KNOCKED OUT OF THE BOX
For a moment Joe was genuinely alarmed. He was usually so free from
pains and aches and he kept himself in such superb physical condition
that any marked deviation from this enviable state came to him with a
shock. Visions of paralysis darted across his mind. He knew, of course,
that this was usually to be dreaded only by the old. Still, men as
young as he had sometimes, though rarely, been the victims of a stroke.
This thought, however, he entertained for only a fleeting moment.
“What am I mooning like this for?” he scolded himself. “It’s simple
enough. I’ve just had the arm in a strained position and it’s gone to
sleep like the rest of me. A bit of a rub, and it will be all right.”
He massaged the arm vigorously with his left hand and in a little while
could feel that it was becoming normal again. He kept up the friction
until at last all the queer feeling had disappeared.
Then he took a shower bath, rubbed himself down vigorously, gave
himself a shampoo, and went down to the dining room, where, after an
excellent meal, he found himself feeling as well as ever.
The Bostons were to play the Giants at the Polo Grounds the next day
and Joe was slated to pitch.
It was an easy assignment, for the Bostons had been “meat” for him in
all the games he had pitched against them this season. They were not
an exceptionally heavy batting team, although they had a few noted
sluggers on their roster. But Joe knew their idiosyncrasies, and
usually when he stepped into the box it was a signal for the Braves “to
roll over and play dead.”
“Might as well chalk this game up for us in advance,” remarked Jim,
just before the game began.
“No game is dead sure before it is played,” returned Joe. “But I never
felt in better form for pitching, and if the boys give me a few runs I
guess we can make a go of it.”
The early part of the game was full of promise for the Giants. Joe
twirled in superb form and up to the sixth his opponents had made only
three hits off him and not a Brave had got as far as third base.
Schiff was in the box for the Bostons and pitched an excellent game. He
was a good pitcher, and his eccentricities had provoked many a laugh
around the circuit and had won him the nickname of “Crazy Schiff.”
His memory was poor, and one of his oddities was his carrying about of
a small notebook which he sometimes consulted when he was faced by a
batsman whose special weakness, real or supposed, he had forgotten.
He would study this gravely while the stands rocked with laughter and
his opponents jeered at him. But he cared little for that. After he had
learned what he wanted he thrust his book back into the pocket of his
baseball shirt and wound up for his pitch.
The Giants had their batting clothes on that day, and although Schiff
pitched fairly well they had nicked him for four runs by the end of the
fifth inning and the game seemed carefully tucked away on ice, in view
of the way that Joe was pitching.
Joe himself had accounted for one of those runs on the first occasion
he came to the bat. Schiff had never pitched to him before, and looked
him over carefully.
He cudgeled his brains to remember what he had been told about Joe’s
special weakness, but could not recall anything. Then he had recourse
to his little book while the spectators proceeded to jeer him.
He scanned the names in alphabetical order until he got to the Ms.
“Matson. Matson,” he murmured. “Vere iss dot Matson?” He was a German.
“Oh, here it vos.”
He looked with some bewilderment and then beckoned to his catcher.
“I got id,” he said to him. “Dere ain’t noddings here about a curve
oder a fast ball; so I gif him a base on balls. Dot must be his
veakness.”
He was not far wrong at that, and it was the wisest thing he could have
done. But unluckily, although he tried his best, one of the balls that
he tried to throw wide came within reach of Joe’s bat and he spanked it
for a homer, speeding around the bases and denting the rubber while the
crowd chaffed Schiff unmercifully.
The first man up in the Boston’s half of the sixth inning, Thompson,
clouted a single to left that sharp fielding prevented from being
stretched to a two-bagger. Jackson came next, and was given a base on
balls.
Joe himself was as much surprised at this as the spectators. It was
rarely that he passed a man to first, especially when that bag was
occupied and a pass meant putting a man on second. And a thing that
increased the oddity of the occurrence was that there had been no
strikes sandwiched in between. He had simply thrown four balls in
succession, and not one of them had even cut the corner of the plate.
“Here, this won’t do!” he said to himself. “I’ve got to brace up.”
But the bracing up proved to be unexpectedly difficult. Thornhill
bunted the first ball pitched in the direction of third. Joe ran over
for it, but the ball bounded out of his hand and before he could
retrieve it the batter had reached first and each of the two other
runners had advanced a base. The bags were full with no one out.
The stage was set for a double play. Ordinarily, under such conditions,
Joe would have made the next batter hit a grounder to the infield with
a good chance of two going out on a snappy double.
He tried to do it now, but to his consternation found that his arm
refused to obey his head and his will. It felt heavy, inert. His fast
ball was that only in name. His curves were floating up wide of the
plate.
Gunton caught one of them on the end of his bat and sent out a long
sacrifice fly to center, on which Thompson crossed the plate for the
Bostons’ first run. It was an out for Gunton, but that was simply a bit
of luck, for he had met the ball squarely. And on the throw in, the
other runners had reached second and third.
McIntyre, one of the weakest of the Boston batters, trotted up to the
plate. The Braves had waked up to the fact that something was the
matter with Joe. Their arch-enemy had been delivered into their hands.
The crowning proof of this came a moment later when McIntyre poled a
mighty home run between right and center driving in two runs ahead of
him, tying the score.
The handwriting on the wall was plain.
Joe was through.
He had been knocked out of the box!