[Illustration: JOE SLID INTO THE RUBBER IN A CLOUD OF DUST.]
Baseball Joe
Captain of the Team
OR
Bitter Struggles On the Diamond
_By_ LESTER CHADWICK
AUTHOR OF
“BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS,” “BASEBALL JOE, HOME RUN KING,” “THE
RIVAL PITCHERS,” “THE EIGHT-OARED VICTORS,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
BOOKS BY LESTER CHADWICK
=THE BASEBALL JOE SERIES=
=12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.=
BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS
BASEBALL JOE ON THE SCHOOL NINE
BASEBALL JOE AT YALE
BASEBALL JOE IN THE CENTRAL LEAGUE
BASEBALL JOE IN THE BIG LEAGUE
BASEBALL JOE ON THE GIANTS
BASEBALL JOE IN THE WORLD SERIES
BASEBALL JOE AROUND THE WORLD
BASEBALL JOE, HOME RUN KING
BASEBALL JOE SAVING THE LEAGUE
BASEBALL JOE, CAPTAIN OF THE TEAM
=THE COLLEGE SPORTS SERIES=
=12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.=
THE RIVAL PITCHERS
A QUARTERBACK’S PLUCK
BATTING TO WIN
THE WINNING TOUCHDOWN
FOR THE HONOR OF RANDALL
THE EIGHT-OARED VICTORS
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, New York
Copyright, 1924, by
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
=Baseball Joe, Captain of the Team=
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I QUEER TACTICS 1
II A BITTER STRUGGLE 10
III THROWN AWAY 24
IV FROM BAD TO WORSE 34
V A STARTLING SUGGESTION 44
VI PERPLEXING PROBLEMS 52
VII BAD NEWS FOR JIM 64
VIII THE HIDDEN-BALL TRICK 73
IX THE NEW CAPTAIN 85
X GETTING IN SHAPE 95
XI WINGING THEM OVER 104
XII AN AMAZING FEAT 119
XIII CLEVER STRATEGY 130
XIV DEEPENING MYSTERY 143
XV TROUBLE BREWING 148
XVI OUT FOR REVENGE 156
XVII STEALING HOME 162
XVIII A TEST OF NERVE 167
XIX THE WARNING BUZZ 172
XX THE PACKAGE OF MYSTERY 177
XXI DROPPING BACK 182
XXII UNDER HEAVY STRAIN 189
XXIII BLUNDERING OLD REGGIE 195
XXIV GETTING A CONFESSION 204
XXV IN THE DEPTHS 210
XXVI OFF HIS STRIDE 216
XXVII TAKEN BY SURPRISE 221
XXVIII A FRESH SPURT 226
XXIX THE SNAKE’S HEAD 233
XXX THE FINAL BATTLE 243
BASEBALL JOE
CAPTAIN OF THE TEAM
CHAPTER I
QUEER TACTICS
“No use talking, Joe, we seem to be on the toboggan,” remarked Jim
Barclay, one of the first string pitchers of the Giant team, to his
closest chum, Joe Matson; as they came out of the clubhouse at the
Chicago baseball park and strolled over toward their dugout in the
shadow of the grandstand.
“You’re right, old boy,” agreed Joe--“Baseball Joe,” as he was known by
the fans all over the country. “We seem to be headed straight for the
cellar championship, and at the present rate it won’t be long before we
land there. I can’t tell what’s got into the boys. Perhaps I’m as much
to blame as any of the rest of them. I’ve lost the last two games I
pitched.”
“Huh!” snorted Jim. “Look at the way you lost them! You never pitched
better in your life. You had everything--speed, curves, control, and
that old fadeaway of yours was working like a charm. But the boys
played behind you like a lot of sand-lotters. They simply threw the
game away--handed it to the Cubs on a silver platter. What they did in
the field was a sin and a shame. And when it came to batting, they were
even worse. The home run and triple you pasted out yourself were the
only clouts worth mentioning.”
“The boys do seem to have lost their batting eyes,” agreed Joe. “And
when it comes to fielding, they’re all thumbs. What do you think the
trouble is?”
