CHAPTER XXVIII

LOCKING HORNS

The Giants were “slipping.”

There was no blinking the fact. The New York public admitted it with dismay. The newspapers of all the other league cities proclaimed it with delight.

Not slipping fast, but slipping surely.

Not that they were quitting. They were game to the core. Everybody was working desperately to hold on to the slender lead that they had fought for so gallantly in the early part of the season. McRae and Robson, crafty old foxes that they were, worked day and night to bolster up the weak places. They changed the batting order. They used their pinch hitters. They put the team through morning practice. They perfected the “inside stuff.” They worked every trick known to the game.

But still the Giants kept slipping. The batting was far below the usual standard. The men “fought” the ball instead of fielding it cleanly. The pitching staff was too limited. Hughson and Joe were pitching magnificent ball, but they were the only first-string pitchers that could be absolutely relied on. Some of the second string men, notably Jim, were doing well, but now that every game was so important, McRae did not dare to put them in. The strain was apt to be too much for any but the veterans.

There were times when the Giants seemed to throw off the baleful paralysis that was holding them and play in something of their old brilliant form. But too many defeats were mixed in with victories, and all the time those scrappy Chicagos, seldom losing, kept closing up the gap, until when the last week of the season arrived they were right on the Giants’ heels.

By the mere chance of the schedule, the Chicagos were to wind up the season with the New Yorks on the Polo Grounds. Four games were to be played. Before the series commenced, the Giants were just one game in the lead. If the Chicagos could take three games out of the four, they would win the championship.

The Giants had the advantage of playing on their own grounds and in the presence of the home crowds. That was an advantage not to be despised. Moreover, they only had to win two out of the four, while the Chicagos were required to win three.

But, on the other hand, the men from the Windy City were on the aggressive, while the Giants were on the defensive. And the Chicagos had been climbing while the New Yorks had been slipping. These facts had a significance all their own, and despite the apparent odds in favor of the home team, opinion was about evenly divided as to who would bear off the victory.

McRae figured on pitching Hughson in the first game of the series. The veteran had always had the “Indian sign” on the Chicagos, and the chances were that he would win his game. If he did, the Giants would only have to take one out of the remaining three. Joe and Markwith would try for the second and third. If by an evil fate they lost both, McRae could again call on Hughson for the fourth and deciding game.

On the night before the first game, McRae dropped into the uptown hotel where the Chicagos were quartered, to have a word of friendly greeting with Brennan, the manager of the Windy City warriors.

While they were bitter enemies on the ball field, each fighting like a wildcat for every shred of advantage, they were the best of friends when once they had discarded their uniforms and gotten into their street clothes. In this they were not unlike the lawyers who berate each other bitterly while the case is on, and after the court has adjourned go to lunch together arm in arm.

Brennan saw his opponent enter, and, rising from the group of reporters who were trying to get from him his views on the series, came forward to greet him with extended hand, a broad grin on his features.

“How are you, John?” he queried. “Have you come in to ask me to let you off easy tomorrow?”

“Not a bit of it, Roger,” laughed McRae as he shook hands. “I simply heard that there were a lot of dead ones in town and I wanted to know what cemetery you’d prefer to be buried in. I’ll make it Woodlawn or Greenwood or any place you say. Or if you like, I’ll ship your remains back to Chicago.”

“You always were a good bluffer, John,” retorted Roger. “But I can see that you’re just whistling to keep your courage up. When we go back to Chicago it won’t be in boxes, but in Pullmans; and we’re going to take the pennant along with us.”

“Where do you get that stuff?” rejoined McRae. “I’ll set the squirrels after you if you don’t stop your foolishness. I’m only wondering whether I’ll take four straight or let you have just one of the series as a sort of booby prize.”

They chaffed each other good-naturedly for a while, to the great delight of the reporters and hotel guests, who had gathered in a dense crowd about them.

“You’ve got only a one-man team, John,” Brennan wound up. “Hughson’s carried the team along for years. If it hadn’t been for him you wouldn’t have won a pennant in the last ten years.”

“How about Matson?” parried McRae. “Do you remember the last game he twirled against you in Chicago?”

