Lefty o' the Blue Stockings

It was “Bush” Aldrich, of the Specters, who started the trouble by smashing out a two-base hit in the seventh. Bush was one of the latest acquisitions of that hard-hitting, snap...

By dint of playing for time, and putting over a couple of wide ones, Pete Grist had prevented Forbes, the Specter left fielder, from adding to the damage already done. Knowing t...

“Pretty work,” commented a blond young man on the reporter’s bench, pushing back his rakish green hat. “There’s one thing about Locke, you can always bank on his using his head....

“Talk about horseshoes!” grinned Stillman, when the first mad uproar had begun to lessen. “That’s the greatest ever. Looks as if the boys had a mighty good chance of cinching th...

The roar which went up fairly shook the stands, and testified to a sudden slackening of the tension which had been gripping thousands of loyal fans for the past few minutes. Jac...

Lefty, having rounded first, pulled himself up abruptly, and trotted toward the clubhouse, the whoops and yells of many thousand delirious baseball “bugs” ringing in his ears. A...

Pushing open the door in response to a crisp invitation in the manager’s familiar voice, Lefty stopped on the threshold, an expression of surprise in his brown eyes. Then he rem...

When the quartet piled into a taxi about half past six, and started for an exclusive downtown restaurant, their appearance would have been a revelation to those who picture a pr...

Lefty’s face turned a dull red, for in a flash he had realized how intolerable the whole affair must seem to Janet Harting. He had assured her that his engagement at the theater...

A modern Big League team is very much like an overgrown family. The men are together every day, and all day. At intervals they spend long hours cooped up in Pullman cars, always...

The train had been in motion for twenty minutes or so, and the occupants of the Blue Stocking special car were beginning to settle down for the evening when Al Carson appeared i...

Contrary to the fears of a good many Blue Stockings, Lefty still seemed to be “there with the goods.” To be sure, he stalked out to the mound with a gloomy face and wrinkled bro...

The Specter twirler having become practically unhittable, the ninth inning gave the Blue Stockings nothing further than their slim lead of one tally. The final half opened with...

Championship prospects for the Blue Stockings had led an unusual number of rooters for the team to follow it around on the short jumps, and now, with the fanning of Schwartz, th...

Nelson, standing on the plate with the ball in his hands, motioned repeatedly before Locke saw him and came forward. They met a few feet in front of the pan.

In a small, bare room of the clubhouse Al Carson waited, his face dark as a storm cloud. At times he muttered to himself. From the adjoining quarters of the defeated players the...

“But you haven’t seen him at his best,” said the club owner. “This is the first full game you’ve ever seen him pitch. He certainly was reliable enough earlier in the season.”

Sometimes it takes very little to upset the poise of a Big League team. Even when a winning organization is running smoothly, an injury to a single player may throw the whole ma...

The train was swinging along through open, rolling country when Locke, now being left severely to himself on account of his churlishness by his resentful teammates, tired of gaz...

Throughout his baseball career it had been the object of old Jack Kennedy to quit the game voluntarily with honors and retire to his little Ohio farm in the town of Deering. Bei...

“I’m done with the game, Peter,” said Kennedy. “I’m just a plain farmer now. As long as I don’t mean to get mixed up with it again, it’s best that I should keep away from the fi...

With the season three-quarters over, it was no cinch for anybody to whip into winning form a bush team like the Deers, and Jack Kennedy soon realized that he had a real problem...

His pitching staff gave Kennedy the most trouble. No matter how efficient a team may be in other departments, it cannot aspire to championship honors unless it has a capable sta...

The brazen, barefaced manner in which Lefty Locke denied his identity and professed that he had never even seen a game of baseball was simply staggering. For old Jack still refu...

He tendered a cigar, which the other accepted in a somewhat hesitating manner. Peter nipped off the end of another cigar and struck a match, which he held for the young man to l...

Kennedy wanted an opportunity to meditate quietly upon the peculiar behavior of Lefty Locke, with the hope of hitting on a reasonable solution of the problem. For a problem it n...

“I don’t know. I’ve been a wild one in my day, pal. Hit the high places, and hit ’em hard. Cards were my trouble. I was thinking I’d like to find three or four good sports and g...

Although there was an early breakfast on Kennedy’s farm, when old Jack arose his sister surprised him by stating that the new man had been up and wandering about the place for a...

When Manager Kennedy rode into town to take the ten-ten train for Hatfield with his players, Mr. Robert Stranger came with him. Old Jack stopped at the Central House, and found...

The words were uttered in such a sincere manner that they came near dispelling Kennedy’s last doubt. “He’d be a fool to try to keep up a bluff like that,” thought the manager, “...

Although Bristol said nothing to Jewett, it was sheer luck which kept the pitcher from receiving a call-down by his manager. It was also luck, combined with poor work on the par...

“Keep after them!” urged Kennedy, as the players came to the bench. “There are six more innings to follow. If you can hit this fellow Elgin at all, and we can hold them where th...

Pop Doyle rapped the rubber and squared away like a man who believed he could drop another one over the fence any time he wished. This was the time to do it, too. This was the t...

Old Jack Kennedy’s lips were pressed together, not a word coming from them as Lefty Locke strode to the bench; but in the depths of the manager’s eyes there was a wonderful glow...

The game, which had started out so loosely, and threatened to become wretched at any moment, was now turned into a pitchers’ battle, with Locke and Elgin working against each ot...

“Gods of our fathers!” said Buster Brown as Locke reached the bench. “You done it, old boy, and you done it slick. I’ll bet that man Elgin goes up so far you can’t see him with...

“Yes,” said Doctor Hetner, sitting in his office, facing Manager Kennedy, “of course it’s possible for such a thing to happen. Of course, the man’s mind may be affected, and he...

Of course, Locke went out to the farm with old Jack, and again they sat on the veranda, this time watching the moon coming up over the eastern horizon. For a long time Kennedy w...

A person who has never had any experience with baseball in the bush can scarcely realize the effect upon Deering of the knowledge that the local team had jumped into the lead an...

Everyone had heard that Locke would pitch again on Monday, and, having seen him wind up the game for Sullivan, their curiosity and interest was whetted to the highest point. Dou...

“Calls himself Stranger, does he?” muttered Jack Stillman, as he watched the work of Locke from amid the crowd, having taken pains to keep away from the bench of the Deers. “Pre...

“Of course you remember me,” said the reporter, wringing Locke’s unresponsive hand. “You know how I got the proof on Elgin, and showed him up to Brennan. I knew you’d make good...

Jack Stillman went in search of Janet Harting, while Lefty remained pitching for Jack Kennedy under the name of Stranger. As a mascot and a winning pitcher, he proved to be such...

Not once in a thousand times does such a remarkable situation arise in Big League baseball. Not once in a thousand times would it happen that the two leading teams should be sch...

Still with a view to the dramatic, Stillman had planned something else. It was with the greatest difficulty that he had succeeded in keeping Lefty Locke and Janet Harting apart,...

Never in his life had Lefty Locke pitched such a game of baseball. Never had that great crowd seen such splendid work upon the mound. Again master of himself in every respect, t...