“How are you, Locke?” he said, with a grin that was half a sneer, half a menace. “I guessed you’d bring up here.”
Lefty knew Mit Skullen the moment he spoke. One-time prize fighter and ball player, Skullen now posed as a scout employed by the Rockets; more often he acted as the henchman and bodyguard of Tom Garrity, owner of the team, and the best-hated man in the business. Garrity had so many enemies that he could not keep track of them; a dozen men had tried to “get” him at different times, and twice he had been assaulted and beaten up. Skullen had saved him from injury on other occasions.
Garrity was the most sinister figure in organized baseball. Once a newspaper reporter, he had somehow obtained control of the Rockets by chicanery and fraud. Sympathy and gratitude were sentiments unknown to him. He would work a winning pitcher to death, and then send the man shooting down to the minors the moment he showed the slightest symptom of weakness. He scoffed at regulations and bylaws; he defied restraint and control; he was in a constant wrangle with other owners and managers; and as a creator of discord and dissension he held the belt. And he snapped his fingers in the face of the national commission. The league longed to get rid of him, but could not seem to find any method of doing so.
“Been lookin’ ’em over a little down South,” explained Skullen superfluously. “Not much doin’ this season, but I spotted one pitcher with a rovin’ bunch o’ freaks who had more smoke and kinks than you ever showed before you broke your arm, old boy. And he won’t cost a cent when we get ready to grab him. Nobody’s wise to him but me, either. S’pose you’ve come on to meet Weegman, hey?”
“Where’d you run across this find?” asked Locke casually, endeavoring not to appear curious.
Skullen pulled down one corner of his mouth, and winked. “T’ink I’ll tell youse, old boy. But then Texas is a big bunch o’ the map.”
Texas! The Wind Jammers had come to Florida from Galveston.
“Did you have a talk with this unknown wizard?” questioned Lefty.
“He didn’t talk much,” returned the scout. “Oh, you can’t pump me! I know your old Blue Stocks ain’t got a pitcher left that’s worth a hoot in Halifax, or hardly a player, for that matter; but I ain’t goin’ to help you out–you an’ Weegman. You gotter get together an’ do your own diggin’.”
“Weegman is in Indianapolis?”