
workin' me just the same as if I was a youngster with my first team.
They're part an' parcel of the game."

"Do you like these men off the field--outside of baseball, I mean?"

"No, I shure don't, an' I never seen one yet that wasn't the same off
the field as he was on."

"Thank you, Pat.  I think I understand now. And--oh, yes, there's
another thing I want to ask you.  What's the matter with Billie
Sheldon? Uncle George said he was falling off in his game. Then I've
read the papers.  Billie started out well in the spring."

"Didn't he?  I was sure thinkin' I had a find in Billie.  Well, he's
lost his nerve.  He's in a bad slump.  It's worried me for days.  I'm
goin' to release Billie.  The team needs a shake-up. That's where
Billie gets the worst of it, for he's really the makin' of a star; but
he's slumped, an' now knockin' has made him let down.  There, Miss
Madge, that's an example of what I've just been tellin' you.  An' you
can see that a manager has his troubles.  These hulkin' athletes are a
lot of spoiled babies an' I often get sick of my job."

That afternoon Miss Ellston was in a brown study all the way out to the
baseball park.  She arrived rather earlier than usual to find the
grand-stand empty.  The Denver team had just come upon the field, and
the Kansas City players were practising batting at the left of the
diamond. Madge walked down the aisle of the grand stand and out along
the reporters' boxes.  She asked one of the youngsters on the field to
tell Mr. Sheldon that she would like to speak with him a moment.

Billie eagerly hurried from the players' bench with a look of surprise
and expectancy on his sun-tanned face.  Madge experienced for the first
time a sudden sense of shyness at his coming.  His lithe form and his
nimble step somehow gave her a pleasure that seemed old yet was new.
When he neared her, and, lifting his cap, spoke her name, the shade of
gloom in his eyes and lines of trouble on his face dispelled her
confusion.

"Billie, Pat tells me he's given you ten days' notice," she said.

"It's true."

"What's wrong with you, Billie?"

"Oh, I've struck a bad streak--can't hit or throw."

"Are you a quitter?"

"No, I'm not," he answered quickly, flushing a dark red.

"You started off this spring with a rush.  You played brilliantly and
for a while led the team in batting.  Uncle George thought so well of
you. Then came this spell of bad form.  But, Billie, it's only a slump;
you can brace."

"I don't know," he replied, despondently. "Awhile back I got my mind
off the game.  Then--people who don't like me have taken advantage of
my slump to----"

"To knock," interrupted Miss Ellston.

"I'm not saying that," he said, looking away from her.

"But I'm saying it.  See here, Billie Sheldon, my uncle owns this team
and Pat Donahue is manager. I think they both like me a little.  Now I
don't want to see you lose your place.  Perhaps----"

"Madge, that's fine of you--but I think--I guess it'd be best for me to
leave Kansas City."

"Why?"

"You know," he said huskily.  "I've lost my head--I'm in love--I can't
think of baseball--I'm crazy about you."

Miss Ellston's sweet face grew rosy, clear to the tips of her ears.

"Billie Sheldon," she replied, spiritedly. "You're talking nonsense.
Even if you were were that way, it'd be no reason to play poor ball.
Don't throw the game, as Pat would say. Make a brace!  Get up on your
toes!  Tear things!  Rip the boards off the fence!  Don't quit!"

She exhausted her vocabulary of baseball language if not her
enthusiasm, and paused in blushing confusion.

"Madge!"

"Will you brace up?"

"Will I--will I!" he exclaimed, breathlessly.

Madge murmured a hurried good-bye and, turning away, went up the
stairs.  Her uncle's private box was upon the top of the grand stand
and she reached it in a somewhat bewildered state of mind.  She had a
confused sense of having appeared to encourage Billie, and did not know
whether she felt happy or guilty.  The flame in his eyes had warmed all
her blood.  Then, as she glanced over the railing to see the powerful
Burns Carroll, there rose in her breast a panic at strange variance
with her other feelings.

