A STARTLING SUGGESTION
With this ultimatum, the irate manager stalked off to join Robbie,
while Iredell, his face like a thunder cloud, returned to the clubhouse.
Nor was his wrath at the “roasting” he had received at the hands of
McRae lessened by the consciousness that it was deserved. He knew in
his heart that he had neglected his duties, or, at least, had failed
to take advantage of his opportunities. The game might have been won
if he had been on the job. To be sure, the team had played like a lot
of bushers, but that did not relieve him of his responsibility. It was
when they were playing badly that it was up to him to step into the
breach. And that was what he had lamentably failed to do.
“Look at the face of him,” whispered Larry to Wheeler. “The old man has
been giving him the rough edge of his tongue.”
“And when that tongue gets going it can certainly flay a man alive,”
remarked Wheeler. “I’m sore yet from what he gave the bunch of us.
Let’s hurry and get out of this. It’s too much like a funeral around
here to suit me.”
McRae in the meantime was unburdening his heart to Robbie. The latter
was his closest friend and adviser. They had been teammates in the
early days on the old Orioles of Baltimore, when that famous team had
been burning up the League. Both of them knew baseball from beginning
to end. Together they had worked out most of the inside stuff, such as
the delayed steal, the hit and run, and other clever bits of strategy
that had now become the common property of all up-to-date major-league
teams.
Yet, though as close friends as brothers, they were as different in
temperament as two men could be. Robbie caught his flies with molasses.
McRae relied on vinegar to catch his. Robbie knew how to salve the
umpires. McRae was on their backs clawing like a wildcat. McRae ruffled
up the feathers of his men, while Robbie smoothed them down. Each had
his own special qualities and defects. But both were square and just
and upright, and commanded the respect of the members of the team.
Together they formed an ideal combination, whose worth was attested by
the way they had led the Giants to victory. Into that wonderful team
they had put the fighting spirit, the indefinable something that made
them the “class” of the League and more than once the champions of the
world. Even when they failed to win the pennant, they were always close
to the top, and it was usually the Giants that the winning team had to
beat.
Just now, however, the Giants were undeniably in the slump that at
times will come to the best of teams, and both McRae and Robbie, who
were hard losers, were at their wits’ end to know how to get them out
of it.
“We’re up against it for fair, Robbie,” said McRae, as they walked to
the gate on their way to the hotel at which the Giants were stopping.
“Think of the way the Chicagos are giving us the merry ha ha! We just
gave them that game to-day. Looked as though we had it sewed up for
fair. People had started to leave their seats, thinking it was all
over. Then we turn around and hand the game over to them.”
“It’s tough luck, to be sure,” Robbie agreed. “If Matson hadn’t been
hurt, we’d have copped it sure. They couldn’t get within a mile of him.
And now as the capsheaf, he’s probably out of the game for a week. But
cheer up, Mac. The season’s young yet, and we’ve got out of many a
worse hole than this.”
“It wasn’t so much the boys going to pieces in that one inning that
makes me so sore,” returned the manager. “Any team will get a case of
the rattles once in a while and play like a lot of dubs. What gets my
goat are the blunders that Iredell made. As a captain, supposed to use
his brains, he did well--I don’t think.”
“It was rotten judgment,” agreed Robbie, thoughtfully. “And what makes
it worse is that it isn’t the first time it’s happened. He’s overlooked
a lot of things since we started on this trip. Some of them have been
trifling and haven’t done much damage. Some of them the spectators
wouldn’t notice at all. But you’ve seen them and I’ve seen them.”
“And what’s worse, some of the team have seen them,” returned McRae.
“That’s taken some of their confidence away from them and made them
shaky. A captain is a good deal like a pitcher. If he’s good, the team
play behind him like thoroughbreds. If he’s poor, they play like a lot
of selling platers. I shouldn’t wonder if that’s the whole secret of
this present slump.”
“Perhaps you’re right, John,” assented Robbie. “We’ll have to coach
Iredell, wise him up on the inside stuff, and see if he doesn’t do
better.”
McRae shook his head.
“That won’t do the trick,” he replied. “A good captain is born, not
made. He’s got to have the gray matter in his noddle to start with. If
he hasn’t got it, all the coaching in the world won’t put it into him.