“Search me,” replied Jim. “We’ve got the same team we had when we
started the season. Look at the way we started off: Three out of four
from the Brooklyns, the same from the Bostons, and a clean sweep from
the Phillies. It looked as though we were going to go through the
League like a prairie fire. But the instant we struck the West we went
down with a sickening thud. Pittsburgh wiped up the earth with us. The
Reds walked all over us. The Cubs in the last two games have given us
the razz. We’re beginning to look like something the cat dragged in.”
“I can’t make it out,” observed Joe, thoughtfully. “Of course, every
team gets in a slump sometimes. But this has lasted longer than usual,
and it’s time we snapped out of it. McRae will be a raving lunatic if
we don’t.”
“He’s pretty near that now,” replied Jim. “And I don’t wonder. He’d set
his heart on winning the flag this season, and it begins to look as
though his cake was dough.”
“Even Robbie’s lost his smile,” said Joe. “And things must be pretty
bad when he gets into the doleful dumps.”
“I thought that when we got those rascals, Hupft and McCarney, off the
team, everything would be plain sailing,” remarked Jim. “They seemed to
be the only disorganizing element.”
“Yes,” agreed Joe. “And especially when we got such crackerjacks in
their places as Jackwell and Bowen. But speaking of them, have you
noticed anything peculiar about them?”
“Great Scott!” exclaimed Jim, in some alarm. “You don’t mean to
intimate that they’re crooks, too?”
“Not at all,” replied Joe. “From all I can see, they are as white as
any men on the team. And they certainly know baseball from A to Z.
They can run rings around Hupft and McCarney. But, just the same, I’ve
noticed something odd about them from the start.”
“What, for instance?” asked Jim, with quickened interest.
“They seem nervous and scared at times,” answered Joe. “Jackwell, at
third, keeps looking towards that part of the grandstand. The other day
I was going to throw to him, to catch Elston napping; but I saw that
Jackwell wasn’t looking at me, and so I held the ball. And I’ve noticed
that when he’s coming into the bench between innings he lets his eyes
range all over the stands.”
“Looking to see if his girl was there, perhaps,” laughed Jim.
“Nothing so pleasant as that,” asserted Joe. “It was as though he were
looking for some one he didn’t want to see. And the same thing is true
of Bowen. Of course he’s out at center, and I can’t observe him as well
as I can Jackwell. But when he’s been sitting in the dugout waiting for
his turn at bat, he’s always squinting at the fans in the stands and
the bleachers. The other boys aren’t that way.”
“This is all news to me,” remarked Jim. “I’ve noticed that they’ve been
rather clannish and stuck close together, but that’s natural enough,
seeing that they were pals in the minor-league team from which McRae
bought them and that they don’t feel quite at home yet in big-league
company.”
“Well, you keep your eye on them and see if you don’t notice what I’ve
been telling you about,” counseled Joe. “Of course, it may not mean a
thing, but all the same it’s struck me as queer.”
By this time the two pitchers had reached the Giants’ dugout, where
most of their teammates had already gathered.
It was a beautiful day in early summer. The Eastern teams’ invasion of
the West was in full swing, and baseball enthusiasm was running high
all over the circuit. The Giants, after a disastrous series of games in
Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, had struck Chicago. Or, perhaps, it would
be more correct to say that Chicago had struck them, for the Cubs had
taken the first two games with ease.
No doubt that accounted for the tremendous throng that had been pouring
into the gates that afternoon, until now the stands and bleachers were
crowded with enthusiastic fans. For if there was anything in the world
that Chicago dearly loved, it was to see the Giants beaten. One game
from the haughty Giants, the champions of the world, was more keenly
relished than two games from any other club.
The rivalry between the teams of the two great cities was intense,
dating from the days when the old Chicagos, with “Pop” Anson and Frank
Chance at their head, had been accustomed to sweeping everything before
them. Now the tables had been turned, and for the last few years, the
Giants, with McRae as their astute manager and Baseball Joe as their
pitching “ace,” had had the upper hand. Twice in succession the Giants
had won the championship of the National League and had wound up the
season in a blaze of glory by also winning the World Series.
