Jimmy Kirkland and the Plot for a Pennant Part 14

"Listen, Kohinoor," said Swanson. "Someone wants to beat the Bears out of this pennant, and whoever it is is turning every trick possible to beat us. I suspect they've got to Williams and that he is trying to throw games, and I've been working all night trying to get the goods on him. We can't run to Clancy with a yarn like that unless we're ready to prove it. Now go to sleep and get ready to win to-morrow's game--to-day's, rather."

McCarthy lay staring, sleepless, into the darkness, his brain whirling as he strove to penetrate the maze of intrigue and plotting of which he seemed the center. Half an hour pa.s.sed, then, as he turned in bed, a sleepy voice from the next bed asked:

"Asleep, Kohinoor?"

"No."

"Then quit worrying. I had a talk with Betty Tabor to-night, and you needn't worry. She don't believe all she hears."

"What did she say, Silent?" asked McCarthy, sitting up in bed suddenly.

"Aw, go to sleep," responded Swanson, as he rolled over, chuckling at the manner in which McCarthy had betrayed his interest.

It was nearly noon when Swanson and McCarthy descended to the hotel lobby in better frames of mind.

Manager Clancy, serious and worried, was talking with a gray-haired man and a younger man. McCarthy observed them and grew uncomfortable under their close scrutiny as the three turned toward him and focussed their eyes upon him. He felt relieved when the smaller man shook his head positively and was not surprised a moment later when Clancy came forward toward him and said frankly:

"Forget it, Kohinoor. Case of mistaken ident.i.ty." He grasped McCarthy's hand and gave it a crunching grip as he added: "When you get ready to tell me what you know I want to hear it."

The manager did not attempt any further apology, but McCarthy felt as if a load had been lifted from his mind.

"I can't make any charges until I have proof," he replied steadily.

"If ever I can back up what I suspect, I'll tell you--first."

"Swanson explained partly," said the manager. "I understand. Get in there to-day and hustle."

It was the final game of the trip and the Bears, with confidence renewed, went into it determined to rush the attack and win quickly.

When the batting practice started McCarthy was surprised to find Lefty Williams pitching to batters. He faced Williams and hit the first ball hard and straight over second base. Williams was lobbing the ball easily, as if warming up. Twice Clancy called to him to quit pitching to batters, and he shouted back that his shoulder felt a little stiff and he wanted to limber it up easily. McCarthy stepped to the plate again. Up to that time Williams had not pitched a fast ball, but he wound up quickly and flashed a fast-breaking ball straight at McCarthy's head. The third baseman dropped flat and the ball, just grazing the top of his head, carried away his cap. He knew Williams had tried to hit him. He remembered his part in the deeper game he and Swanson were playing, and he decided not to reveal the fact that he was aware of Williams's intent. He leaped back into batters' position and yelled:

"Keep that bean ball for the game. You'll need it."

He saw that Williams was white and shaken, and the next ball came floating over the plate without speed. McCarthy swung at it, without attempting to hit it. Another slow one floated over the plate and again McCarthy made a burlesque swing, missing the ball a foot.

Williams flushed scarlet and stepping quickly back into position he drove a straight fast ball at the batter. McCarthy was on his guard.

Drawing back slightly he allowed the ball to touch his s.h.i.+rt, and when Williams, angrier than ever, hurled another fast one at him he stepped back and drove it to left field for a clean hit.

As he hit the ball he heard Clancy call angrily to Williams to come off the slab, and the pitcher, white with anger at the contempt the recruit had shown for his pitching, sullenly obeyed.

"That fellow tried three times to bean you," said Swanson in low tones as they walked to their positions after retiring runless in the first inning.

"I know it," said McCarthy. "I coaxed him along. I think we can make him pitch to-day by telling him that we don't think he can."

The plan was adopted. For two innings the shortstop and third baseman hara.s.sed the pitcher.

Under the running fire of taunts, criticisms and sarcasm Williams pitched harder and harder, furious at his teammates, and venting his anger upon opposing batsmen.

"Say, you guys," remarked Kennedy on the bench after the fourth inning.

"Have some pity on me. You've got Adonis so mad he's smas.h.i.+ng my mitt with his speed. Better ease off on him or you'll have him in the air."

The Bears had acc.u.mulated two runs and seemed winning easily in the fifth, when, before a runner was out, McCarthy, cutting across in front of Swanson to scoop an easy-bounding ball, played it too carelessly, fumbled and allowed the first batter to reach first base. The error was common enough, but allowing the first batter to reach a base on an easy chance was serious at that stage of the game. Williams turned upon McCarthy and gave him a violent rebuke. McCarthy was not in a position to respond. He saw that, in spite of his angry words, Williams seemed pleased by the error. An instant later a drive whizzed past him and then another screamed by him en route to left field. A run was across the plate, runners on first and third and no one out.

"Trying to toss off this one?" demanded Swanson angrily. "You big stiff, pitch ball."

