UNDER A CLOUD
Sometimes it takes very little to upset the poise of a Big League
team. Even when a winning organization is running smoothly, an injury
to a single player may throw the whole machinery out of mesh. To an
outsider――a mere spectator who has not studied the peculiarities of
baseball at close range――this often seems unaccountable. To him, in
a club with first-class substitutes waiting to fill the position of
any man, there seems to be no reason why the loss of a regular player
should make such a remarkable difference in the work of the entire
outfit.
Few outsiders realize how evenly matched the clubs often are in the
first division. Many times the action of an astute manager in replacing
a player who seems to be doing splendid work in his position with
another player, apparently no better, has turned a losing club into
a winner, the secret of this being that the man substituted fitted
in more nicely with the fine adjustment of the great machine, like a
perfectly made pinion in the works of a watch.
It is not drawing it too fine to compare a first-class Big League team
to a high-grade watch. Time after time the spectators wonder at the
clockwork precision of the living machine upon the field. Now and then,
at rare intervals, of course, this piece of machinery temporarily goes
wrong; but a little oiling or adjusting puts it right again, and it
once more resumes its accurate, methodical, mechanical course.
The pitching staff may be likened to the mainspring of the watch.
Without pitchers of the highest grade any club, no matter how strong it
may be in other departments, is badly handicapped; with such a staff it
often happens that a team of otherwise inferior caliber makes no end
of trouble and worriment for the leaders. And, despite his ill-advised
handling of Lefty Locke, no one knew this better than Al Carson.
When it became known that Lefty had been fined and suspended, some of
his teammates attempted to condole with him in a cheerful, joshing
way, but not one of them repeated such advances; for he cut them short
with such snappy, savage abruptness that they were justified in their
resentment of his manner.
The second game of the series between the Specters and the Blue
Stockings proved to be a slugging match, in which each team used three
pitchers. Pink Dillon, starting for the visitors, was pounded off the
mound in the second inning and replaced by Orth. He lasted until the
seventh, and then gave way to Grist, who took up the burden with the
locals leading by one run. Even “Old Reliable” was not respected by
the Specters, who slashed his slants mercilessly. Nevertheless, by a
great batting rally in the ninth, the Blue Stockings tied up the score.
But Grist was forced to work like a horse for three more long innings
before his teammates got to Jim Donovan and hammered out the run which
finally gave them the game fourteen to thirteen.
The newspaper reporters called it a “swat fest.” In his wire to the
_Blade_, Jack Stillman, on the road for his paper with the Blue
Stockings, vaguely hinted at future trouble for Carson on account of
the condition of his pitching staff. Besides Carson himself, no one
realized better than Stillman the peril of this crucial period in the
great struggle.
Under suspension, Lefty Locke was not on the bench with his teammates.
Stillman, who had twice tried to get an interview with Lefty, saw him
soberly watching the struggle from a portion of the stand near the
reporters’ section, and wondered what really had happened to change
this fine, open-hearted fellow into a gloomy grouch.
“I’ll get at him again,” thought the reporter. “He’s got to talk to
me. He can’t stand me off like an iceberg.”
But after the game Locke disappeared with the crowd that disappointedly
melted away, and Stillman was compelled to postpone his interview.
With his ears open for everything connected with his business, the
newspaper man that night heard something which sent him in search of
Carson for confirmation. However, he obtained little satisfaction from
the manager. Then, remembering his desire to have another talk with
Locke, he tried to find Lefty, and failed. The southpaw was not in his
room, and none of the players seemed to know where he could be located.
In Dirk Nelson’s room Stillman found Kid Lewis and Jack Daly lounging
and talking things over with the catcher. Being well liked by the
entire team, he was invited to join them.
“We was just figgerin’ on our chances to-morrer,” said Daly. “We’ve got
to have another one of the games here to keep us afloat on the roller.”
“If the Specters play the way they did to-day,” said Stillman, “you
ought to cop one more, anyhow.”
“Huh!” grunted the Kid, twisting off a chew of tobacco with his square
teeth, “seems to me we didn’t shine like stars of the first magnitude
this P.M. Why, with old Peter on the firing line we was barely able to
rake in the plum by one measly run.”
“And the way Grist had to go, he won’t be in any shape to-morrow,” said
Nelson. “Neither Orth nor Dillon can hold this bunch of sack swipers,
and, besides pitching yesterday, Locke’s suspended. We’ve got a couple
of reserves, but Handy’s arm is broke in the middle, and Carney has
been sick for a month. Excuse my tears.”
