Baseball Joe Around the World Part 11

Hartley hesitated a moment, but took Jim's advice and with a muttered threat went on his way.

"Mad as a March hare," murmured Jim, as they watched the retreating figure.

"Do a man a favor and he'll never forgive you," quoted Joe.

"Where did he get his grouch against you?" asked Hughson, curiously.

"Search me," replied Joe. "I think it dates from the time when he was batted out of the box and Mac sent me in to take his place. I won the game and Bugs has been sore at me ever since. He figured that I tried to show him up."

"I wonder how he got here?" mused Hughson. "The last time I saw him was in New York, and the money I lent him wasn't enough to bring him on."

"Perhaps Mac gave him transportation," suggested Jim.

"Not on your life," rejoined Hughson. "Mac's got a heart as big as a house, but he hates a traitor. You see, though, Joe, I was right in giving you the tip. Keep your eyes open, old man."

Joe was about to make a laughing reply, but just at that moment Larry and Denton came along with broad smiles of welcome on their faces, and the unpleasant episode was forgotten.

It was a jolly party that left Chicago the next morning for the trip around the world. The managers had chartered a special train which was made up wholly of Pullman sleepers, a dining car and a smoker.

It was travel _de luxe_, and the sumptuous train was to be their home for the full month that would elapse before they reached the coast.

"Rather soft, eh, for the poor baseball slaves," grinned Jim, as he stretched out his long legs luxuriously and gazed out of the window at the flying telegraph poles.

"This is the life," chanted Larry Barrett.

"Nothing to do till to-morrow," chimed in Denton. "And not much even then."

"Don't you boys go patting yourselves on the back," smiled Robbie, looking more like a cherub than ever, as he stopped beside their seats on his way along the aisle. "These games, remember, are to be the real thing--there's going to be no sloppy or careless work just because you're not playing for the champions.h.i.+p. They're going to be fights from the time the gong rings till the last man is out in the ninth inning."

If Robbie wanted action, he got it, and the first games had a snap and vim about them that augured well for the success of the trip. It is true that the players had not the stimulus that comes from a fight for the pennant, but other motives were not lacking.

There was one game which was a nip-and-tuck affair from start to finish.

At the end of the fourth inning the score stood 1 to 1, and at the end of the sixth inning the score had advanced so that it stood 2 to 2.

"Say, we don't seem to be getting anywhere in this game," remarked Jim to Joe.

"Oh, well, we've got three more innings to play," was the answer.

In the seventh inning a most remarkable happening occurred. The All-Americans had three men on bases with n.o.body out. It looked as if they might score, but Joe took a sudden brace and pitched the next man at the bat out in one-two-three order.

The next man up knocked a pop fly, which Joe gathered in with ease.

"That's the way to do it, Joe!" sang out one of his companions. "Now go for the third man!"

The third fellow to the bat was a notable hitter, and nearly every one thought he would lace out at least a two-bagger, bringing in probably three runs. Instead, however, he knocked two fouls, and then sent a liner down to first base, which the baseman caught with ease; and that ended the chance for scoring.

"That's pulling it out of the fire!" cried McRae. The showing had been a good one, but what made the inning so remarkable was the fact that in one-two-three order the Giants got the bases filled exactly as they had been filled before. Then, more amazing still, the next man was pitched out, the second man knocked a pop fly to the pitcher, and it was Joe himself, coming to the bat, hit out a liner to third base, which was gathered in by the baseman, thus ending the Giants hope of scoring.

"Well, what do you know about that!" cried Brennan. "The inning on each side was exactly alike, with the exception that our third man out flied to first base, while your man flied to third."

But that ended the similarity both in batting and in scoring, for in the eighth inning the Giants added another run to their score, and held this lead to the end, even though the All-Americans fought desperately in the effort to tie the score.

"Oh, we had to win," said one of the Giants. "Too many of our folks looking at us to lose."

Many members of the teams had their wives or sisters with them, and defeat would have been galling under the eyes of the fair spectators.

Then, too, the Giants had their reputation to sustain as the Champions of the World. On the other hand, the All-Americans were anxious to show that even though they had not been in the World's Series, they ought to have been--and it was a keen delight to them to make their adversaries bite the dust.

Add to this the fact that there was a strong spirit of rivalry, good-natured but intense, between the sc.r.a.ppy McRae and the equally pugnacious Brennan, whose team had been nosed out by the Giants in that last desperate race down the stretch for the pennant, and it is no wonder that the crowds kept getting larger in every city they played, that the gate receipts made the managers chuckle, that the great city papers gave extended reports of the games and that the baseball trip around the world began to engross the attention of every lover of sports in the country.

Joe had never been in finer fettle. His fast b.a.l.l.s went over the plate like bullets from a gatling gun. His fadeaway was working to a charm. He wound the ball near the batters' necks and curved it out of reach of their bats with an ease and precision that explained to the applauding crowds why he was rated as the foremost pitcher of the day.

Jim, too, showed the effect of his season's work and Joe's helpful coaching, and between the two they accounted for three of the games won by the Giants before they reached Colorado. Two other games had gone to the All-Americans in slap-dash, ding-dong finishes, and it was an even thing as to which team would have the most games to its credit by the time they had reached the Pacific coast.

The tension was relaxed somewhat when they reached Denver, where, for the first time, instead of fighting it out between themselves a team picked from both nines was to play the local club.

"Here's where we get a rest," sighed Mylert, the burly catcher of the Giant team.

"It will be no trick at all to wipe up the earth with these bushers,"

laughed Larry Barrett.

"What we'll do to them will be a sin and a shame," agreed "Red" Curry, he of the flaming mop, who was accustomed to play the "sun field" at the Polo Grounds.

"It's almost a crime to show them up before their home crowd," chimed in Iredell, the Giant shortstop.

But if the local club was in for a beating, they showed no special trepidation as they came out on the field for practice. If the haughty major leaguers had expected their humble adversaries to roll over and play dead in advance of the game itself, they were certainly doomed to disappointment.

The home team went through its preliminary work in a snappy, finished way that brought frequent applause from the crowds that thronged the stand.

Before the game, Brennan, of the Chicagos, sauntered over to Thorpe, the local manager, who chanced to be an old acquaintance.

"Got a dandy crowd here to-day, Bill," he said. "We ought to give them a run for their money. Suppose I lend you one of our star pitchers, just to make things more interesting."

"Thank you, Roger," Thorpe replied, with a slow smile, "but I think we're going to make it interesting for you fellows, anyway."

"Quit your kidding," grinned Brennan, with a facetious poke in the ribs, and strolled back to the bench.

The gong rang, the field cleared, and the visiting team came to the bat.

Larry, who had finished the season in a blaze of glory as the leading batsman of the National League came up to the plate, swinging three bats.

He threw away two of them, tapped his heels for luck and grinned complacently at the Denver pitcher.

"Trot out the best you've got, kid," he called, "and if you can put it over the plate I'll murder it."

CHAPTER X

BY A HAIR