A WEIRD GAME
Baseball Joe was startled and showed it plainly.
“What do you mean?” he asked, as his mind ran over the names of his team-mates.
“Just what I say,” replied McRae. “I tell you, Joe, somebody’s getting in his fine work with our boys and I know it.”
“Where’s your proof?” asked Joe. “I hate to think that any of our fellows would welch on their contracts.”
“So do I,” returned McRae. “We’ve been like one big family, and I’ve always tried to treat the boys right. I’ve got a rough tongue, as everybody knows, and in a hot game I’ve called them down many a time when they’ve made bonehead plays. But at the same time I’ve tried to be just, and I’ve never given any of them the worst end of the deal. They’ve been paid good money, and I’ve carried them along sometimes when other managers would have let them go.” 120
“You’ve been white all right,” assented Joe warmly. He recalled an occasion when a muff by a luckless center-fielder had lost a World Series and fifty thousand dollars for the team, and yet McRae had “stood the gaff” and never said a word, because he knew the man was trying to do his best.
“I’m telling this to you, Joe,” went on McRae, “because I want you to help me out. You’ve proved yourself true blue when you were put to the test. I know you’ll do all you can to hold the boys in the traces. They all like you and feel that they owe you a lot because it was your pitching that pulled us through the World’s Series. Besides, they’ll be more impressed by what you say than by the talk I’d give them. They figure that I’m the manager and am only looking after my own interests, and for that reason what I say has less effect.”
“I’ll stand by you, Mac,” returned Joe, “and help you in any way I can. Who are the boys that you think are trying to break loose?”
“There are three of them,” replied McRae. “Iredell, Curry and Burkett, and all three of them are stars, as you know as well as I do.”