Baseball Joe, Home Run King; or, The Greatest Pitcher and Batter on Record by Lester Chadwick

  CHAPTER XX

  SPEEDING UP

  St. Louis was in good form on the following day, and a perfect delugeof hits came from their bats. The Giants, too, had a good hitting day,and the fans who like to see free batting had their desire satisfied tothe full. And their pleasure was all the greater because the home teamhad the best of the duel, and came out on top by a score of 17 to 12.

  Jim was in the box on the next day, and by superb pitching had the St.Louis sluggers hitting like a kindergarten team. They simply could notsolve him. His team mates had scarcely anything to do, and only by thenarrowest of margins did he miss turning the Cardinals back without ahit. One hit narrowly escaped the fingers of the second baseman, ashe leaped in the air for it. But it did escape him, and counted forthe only hit made by the St. Louis in the game. It was a magnificentexhibition and wound up a disastrous trip in a blaze of glory.

  Still it could not be denied that the trip had put a big dent in theGiants' aspirations for the pennant. Instead of the twelve games outof sixteen that McRae had asked for, they had only turned in sixvictories. It was the most miserable record that the Giants had madefor years.

  "And we call ourselves a good road team!" snorted Curry in disgust, asthey settled down in the Pullman for the long ride back from St. Louisto New York. "A bunch of school girls could have done better work."

  "Luck was against us," ventured Larry. "It sure was against us."

  "Luck, nothing!" exclaimed Curry. "We simply fell down, and fell downhard. The whole League is laughing at us. Look at the way the otherEastern teams held up their end. The Brooklyns copped ten games, theBostons got eleven, and the Phillies pulled down seven. We ought tosneak back into New York on a freight train instead of riding inPullmans."

  "I guess there won't be any band at the station to meet us," remarkedJoe. "But after all, any team is liable to have a slump and play likea lot of dubs. Let's hope we've got all the bad playing out of oursystems. From now on we're going to climb."

  "That's the way to talk," chimed in Jim. "Of course we can't deny thatwe've stubbed our toes on this trip. But we know in our heart thatwe've got the best team in the League. We've got the Indian sign on allof them. The fans that are roasting us now will be shouting their headsoff when we get started on our winning streak. Remember, boys, it's along worm that has no turning."

  There was a general laugh at this, and the spirits of the partylightened a little. But not all of the gloom was lifted.

  The prediction that their reception in New York would be rather frostywas true. Such high hopes had been built on the result of this tripthat the reaction was correspondingly depressing. And what made theGiants feel the change of attitude the more keenly was the fact thatwhile they had been doing so poorly, the Yankees at home had been going"like a house afire." They had taken the lead definitely away from theClevelands, and it did not seem as though there was any team in theirLeague that could stop them. New York was quite sure that it was goingto have one championship team. But it was quite as certain that it wasnot going to have two. That hope had gone glimmering.

  Both teams were occupying the Polo Grounds for the season, while thenew park of the Yankees was being completed. The schedule therefore hadbeen arranged so that while one of the teams was playing at home theother was playing somewhere out of town.

  Thus on the very day the Giants reached home the Yankees were startingout on their trip to other cities. They went away in the glory ofvictory. The Giants came home in the gloom of defeat.

  The change of sentiment was visible in the first home game that theGiants played. On the preceding day, at their last game, the Yankeeshad played before a crowd of twenty-five thousand. The first game ofthe Giants drew scarcely more than three thousand. Many of these werethe holders of free season passes, others, like the reporters, had tobe there, while the rest were made up of the chronic fans who followedthe Giants through thick and thin. There was no enthusiasm, and eventhe fact that the Giants won did not dispel the funereal atmosphere.

  And then the Giants began to climb!

  At first the process did not attract much attention. The public was sothoroughly disheartened by the downfall of their favorites in the West,that they took it for granted that they were out of the running for thepennant. Of course it was assumed that they would finish in the firstdivision--it was very seldom that a New York team could not be dependedon to do that--and that by some kind of miracle it might be possibleto finish second. But there was very little consolation in that.New York wanted a winner or nothing. If the Giants could not fly thechampionship flag at the Polo Grounds, nobody cared very much whetherthey came in second or eighth or anywhere between.

  The first team to visit the Polo Grounds was the Bostons. They hadgreatly improved their game since the beginning of the season, andwere even thought to have a look-in for the flag. They chuckled tothemselves at the thought that they would catch the Giants in the slumpthat had begun out West and press them still deeper in the direction ofthe cellar. At first they thought they might even make a clean sweep.They lost the first game, but only by reason of a muff of an easy flythat let in two unearned runs in the sixth. That of course disposed ofthe clean sweep idea, but still, three out of four would do. But whenthey lost the second game also, their jubilation began to subside. Nowthe best they could hope for was an even break. But again they lost,and the climax was put to their discomfiture when the Giants simplywalked away with the fourth game by a score of 10 to 0.

  But even with this series of four in a row captured by the Giants, thepublic refused to enthuse. It might have been only a flash in the pan.It is true that the sporting writers were beginning to sit up and takenotice. Most of their time hitherto had been spent in advising McRaethrough the columns of their paper how he might strengthen his teamfor next year. The present season of course was past praying for. Yetthere was a distinct chirking up on the part of the scribes, althoughthey carefully refrained from making any favorable predictions thatafterward they might be sorry for. They would wait awhile and see.Besides, the Brooklyns were coming next, and they had usually found iteasy to defeat the Giants. If the Giants could hold the men from overthe big bridge to an even break, it might mean a great deal.

  The Brooklyns came, saw and--were conquered. Four times in successionthey went down before superb pitching and heavy batting. Four timesthey called on their heavy sluggers and their best boxmen, but theGiants rode over them roughshod. The sporting writers sat up and rubbedtheir eyes. Was this the same team that had come home forlorn andbedraggled after their last trip? Had the Giants really come to life?Was the pennant still a possibility?

  By this time the public had begun to wake up. The stands at the PoloGrounds no longer looked like a desert. The crowds began to pack thesubway cars on their way up to the grounds. Everywhere the question wasbeginning to be asked: "What do you think of the Giants? Have theystill got a chance?"

  It was the Phillies' turn next, and they had also to bend the knee. TheGiants took them into camp as easily as they had the Braves and theDodgers. And to rub it in, two of the games were shutouts.

  Twelve games in a row, and the Giants tearing through the other teamslike so many runaway horses!