Many times had Madge Ellston viewed the field and stands and the
outlying country from this high vantage point; but never with the same
mingling emotions, nor had the sunshine ever been so golden, the woods
and meadows so green, the diamond so smooth and velvety, the whole
scene so gaily bright.

Denver had always been a good drawing card, and having won the first
game of the present series, bade fair to draw a record attendance. The
long lines of bleachers, already packed with the familiar mottled
crowd, sent forth a merry, rattling hum.  Soon a steady stream of
well-dressed men and women poured in the gates and up the grand-stand
stairs.  The soft murmur of many voices in light conversation and
laughter filled the air.  The peanut venders and score-card sellers
kept up their insistent shrill cries.  The baseball park was alive now
and restless; the atmosphere seemed charged with freedom and pleasure.
The players romped like skittish colts, the fans shrieked their
witticisms--all sound and movements suggested play.

Madge Ellston was somehow relieved to see her uncle sitting in one of
the lower boxes.  During this game she wanted to be alone, and she
believed she would be, for the President of the League and directors of
the Kansas City team were with her uncle.  When the bell rang to call
the Denver team in from practice the stands could hold no more, and the
roped-off side lines were filling up with noisy men and boys.  From her
seat Madge could see right down upon the players' bench, and when she
caught both Sheldon and Carroll gazing upward she drew back with
sharply contrasted thrills.

Then the bell rang again, the bleachers rolled out their welcoming
acclaim, and play was called with Kansas City at the bat.

Right off the reel Hunt hit a short fly safely over second.  The ten
thousand spectators burst into a roar.  A good start liberated applause
and marked the feeling for the day.

Madge was surprised and glad to see Billie Sheldon start next for the
plate.  All season, until lately, he had been the second batter.
During his slump he had been relegated to the last place on the batting
list.  Perhaps he had asked Pat to try him once more at the top.  The
bleachers voiced their unstinted appreciation of this return, showing
that Billie still had a strong hold on their hearts.

As for Madge, her breast heaved and she had difficulty in breathing.
This was going to be a hard game for her.  The intensity of her desire
to see Billie brace up to his old form amazed her. And Carroll's rude
words beat thick in her ears. Never before had Billie appeared so
instinct with life, so intent and strung as when he faced Keene, the
Denver pitcher.  That worthy tied himself up in a knot, and then,
unlimbering a long arm, delivered the brand new ball.

Billie seemed to leap forward and throw his bat at it.  There was a
sharp ringing crack--and the ball was like a white string marvelously
stretching out over the players, over the green field beyond, and then,
sailing, soaring, over the right-field fence.  For a moment the stands,
even the bleachers, were stone quiet.  No player had ever hit a ball
over that fence.  It had been deemed impossible, as was attested to by
the many painted "ads" offering prizes for such a feat.  Suddenly the
far end of the bleachers exploded and the swelling roar rolled up to
engulf the grand stand in thunder.  Billie ran round the bases to
applause never before vented on that field.  But he gave no sign that
it affected him; he did not even doff his cap.  White-faced and stern,
he hurried to the bench, where Pat fell all over him and many of the
players grasped his hands.

Up in her box Madge was crushing her score-card and whispering:  "Oh!
Billie, I could hug you for that!"

Two runs on two pitched balls!  That was an opening to stir an exacting
audience to the highest pitch of enthusiasm.  The Denver manager
peremptorily called Keene off the diamond and sent in Steele, a
south-paw, who had always bothered Pat's left-handed hitters.  That
move showed his astute judgment, for Steele struck out McReady and
retired Curtis and Mahew on easy chances.

It was Dalgren's turn to pitch and though he had shown promise in
several games he had not yet been tried out on a team of Denver's
strength. The bleachers gave him a good cheering as he walked into the
box, but for all that they whistled their wonder at Pat's assurance in
putting him against the Cowboys in an important game.

