CHAPTER V

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!”