“I wish you’d tell me,” said Stillman, “what’s the matter with Locke,
anyhow.”
“Tell _us_,” invited the trio in chorus.
The reporter shook his head. “I’ve tried to find out, but he won’t talk
to me. Anybody would think,” he added in an injured way, “that I was
his worst enemy; and I was about the only news man who pulled hard for
him all the way after he joined the Hornets in the South last spring.”
“He’s sick,” cried Nelson, thumping his knee. “If he ain’t, he’s crazy,
and oughter be shut up somewhere with the rest of the bugs. Think of
him going wrong just now! Wouldn’t it make a parson use bad language!”
“I heard something to-night,” said Stillman. “I wonder if you fellows
have got wind of it? There’s a rumor that Carson has a deal on.”
“What sort of a deal?” asked Daly.
“A trade. They say he got busy on the wire this morning, and that he’s
trying to make arrangements to trade Locke off for another pitcher.”
“Who says so?” snapped Lewis.
“I don’t believe it!” shouted Daly.
“Thunder!” breathed Nelson.
“You know I can’t go round blowing the source of my information,” said
Stillman, “but it seemed to come straight enough.”
“Perhaps it is straight,” said Nelson. “Carson ain’t never took to
Locke. But who’s the man he’s after?”
“You couldn’t guess,” said the reporter. “I won’t prolong your agony.
If the report is true, it’s Chick O’Brien, of the Wolves.”
Even with the warning he had given them, this statement seemed to
strike them like a bursting bombshell. The Wolves, although in the
second division, had harried the leaders all through the season, mainly
by the marvelous work of O’Brien, and it was generally agreed that with
a first-division team behind him Chick would show himself one of the
great pitchers in the business.
“Sufferin’ snakes!” cried Lewis, his face glowing and his eyes
snapping. “If we could get Chick now, I’d begin right away planning how
to spend my post-season money.”
“Me, too,” agreed Daly.
“There’s nothing to it,” announced Nelson. “You couldn’t pry O’Brien
away from the Wolves with a twenty-thousand dollar lever. Old Frazer
wouldn’t let him go for _two_ youngsters like Locke and a barrel of
money to boot. Every manager in the league has been after him, and
Frazer’s held on with the grip of death, knowing the Wolves would go
plumb into the sub-cellar without Chick.”
“Collier’s got the dough to buy almost anything, and he’s a plunger
when he gets started,” said Stillman. “I reckon he’d be willing to
lose money this season to cop the championship again. Anyhow, Carson
wouldn’t deny that he was trying to put such a deal across. He wouldn’t
say anything about it.”
“Whether it’s true or not, the story is bad for Locke,” said Nelson;
“and if it gets to his ears it’s going to make him worse than he is.”
“Or brace him up,” put in Daly. “Mebbe it will do that.”
Of course, the rumor spread swiftly, and in short order every man on
the team had heard of it, save Locke himself. For reasons, no one told
Lefty.
The fears of the Blue Stockings seemed justified when the Specters
walked away with the third game of the series by a score of eight to
two. Such a defeat, instead of disheartening them, seemed to fire
them with desperation, and the fourth and final game proved to be
another terrific battle, in which the two teams seesawed from start to
finish, resorting to every legitimate device and trick as opportunities
arose. Nevertheless, only for a fluke in the eighth inning, the locals
doubtless would have taken the game.
With two down and two on the cushions, Herman Brock banged the ball
into deep left, and it went bounding to the fence, with Forbes in hot
pursuit. The fielder had been playing deep, knowing Brock’s menace
as a slugger, and, but for an unforeseen freak of fate, he doubtless
would have secured the ball and held the enemy to a single run. It
happened, however, that close to the ground there was a small hole in
the fence――a hole barely large enough to push an ordinary baseball
through; and never before had the sphere sought out that little opening
hidden by a thin fringe of grass. Now, with seeming perverseness, it
went straight through the hole, giving Brock a homer and putting the
visitors again in the lead.
Orth had been wabbling, and Carson had wisely kept Dillon warming up
all through the game. Now, when the Specters came to bat again, the
manager took a chance and sent Pink to the hillock.
Strange as it seemed, the slants and benders of this second-string
pitcher, which had been so easy for the locals to fathom two days
before, now proved tremendously puzzling. And, though the fighting
“ghosts” became menacing in both the eighth and ninth, they could not
quite succeed in pushing a runner round the course.
Therefore, for all of the tattered condition of their pitching staff,
the Blue Stockings broke even in the series with their most dangerous
rivals.
But they were now to invade the territory of the Terriers, always to be
feared, and the dark cloud swung lower.