The lad was visibly nervous and the hard-hitting and loud-coaching
Denver players went after him as if they meant to drive him out of the
game.  Crane stung one to left center for a base, Moody was out on a
liner to short, almost doubling up Crane; the fleet-footed Bluett
bunted and beat the throw to first; Langly drove to left for what
seemed a three-bagger, but Curtis, after a hard run, caught the ball
almost off the left-field bleachers.  Crane and Bluett advanced a base
on the throw-in.  Then Kane batted up a high foul-fly. Burns Carroll,
the Kansas City catcher, had the reputation of being a fiend for
chasing foul flies, and he dashed at this one with a speed that
threatened a hard fall over the players' bench or a collision with the
fence.  Carroll caught the ball and crashed against the grand stand,
but leaped back with an agility that showed that if there was any harm
done it had not been to him.

Thus the sharp inning ended with a magnificent play.  It electrified
the spectators into a fierce energy of applause.  With one accord, by
baseball instinct, the stands and bleachers and roped-in-sidelines
realized it was to be a game of games and they answered to the stimulus
with a savage enthusiasm that inspired ballplayers to great plays.

In the first half of the second inning, Steele's will to do and his arm
to execute were very like his name.  Kansas City could not score.  In
their half the Denver team made one run by clean hitting.

Then the closely fought advantage see-sawed from one team to the other.
It was not a pitchers' battle, though both men worked to the limit of
skill and endurance.  They were hit hard.  Dazzling plays kept the
score down and the innings short.  Over the fields hung the portent of
something to come, every player, every spectator felt the subtle
baseball chance; each inning seemed to lead closer and more thrillingly
up to the climax.  But at the end of the seventh, with the score tied
six and six, with daring steals, hard hits and splendid plays, enough
to have made memorable several games, it seemed that the great
portentous moment was still in abeyance.

The head of the batting list for Kansas City was up.  Hunt caught the
first pitched ball squarely on the end of his bat.  It was a mighty
drive and as the ball soared and soared over the center-field Hunt
raced down the base line, and the winged-footed Crane sped outward, the
bleachers split their throats.  The hit looked good for a home run, but
Crane leaped up and caught the ball in his gloved hand.  The sudden
silence and then the long groan which racked the bleachers was greater
tribute to Crane's play than any applause.

Billie Sheldon then faced Steele.  The fans roared hoarsely, for Billie
had hit safely three times out of four.  Steele used his curve ball,
but he could not get the batter to go after it.  When he had wasted
three balls, the never-despairing bleachers howled:  "Now, Billie, in
your groove! Sting the next one!"  But Billie waited.  One strike!  Two
strikes!  Steele cut the plate.  That was a test which proved Sheldon's
caliber.

With seven innings of exciting play passed, with both teams on edge,
with the bleachers wild and the grand stands keyed up to the breaking
point, with everything making deliberation almost impossible, Billie
Sheldon had remorselessly waited for three balls and two strikes.

"Now! ...  Now! ...  Now!" shrieked the bleachers.

Steele had not tired nor lost his cunning.  With hands before him he
grimly studied Billie, then whirling hard to get more weight into his
motion, he threw the ball.

Billie swung perfectly and cut a curving liner between the first
baseman and the base.  Like a shot it skipped over the grass out along
the foul-line into right field.  Amid tremendous uproar Billie
stretched the hit into a triple, and when he got up out of the dust
after his slide into third the noise seemed to be the crashing down of
the bleachers.  It died out with the choking gurgling yell of the most
leather-lunged fan.

"O-o-o-o-you-Billie-e!"

McReady marched up and promptly hit a long fly to the redoubtable
Crane.  Billie crouched in a sprinter's position with his eye on the
graceful fielder, waiting confidently for the ball to drop. As if there
had not already been sufficient heart-rending moments, the chance that
governed baseball meted out this play; one of the keenest, most trying
known to the game.  Players waited, spectators waited, and the instant
of that dropping ball was interminably long.  Everybody knew Crane
would catch it; everybody thought of the wonderful throwing arm that
had made him famous.  Was it possible for Billie Sheldon to beat the
throw to the plate?

Crane made the catch and got the ball away at the same instant Sheldon
leaped from the base and dashed for home.  Then all eyes were on the
ball.  It seemed incredible that a ball thrown by human strength could
speed plateward so low, so straight, so swift.  But it lost its force
and slanted down to bound into the catcher's hands just as Billie slid
over the plate.

