It was an ambitious goal, but the Giants reached it, taking three out of four from the Chicagos and making a clean sweep in St. Louis. It was the best road record that the Giants had made for a long time past, and it was a jubilant crowd of athletes that swung on board the train for New York.
“I’m already spending my World Series money,” crowed Larry, the irrepressible, to his comrades gathered about him in the smoker.
“Better go slow, Larry,” laughed Joe. “There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip. We haven’t got the pennant clinched yet, by any means. And even if we win the pennant, there’s the World Series, and that’s something else again. It looks as though the Yankees would repeat in the American, and you know what tough customers they proved last time. And when Kid Rose gets going with that old wagon-tongue of his——”
“Kid Rose!” interrupted Larry, with infinite scorn. “Who gives a hoot for Kid Rose? What’s Kid Rose compared with Baseball Joe?”
Joe’s caution was justified by what followed after the Giants’ return home. Suddenly, without warning, came one of the mysterious slumps that no baseball man can explain. If they had gone up like a rocket, they came down like the stick. They fielded raggedly, batted weakly, and fell off in all departments of the game. Perhaps it was the reaction after the strain of the Western trip. Whatever the cause, the slump was there.
McRae raged, Joe pleaded. They shook up the batting order, they benched some of the regulars temporarily, and put the reserve men in their places. Nothing seemed to avail. The “jinx” was on the job. The Phillies and Boston trampled them underfoot. In three weeks they had lost the lead, and the Chicagos and Pittsburghs had crowded in ahead of them.
Still Joe kept his nerve and struggled desperately to turn the tide. He himself had never pitched or batted better, and what occasional victories were turned in were chiefly due to him. But he was only one man—not nine—and the Giants kept on steadily losing.
Only one ray of light illumined the darkness for Baseball Joe. Mabel had come to him.