Lefty Locke, pitcher-manager

by Burt L. Standish

“If you own the Rockets to-morrow morning,” said the reporter, “that will appear, word for word, in the Blade. Criminal action against you will be begun at the same time.”

Upon the following day Garrity was no longer interested in the Rockets.

The Blade had put over a scoop by being the first paper to announce that Garrity would retire. It could have created a tremendous sensation by publishing the inside facts relative to the method by which he had been forced out. But organized baseball was under fire, and already the suspicious public was beginning to regard it askance. The menacing Federals were making no end of trouble. The cry of “rottenness” was in the air. Through the publication of the story thousands of hasty, unthinking patrons could be led to believe that, square and honest though it seemed to be on the field, the game was really rotten at the core. Stillman knew how that would hurt, and he loved the game. He was tempted to the limit, but he resisted. Not even his editor ever found out just how much he knew and suppressed.

On the usual date the Blue Stockings went South for spring training. Old Jack Kennedy was among the very first to arrive at the camp. He had been engaged as coach and trainer.

The newspapers had a great deal to say about how the Federals had taken the heart out of the once great machine Collier controlled. Few of them seemed to think that Locke, the new manager, could repair the damages in less than a year or two. He would do well, they declared, if he could keep the club well up in the second division. For it was said that Lefty himself would pitch no more, and the rest of his staff, filled out with new men and youngsters, must necessarily be weak and wabbly. Occasionally a new deaf-mute pitcher, Jones, was mentioned as showing great speed, but who had ever heard of Jones? Of course he would lack the experience and steadiness a pitcher must possess to make good in fast company.

Behind the bat the Stockings seemed all right, for Brick King would be there. Still, it was strange that Frazer had let King go. Old Ben was wise as the serpent, and he certainly had his reasons. The Stockings were trying out a young fellow named Sheridan in center field, but surely Herman Brock was worth a dozen ordinary youngsters. Some of the papers had a habit of speaking of all youngsters as “ordinary.”

Jack Keeper, who seemed slated to hold down the far cushion for the Stockings, was also a youngster Frazer had not seen fit to retain. In the few games he had played with the Wolves Keeper had made a good showing, but the general impression was that the manager had not considered him quite up to Big League caliber. Various other youngsters who had been farmed out to the minors were being used at second and short, and two of them, Blount and Armstrong, from the Cotton States League, seemed to be the most promising. But what an infield it would be, with three-fourths of the players “unripened”! The interest of the fans who read this sort of “dope” turned to the Wolves, who were almost universally picked as probable pennant winners.

All this was natural enough. The Wolves had held together before the Federal raids better than any team in the league. Certainly no one who knew much about baseball would have chosen the Blue Stockings in advance for a come-back. But in baseball, and nearly everything else, there is no fixed rule of reckoning that can’t be smashed. Plenty of old-timers will say this is not so, just as men assert that there is nothing like luck in the game. The Stockings continued to attract little attention during their tour North, although they won exhibition games regularly and with ease. Jones pitched in some of these games. Locke did not.

All the same, no day passed that Lefty failed to get out and warm up with his pitchers. Dillon, Reilley, Lumley, and Savage were the old flingers left with the staff. The “Glass Arm Brigade,” it was called. Savage was regarded as the only one of the quartet who possessed the stamina to work through nine hard innings. Counting him out, the team would have to depend on young twirlers. Of course, Locke warmed up merely from habit and as an example for the others. Otherwise he would try to pitch sometimes in a game.

The season opened with the Blue Stockings playing against the Dodgers, away from home. Mysterious Jones pitched and shut the Dodgers out, his team making five runs behind him. Even that created no more than a slight flurry, for the Dodgers were chronic subcellar champions. Jones had speed, and it had dazzled them. But wait until he went up against real batters!