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[Illustration: HE ROUNDED THE BAG ON HIS WAY TO SECOND]
Baseball Joe
Saving the League
OR
Breaking Up a Great Conspiracy
_By_ LESTER CHADWICK
Author of
“BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS,” “BASEBALL JOE
AROUND THE WORLD,” “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
=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, 1923, by
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
=Baseball Joe Saving the League=
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A SUDDEN CRASH 1
II CROOKED WORK 14
III UNDER COVER 25
IV LINING IT OUT 35
V PLAYING THE GAME 48
VI A HILARIOUS WELCOME 54
VII GROWING BEWILDERMENT 61
VIII A BLACK CONSPIRACY 66
IX THE TELLTALE PHOTOGRAPH 75
X WONDERFUL WORK 84
XI ON THE TRAIL 90
XII THE POLICE RAID 96
XIII KEEPING IT CLOSE 105
XIV A NO-HIT GAME 112
XV THE STARTLING TELEGRAM 124
XVI REGGIE TO THE RESCUE 132
XVII SNATCHED FROM THE FIRE 140
XVIII THICKENING CLOUDS 148
XIX A FURIOUS FIGHT 156
XX TAKEN CAPTIVE 164
XXI AIR-TIGHT PITCHING 173
XXII JIM PUTS ONE OVER 180
XXIII A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 189
XXIV THE ESCAPE 198
XXV DOWN THE ROPE 205
XXVI SCATTERING THE RASCALS 212
XXVII LARRY HAS HIS SAY 219
XXVIII A COUNCIL OF WAR 227
XXIX WEAVING THE WEB 234
XXX SAVING THE LEAGUE 240
BASEBALL JOE SAVING THE LEAGUE
CHAPTER I
A SUDDEN CRASH
“How’s the old soup bone to-day, Joe?” asked Jim Barclay, pitcher of
the Giant team, of his special chum, Joe Matson, king boxman of the
same team and known all over the country as the greatest twirler in
either league.
“Fine as a fiddle, old boy,” answered Joe, better known to American
fans as “Baseball Joe,” as he flexed the biceps of his mighty right arm
and swung it around and around as though he were winding up. “Feels
as though I could pitch to-day, even if I did have my turn in the box
yesterday.”
“It must be made of iron then, for you certainly had a strenuous time
yesterday plastering the whitewash on the Dodgers,” answered Jim
admiringly.
“It was a hard game, sure enough,” admitted Joe. “Those fellows are
tough birds, anyway, and always dangerous, especially when they stack
up against the Giants. They had their batting clothes on yesterday,
too, and were out for blood from the ring of the bell. Two or three
times they had me in the hole, and it was only luck that we turned them
back without a run.”
“Luck, nothing!” exclaimed Jim warmly. “It was because you tightened up
at the critical moments and stood them on their heads. You gave them a
sample of the kind of pitching that won the last World Series for us
against the Yanks.”
“Put it down to the kind of support I got from the rest of the team,”
said Joe modestly. “Some of the catches that Wheeler and Curry made
were nothing less than highway robberies. That swipe by Zach Treat in
the third inning had all the labels of a home run, and it was one of
the niftiest bits of playing I’ve ever seen when Curry picked it off
the fence.”
“It was a whale of a catch all right,” Jim conceded. “But to offset
that there was some rotten playing in the infield. McCarney at third
acted as though his fingers were all thumbs. Twice he fell down on easy
ones, and that high throw over Burkett’s head in the seventh let Ryan
leg it all the way to third. It was only that snappy double play that
Iredell engineered that kept us from being scored on in that inning.”
“McCarney did have a bad day,” admitted Joe. “Hupft, too, let a ball
get by him that went for two bases when he ran in to make a catch of
Milton’s hit that he ought to have waited for on the bound. He might
have seen that he couldn’t make it.”
“I can’t quite make out those fellows,” said Jim thoughtfully. “When we
got them on that trade with St. Louis, I thought they were going to be
towers of strength to the team. They had a good record last year both
in fielding and batting, and they certainly played like fiends in the
spring-training practice. But since the regular season opened I haven’t
known what to make of them. One day they’ll play like stars and the
next you’d think they were a couple of bushers.”
“You’re right about that,” agreed Joe. “But it isn’t that which gives
me food for thought, Jim. Ball players are like race horses. One day
they race like stake winners and the next they’re simply selling
platers. There isn’t one of us that doesn’t sometimes have an off day.
But the off days of Hupft and McCarney are different, somehow. There
seems to be a kind of method in their offness.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Jim, with quickened interest. “Do you
think they’re not loyal to the team?”
“Why, I shouldn’t want to think that about anybody unless I had the
goods on him,” answered Joe evasively. “Let’s hurry up now and get
back. We’ve walked further than we intended to, and I want to get in a
little practice this morning to keep my wing in condition.”
The two chums had been strolling along in the parklike section of upper
New York, at no great distance from the Polo Grounds. The time was a
day in late spring, and there was just enough coolness in the air to
make a walk delightful.
