OFF FOR THE TRAINING CAMP
The next few days flew by as though on wings. There were a hundred
things to be done before Joe would set out on the long swing around the
circuit that was to increase or diminish his fame, as fate might decree.
Above all, he was anxious to spend all the time he could in practice, so
as to report at the training camp in superb condition.
One thing that pleased him immensely was the success of the scheme he
had carried through with Dick Talbot. True to his promise, Dick had
been on hand at the appointed time with his camera and they had carried
out the program he had suggested. Joe broke the white sheet of paper
stretched between the bamboo poles so repeatedly and conclusively that
only an idiot could have questioned that he had curved the ball. And
it is only fair to state that when the film was reeled off before the
astonished eyes of Professor Enoch Crabbe he admitted this fact.
“I have to admit that you are right, Mr. Matson,” he avowed, “and I’m
sorry that I was so positive about it the other day. I shall have to
study up the law that controls the curve, and by the time you come back
at the end of the season perhaps I shall have found out what it is.”
“I’m sure that you can find it if anybody can, Professor,” said Joe,
not to be outdone in politeness; and so the two opponents parted with
increased respect for each other.
“I hear the Giants are going to train at Marlin Springs this year,” said
Tom Davis, as they left the gymnasium and walked up the street together.
“Yes,” answered Joe. “McRae seems to have a liking for Texas as a place
to get in condition. And he ought to know, for he’s tried almost every
place on the map. He’s taken his team to Birmingham, to Memphis, to Los
Angeles, and one year he didn’t go any farther south than Lakewood, New
Jersey. So that if he’s finally fixed on Marlin, he must believe that it
has advantages over all the others.”
“Isn’t this southern training trip a rather modern idea?” asked Tom.
“Oh, no,” answered Joe. “All the big teams have been doing it for a
number of years now. I think it was old Cap Anson of the Chicagos who
started the thing, in 1882. He took the team down south while all the
other teams stayed in the north as usual. The result was that when the
Chicagos came north they mowed down the other teams like grass and won
the pennant that year without half trying. That put a flea in the ears
of the other managers, and since then it has been a regular thing. It’s
a mighty good thing, too, in more ways than one. It gives the manager
a chance to try out all the material he has bought or drafted from the
minor leagues. In the north, with so many cold and rainy days, they
wouldn’t get half a chance. Then, too, there are usually plenty of good
teams in the vicinity of the training grounds and the boys can get
plenty of practice in regular games without the weather’s interfering.
McRae, for instance, can find crack teams at Dallas and Waco and Houston
that sometimes give the Giants all they want to do to win. The result is
that when the boys come north they’re in crackerjack condition. They’re
like so many thoroughbreds waiting for the flag to fall, and the public
gets good games for its money from the very start of the season.”
“Just what time do you have to report?” asked Tom.
“In just about a week,” answered Joe. “I think I’ll start next Thursday
afternoon.”
“Are you going straight to New York and go south with the rest of the
team?” Tom inquired.
“I don’t think so,” was the reply. “McRae left it to me to pick out my
route in any way that would be most convenient to me as long as I joined
the party somewhere on the way. I think I’ll go by way of Goldsboro,
North Carolina. The boys go through there, and that will be as good a
place as any to meet them.”
Joe spoke with an elaborate affectation of carelessness, but he could
not prevent that troublesome blood of his from flooding his face.
“Gee, Joe, but you’re red!” cried honest Tom. “You haven’t been
exercising too much this afternoon, have you?”
“Not a bit of it,” returned Joe, with unnecessary emphasis. “I never
felt better in my life.”
But if he could fool Tom, he could not “get away with it” with Clara,
and he was subjected to an unmerciful teasing when that young lady
learned of the route he had chosen.
“Goldsboro, North Carolina,” she mused. “Where have I heard that name
before? Oh, how stupid of me! Of course, that is where Reggie lives. I
suppose you’re awfully anxious to see him.”
But Joe was so engrossed in his packing just then that he pretended not
to hear, and all her efforts to get a reply out of him, although carried
out with a perseverance worthy of a better cause, ended in comparative
failure.
The dreaded afternoon came at last, dreaded by all the members of the
little family who were welded so closely together in heart and life.
The others all went down to the train to see Joe off, and it was
only the presence of a large part of the population of Riverside, who
had come with a similar purpose, that kept the mother and sister from
breaking down entirely at the thought of the long parting from the son
and brother that they idolized. As it was, they bore up bravely, and
waved their handkerchiefs with smiles that were tremulous as the train
moved out of the station to the accompaniment of a storm of cheers from
the crowd that packed the platform. Joe waved back, but he had eyes for
only three figures in all that throng. The train rounded a curve and he
was off, leaving the old home town behind him for many months to come.
The train was a local and he had to travel twenty miles before he should
reach the Junction, where he was to connect with the “Flyer.” He found
the latter train puffing impatiently when he arrived, and it was the
work of a moment to transfer his belongings to the sleeper. He found the
seat which his ticket called for and settled down for an unbroken trip
to Goldsboro.
He was lost in the pleasant thoughts this name called up when the porter
passed through announcing that dinner was ready in the dining car. Joe’s
healthy appetite seldom had to be prodded by a second announcement, and
he promptly went forward. He found a good seat facing forward, and he
was soon engrossed in a careful study of the bill of fare. It proved to
be all that he could ask, and he soon had a most tempting and abundant
meal spread before him.
He applied himself to this conscientiously, and was half-way through
the meal when a man took the seat directly opposite him. Joe gave him a
passing glance and saw that he was a man rather advanced in years but
who bore himself with a certain suppleness and vigor that bespoke an
early athletic training. It was an honest, pleasing face he had, Joe
decided, after a careless glance. Then he went on eating and forgot all
about the stranger.
But the newcomer kept looking at Joe from time to time with a puzzled
expression, as though he had seen him before but scarcely knew how to
place him. Several times he seemed on the point of addressing the young
pitcher, but checked himself. At last the impulse proved too strong for
him to resist.
“Beg pardon,” he said, “but your face looks very familiar to me. Would
you mind telling me your name?”
Joe looked up with quick suspicion. He had been approached more than
once by oily strangers who had sought to scrape acquaintance, and he had
learned to be on his guard. But there was nothing in the frank smile and
candid face before him to arouse distrust, and he answered readily:
“Not the least in the world. My name is Joseph Matson.”
“Not the Matson that is going to play on the Giants this year?” asked
the stranger eagerly.
“I guess I am,” returned Joe, smiling.
“That explains why your face looked so familiar!” exclaimed the other.
“I’ve seen your picture in various papers twenty times in the last
week. I’ve read all about you, and I’m mighty glad to meet you. My name
is Wilson, and I’m an old ball player myself. In fact, I guess I was
playing professional ball twenty years or more before you were born.”
“That’s a long time ago,” laughed Joe, as he took the stranger’s offered
hand and shook it heartily. “What team did you play on and what was your
position?”
“I played right field on the old Red Stockings of Cincinnati,” was the
answer.
Joe almost jumped out of his seat.
“Not _the_ Red Stockings, the team of 1869?” he cried. “Not the team
that whipped them all, that went through the whole season without losing
a single game?”
“That was my team,” was the answer given calmly, though a gleam of
pride and exultation came into the stranger’s eyes as he noted Joe’s
enthusiasm.