LEFTY O’ THE BUSH
[Illustration: SPIKES FIRST, LOCKE SLID.]
LEFTY O’ THE BUSH
BY
BURT L. STANDISH
Author of “Lefty o’ the Big League,” “Lefty o’ the Blue
Stockings,” “Lefty o’ the Training Camp.”
_ILLUSTRATED_
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1914, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Inc.
_All Rights Reserved_
_Printed in the United States of America_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I OUT IN THE BUSH 11
II UNDER COVER 18
III THE MAN TO PITCH 23
IV THE PARSON’S DAUGHTER 29
V A BAD BEGINNING 35
VI “TAKE HIM OUT!” 40
VII HIMSELF AGAIN 47
VIII STEADYING DOWN 53
IX SOME PITCHING! 58
X A PITCHERS’ BATTLE 63
XI ON THE RAW EDGE 67
XII THE “SQUEEZE PLAY” 73
XIII THE LAST STRIKE-OUT 78
XIV AFTER THE GAME 86
XV MAN TO MAN 91
XVI BENTON KING AWAKENS 97
XVII FATHER AND DAUGHTER 104
XVIII THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER 112
XIX THE AGITATION IN BANCROFT 120
XX MEN OF CONSCIENCE! 128
XXI A SECRET MEETING 132
XXII RILEY SHOOTS HIS BOLT 140
XXIII LEFTY’S FICKLE MEMORY 145
XXIV A MATTER OF VERACITY 152
XXV THE TEST AND THE DENIAL 157
XXVI WAS IT A BLUFF? 166
XXVII THE ITEM IN THE NEWS 173
XXVIII THE GAGE FLUNG DOWN 180
XXIX THE FRAME-UP 186
XXX THE LETTER IN THE DESK 193
XXXI TOM, TOMMY AND JANET 201
XXXII THE INITIALS 209
XXXIII KING AROUSED 218
XXXIV GIVEN THE LIE 224
XXXV THE PHOTOGRAPH 230
XXXVI CRUMBLED CASTLES 236
XXXVII THE BELL BOY 244
XXXVIII “AND DID NOT UNDERSTAND” 250
XXXIX BANCROFT COMES TO CONQUER 258
XL PINWHEEL MURTEL 264
XLI GONE WRONG 271
XLII A SUDDEN SHIFT 276
XLIII A GAME WORTH WINNING 282
XLIV FACING HIS ACCUSERS 288
XLV THE FORGERY 294
XLVI CLEARED UP 300
LEFTY O’ THE BUSH
CHAPTER I
OUT IN THE BUSH
After running his eye over the Kingsbridge batting order, Mike Riley,
manager of the Bancroft “Bullies,” rolled the black cigar well into the
corner of his mouth, lifted himself ponderously to his feet, and walked
across toward the bench of the home team.
Kingsbridge had taken the field for practice, the visitors having
warmed up already. The Northern League, a genuine “bush” organization,
had opened two days earlier in Bancroft and Fryeburg, but this was to
be the first game of the season in Kingsbridge, a hustling, crude,
though ambitious pulp-mill town.
As it was Saturday afternoon, when the mills closed down at three
o’clock, there was certain to be a big crowd in attendance, double
assurance of which could be seen in the rapidly filling grand stand and
bleachers, and the steady stream of humanity pouring in through the
gates.
As Riley approached, a lean, sallow man, with a hawk-beak nose, rose
from the home bench and nodded, holding out a bony hand, which, cold as
a dead fish, was almost smothered in the pudgy paw put forth to meet it.
“Hello, Hutch!” gurgled the manager of the Bullies, with a show of
cordiality, although he quickly dropped the chilling hand. “How’s
tricks? See you took a fall outer Fryeburg yistidday.”
“Yes, we got away with it,” answered the local manager, in a monotonous,
dead-level voice, lacking wholly in enthusiasm. “But the ‘Brownies’ are
a cinch; nothing but a bunch of raw kids.”
“Uh-huh!” grunted Riley, twisting his thumb into the huge watch chain
which spanned the breadth of his bulging waistcoat; “that’s right.
Still, you didn’t have much leeway to spare, did ye?”
“Put it over by one measly run, that’s all. Deever’s arm went on the
blink in the seventh, and the greenhorns came near hammering out a win.
Locke managed to hold ’em.”
“Who is this Locke? I see he’s down to wing ’em for you to-day. Where’d
you find him, huh?”
