Baseball Joe in the Big League; or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles

Filled to overflowing were the big bleachers. Crowded were the grandstands. Above the noise made by the incoming elevated trains, and the tramp of thousands of feet along the bo...

The game was not so easy as some of the Cardinal players had professed to believe it would be. Not all of the first string men went in, but they were in reserve, to be used if n...

"Here you are, Joe. Best team in the stable. I could have hired 'em out twice over since you went; but I wouldn't do it. Other folks have got the scare, too, about friends on th...

"Yes. The fellow who jumped his board bill at the hotel. Say, I guess the proprietor would like to see him. He has nerve coming back to this town. I've a good notion to tell the...

"Well, are you going to help us win the pennant, Matson?" asked Manager Watson, when he had introduced Joe to a number of the other St. Louis players, who were lounging about th...

"What is it, Joe?" asked his sister Clara, as she looked up from a letter she was reading to see her brother staring at a sheet of paper he had just withdrawn from an envelope,...

For a few seconds, after Joe's announcement, there was silence in the room. Then, as the realization of what it meant came to them, Clara was the first to speak.

"What would be the good? Nothing really happened, and just because I have an idea it would have, if I'd given them the chance to get at me, doesn't make them liable to arrest. I...

That night, their first in the training camp, there was considerable visiting to and fro among the members of the team, and some little horse-play, for, after all, the players w...

It was the occasion of the sleigh ride that Joe had gotten up, ostensibly for the enjoyment of a number of his young friends, but, in reality for Mabel, who, with her brother, w...

It was time for the Cardinals to take the field. The Phillies were two runs ahead, and that lead must be cut down, and at least one more tally made if the game were to be won.

"No--yes--well, it's unexpected news," hesitated Joe, as he made up his mind, on the instant, not to tell the contents of the note. He wanted a little time to think. Rapidly he...

"Well, all I've got to say," went on Batonby, "is that I hope you don't get on our team. And, for your information," he went on, as he saw that Shalleg was fairly bursting with...

Fast and excitedly came the exclamations, as Joe managed to free himself from the entanglement of robes and lines. Then he stood up, and, giving a hasty glance to see that Mabel...

"That man!" exclaimed Mr. Watson, as he gave the stranger a quick glance. "No, I don't know him, and he certainly isn't a member of my team. He isn't going to be, either; as far...

"Here's a boarding house that will suit you, I think," announced Joe, a little later, as he stopped the horses in front of a sort of hostelry of good reputation. It was not as l...

Joe Matson's brain was in a whirl as he left the boarding house where Shalleg had made his strange threat. The young pitcher had never before gone through such an experience, an...

"Well, I don't know as any great harm will come," went on the station master. "The train's snowed in, and will have to stay there until we can get together a gang of men and sho...

The next practice ball Joe sent in went cleanly over the plate, and landed with a thud in the catcher's glove. Russell nodded at Joe, to indicate that was what he wanted.

"Come on, Joe, I'll catch for you," good-naturedly offered Doc Mullin, who had been "warming" the bench, Russell being behind the bat. "That'll give Rob a chance to rest, and he...

"Oh, all right," he answered in a relieved tone. "I didn't want her to hear about Shalleg," he added in a whisper to Charlie. "She and father would worry, and, with his recent s...

"What has that got to do with it?" the young pitcher wanted to know, as he moved his sore arm back and forth, a little frown of pain showing on his face at each flexing movement.

The old familiar cries, and the resonant sound of the starting gong, were heard at the Reedville diamond. It was the first real game of the season, and it was awaited anxiously,...

For a few moments Joe was in a sort of daze. He was extremely uncomfortable, lying on the hard bottom of the boat, and there seemed to be rough water, for the craft swayed, and...

For a moment Joe stood facing the angry man--unnecessarily angry, it seemed--since, even if the young ball player had trod on his foot, the injury could not have amounted to much.

The moving picture people readily agreed to keep silent about the affair, and Manager Watson said he would explain Joe's absence from the game in a way that would disarm suspicion.

Quite a little family party it was the St. Louis players composed as they traveled South in their private car, for they enjoyed that distinction. This was something new for Joe,...

"There," said Baseball Joe, coming to a halt at a dark street corner, the stranger close beside him, "if you go up that way, and turn as I told you to, it will take you directly...

For a moment silence followed the announcement that meant so much to Joe. He could hear murmurs of surprise, and the violent motion of the craft in which he lay, bound helpless...

That opening game, between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds, was not remarkable for good playing. Few opening games are, for the teams have not that fierce rivalr...