By the time the bleachers had stopped stamping and bawling, Curtis
ended the inning with a difficult grounder to the infield.

Once more the Kansas City players took the field and Burns Carroll sang
out in his lusty voice: "Keep lively, boys!  Play hard!  Dig 'em up an'
get 'em!"  Indeed the big catcher was the main-stay of the home team.
The bulk of the work fell upon his shoulders.  Dalgren was wild and
kept his catcher continually blocking low pitches and wide curves and
poorly controlled high fast balls. But they were all alike to Carroll.
Despite his weight, he was as nimble on his feet as a goat, and if he
once got his hands on the ball he never missed it.  It was his
encouragement that steadied Dalgren; his judgment of hitters that
carried the young pitcher through dangerous places; his lightning swift
grasp of points that directed the machine-like work of his team.

In this inning Carroll exhibited another of his demon chases after a
foul fly; he threw the base-stealing Crane out at second, and by a
remarkable leap and stop of McReady's throw, he blocked a runner who
would have tied the score.

The Cowboys blanked their opponents in the first half of the ninth, and
trotted in for their turn needing one run to tie, two runs to win.

There had scarcely been a breathing spell for the onlookers in this
rapid-fire game.  Every inning had held them, one moment breathless,
the next wildly clamorous, and another waiting in numb fear.  What did
these last few moments hold in store?  The only answer to that was the
dogged plugging optimism of the Denver players. To listen to them, to
watch them, was to gather the impression that baseball fortune always
favored them in the end.

"Only three more, Dal.  Steady boys, it's our game," rolled out
Carroll's deep bass.  How virile he was!  What a tower of strength to
the weakening pitcher!

But valiantly as Dalgren tried to respond, he failed.  The grind--the
strain had been too severe. When he finally did locate the plate Bluett
hit safely.  Langley bunted along the base line and beat the ball.

A blank, dead quiet settled down over the bleachers and stands.
Something fearful threatened. What might not come to pass, even at the
last moment of this nerve-racking game?  There was a runner on first
and a runner on second. That was bad.  Exceedingly bad was it that
these runners were on base with nobody out.  Worst of all was the fact
that Kane was up.  Kane, the best bunter, the fastest man to first, the
hardest hitter in the league!  That he would fail to advance those two
runners was scarcely worth consideration.  Once advanced, a fly to the
outfield, a scratch, anything almost, would tie the score. So this was
the climax presaged so many times earlier in the game.  Dalgren seemed
to wilt under it.

Kane swung his ash viciously and called on Dalgren to put one over.
Dalgren looked in toward the bench as if he wanted and expected to be
taken out.  But Pat Donahue made no sign. Pat had trained many a
pitcher by forcing him to take his medicine.  Then Carroll, mask under
his arm, rolling his big hand in his mitt, sauntered down to the
pitcher's box.  The sharp order of the umpire in no wise disconcerted
him.  He said something to Dalgren, vehemently nodding his head the
while.  Players and audience alike supposed he was trying to put a
little heart into Dalgren, and liked him the better, notwithstanding
the opposition to the umpire.

Carroll sauntered back to his position.  He adjusted his breast
protector, and put on his mask, deliberately taking his time.  Then he
stepped behind the plate, and after signing for the pitch, he slowly
moved his right hand up to his mask.

Dalgren wound up, took his swing, and let drive. Even as he delivered
the ball Carroll bounded away from his position, flinging off the mask
as he jumped.  For a single fleeting instant, the catcher's position
was vacated.  But that instant was long enough to make the audience
gasp.  Kane bunted beautifully down the third base line, and there
Carroll stood, fifteen feet from the plate, agile as a huge monkey.  He
whipped the ball to Mahew at third.  Mahew wheeled quick as thought and
lined the ball to second.  Sheldon came tearing for the bag, caught the
ball on the run, and with a violent stop and wrench threw it like a
bullet to first base.  Fast as Kane was, the ball beat him ten feet.  A
triple play!

