_"Technicalities" on the Job_
The Bears were going home holding grimly to their claim upon first
place in the league race. With but seven games remaining to be played
all were against clubs already beaten, and five of the seven were
against clubs considerably weaker in every department. Two games were
to be played off the home grounds.
The statisticians were busy calculating that the Bears had a decided
advantage in the race, yet they were not happy in the homecoming. The
ride home was only a few hours long, and they had caught the train
immediately after the sensational finish of the final game with the
Travelers in order to reach home and get settled by midnight.
Swanson and McCarthy sat together as the train pulled out, talking in
low tones.
"I think Clancy is onto him," said Swanson. "Just sit tight. It isn't
our move yet. The Boss acted queerly on the bench to-day and has been
watching Williams all the time, while pretending not to. I'm going to
mingle and see if any of the other fellows are wise to him."
Hardly had Swanson left the seat than McCarthy was surprised by
"Technicalities" Feehan, who sat down in the seat vacated by the
shortstop.
Feehan was one of the odd characters developed by the national game, a
reporter who had traveled with the Bear teams for so many years the
players regarded him as a sort of venerable pest who hadn't seen a ball
player since Williamson's day, and never such a catcher as Mike Kelly,
a first baseman like Comisky or a fielder like Tip O'Neil. He
sometimes was called "Four Eyes," from the fact that he wore large,
steel-rimmed glasses of great thickness, and his other name was
"Technicalities."
He was not at all interested in baseball, excepting as a business. His
chief interest was in the Children's Crusades, and he had spent eight
years of his spare time in libraries all over America digging out data
for his history of those remarkable pilgrimages which he had written
and rewritten half a dozen times. Not being a baseball fan he was
eminently fair and unprejudiced, and the players thought more of the
quiet, studious fellow than they did of the excitable and the partisan
reporters who joined their sports and their woes.
"Mr. McCarthy," he said seriously, "did you observe anything strange in
to-day's game?"
"Several strange things," assented McCarthy. "Among them that error I
made early in the game."
"I mean things of an unusual nature," persisted Technicalities. "I was
struck by an odd phenomenon and thought perhaps you noticed it. I find
it more perplexing as I study my score books."
"What was it?" inquired McCarthy, cautious not to betray any interest.
"Did you, for instance, observe anything strange about the hits in your
direction?"
"I noticed that those that didn't have cayenne pepper on them were
white hot and came like greased lightning," laughed McCarthy. "I
expected to find my right leg playing left field any minute."
"I was speaking numerically, although, of course, the speed of the hits
enters into the phenomenon."
"They did seem to be coming my way rapidly," agreed the third baseman.
"In to-day's game I find," continued the statistician, "that there were
eighteen batted balls hit in the direction of third base. You had five
assists and one error and caught two line drives. I do not include
foul balls, of which six line drives went near third base. Of these
eighteen batted balls, fourteen were hit by right-handed batters and
four by left-handers. The fourteen right-handed batters hit balls
pitched inside the plate, the four left-handers hit balls outside the
plate, that is, outside to them, so that practically every ball batted
toward you was pitched to the inside of the plate, that is, the
catcher's left. I have checked these statistics and find them correct."
"Well, what of it?" asked McCarthy.
"In the preceding games--in which you played third and in which
Williams has pitched--I find that an average of twelve and a fraction
batted balls per game have been hit toward third base, exclusive of
fouls. In the games in which you have played and in which Williams has
not pitched the average is six and a trifling fraction. You have
averaged seven and one-fourth chances per game--legitimate
chances--with Williams pitching, and a trifle under three chances per
game when he was not pitching. Does it not seem remarkable?"
"Perhaps so," assented McCarthy. "I never studied such statistics."
"The phenomenon is the more remarkable," added the strange little man,
"because the average chances per game of the third basemen of five
leagues, two majors and three Class AA for the last five years has been
2 and 877-998. It is impossible to construe the figures to mean but
one of two things."
"What are they?" asked McCarthy, curiously interested.
"Either it is mere coincidence or Williams is deliberately trying to
lose this pennant and to make you shoulder the blame."
"That's a pretty stiff charge," remarked McCarthy, amazed at the
deductions of the reporter, which fitted so well the suspicion,
gradually becoming a certainty to his mind.
"Either he is pitching purposely to make the opposing batters hit balls
at you," insisted Feehan, "or it just happened--and things do not just
happen in baseball with that regularity."
"Possibly he is wild and can't get the ball over the plate."
"On the contrary," persisted Feehan, "he has perfect control. If he
did not possess control he could not pitch so many balls to the same
place."
"I'm immensely grateful," said McCarthy, touched by the kindness of the
odd reporter. "It's good of you and I shan't forget it."
"I deserve no thanks," insisted Feehan. "It's merely in the line of
square dealing and justice--and, speaking of justice, McCarthy, did you
ever take interest in the Children's Crusades? Let me show you some of
the data I dug up recently"----
He delved into his little bag, which was his constant companion, and,
drawing forth a mass of scattered, disordered notes, he went into
raptures of enthusiasm while describing to the player some new features
of the disappearance of the French children and of the sojourn of
hundreds of them as slaves in African harems.
A great throng of admirers was waiting in the station to welcome the
Bears back from their successful trip. Swanson and McCarthy finally
escaped from the crowd, and, jumping into a taxicab, were whirled to
the hotel, where Swanson had secured rooms for both.
The hour was growing late, but after they had deposited their baggage
in their rooms, Swanson proposed a walk and a late supper. It was
McCarthy's first visit to the city which he represented upon the ball
field and its magnificence and greatness made him forget the worries
and troubles of which he seemed the center. He even forgot to detail
to his chum his strange interview with the reporter until they were
seated in a quiet nook of one of the great restaurants. Then, in
response to some jesting allusion to the Children's Crusades by
Swanson, he told the big shortstop of the array of statistics Feehan
had presented.
"He's a square little guy," said Swanson. "And he's got more brains in
that funny-looking little head of his than this whole bunch has. He
dopes things out pretty nearly right, and when he is convinced that he
is right he goes the limit. Between us there is a certain left-handed
pitcher who is in hot water right now and don't know it. Speaking of
the devil," he added quickly, "there's his wings flapping, and look who
he is with--across the far corner there, at the little table."
McCarthy's eyes followed the route indicated and suddenly he lost
interest in his food. At a small table were Williams, Secretary
Tabor--and Betty Tabor.
McCarthy was silent and moody during the walk back to the hotel and
seemed to have lost interest in the great glaring city, which was just
commencing to dim its illumination for the night. They were in bed
with the lights out when Swanson said:
"Cut out the worrying, kid. I wouldn't have a girl no one else wanted.
Besides, either her father has been told by Clancy to watch that crook
or else Betty Tabor is stringing him along to learn something. She
despises Williams, and she wouldn't laugh at him or eat with him unless
she had a purpose in it."
McCarthy could have blessed him for the words, but he assumed a dignity
he did not feel and said:
"I don't see why I should be especially interested."
"Cut out the con stuff, Bo," laughed Swanson, relapsing into his old
careless baseball phraseology. "You dope around like a chicken with
the pip and look at her like a seasick guy seeing the Statue of Liberty
and then think no one is onto you."
Reply seemed inadvisable, so McCarthy grunted and rolled over. There
was a silence and then Swanson added:
"And say, Bo, this Williams is in trouble. There's me and you on his
track. Clancy is wise and watching him. Old Technicalities has him
doped crooked in the figures, and now Betty Tabor is smiling at him to
get the facts--he hasn't a chance. It's darn hard to fix a baseball
game."