This year they were desperately anxious to repeat. And, as Jim had
said, it looked at the beginning of the season as though they were
going to do it. They got off on the right foot and had an easy time of
it in the games with the other Eastern clubs.
But with the Western clubs it was another story. A “jinx” seemed to be
pursuing them. Pittsburgh had tied the can to them, and the Reds, not
to be outdone, had tightened the knot. The Cubs thus far had clawed
them savagely. They had tasted blood, and their appetite had grown with
what it had fed upon. And for that reason the sport lovers of the Windy
City had turned out in force to see the Cubs once more make the Giants
“their meat.”
McRae, the manager, was sitting on the bench with Robson, his
assistant, as Joe and Jim approached. There was an anxious furrow on
his brow, and even the rotund and rubicund “Robbie,” usually jolly and
smiling, seemed in the depths of gloom.
McRae’s face lightened a little when he saw Joe.
“I’m going to put you in to pitch to-day, Matson,” he said. “How’s the
old soup-bone feeling?”
“Fine and dandy,” returned Joe, with a smile.
“I want you to stand those fellows on their heads,” said the manager.
“They’ve been making monkeys of us long enough.”
“I’ll do my best, Mac,” promised Joe, as he picked up a ball preparatory
to going out for warming-up practice.
“Your best is good enough,” replied McRae.
Joe and Jim went out with their respective catchers and limbered up
their pitching arms.
“How are they coming, Mylert?” Joe called out to the veteran catcher,
who was acting as his backstop.
“Great,” pronounced Mylert. “You’ve got speed to burn and your curves
are all to the merry. That hop of yours is working fine. You’ll have
them breaking their backs to get at the ball.”
McRae, in the meantime, had beckoned to Iredell, the captain of the
team.
“Look here, Iredell,” he asked abruptly, “what’s the matter with this
team? Why are they playing like a lot of old women?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Iredell, flushing and twirling his cap
nervously.
“Don’t know?” snapped McRae. “Who should know if you don’t? You’re the
captain, aren’t you?”
“Sure,” admitted Iredell. “But for all that, I can’t always get onto
what’s in the minds of the fellows. I’ve talked to them and razzed them
and done everything except to lam them. They’re just in a slump, and
they don’t seem able to get out. Some of them think a jinx is on their
backs. I’m playing my own position well enough, ain’t I?”
“Yes, you are,” McRae was forced to admit, for Iredell was one of
the crack shortstops of the League, and so far had been batting and
fielding well. “But that isn’t enough. To be a good shortstop is one
thing, and to be a good captain is another. I figured you’d be both.
Tell me this. Are there any cliques in the team? Any fellows out to do
another or show him up? Any fights in the clubhouse that I haven’t been
told about?”
“No,” replied Iredell, “nothing that’s worth noticing. Of course, the
boys are as sore as boils over the way they keep on losing, and their
tempers are on a hair trigger. Once in a while something is said that
makes one of them take a crack at another. But that’s usually over in a
minute and they shake hands and make up. There aren’t any real grudges
among the boys that I know of.”
“Well, things have got to change, and it’s largely up to you to change
them,” growled McRae. “If the job’s too big for you, perhaps somebody
else will have to take it. I’ve often found that a shake up in the
batting order will work wonders. Perhaps the same thing’s true of a
shake up in captains.”
The flush in Iredell’s face grew deeper and his eyes glinted with
anger. But he said nothing, and as McRae turned to say something to
Robbie, indicating that the interview was ended, he moved away sullenly
from the dugout.
Just then the bell rang as a signal for the Giants to run out for
practice. The white uniforms of the Chicagos faded away from the
diamond, while the gray-suited Giants scattered to their several
positions in the field and on the bases.
Jackwell, who had been standing near Joe while the latter was putting
the balls over to Mylert, started to run out with the rest, but
suddenly he halted and stood in his tracks like a stone image.
Joe, who, out of the corner of his eye, had noted the action, turned to
him in surprise.
“What’s the matter, Jackwell?” he asked, eying the new third baseman
keenly.
“I--I can’t go on,” stammered Jackwell.
Joe noted that he had suddenly turned white.