The players of both teams cheered, but the audience, slower to grasp
the complex and intricate points, needed a long moment to realize what
had happened.  They needed another to divine that Carroll had
anticipated Kane's intention to bunt, had left his position as the ball
was pitched, had planned all, risked all, played all on Kane's sure
eye; and so he had retired the side and won the game by creating and
executing the rarest play in baseball.

Then the audience rose in a body to greet the great catcher.  What a
hoarse thundering roar shook the stands and waved in a blast over the
field!  Carroll stood bowing his acknowledgment, and then swaggered a
little with the sun shining on his handsome heated face.  Like a
conqueror conscious of full blown power he stalked away to the
clubhouse.

Madge Ellston came out of her trance and viewed the ragged score-card,
her torn parasol, her battered gloves and flying hair, her generally
disheveled state with a little start of dismay, but when she got into
the thick and press of the moving crowd she found all the women more or
less disheveled.  And they seemed all the prettier and friendlier for
that.  It was a happy crowd and voices were conspicuously hoarse.

When Madge entered the hotel parlor that evening she found her uncle
with guests and among them was Burns Carroll.  The presence of the
handsome giant affected Madge more impellingly than ever before, yet in
some inexplicably different way.  She found herself trembling; she
sensed a crisis in her feelings for this man and it frightened her.
She became conscious suddenly that she had always been afraid of him.
Watching Carroll receive the congratulations of many of those present,
she saw that he dominated them as he had her.  His magnetism was
over-powering; his great stature seemed to fill the room; his easy
careless assurance emanated from superior strength.  When he spoke
lightly of the game, of Crane's marvelous catch, of Dalgren's pitching
and of his own triple play, it seemed these looming features retreated
in perspective--somehow lost their vital significance because he
slighted them.

In the light of Carroll's illuminating talk, in the remembrance of
Sheldon's bitter denunciation, in the knowledge of Pat Donahue's
estimate of a peculiar type of ball-player, Madge Ellston found herself
judging the man--bravely trying to resist his charm, to be fair to him
and to herself.

Carroll soon made his way to her side and greeted her with his old
familiar manner of possession.  However irritating it might be to Madge
when alone, now it held her bound.

Carroll possessed the elemental attributes of a conqueror.  When with
him Madge whimsically feared that he would snatch her up in his arms
and carry her bodily off, as the warriors of old did with the women
they wanted.  But she began to believe that the fascination he
exercised upon her was merely physical.  That gave her pause. Not only
was Burns Carroll on trial, but also a very foolish fluttering little
moth--herself.  It was time enough, however, to be stern with herself
after she had tried him.

"Wasn't that a splendid catch of Crane's today?" she asked.

"A lucky stab!  Crane has a habit of running round like an ostrich and
sticking out a hand to catch a ball.  It's a grand-stand play.  Why, a
good outfielder would have been waiting under that fly."

"Dalgren did fine work in the box, don't you think?"

"Oh, the kid's all right with an old head back of the plate.  He's
wild, though, and will never make good in fast company.  I won his game
today. He wouldn't have lasted an inning without me.  It was dead wrong
for Pat to pitch him. Dalgren simply can't pitch and he hasn't sand
enough to learn."

A hot retort trembled upon Madge Ellston's lips, but she withheld it
and quietly watched Carroll.  How complacent he was, how utterly
self-contained!

"And Billie Sheldon--wasn't it good to see him brace?  What hitting! .
..  That home run!"

"Sheldon flashed up today.  That's the worst of such players.  This
talk of his slump is all rot. When he joined the team he made some
lucky hits and the papers lauded him as a comer, but he soon got down
to his real form.  Why, to break into a game now and then, to shut his
eyes and hit a couple on the nose--that's not baseball. Pat's given him
ten days' notice, and his release will be a good move for the team.
Sheldon's not fast enough for this league."

"I'm sorry.  He seemed so promising," replied Madge.  "I liked
Billy--pretty well."