Brennan winced and the crowd laughed at the memory of that game, which had been a Waterloo for the men of the Windy City.

“He caught us off our stride that day,” he admitted, “and we’re aching to get at him. We’re all tuned up to knock him out of the box.”

A little more banter, and McRae rose to go.

“Sorry to have to leave you,” he remarked, “but I have an appointment to see a man about setting up a new pennant pole at the Polo Grounds.”

“I’m ahead of you there, John,” laughed Brennan. “I ordered mine before I left Chicago.”

“You’ll be sending a wire in a day or two to countermand the order,” the Giant leader prophesied. “By the way, Roger,” he went on, dropping his scoffing tone, “if you want to use the grounds for morning practice, I’ll fix it up so that you can divide the time with my boys.”

“That’s very white of you, John,” replied Brennan warmly, “and I appreciate it. But I guess I’ll stick to the regular rule and let you have it all to yourself. Thanks, though, just the same.”

They shook hands and parted with the mutual respect of hard fighters and gallant sportsmen.

The city was wild with excitement and it was a foregone conclusion that the four games would draw bigger crowds than had ever before been packed into the Polo Grounds.

Mabel, true to her promise, had come to the city, accompanied by Reggie, and Joe had secured seats for them in a box so located that they could follow every move of the game. It is needless to say that every spare minute that he could take from his work was spent in the vicinity of the Marlborough Hotel, at which the visitors were again staying.

“You simply must win, Joe,” Mabel declared. “You surely wouldn’t have the heart to lose after I’ve come all the way from Goldsboro.”

“I haven’t any heart to lose anyway,” replied Joe. “I lost that long ago.”

“I see Hughson is going to pitch the first game,” said Mabel, hastily changing the subject to a safer ground. “Do you think he will win?”

“Sure I do,” replied Joe, enthusiastically. “He’s the greatest pitcher that ever threw a ball.”

“They say there’s a good deal of professional jealousy among artists,” laughed Mabel, “but you don’t seem to be troubled that way.”

“Not a particle where Hughson is concerned,” affirmed Joe, stoutly. “He’s one of the best friends I have on the team and I root for him for all I’m worth every time he goes into the box.”

“You’ll pitch the second game, I suppose,” she went on.

“I think that’s the program just at present, but you never can tell. Something might come up that would make McRae change his mind five minutes before the game begins.”

“I’ll have an advantage over the other pitchers. They’ll only have one glove while I’ll have two.”

Mabel opened her eyes and was about to ask an explanation, but as Joe tapped his pocket, she remembered the glove that she had given him at Goldsboro and blushed in confusion.

She was never lovelier than when she blushed, and there is no knowing what would have happened right then and there, if Reggie had not come on the scene. Joe liked Reggie, but there were times when he certainly was a nuisance.

“Well, Joe, how are you feeling?” asked Reggie amiably, as they shook hands. “Not suffering from palpitation of the heart or anything like that, I suppose?”

To tell the truth, Joe’s heart was palpitating very strongly just at that moment. But it was not the thought of the big games that caused it. Perhaps Mabel could have guessed the reason more accurately than Reggie.

“I never felt better,” Joe replied.

“Going to put it all over the Chicagos, I hope,” continued Reggie.

“That’s what we’re figuring on,” answered Joe. “But those fellows are going great guns just now and it will be a man’s job to beat them. By the way,” he added, changing the subject, “have you found any trace of Tabbs?”

“Not a thing,” replied Reggie gloomily. “I guess I’ll have to charge that ten thousand up to experience. It’s coming near time to report to my father and I’d rather be shot than do it.”

The first game justified the choice of McRae. Hughson was never in better form. He simply toyed with the opposing batsmen. His famous fadeaway was working to perfection. Twice he mowed down the side in one-two-three order. His control was absolute and not an enemy reached his base on balls. Three times there were men on the bags, once through an error and twice as the result of hits, but Hughson tightened up and they never got farther than second. It was a superb exhibition of twirling, and amid the frantic applause of the vast crowd the game ended with the score:

New Yorks 5, Chicagos 0.

First blood for the Giants!