CHAPTER XXX

THE HARDEST BATTLE

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 boarded run-ways leading to the big concrete Brush Stadium at the Polo Grounds, could be heard the shrill voices of the vendors of peanuts, bottled ginger ale and ice cream cones.

Out on the perfect diamond, laid out as though with rule and compass, men in white and other men in darker uniforms were practicing. Balls were being caught, other balls were being batted.

It was a sunny, perfect day, hot enough to make fast playing possible, and yet with a refreshing breeze.

"Well, Joe, are we going to win?" asked Rad, as he and his chum went to the bench after their warm-up work.

"I don't know," answered the young pitcher slowly. "They're a hard team to beat."

It was the final game between the Giants and the Cardinals. To win it meant for the St. Louis team that they would reach third place. And if they did get third position, it was practically certain that they could keep it, for their closing games in St. Louis were with the tail-enders of the league.

"Are you going to pitch, Joe?"

"I don't know that, either. Haven't heard yet," was the answer.

Just then a messenger came up to Joe.

"There's somebody in that box," he said, indicating one low down, and just back of home plate, "who wants to speak to you."

Joe looked around, and a delighted look came over his face as he saw his father and mother, Clara, and one other.

"Mabel!" exclaimed Joe, and then he hurried over.

"Say, this is great!" he cried, with sparkling eyes. "I didn't know you folks were coming," and he kissed his mother and sister, and wished--but there! I said I wouldn't tell secrets.

"Your father found he had some business in New York," explained Mrs. Matson, "so we thought we would combine pleasure with it, and see you play."

"And they looked me up, and brought me along," added Mabel. "I just happened to be in town. Now we want to see you win, Joe!"

"I don't even know that I'll play," he said, wistfully.

Joe felt that he could bide his time, and yet he did long to be the one to open the game, as it was an important one, and a record-breaking crowd was on hand to see it.

But it was evident that Manager Watson's choice of a pitcher must be changed. It needed but two innings to demonstrate that, for the Giants got four hits and three runs off Slim Cooney, who, most decidedly, was not in form.

The substitution of a batter was made, and the manager nodded at Joe.

"You'll pitch!" he said, grimly. "And I want you to win!"

"And I want to," replied Joe, as he thought of those in the box watching him.

It was to be Baseball Joe's hardest battle. Opposed to him on the mound for the Giants was a pitcher of world-wide fame, a veteran, well-nigh peerless, who had won many a hard-fought game.

I might describe that game to you in detail, but I will confine myself to Joe's efforts, since it is in him we are most interested. I might tell of the desperate chances the Cardinals took to gain runs, and of the exceptionally good stick work they did, against the redoubtable pitcher of the Giants.

For a time this pitcher held his opponents to scattering hits. Then, for a fatal moment, he went up in the air. It was a break that was at once taken advantage of by the Cardinals. They slammed out two terrific hits, and, as there were men on bases, the most was made of them. Two wild throws, something exceptional for the Giants, added to the luck, and when the excitement was over the Cardinals had tied the game.

"Oh, wow!"

"Now, we've got 'em going!"

"Only one run to win, boys!"

"Hold 'em down, Joe!"

Thus came the wild cries from the stands. Excitement was at its height.

There was a hasty consultation between the peerless pitcher and the veteran catcher. They had gone up in the air, but now they were down to earth again. From then on, until the beginning of the ninth inning, the Cardinals did not cross home plate, and they got very few hits. It was a marvelous exhibition of ball twirling.

But if the Giant pitcher did well, Joe did even better, when you consider that he was only rounding out his first season in a big league, and that he was up against a veteran of national fame, the announcement that he was going to be in the game being sufficient to attract a large throng.

"Good work, old man! Good work!" called Boswell, when Joe came to the bench one inning, after having allowed but one hit. "Can you keep it up?"

"I--I hope so."

It was a great battle--a hard battle. The Giants worked every trick they knew to gain another run, but the score remained a tie. Goose egg after goose egg went up on the score board. The ninth inning had started with the teams still even.

"We've just _got_ to get that run!" declared Manager Watson. "We've just _got_ to get it. Joe, you are to bat first. See if you can't get a hit!"

Pitchers are proverbially weak hitters. One ingenious theory for it is that they are so used to seeing the ball shooting away from them, and toward the batter, that, when the positions are reversed, and they see the ball coming toward them they get nervous.

"Ball!" was the umpire's first decision in Joe's favor. The young pitcher was rather surprised, for he knew the prowess of his opponent.

And then Joe decided on what might have proved to be a foolish thing.

"I'm going to think that the next one will be a swift, straight one, and I'm going to dig in my spikes and set for it," he decided. And he did. He made a beautiful hit, and amid the wild yells of the crowd he started for first. He beat the ball by a narrow margin, and was declared safe.

A pinch hitter was up next, and amid a breathless silence he was watched. But the peerless pitcher was taking no chances, and walked him, thinking to get Joe later.

But he did not. For, as luck would have it, Rad Chase made the hit of his life, a three-bagger, and with the crowd going wild, two runs came in, giving the Cardinals the game, if they could hold the Giants down.

And it was up to Joe to do this. Could he?