Both of them were trained athletes, tall, muscular, and in the pink
of condition. Perfect health and abounding vitality showed in the
springiness of their steps and the easy swing of their shoulders as
they walked along at a rapid pace.
They had reported for duty at the appointed time that season in the
training camp at San Antonio, Texas. During the winter they had kept
themselves fit and hard, and even at the beginning of practice had
shown that they were fit to fight for a man’s life. In both pitching
and fielding they had been doing wonders, and when at last the bell
rang for the beginning of the regular championship season they had
never been in better form. Joe showed that his arm was the same mighty
weapon that had struck fear into opposing batsmen the preceding year.
In batting, too, he was knocking out homers with gratifying regularity.
Jim, too, who now stood next to Joe as the most reliable flinger on
the Giants’ staff, was playing the game of his life in the box. It was
largely owing to the work of these two that the Giants stood up in the
front rank of the competing clubs. The prophecy was, already, that they
would win the championship, as they had won it the preceding year.
“Come now, Joe,” coaxed Jim, as they drew near the family hotel where
they were staying at the time, and which they had chosen for its
proximity to the Polo Grounds. “Don’t go so far as you have without
coming across with whatever’s on your chest. I’ve noticed for some time
past that you were acting as though you had something on your mind.”
“Nothing much except my hat, I guess,” remarked Joe, with a laugh that,
however, did not sound very genuine.
“Yes, you have,” Jim pressed him. “Something’s worrying you. I haven’t
been with you so long, old boy, without being able to read your moods.
A few weeks ago you were kicking up your heels like a colt let out to
pasture. Lately you seem at times to be brooding over something. More
than once when I’ve spoken to you you haven’t seemed to hear me. What’s
bothering you? Out with it!”
“Well,” said Joe, after a moment’s thought, “I suppose I might as well
tell you. You’re the best friend I have on earth and there isn’t
anybody else that I’d breathe a word to about it.”
“Count on me, old boy, to be as silent as the grave,” asseverated Jim.
“You were speaking about McCarney and Hupft and the off days they
seemed to have in their playing,” said Joe slowly. “Well, have you ever
happened to notice that most of those off days have been when I was
pitching?”
“By Jove, I hadn’t!” replied Jim, as his mind ran rapidly over some of
the more recent games. “But now you speak of it, I can remember several
times when they fell down badly when you were in the box. Yesterday
was a case in point. I remember, too, that game with the Bostons when
McCarney made three errors. And then there was that Philly game when
you had them eating out of your hand and yet came within an ace of
losing because of two boob plays by Hupft in center.”
“Yes, that’s what you can remember offhand,” replied Joe. “But I’ve
made a study of it and I could point out three or four other games
when their work seemed queer. On the other hand, when the rest of the
staff are pitching you couldn’t ask for much better support than they
give. Now, once or twice wouldn’t mean anything. One swallow, or even
two, doesn’t make a summer. But when it occurs so often, with me chosen
as the goat, don’t you think there’s something more in it than mere
coincidence?”
“I certainly do,” agreed Jim. “Gee, Joe, you’ve knocked me all in a
heap! What do you think it means? Have you had any words with them?”
“None at all,” replied Joe. “In fact, I’ve tried to be especially nice
to them, chiefly because they came from St. Louis, which, as you know,
was my old team. I’ve gone out of my way to be friendly. But they’ve
never thawed out, and lots of times when I’ve been going past them
they’ve shut up as if they’d been talking about me and only resumed
again after I got out of earshot. But there’s something more than that.
“Do you remember the game we played with Pittsburgh when I came near
to having my head knocked off by that throw from short center to the
plate? The ball whizzed past my ear with the force of a bullet. If it
had hit me, it would have been good night for yours truly.”
“I remember,” replied Jim. “I was sitting near McRae on the bench in
the dugout, and the old boy went white as he saw what a narrow escape
you had.”
“Well, then, do you remember who it was that threw that ball?”
“Reddy Hupft!” exclaimed Jim. “He came in from center and got the ball
only a little way back of second base. Then he threw to the plate to
get Reilly, who was coming in from third.”
“Yes,” said Joe. “And you know that throwing to the plate is his long
suit. But that day it didn’t go to the plate. I had run out of the way
so that he could have a clear field, and the ball followed me. It was
altogether out of Mylert’s reach, and the runner scored. It was marked
up against Hupft as an error.”
“Great Scott!” cried Jim aghast. “Do you mean that he tried to injure
you?”
“I’m not saying anything,” replied Joe. “I’m just stating the cold
facts. One thing more. In that game with Cincinnati last week you
remember that I knocked out a homer in the ninth. At least I thought
it was a homer. It had gone down to the fence, and I was nearly at
third when Gallagher got his hands on the ball. I knew I could make the
plate, but just as I was rounding third, McCarney, who was coaching at
that corner, got in my way and I went down, heels over head. It was
just by an eyelash that I was able to get to my feet and scramble back
to third before the ball got there.”
“I remember that Robbie gave him a good ragging for his clumsiness,”
remarked Jim.
