Jimmy Kirkland and the Plot for a Pennant

The defeat in the opening game of the final series of the season between the Panthers and Bears had been a hard blow to the championship hopes of the Bears, and its effect was evident in the demeanor of the players and those associated with them. It was the second week in September. Since early in May the Blues, the Panthers and the Bears, conceded to be the three strongest teams in the league, had struggled day by day almost upon even terms, first one team leading by a narrow margin, then another, until the interest of the country was centered upon the battle for supremacy.
Then, with the Blues holding the lead by the narrowest of margins, Maloney, their premier pitcher, strained his arm, and the Blues, in despair, battled the harder only to overtax the strength of the remaining pitchers, so that the team dropped rapidly into third place, still hoping against hope to get their crippled pitching staff back into condition for the finish.
It seemed that the four-game series between the Bears and Panthers probably would prove the crisis of the year's efforts, and decide the question of supremacy. On the eve of the commencement of that series the Bear hopes had received a shock. Carson, the heaviest batter, the speediest base runner and one of the most brilliant outfielders in the league, had fractured a leg in sliding to a base, and was crippled so seriously that all hope of his recovery in time to play again that year was abandoned.
Until the day the news that Carson could not play again during the season became public, the Bears had been favorites, but with their hardest batter crippled, and Holleran, the substitute, known to be weak against curve pitching, their hope seemed destroyed. Manager William Clancy, of the Bears, his kindly, weather-beaten face wearing a troubled expression, in place of his customary cheerful grin, was investigating. The defeat of the Bears in the first game with the Panthers had revealed to all the vital weakness of the holders of the championship, and Clancy, as he sat nibbling the end of his penholder in the writing room of the hotel, faced a discouraging situation.