CHAPTER XX

A TEST OF NERVE

“How are you feeling, Joe?” asked Jim, as the men were dressing in the clubhouse, preparatory to going on the field for the first game of the championship race.

“Like a fighting cock,” answered Joe. “How are you?”

“A bit shaky,” confessed Jim. “My heart keeps coming up in my throat and I have to keep swallowing it all the time.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” chaffed Joe. “Neither you nor I will have anything to do today but root for the rest of the boys. That’s a moral certainty.”

“You can’t sometimes most always tell,” quoted Jim. “Nothing is certain in baseball.”

“No,” admitted Joe, as he adjusted his belt. “But it’s a cinch that Hughson will pitch today. He always does in the first game. An opening day without Hughson in the box would be like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out.”

“Gee!” interrupted Larry Barrett as he glanced through the door in the direction of the stands. “Take a squint at that crowd! I’ll bet all New York is here today.”

It was the great day of the season, the day to which the hungry baseball enthusiasts in the metropolis had looked forward all through the winter and early spring. For days the fans had been in an ever increasing fever of excitement. The papers had been full of predictions as to the chances of the New Yorks for the flag. There had been pictures of the team individually and in groups together with their fielding and batting averages. There had been rosy stories of the way they had been “breaking fences” in the training camp, and there were hints that McRae had uncovered one or two “phenoms” who would make the rooters sit up and take notice. The whole population of the city that had a drop of red blood in its veins was on tiptoe with expectation.

The day had dawned clear and bright, and for hours before the time for the game to start the trains and trolleys had been disgorging their crowds at the gates. The far famed Polo Grounds had never been in more superb condition. The diamond was like so much soft green velvet. The white markings of the base lines were dazzling by way of contrast with the green. Boxes, grandstands and bleachers were filled to overflowing with a hilarious, good-natured crowd, that was out for a good time and determined to have it. Long before the time for starting the game, it became evident that “ground rules” would have to be established, making a hit into the crowd only good for two bases, no matter how far it went.

The Boston “Braves” were to cross bats with the Giants, and there was a keen curiosity in the crowd to see how “Rawling’s cast-offs” would shape up, although few gave them more than an outside chance to win.

“Line up now, boys, for the grand march,” sang out Robson, as he bustled into the clubhouse.

The team came out and got into line, McRae and Hughson leading. The Bostons joined them and the two teams came down to the plate amid an uproar of boisterous applause. The leaders clasped hands at the plate, the movie men, who were there in droves, set their machines going, and then the members of the two teams broke ranks and scattered for preliminary practice. This was snappy and lightning fast, and “stunts” were pulled off by both teams that brought the crowds to their feet.

Then the bell rang for the game to begin. The mayor of the city threw out the first ball. Hughson caught it and returned it to the mayor’s wife to keep as a souvenir, after first writing his autograph on it at her request. Then he took his place in the box, the first Boston batter came to the plate, the umpire cried “Play ball!” and the championship race was on in earnest.

Joe and Jim had warmed up together with the other pitchers and now sat on the bench together with the rest of the New York team who were not actually playing in the game.

“Watch that drop. Wasn’t it a beauty?” commented Joe enthusiastically, as the first ball eluded the batter’s savage swing and fell with a thud into the catcher’s glove.

“It was a lulu, all right,” agreed Jim. “If that’s a sample of what the old boy has in stock today, they’ll break their backs going after them.”

The first man proved an easy victim by the “strike out route,” the second dribbled a slow roller to the box that Hughson got to first in plenty of time, and the third succumbed to a high foul that Mylert, the catcher, gathered in close to the right of first base. It was a quick inning and Hughson was greeted with cheers as he walked in.

“That’s the way, Hughie, old boy!”

“You’ve got them buffaloed!”

“They’re dead ones already!”

“They can’t touch you!”

But the Boston pitcher soon showed that he was also in fine fettle, and though the New Yorks got a man to first on a fumble by the third baseman, he got no further and the inning ended as a scoreless tie.

For three more innings the same state of things persisted, although the Giants gathered three hits while only one had been made off Hughson.

“We’re getting on to him though,” said Barrett, as he came back to the bench, referring to Leonard, the Boston pitcher. “He’s got a high, fast one that he winds around your neck, but his curves aren’t such a much. About the sixth inning we’ll start in to plug him.”

But the “Braves” had views of their own on “plugging,” and by one of the “breaks” of the game they were the first to score.