As Joe walked to the mound, for that last momentous inning, he glanced toward the box where his parents, sister and Mabel sat. A little hand was waved to him, and Joe waved back. Then he faced his first man.

"Thud!" went the ball in Doc Mullin's big mitt.

"Ball!" droned the umpire.

"Thud!" went another. The batter stood motionless.

"Strike!"

The batter indignantly tapped the rubber.

"Crack!"

"You can't get it!" yelled the crowd, as the ball shot up in a foul.

The umpire tossed a new ball to Joe, for the other had gone too far away to get back speedily.

Joe wet the horsehide, and sent it drilling in. The batter made a slight motion, as though to hit it, but refrained:

"Strike! You're out!" said the umpire, stolidly.

"Why, that ball was----"

"You're out!" and the umpire waved him aside, impatiently.

Joe grinned in delight.

But when he saw the next man, "Home Run Crater," facing him, our hero felt a little shaky. True, the chances were in favor of the Cardinals, but baseball is full of chances that make or break.

"If he wallops it!" thought Joe.

But Crater did not wallop it. In his characteristic manner he swung at the first delivery, and connected with it. Over Joe's head it was going, but with a mighty jump Joe corraled it in one hand, a sensational catch that set the crowd wild. Joe was playing the game of his life.

"Only one more!"

"Strike him out!"

"The game is ours, Joe!"

But another heavy hitter was up, and there was still work for Baseball Joe to do.

To his alarm, as he sent in his first ball, there came to his arm that had been twisted on the car, a twinge of pain.

"My! I hope that doesn't bother me," thought Joe, in anxiety.

"Ball one," announced the umpire.

Joe delivered a straight, swift one. His arm hurt worse, and he gritted his teeth to keep from crying out.

"Strike!" grunted the umpire, and there was some balm for Joe in that.

The batter hit the next one for a dribbler, and just managed to reach first.

"If I could only have managed to get him out!" mused Joe. "I'd be done now. But I've got to do it over again. I wonder if I can last out?"

To his relief the next batter up was one of the weakest of the Giants, and Joe was glad. And even yet a weak batter might make a hit that would turn the tables.

"I've got to do it!" murmured Joe, and he wound up for the delivery.

"Strike!" announced the umpire. Joe's heart beat hard.

"Here goes for the fadeaway," he said to himself, "though it will hurt like fun!"

It did, bringing a remembrance of the old hurt. But it fooled the batter, and there were two strikes on him.

The game was all but over. With two out, and two strikes called, there could be but one result, unless there was to be something that occurs but once in a lifetime. And it did not occur.

"Strike! You're out!" was the umpire's decision, and that was the end. The Cardinals had won, thanks, in a great measure, to Joe Matson's splendid work.

"That's the stuff!"

"Third place for ours!"

"Three cheers for Joe Matson--Baseball Joe!" called his teammates, who crowded around him to clap him on the back and say all sorts of nice things. Joe stood it, blushingly, for a moment, and then he made his way over to the box. As he walked along, a certain quiet man who had been intently watching the game said softly to himself.

"He must be mine next season. I guess I can make a trade for him. He'd be a big drawing card for the Giants."

"Oh, Joe, it was splendid! Splendid!" cried Mabel, enthusiastically.

"Fine!" said his father.

"Do you get any extra when your side wins?" asked his mother, while the crowd smiled.

"Well, yes, in a way," answered Joe. "You get treated extra well."

"And it's going to be my treat this time," said Mabel, with a laugh. "I want you all to come to dinner with me. You'll come; won't you, Joe?" she asked, pleadingly.

"Of course," he said.

"And bring a friend, if you like," and she glanced at Clara.

"I'll bring Rad," Joe answered.

They lived the great game over again at the table of the hotel where Mable was stopping.

"Is your arm lame?" asked Mrs. Matson, noticing that her son favored his pitching member a trifle.

"Oh, I can finish out the season," said Joe. "The remainder will be easy--only a few more games."

"And then what?" asked Rad.

"Well, a vacation, I suppose, and then get ready for another season with the Cardinals."

But Joe was not destined to remain with the Western team. The horizon was widening, and those of you who wish to follow further the adventures of our hero may do so in the succeeding volume, which will be called "Baseball Joe on the Giants; Or, Making Good as a Ball Twirler in the Metropolis."

In that we shall see how Joe rose to even higher fame, through grit, hard work and ability.

"Well, you turned the trick, old man!" declared Manager Watson, when, a few days later, the team was on the way back to St. Louis. "You did it. I felt sure you could."

"Well, _I_ didn't, at one time," was the rejoinder. "My arm started to go back on me."

"Well, there's one consolation, Shalleg and his crowd will never get another chance at you," went on the manager. "Now take care of yourself. I'm only going to let you play one game--the closing one at St. Louis. We won't need our stars against the tail-enders."

And the Cardinals did not, winning handily with a number of second string men playing.

"Where are you going, Joe?" asked Rad, as they sat in their hotel room one evening, for Joe was "dolling up."

"Out to a moving picture show."

"Moving pictures?"

"Yes. That film of the exhibition game we played in Philadelphia is being shown in town. Come on up."

"Sure," assented Rad; and as they went out together we will take leave of Baseball Joe.

THE END

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End of Project Gutenberg's Baseball Joe in the Big League, by Lester Chadwick