"Yes, that was evident," said Carroll, firing up.  "I never could
understand what you saw in him.  Why, Sheldon's no good.  He----"

Madge turned a white face that silenced Carroll.  She excused herself
and returned to the parlor, where she had last seen her uncle.  Not
finding him there, she went into the long corridor and met Sheldon,
Dalgren and two more of the players.  Madge congratulated the young
pitcher and the other players on their brilliant work; and they, not to
be outdone, gallantly attributed the day's victory to her presence at
the game.  Then, without knowing in the least how it came about, she
presently found herself alone with Billy, and they were strolling into
the music-room.

"Madge, did I brace up?"

The girl risked one quick look at him.  How boyish he seemed, how
eager!  What an altogether different Billie!  But was the difference
all in him!  Somehow, despite a conscious shyness in the moment she
felt natural and free, without the uncertainty and restraint that had
always troubled her while with him.

"Oh, Billie, that glorious home run!"

"Madge, wasn't that hit a dandy?  How I made it is a mystery, but the
bat felt like a feather.  I thought of you.  Tell me--what did you
think when I hit that ball over the fence?"

"Billie, I'll never, never tell you."

"Yes--please--I want to know.  Didn't you think something--nice of me?"

The pink spots in Madge's cheeks widened to crimson flames.

"Billie, are you still--crazy about me?  Now, don't come so close.
Can't you behave yourself? And don't break my fingers with you terrible
baseball hands....  Well, when you made that hit I just collapsed
and I said----"

"Say it!  Say it!" implored Billie.

She lowered her face and then bravely raised it.

"I said, 'Billie, I could hug you for that!' ... Billie, let me go!
Oh, you mustn't!--please!"

Quite a little while afterward Madge remembered to tell Billie that she
had been seeking her uncle.  They met him and Pat Donahue, coming out
of the parlor.

"Where have you been all evening?" demanded Mr. Ellston.

"Shure it looks as if she's signed a new manager," said Pat, his shrewd
eyes twinkling.

The soft glow in Madge's cheeks deepened into tell-tale scarlet; Billie
resembled a schoolboy stricken in guilt.

"Aha! so that's it?" queried her uncle.

"Ellston," said Pat.  "Billie's home-run drive today recalled his
notice an' if I don't miss guess it won him another game--the best game
in life."

"By George!" exclaimed Mr. Ellston.  "I was afraid it was Carroll!"

He led Madge away and Pat followed with Billie.

"Shure, it was good to see you brace, Billie," said the manager, with a
kindly hand on the young man's arm.  "I'm tickled to death.  That ten
days' notice doesn't go.  See?  I've had to shake up the team but your
job is good.  I released McReady outright an' traded Carroll to Denver
for a catcher and a fielder.  Some of the directors hollered murder,
an' I expect the fans will roar, but I'm running this team, I'll have
harmony among my players.  Carroll is a great catcher, but he's a
knocker."



THE WINNING BALL

One day in July our Rochester club, leader in the Eastern League, had
returned to the hotel after winning a double-header from the Syracuse
club.  For some occult reason there was to be a lay-off next day and
then on the following another double-header.  These double-headers we
hated next to exhibition games.  Still a lay-off for twenty-four hours,
at that stage of the race, was a Godsend, and we received the news with
exclamations of pleasure.

After dinner we were all sitting and smoking comfortably in front of
the hotel when our manager, Merritt, came hurriedly out of the lobby.
It struck me that he appeared a little flustered.

"Say, you fellars," he said brusquely.  "Pack your suits and be ready
for the bus at seven-thirty."

For a moment there was a blank, ominous silence, while we assimilated
the meaning of his terse speech.

"I've got a good thing on for tomorrow," continued the manager.  "Sixty
per cent gate receipts if we win.  That Guelph team is hot stuff,
though."

"Guelph!" exclaimed some of the players suspiciously.  "Where's Guelph?"

"It's in Canada.  We'll take the night express an' get there tomorrow
in time for the game. An' we'll hev to hustle."

Upon Merritt then rained a multiplicity of excuses.  Gillinger was not
well, and ought to have that day's rest.  Snead's eyes would profit by
a lay-off.  Deerfoot Browning was leading the league in base running,
and as his legs were all bruised and scra

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