It was in the first part of the fifth inning. Willis, their first man up, had got to first through an infield hit that took a high bound just as Barrett had set himself for it and went over his head. The next player lay down a perfect sacrifice bunt which Denton, the Giant third baseman, got in time to put his man out at first though he could not prevent Willis reaching second. Hughson put on steam and struck out the next batter on three pitched balls, and the crowd breathed more easily. But the glorious uncertainty that makes the game what it is was shown when the Boston right fielder sent a beauty to left just inside the third base line that scored Willis although the batter by quick fielding was held at first.

The Boston rooters went wild while the New Yorkers sat glum and silent. Their opponents had scored “first blood” and in as close a game as that one promised to be that lone run loomed up like a mountain.

“Never mind, old man,” said McRae to Hughson, as the latter walked in after the third man had been caught stealing. “The game’s young yet. We’ll see that run and go them one better.”

But the seventh inning came with the Bostons still in the lead.

“The lucky seventh,” was the cry that went through the stands. “All stretch!” And the fans went through the time-honored exercise while they whooped it up for their favorites.

“Now Larry!” they yelled as Barrett strode up to the plate, “hit it a mile! Show them where you live!”

Larry, who had led the National League in hitting the previous year, tapped both heels for luck, squared himself and glared fiercely at the pitcher.

That individual glared back and sent the ball hurtling over the plate. It chanced to be a low, fast one, the kind that Larry doted on. He caught it square on the end of his bat. It went screaming out over the center fielder’s head. On a clear field it would have been an easy home run, but in accordance with the ground rules it only counted for a two bagger. Larry perched on second with a broad grin on his face while the stands went crazy.

“We’ve got him now!” cried McRae. “He’s going up in the air.”

The next batter put up a high fly to right, which was caught after a hard run, Barrett making third on the out.

The next man up was Red Curry. He looked so formidable as he swung his bat that the pitcher thought it advisable to pass him to first on four wide ones.

“He’s getting rattled!” yelled McRae. “We’ve got his goat!”

But the soundness of the pitcher’s judgment was vindicated a moment later when the next batter, Lewis, hit into a force play, so skilfully managed that while a man was out at second Larry was held at third. The crowd groaned as they saw the vision of a run go glimmering, but roared with delight a moment later when Becker scorched a hot one between second and third, bringing in Larry with the tying run. And their joy became delirium when Byrnes cracked a beauty to right and Lewis got home by a great slide to the plate.

The Giant players threw their caps in the air and Joe and Jim hugged each other in their glee.

“We’re in the lead now,” chortled Joe, “and we can trust old Hughson to hold them down.”

The Boston pitcher pulled himself together and made the next batter put up a high foul that was caught by the first baseman, making the third out. But nobody cared. The Giants were ahead and there were only two innings to go.

In the Boston half of the eighth, the first man went out on a fly to center and the second “fanned.” The third hit a teasing bounder to the left of the box. Hughson made a great try, but in doing so he wrenched his knee badly. He got his man at first but when he came in to the bench he was limping and was evidently in great pain. McRae, Robson and the trainer gathered round him and massaged the knee vigorously.

“Do you think you can stay it out, Hughson?” asked McRae with great anxiety. “There’s only one more inning you know.”

“I’ll try to,” was the answer. “But in the meantime you’d better warm up another pitcher.”

McRae and Robson had a hurried conference.

“I’d put in Markwith,” said McRae, “but these Bostons are death on southpaws.”

“Try Matson,” suggested Robson. “I noticed he was going great guns in practice.”

“It’s a big risk before this crowd for his first time out,” said McRae, dubiously. “But we’ll have to chance it.”

He hurried over to Joe.

“Get out and warm up, Matson,” he said, briefly. “I may have to put you in for the ninth.”

Joe’s head whirled. To follow the great Hughson! And before this record-breaking crowd!

Then he took a grip on himself.

“All right,” he answered, and taking Weldon, one of the Giant reserve catchers, he went off toward the further end of the stand and began warming up.

But the inning was very short, as the Boston pitcher was on his mettle and retired the side in one-two-three order. Long before Joe had really warmed up, the New Yorks took the field.

Hughson went out gamely to the box, trying to hide his limp as much as possible. But the Boston players recognized that this was their chance. One run would tie and two would win. It was now or never, and their heavy batters were coming up.

Hughson, with all his pluck, could not perform miracles. He tried to put all his skill and cunning into his pitching, but his wounded knee refused to back him up. There were men on first and second, with none out, when he signaled to McRae.

“It’s no use, Mac,” he said, as the latter came over to him. “I can’t bear my weight on my foot so as to get any power behind the ball. We’ve still got a chance if you put in Matson.”

So Joe, at a signal from the manager, took up the pitcher’s burden with two men on bases and none out, while the Boston coachers danced up and down on the coaching lines, yelling like mad men and doing all they could to rattle him.