“Clumsiness!” repeated Joe, dwelling significantly on the word. “If
ever a man was deliberately tripped, I was that man. I felt his spikes
as I went down. Going at the pace I was, I might have broken my leg or
my neck. As it was, my ankle was sore for days.”
“The skunks!” cried Jim, seething with rage that had been steadily
growing as one after another of these facts was brought to his
attention. “They ought to be blacklisted and put out of the league
forever. You ought to expose them.”
“No, that’s just what I don’t want to do,” objected Joe slowly. “Give
a rascal rope enough and he’ll hang himself. In the first place, while
I’m pretty well convinced in my own mind that all these things were
done deliberately, I might not be able to convince others beyond a
reasonable doubt. Of course they would be explained away by the men
themselves as accidents, and there would be many who would believe them.
“Then, too, I’m thinking of the good of the game. You know what a black
eye baseball got when that White Sox conspiracy to throw games came to
light. For a time it looked as though it might mean the death of the
game. Luckily, it didn’t have that result, for the bulk of the public
know what you and I know, that as a general thing baseball is as clean
as a hound’s tooth――the whitest game of all American sports, except
perhaps football. For forty years there hadn’t been a breath against
it. But at last that sickening White Sox scandal showed that once in
a blue moon certain ball players were weak enough or foul enough to
betray their teams, their employers and the public.
“That one lapse, that one black spot on the splendid record of the
game, the public has forgiven in justice to the thousands of players
that would cut off their right hands rather than not play the game
fairly and squarely for all that is in them. The fans have wiped that
off the slate. But don’t you see that if anything else of the kind
should break out now it might kill the game beyond recovery?”
“Sure thing,” assented Jim. “But at the same time I don’t see why you
should let those fellows get away with it when perhaps your life might
pay the penalty. It’s all right to think of the good of the game,
but there’s a duty you owe to yourself and to others――to Mabel for
instance.”
“Yes, I’ve thought of all that,” said Joe, a look coming into his eyes
at the mention of Mabel’s name that she would have been glad to see.
“Don’t think for a minute that I’m going to be a martyr or anything
like that. I’m not built that way. If those fellows are really out to
do me, they’ll find before long that they have met their match. You
know how many times rascals have tried to get the best of me and what’s
happened to them. They’ve doped my coffee, they’ve tried to kidnap me,
to smirch my reputation, and more than once they’ve tried to cripple
or kill me. But they’ve never been able to put it over, and I’ve come
out on top every time. And I’ve got a hunch that this present plot, if
it really is a plot, is going to be knocked out like the others.
“But it’s going to be done on the quiet. They’ll get all that’s coming
to them, but if I can help it the public won’t get wise to just what it
is that’s put them down and out. Understand?”
“I get you, old boy,” returned Jim. “If they succeed in their dirty
work, they’ll be the first that ever turned the trick on Baseball Joe.
Count on me to stand right by you.”
“I can always do that,” replied Joe warmly. “You’re always there when
it comes to the showdown. But let’s put the matter out of our mind for
the present. Here we are at the hotel. Let’s go out into the lot at the
back and have a little pitching practice. I want to try out the hop on
the ball that I’ve been developing this last week or two.”
“I saw you used it two or three times yesterday,” said Jim. “It’s a
winner, all right. The boys from over the bridge didn’t know what to
make of it. They were hitting inches under it.”
“I shan’t be satisfied until they are hitting a foot under it,” laughed
Joe, as they went into the house.
It was the work of only a moment to throw off their coats and don
sweaters. Then they picked a ball from their collection and adjourned
to the large open space back of the hotel that gave them abundant room
for practice.
Their temporary home was in a rapidly growing section, and all about
them were buildings in various stages of construction. One of these was
on the adjoining plot of ground. The work on this building had been
temporarily stopped because of some business trouble of the builder,
but there were large piles of building material heaped on the second
floor and on the scaffolding that ran along the side of the building.
For some time Joe and Jim pitched back and forth to each other,
starting slowly, but gradually working out their arms until they were
going under a full head of steam.
Jim uncorked a wild one that Joe leaped for but was unable to reach.
The ball was going with such momentum that it rolled a considerable
distance before Joe finally retrieved it.
“What do you think I am, an outfielder?” queried Joe, in mock reproach.
“Too bad, old man,” laughed Jim. “But I’ve got it out of my system now
and I won’t do it again.”
“That’s what they all say,” remarked Joe, with a grin. “But ‘once
bitten, twice shy,’ and I guess I’ll hunt up a backstop.”
He looked around and found what he wanted in the side of the house that
was being built next door.
“Now you can be as wild as a hawk if you want to,” he laughed. “This
house must be of pretty punk material if it lets the ball go through
it.”
There was no chance to prove whether it would or not, for Jim steadied
down and kept the ball within his comrade’s reach. For perhaps ten
minutes more they tried out their assortment of curves and slants.
Suddenly a look of alarm came into Jim’s face.
“Look out, Joe!” he yelled. “Look out! Jump! Quick!”
The words had barely left his lips when, with a terrific crash a pile
of lumber came tumbling down from the scaffold directly on the spot
where Joe had been standing.