“Don’t ask me who he is. I never heard of him before. He’s some green
dub of a port-side flinger old man Cope picked up. You know Cope used
to play the game back in the days of the Deluge, and he thinks he knows
all about it. As he’s chairman of the Kingsbridge Baseball Association,
and one of the heaviest backers of the team, folks round here let him
meddle enough to keep him appeased. All the same, long as they’ve hired
me to manage, I’m going to manage, after I’ve shown ’em how much Cope
don’t know about it.”
“That’s the talk, Hutch,” chuckled the Bancroft manager. “You’ve got
some team, and you oughter be able to make it interestin’ for the rest
of us, if the rubes let you have your swing. It was that old fox, Cope,
who got Deever away from me arter I had Pat as good as signed, which
makes me feel a bit raw, natural. Outside of Deever, and Locke, and a
few others, I s’pose the team’s practically your make-up?”
“Then you’ve got another guess coming,” returned Bob Hutchinson.
“Skillings, Lace, Crandall, and Hickey make the whole of my picking;
Cope practically got together the rest of the bunch. But wait; some of
’em won’t hold their jobs long, between you and me, Mike.
“Perhaps we hadn’t better chin any longer, for I see we’re being
watched, and the people of this town are so hot against Bancroft, and
you in particular, that they might get suspicious, and think there was
something crooked doing if we talked too long.”
“Guess that’s right,” admitted Riley. “They ain’t got no love for me in
Kingsbridge, ’count of our rubbing it inter them last year. Makes me
laugh, the way they squealed. They were so sore they swore they’d have
a team to beat us this year at any cost. That’s how you got your job;
they decided to have a reg’ler manager, who could give all his time and
attention to handlin’ the team. Sorry for you, Hutch, but if they beat
Bancroft under the wire with the bunch they’ve scraped together, I’ll
quit the game for good. So long.”
Having learned that Hutchinson was not wholly responsible for the
make-up of the Kingsbridge nine, Riley did not hesitate to express
himself in this manner, thus betraying the disdain in which he really
held his opponents of the day.
Only once since the organization of the so-called Northern League,
which really had very little organization whatever, being run,
like many small, back-country “leagues,” in a loose, hit-or-miss
fashion――only once had Bancroft failed to win the championship;
and that year Riley, a minor leaguer before age and avoirdupois had
deposited him in the can, had not handled the club.
Bancroft was a city, and it cut her fans deeply to be downed on the
diamond by a smaller place, besides severely wounding in their pockets
some of the sports who had wagered real money. Hence the former
successful manager was called back to the job, at which he was always
prepared to make good through any means available.
Kingsbridge had entered the league the previous season, filling the
place of a town that, loaded with baseball debts, and discouraged by
poor success, had dropped out. Owing its existence to Cyrus King,
lumberman and pulp manufacturer, Kingsbridge was barely four years old,
yet its inhabitants already numbered nearly five thousand.
Furthermore, it was confidently looking forward to the time, believed
to be not far distant, when it should outstrip the already envious city
of Bancroft, and become the “metropolis” of that particular region.
While pretending to scoff at the “mushroom village,” Bancroft was
secretly disturbed and worried, fearing the day when Kingsbridge,
through the enterprise of its citizens, the interest and power of
its founder, and the coming of a second railroad, which was seeking
a charter, would really forge to the front, and leave the “big town
down the river” in the lurch. Therefore, quite naturally, the rivalry
between the two places was intense in other things besides baseball.
There is nothing like the game, however, to bring to the surface the
jealousies and rivalries existing between towns having contending
teams; something about the game is certain to tear open old sores and
stir up ancient animosities apparently long forgotten.
Especially is this true in minor leagues and “out in the bush,”
where not infrequently it appears to the chance stranger that whole
towns――men, women, and children――have gone baseball crazy.
It is in such places that one may see the game, as a game, at its
best――and its worst. Here victory or defeat assumes a tragic importance
that must seem laughable to the ordinary city fan; the former being
frequently the cause of rejoicing and celebrating, sometimes with
fireworks and brass bands, while the latter will cast over the
community a cloud of gloom which could be equaled only by an appalling
catastrophe.
This intensity of feeling and emotion may scarcely be understood by
a person who has never followed with individual interest the fortunes
of a backwoods team, tasting the sweet intoxication of triumph, hard
earned and contested to the last ditch, or the heartbreaking bitterness
of defeat and shattered hopes.