The next batter sacrificed, and again Williams broke the ball low and inside the plate to a right-handed hitter. The ball came like a shot at McCarthy, who dived at it. It rolled away toward Swanson, who recovered just in time to throw out the runner at first, but another run had counted and the score was tied. Another hit screeched past McCarthy, another run counted and the Travelers were one run ahead before the attack could be stopped.

The Travelers held their advantage to the eighth, when, rallying desperately, the Bears drove home two runs by sheer force of hitting and the ninth found them hanging to a one-run lead. They failed to increase their advantage in the first half of the inning and took the field determined to hold their lead. McCarthy was puzzled. He thought Clancy knew what was happening on the field and had expected each inning that the manager would rebuke Williams when they returned to the bench. Instead Clancy had remained strangely silent.

Tuttle, the first batter for the Travelers in the ninth inning, hit a fierce bounder down the third-base line. McCarthy, knowing Tuttle to be a right field hitter, was swung a little wide from the base. He threw himself out toward the line, his hands extended to the full limit, and the ball stuck in one outstretched hand. Scrambling to his feet he threw hard and fast to first, retiring the speedy runner by a step. The next batter hit fiercely between third and short and Swanson, by a great play, retrieved the ball back on the edge of the gra.s.s, but could not throw the runner out. The next batter, a right-hander, hit a vicious single past McCarthy and there were runners on second and first.

McCarthy felt the next drive would be toward him. He believed Williams was striving to lose the game, and that he was pitching so as to compel the batters to hit in the direction of third base so that the baseman and not he would be held responsible for the defeat. He gritted his teeth and crouched, waiting, as Watson, the heaviest-hitting right-handed batter in the league, faced Williams. Crouching, he saw Kennedy signal for a fast ball high and outside the plate, and then saw a straight easy ball sail toward the batter, low and inside. Watson swung. McCarthy saw a flash of light and threw up his hands just in time to keep the ball from hitting him. The ball broke through his hands and rolled a few feet away. His hands were numb to the wrists from the terrific shock. He stood still one trice. Then he saw the runners were stopped, bewildered. They had lost sight of the ball, so rapidly had it traveled and had stopped, thinking he had caught it. He leaped after the ball, framing the play as he touched the spinning sphere. He could have run back to third base and forced out one, but instead, as his numbed fingers gripped the sphere, he saw the possibility of a double play and threw fast and straight to Swanson, on second base, forcing out the runner coming from first. Swanson, catching the idea of the play in an instant, hurled the ball back to McCarthy, who grabbed it and touched out the runner coming from second, completing a double play that brought the crowd to its feet in applause and saved the game.

McCarthy heard the cheers, but he was cold with suppressed anger as he walked to where Williams was standing, and said:

"Williams, you're a d----d crook."

CHAPTER XIV

_"Technicalities" on the Job_

The Bears were going home holding grimly to their claim upon first place in the league race. With but seven games remaining to be played all were against clubs already beaten, and five of the seven were against clubs considerably weaker in every department. Two games were to be played off the home grounds.

The statisticians were busy calculating that the Bears had a decided advantage in the race, yet they were not happy in the homecoming. The ride home was only a few hours long, and they had caught the train immediately after the sensational finish of the final game with the Travelers in order to reach home and get settled by midnight.

Swanson and McCarthy sat together as the train pulled out, talking in low tones.

"I think Clancy is onto him," said Swanson. "Just sit tight. It isn't our move yet. The Boss acted queerly on the bench to-day and has been watching Williams all the time, while pretending not to. I'm going to mingle and see if any of the other fellows are wise to him."

Hardly had Swanson left the seat than McCarthy was surprised by "Technicalities" Feehan, who sat down in the seat vacated by the shortstop.

Feehan was one of the odd characters developed by the national game, a reporter who had traveled with the Bear teams for so many years the players regarded him as a sort of venerable pest who hadn't seen a ball player since Williamson's day, and never such a catcher as Mike Kelly, a first baseman like Comisky or a fielder like Tip O'Neil. He sometimes was called "Four Eyes," from the fact that he wore large, steel-rimmed gla.s.ses of great thickness, and his other name was "Technicalities."

He was not at all interested in baseball, excepting as a business. His chief interest was in the Children's Crusades, and he had spent eight years of his spare time in libraries all over America digging out data for his history of those remarkable pilgrimages which he had written and rewritten half a dozen times. Not being a baseball fan he was eminently fair and unprejudiced, and the players thought more of the quiet, studious fellow than they did of the excitable and the partisan reporters who joined their sports and their woes.

"Mr. McCarthy," he said seriously, "did you observe anything strange in to-day's game?"

"Several strange things," a.s.sented McCarthy. "Among them that error I made early in the game."

"I mean things of an unusual nature," persisted Technicalities. "I was struck by an odd phenomenon and thought perhaps you noticed it. I find it more perplexing as I study my score books."

"What was it?" inquired McCarthy, cautious not to betray any interest.

"Did you, for instance, observe anything strange about the hits in your direction?"

"I noticed that those that didn't have cayenne pepper on them were white hot and came like greased lightning," laughed McCarthy. "I expected to find my right leg playing left field any minute."

"I was speaking numerically, although, of course, the speed of the hits enters into the phenomenon."