It’s a matter of brains, first, last and all the time. I’ve come to
the conclusion that Iredell hasn’t got them. He’s got a ball player’s
brains. But he hasn’t got a captain’s brains, and that’s all there is
to it.”
“Well, admitting that that’s so, we seem to be up against it,” mused
Robbie, ruefully. “Who else on the team is any better in that respect?
Run over the list. Mylert, Burkett, Barrett, Jackwell, Curry, Bowen,
Wheeler. I don’t know that any one of them has anything on Iredell in
the matter of sense and judgment.”
“Haven’t you overlooked some one?” asked McRae, significantly.
Robbie looked at him in wonderment.
“Nobody except the substitutes,” he said. “And of course they’re out of
the question.”
“How about the box?” asked McRae.
“Oh, the pitchers!” returned Robbie. “I didn’t take them into
consideration. But of course a pitcher can’t be captain. That goes
without saying.”
“Not with me it doesn’t go without saying,” said McRae. “Why can’t a
pitcher act as captain?”
“Why--why,” stammered Robbie, “just because it isn’t done. I don’t
remember a case where it ever was done.”
“That cuts no ice with me at all,” declared McRae, incisively.
“Whatever success I’ve had in the world has been got by doing things
that aren’t done. How was it that we made the old Orioles the class of
the League and the wonder of the baseball world? By doing the things
that aren’t done--that no other team had thought of. They went along in
the old groove, playing cut and dried baseball. We went after them like
a whirlwind with a raft of new ideas, and before they knew where they
were at, we had their shirts.”
“Wriggling snakes!” exclaimed Robbie, his face lighting up, as he gave
his friend a resounding slap on the back. “Mac, you’ve got me going.
You’re the same old Mac, always getting up something new. Matson, of
course! Joe Matson, not only the greatest pitcher, but the brainiest
man in all baseball! Matson, who thinks like lightning. Matson, that
the whole team worships. Matson, who can give any one cards and spades
and beat him out. Mac, you old rascal, you take my breath away. You’ve
hit the bull’s-eye.”
McRae smiled his gratification.
“That’s all right, Robbie, but you needn’t go knocking me down with
that ham of a hand of yours,” he grumbled.
“Have you mentioned the matter to Joe yet?” asked Robbie, eagerly.
“Not yet,” replied the manager. “I wouldn’t do that anyway until I had
talked the matter over with you and learned what you thought of it.
And then, too, with that bruised leg and ankle of his, he won’t be in
the game for a week or so, anyway. So you really cotton to the idea, do
you?”
“I fall for it like a load of bricks,” was the response. “Of course,
Matson’s yet to be heard from. It’s a pretty heavy responsibility to
be placed on a man that’s already carrying the team along with his
wonderful pitching. Perhaps he’ll think it’s a little too much to ask
of him.”
“I’ll take a chance on that,” replied McRae, confidently. “He’s got
a marvelous physique, and he always keeps himself in the best of
condition. He’s strong enough to carry any load that he’s asked to
bear. Then, too, you know how he’s wrapt up in the success of the
team. He’s never balked yet at anything I’ve asked him to do. He’s
playing baseball not only for money, but because he loves it. He talks
baseball, thinks baseball, eats baseball, dreams baseball. He’s hep to
every fine point in the game and he’s on the job every second. And when
it comes to thinking fast and acting quickly--well, you know as well as
I do that nobody can touch him.”
“He’s a wizard, all right,” agreed Robbie. “But here’s a point to be
thought over, John. A captain’s got to be in every game. Joe pitches
perhaps two games a week.”
“I’ve thought of that, too,” McRae replied. “On the days he’s not in
the box, he can play in the outfield. And think of the batting strength
that will add to the team. He’s liable to break up any game with one of
the same kind of homers he knocked out to-day. He’s as much of a wonder
with the bat as he is in the box, and that’s going some.”
“Better and better,” declared Robbie, exultantly. “Mac, I take off
my hat to you. You’ve hit on an idea that’s going to win the pennant
of the League this season, with the World Series thrown in for good
measure. Who cares for to-day’s game? Who cares if the Giants are in a
slump? Just make Joe Matson captain of the team and then see the Giants
climb!”